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Tetras Syracuse - no legend
| Issuer | Syracuse |
|---|---|
| Year | 435 BC - 415 BC |
| Type | Standard circulation coin |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | An octopus rendered frontally and symmetrically in the field, its mantle at the top and eight sinuous tentacles radiating outward and curling at their tips, each adorned with rows of suckers rendered as small pellets. The boldly modelled cephalopod fills the flan dynamically and is enclosed within a circular incuse line border. The field is unlegended. |
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| Mint | Syracuse |
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| Additional information |
Syracuse began striking small bronze fractions in the fifth century BC as the city's economy expanded beyond what electrum and silver could efficiently service — low-denomination coinage was needed for daily market transactions that larger silver pieces made impractical. This particular issue, struck across a twenty-year window that encompassed the disastrous Athenian Expedition of 415 BC, circulated through one of the most turbulent periods in Syracusan history. The absence of a legend is characteristic of the earliest bronze civic issues from Syracuse, before the city began regularly inscribing ethnic legends on its smaller denominations.