Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
Tetradrachm
| Issuer | Syracuse |
|---|---|
| Year | 466 BC - 460 BC |
| Type | Standard circulation coin |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | Log in to see details |
| Diameter | Log in to see details |
| Thickness | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Technique | Log in to see details |
| Orientation | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Facing slightly right, the head of the nymph Arethusa is rendered in fine Early Classical style, her hair bound in a simple fillet and arranged in elegant waves; four dolphins swim around the portrait in the field, symbolizing the marine sanctuary of the nymph. The inscription ΣYPAKOΣION curves around the periphery, identifying the issuing city-state of Syracuse. The portrait displays the restrained naturalism and delicate linear treatment characteristic of pre-Kimon Syracusan die engraving. |
| Reverse script | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | ΣYPAKOΣION |
| Edge | Log in to see details |
| Mint | Log in to see details |
| Mintage | Log in to see details |
| Additional information |
This issue falls within the earliest phase of Syracuse's democratic period, following the expulsion of Thrasybulus in 466 BC — the last of the Deinomenid tyrants. The transition from tyranny to democracy coincided with a deliberate shift in coin production, and the dies from this window show the Syracusan mint working through that stylistic evolution with unusual speed. Boehringer's sequencing places this type precisely in that transitional cluster.
The specific Boehringer 499 attribution is worth noting. It sits in a tightly documented die study that remains the authoritative sequence for early Syracusan tetradrachms of this generation.