Tetradrachm

This issue falls within one of the most catastrophic decades in Athenian history. The Sicilian Expedition of 415–413 BC ended in the complete annihilation of the Athenian force — an estimated 40,000 men dead or enslaved — and Syracuse emerged from the disaster as the preeminent power in the western Greek world. The sudden influx of Athenian silver captured as war booty almost certainly contributed to the coin production of this period.

These years also mark the height of the engravers' school at Syracuse, when die-cutters such as Kimon and Euainetos were signing their work — a nearly unprecedented practice in antiquity.