Tetradrachm

Himera's tetradrachms of this period were struck in the shadow of the city's first destruction by Carthage in 409 BC, when the entire population was massacred or enslaved as retribution for the Himeran victory over Hamilcar in 480 BC. The coins produced in the decade before that catastrophe represent the final flowering of one of Sicily's most distinctive minting traditions. After 409, Himera ceased to exist as a city.