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Tetradrachm
| Issuer | Syracuse |
|---|---|
| Year | 485 BC - 440 BC |
| Type | Log in to see details |
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| Currency | Litra |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Head of the nymph Arethusa facing right, her hair elaborately braided and bound with a sphendone, wearing a pendant earring and a beaded necklace. Four dolphins swim around the head in the field, arranged in a circular pattern. The ethnic legend ΣΥΡΑΚΟΣΙΩΝ is distributed around the periphery between the dolphins. The portrait is rendered in the fine archaic style characteristic of early Syracusan coinage. |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
| Obverse lettering | ΣΥΡΑΥΣΙΟΝ |
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| Additional information |
Syracuse's early tetradrachms occupied a peculiar political moment: the city was under the tyranny of Gelon and later Hieron I, rulers who used coinage aggressively as propaganda following the defeat of the Carthaginians at Himera in 480 BC. Victory issues flooded the western Greek world, and the Demareteia — a celebrated medallion struck from captured Carthaginian silver — was minted in this same decade, casting a long shadow over all Syracusan silver of the period.
Boehringer 211 places this piece within a well-documented die study of early Syracusan coinage published in 1968, which remains the essential reference for sequencing these issues chronologically.