Tetradrachm - The Gamoroi

The Gamoroi — the landowning aristocrats who dominated early Syracuse — were expelled by a democratic revolt of the lower classes, the Killichiroi, around 491 BC, then restored shortly after with the military backing of Gelon of Gela. This tetradrachm was struck during that fractious aristocratic period, before Gelon consolidated power and transformed Syracuse into the most formidable Greek city in the western Mediterranean. Boehringer's sequencing places this among the earliest Syracusan tetradrachms, making it foundational to the entire coinage tradition of the island.