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Tetradrachm
| Issuer | Gela |
|---|---|
| Year | 420 BC - 415 BC |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | 17.44 g |
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| Reverse description | Forepart of the river-god Gelas depicted as a man-headed bull facing right, the muscular bovine body shown in three-quarter view with the bearded human head turned to face the viewer in profile, conveying the deity's dual nature as divine river and natural force. The figure is set within a shallow incuse square, with the ethnic legend ΓΕΛΑΣ inscribed along the upper border of the field in archaic Greek characters. The modelling of the head is powerful and naturalistic, characteristic of the high classical Sicilian engraving tradition ca. 420–415 BC. |
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| Reverse lettering | ΓΕΛΑΣ |
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| Additional information |
Gela's tetradrachms of this period were struck in the decades following the city's emergence as one of Sicily's dominant minting centers, a position it held before Syracuse eclipsed it entirely. The city was sacked and abandoned in 282 BC, but these coins were already long out of production by then — Gela's political importance had collapsed after the Carthaginian assault of 405 BC reduced it to a secondary power.
SNG ANS 4#94 places this piece within a well-documented die sequence studied by Jenkins in his corpus of Geloan coinage.