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Tetradrachm
| Issuer | Syracuse |
|---|---|
| Year | 450 BC - 440 BC |
| Type | Log in to see details |
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| Composition | Silver |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
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| Reverse description | Head of the nymph Arethusa facing right, her hair bound with a double fillet and adorned with a simple coiffure, wearing a pendant earring and a beaded necklace with drop pendant; encircling the portrait, four dolphins swim clockwise in the field, a distinctive emblematic device of Syracuse's maritime identity. The reverse legend ΣVRAKOΣI – ON arcs around the central motif. The portrait is executed in the refined early Classical style, conveying serene idealism characteristic of Syracusan coinage of this period. |
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| Mintage | ND (450 BC - 440 BC) |
| Additional information |
This issue falls within the so-called "severe style" coinage of Syracuse, produced in the decades following the city's decisive defeat of the Carthaginian invasion at Himera in 480 BC — a victory that left Syracuse flush with captive labor and the resources to fund ambitious civic projects, minting among them. The Deinomenid tyranny had collapsed by this point, and the early democratic government was asserting itself through exactly this kind of high-quality silver coinage.
The Boehringer corpus remains the foundational die study for this transitional period. Individual specimens traceable to Boehringer 570–571 represent a tight die pairing with limited documented survivors.