Hieron II came to power in Syracuse as a general following the chaos left by Pyrrhus's withdrawal from Sicily in 275 BC, and his early coinage — including this bronze tetras — predates his formal assumption of the royal title. The precise dating of these issues to 269–263 BC places them within his period as strategos autokrator, before Rome's intervention in the First Punic War forced him into a treaty alliance in 263 BC that fundamentally reoriented Syracusan politics westward.
The tetras, worth three onkiai, was the workhorse denomination of Sicilian bronze commerce.
Hieron II came to power in Syracuse as a general following the chaos left by Pyrrhus's withdrawal from Sicily in 275 BC, and his early coinage — including this bronze tetras — predates his formal assumption of the royal title. The precise dating of these issues to 269–263 BC places them within his period as strategos autokrator, before Rome's intervention in the First Punic War forced him into a treaty alliance in 263 BC that fundamentally reoriented Syracusan politics westward.
The tetras, worth three onkiai, was the workhorse denomination of Sicilian bronze commerce.