115 SicilyAncient| Coins| from Sicily| in the Forum| Ancient| Coins| shop| Alexandropoulos, J. Les monnaies de l'Afrique antique: 400 av. J.-C. - 40 ap. J.-C. (Toulouse, 2000). ChronologyPeriod I. Before B.C. 480. First in this period comes the coinage of the Chalcidian colonies, Naxus, Zancle, and Himera. These early coins, some of which may belong to the end of the seventh century, follow the Aeginetic (?) standard, although as a rule the drachms do not exceed 5.83 grams, nor the obols 0.97 grams. It is possible that this standard was imported, together with the worship of Dionysos, from the island of Naxos, whence, as the name given to the earliest Sicilian settlement implies, a preponderating element of the first body of colonists must have been drawn. Possibly, however, the pieces of 5.83 grams are merely Euboïc-Attic octobols (see Holm, pp. 560 ff.). Somewhat later, probably about the middle of the sixth century, begins the coinage of the Dorian colonies, Syracuse, Gela, Agrigentum, etc. The standard here is certainly not (with one possible exception) the Aeginetic but the Euboïc-Attic, which was soon universally adopted throughout the island, even by those Chalcidian colonies which had begun to coin on the supposed Aeginetic standard. The definite change to the Attic standard took place at Naxos some time after B.C. 498, at Zancle between B.C. 493 and 480, and at Himera in B.C. 482. The original Sikel and Sicanian population of Sicily possessed, however, a standard of their own, based on the pound or litra of bronze. To this weight of bronze corresponded a silver litra of 0.875 grams. Even during the earliest period of the Aeginetic (?) standard Zancle struck silver coins of this weight, and as it happened to be exactly 1/5 of the Attic drachm, it was readily adopted by those Greek cities which used the Euboïc-Attic standard, as an additional denomination slightly heavier than their own obol, from which they took care to distinguish it by giving it a different type, or by a mark of value. Thus at Syracuse the litra was marked with a sepia and the obol with a wheel. The coins struck in Sicily during this first period exhibit all the characteristic peculiarities of archaic art, but they are far more advanced, both in style and execution, than the contemporary coins either of Magna Graecia or of Greece proper. Period II. B.C. 480-413. The great victory of the Greeks over the Carthaginians at Himera in B.C. 480 was the prelude to a long interval of peace and prosperity all over Sicily. The coins of this epoch, which are plentiful throughout the island, are of great variety and interest. In style they exhibit a continuous advance upon the methods of archaic art, and a nearer and nearer approach to the highest point of excellence ever reached in the art of die-engraving. The whole period between B.C. 480 and the failure of the Athenian expedition in B.C. 413 may therefore be appropriately called the Period of Transition. Greek art and civilization had already thoroughly penetrated the inland Sikel towns such as Abacaenum, Enna, Galaria, Morgantina, etc., and were now making their way even into the non-Hellenic cities in the western portion of the island, e.g. Segesta and Eryx, ancient cities of the Elymi, and Motya and Panormus, strongholds of Carthage. Towards the end of this period (not before 440) a new feature appears on the Sicilian coins, in the shape of the signatures of the artists. The following names of Sicilian engravers occur on coins of this period: at Syracuse, Eumenes or Eumenos, Sosion, Euainetos, Euth[ymos?], Phrygillos, and Euarchidas; and at Catana, Euainetos. Even before the age of Gelon and Hieron, whose victories at the great Greek games were celebrated by Pindar, it had been usual at many Greek towns in Sicily to issue coins on the occasion of agonistic contests with appropriate types, such as a quadriga crowned by Nike. It seems nevertheless certain that as a general rule no one special victory can have been alluded to in these agonistic types; they are rather a general expression of pride in the beauty of the horses and chariots which the city could enter in the lists, while perhaps they may likewise have been regarded, though in no very definite way, as a sort of invocation of the god who was the dispenser of victories: the Olympian Zeus, the Pythian Apollo, or some local divinity, perhaps a River-god or a Fountain-nymph, in whose honor games may have been celebrated in Sicily itself. Some such local import would account for the presence of the victorious quadriga on the money of some of the non-Hellenic towns in Sicily, which would certainly never have been admitted to compete at the Olympian, the Pythian, or other Greek games. The manner in which the quadriga is treated may be taken as a very accurate indication of date. Down to about B.C. 440 the horses are seen advancing at a slow and stately pace; after that date they are always in high and often violent action, prancing or galloping; not until quite a late period (on the coins of Philistis) are they again represented as walking. The only exception to this rule is the mule-car on the coins of Messana, where the animals are never in rapid movement. Period III. B.C. 413-346. The defeat of the Athenians was followed by an extraordinary outburst of artistic activity on the part of the great Sicilian cities, especially Syracuse. Syracuse and Agrigentum now issued their magnificent dekadrachms. The following names of engravers, among others, occur on coins of this period: at Syracuse, Euainetos, Kimon, Eukleidas, Parmenidas; at Agrigentum, Myr...; at Camarina, Exakestidas; at Himera, Mai...; at Messana, Kimon, Anan (?)...; at Naxus, Prokles; and at Catana, Herakleidas, Choirion) and Prokles. One of the most striking peculiarities of Sicilian coins is the frequency with which personifications of Rivers and Nymphs are met with. Thus on coins of Himera the type is that of the Nymph of the warm springs; on a coin of Naxus we see the head of a river Assinos (probably the same as the Akesines); at Katane we get a full-face head of the river Amenanos; at Gela and Agrigentum we see the rivers of those towns, the Gelas and the Akragas; while at Camarina the head of the Hipparis appears. On the coins of Selinus the rivers Hypsas and Selinos are represented as offering sacrifice. In the archaic period the Sicilian rivers usually take the form of a man-headed bull, but in the transitional and fine periods they more often assume the human form, and appear as youths with short bulls’ horns over their foreheads. Among the nymphs represented on Sicilian coins are Himera, Arethusa, Kyane (?), Kamarina, and Eurymedusa. The Carthaginian invasion at the close of the fifth century spread ruin through the island and put an end to the coinage almost everywhere. Syracuse alone of all the Greek silver-coining cities continued the uninterrupted issue of her beautiful tetradrachms and dekadrachms, and it was these which served as models for the Siculo-Punic currency of the Carthaginian towns. It was probably at the beginning of this period that gold and bronze coins were first struck in Sicily, at any rate in considerable quantities. At the time of Dion’s expedition electrum was also introduced, and at Syracuse a large bronze litra was issued, the size of which shows that it was intended as real money and not as a token of artificial value. Period IV. B.C. 345-317. With the expedition of the Corinthian Timoleon (B.C. 345) a new era began for Sicily. Timoleon was everywhere the Liberator, and his influence is especially noticeable in the Sicilian coinage of his time. There are a few coin-types which now appear for the first time, not only at Syracuse, but at many other towns which Timoleon freed from their oppressors. Two of these types are the head of Zeus Eleutherios and the Free Horse. Pegasos-staters (first introduced by Dion in the previous period) and other coins with Corinthian types were also now coined in Sicily in large quantities. The number of inland towns which at this particular time began to coin money is remarkable, e.g. Adranum, Aetna (Inessa), Agyrium, Alaesa, Centuripae, Herbessus, etc. At all the above-mentioned Sikel cities we note the appearance of large and heavy bronze coins, which, unlike the older small bronze currency, are without any marks of value. This monetization of bronze was probably due to the increasing influence of the native Sikel peoples of the interior of the island, accustomed to use bronze as a medium of exchange, who now combined to support Timoleon, and issued at Alaesa, and perhaps elsewhere, a new federal currency in bronze, with the legends ΚΑΙΝΟΝ and ΣΥΜΜΑΧΙΚΟΝ. Period V. B.C. 317-241. With the usurpation of Agathocles, Syracuse once more monopolizes the right of coinage for the whole of Sicily, even more distinctly than in the time of Dionysius. The civic coinages are entirely dominated by those of the great rulers, Agathocles, Hicetas, Pyrrhus, and Hieron II, down to the time of the First Punic War. 118
Period VI. B.C. 241-210. At the close of the First Punic War all Sicily, except the dominions of Hieron along the eastern coast from Tauromenium to Helorus, passed into the hands of the Romans. The immediate result of the new political status of the Sicilian communities was the issue of bronze money at a great number of mints, many of which, such as Amestratus, Cephaloedium, Iaetia, Lilybaeum, Menaenum, Paropus, Petra, etc., had never before possessed the right of coinage. Within the dominions of Syracuse, Tauromenium alone continued to coin in all metals. Period VII. After B.C. 210. After the fall of Syracuse and the constitution of all Sicily into a Province of the Roman Republic, bronze coins continued to be issued at Syracuse, Panormus, and a great many other towns, probably-for at least a century. These late coins possess, however, but slight interest. Abacaenum - StyellaAbacaenum (Tripi) was a Sikel town situated some eight miles from the coast, towards the north-east extremity of the island.
Circ. B.C. 450-400.
Inscr. ΑΒΑΚΑΙΝΙΝΟΝ (usually abbreviated, but sometimes divided between Obv. and Rev.).
Circ. B.C. 400-350.
After B.C. 241. Inscr. ΑΒΑΚΑΙΝΙΝΩΝ.
The bull is probably the little mountain-torrent Helikon.
After B.C. 210.
119
The bronze coins of Adranum apparently all belong to one period :—
Before B.C. 339.
The resemblance in style between the last mentioned coin and certain pieces of Nacona and Entella, issued while those cities were in the hands of the Campanians, is striking.
Circ. B.C. 339.
The coinage is not resumed until the Roman period.
After B.C. 210.
Its coinage begins during the prosperous period which intervened between the fall of the tyrant Phalaris (circ. B.C. 550), and the accession of Theron to supreme power (circ. B.C. 488). 120
Circ. B.C. 550-472.
Inscr. ΑΚRΑCΑΝΤΟS, ΑΚRΑCΑS (sometimes divided between Obv. and
Rev.), ΑΚRΑ, etc.
The Eagle and the Crab have been usually taken as emblems of Zeus and Poseidon, but it may be doubted whether the crab is not in this case the fresh-water crab common in the rivers of Italy, Sicily, and Greece. If so, the crab represents the river Akragas and is the παρασημον of the city. Theron of Agrigentum made himself master of Himera, B.C. 482. Α comparison of certain coins of Himera bearing Agrigentine types, which can only belong to the time of Theron, with some of the latest specimens of the series above described, is sufficient to fix the date of the latter. The great victory of Theron and Gelon of Syracuse over the Carthaginians at Himera resulted in the further aggrandizement of Agrigentum. Theron died B.C. 472, after which a democracy was established, and a period of unexampled prosperity commenced which terminated only with the Carthaginian invasion in B.C. 406. Numismatically, however, this space of sixty-seven years must be divided into two periods, which may be characterized as those of Transitional Art, B.C. 472-circ. B.C. 413, and of Finest Art, B.C. 413-406.
Circ. B.C. 472-413.
FIG. 65. Inscriptions and Types (Eagle and Crab), as in the Period of archaic art. The Eagle sometimes stands on the capital of a column. On the reverse symbols are of frequent occurrence, flying Nike, rose, star, volute ornament (Fig. 65), and others. Denominations. Tetradrachm, Didrachm, Drachm with letters ΠΕΝ (= Pentalitron), Litra (with ΛΙ), Pentonkion with mark of value :·:. There are also coins with obv. eagle’s head, viz. litra, rev. tripod; half-litra (?), rev. A; and hexas, rev. :. A bronze coin with eagle and crab also belongs to the close of this period. The Tetradrachm apparently was not struck at Agrigentum before circa B.C. 472. To this period may also be attributed a series of very strange-looking lumps of bronze, made in the shape of a tooth with a flat base, having on one side an eagle or eagle’s head, and on the other a crab, while on the base 1 A specimen at Paris (Salinas, Pl. IV. 15), weighing 173-77 grains, appears to show that Agrigentum also issued coins of the Aeginetic standard. 121
are marks of value ::, .·., : (Tetras, Trias, Hexas). The Uncia is almond
shaped, with an eagle’s head on one side and a crab’s claw on the other.
The weights of these coins point to a litra of about 750 grs.
Circ. B.C. 413-406.
FIG. 66. In this period the coinage reflects the splendor to which Agrigentum had now attained.
The finest known specimen of this rare and beautiful coin is in the Munich collection. See Th. Reinach, L'Histoire par les Monnaies, pp. 89-98.
Didrachms, Drachms, Hemidrachms, and Litrae, or Obols, with simpler varieties of the above types; the carapace of the crab on the drachm resembles a human face. As a powerful composition the type of the two eagles with the hare is perhaps superior to any other contemporary Sicilian coin-type, and is certainly the work of an artist of no mean capacity. The subject cannot fail to remind us of the famous passage in one of the grandest choruses of the Agamemnon (ll. 110-120), where the poet describes just such 122
a scene as is here represented. Two eagles, one black, and the other
white behind:—
οιωνων βασιλευς βασιλευσι νεων ο κελαινος, ο τ’ εξοπιν αργας,The victorious quadriga is an agonistic type of a class very prevalent in Sicily. The occasion of its adoption at Agrigentum may have been the Olympian games of B.C. 412, in which one of the victors was Exainetos, an Agrigentine citizen who, on his return to his native town, was brought into the city in a chariot escorted by 300 biga drawn by white horses (Diod. xiii. 82). But see above, p. 116. The names ΣΤΡΑΤΩΝ and ΣΙΛΑΝΟΣ are too conspicuous to be the signatures of artists; they must therefore be regarded as magistrates.
BRONZE. Before B.C. 406.
Inscr. ΑΚΡΑΓΑΝΤΙΝΟΝ, often abbreviated.
Other small bronze coins (Salinas, xi. 24-7) have modifications of the above types (eagle’s head, crab’s claw, etc.). The actual weights of these bronze coins, large and small, together yield an average of 613 grs. for the litra. This perhaps shows that the litra had already been reduced from 3375 grs., its original weight, to 1/5 of that weight, or 675 grs., a reduction which is thought by Mommsen (Momm.-Blacas, i. p. 112) to have taken place in the time of Dionysius, but which the weights of the bronze coins of Camarina (p. 130), and Himera (p. 146), if they are of any value as evidence, prove to have occurred much earlier. After the memorable destruction of Agrigentum by the Carthaginians in B.C. 406, the surviving inhabitants appear to have returned to their ruined homes; but until Timoleon’s time the town can hardly be said to have existed as an independent state. No new coins were issued in the interval, but the bronze money already in circulation seems to have been frequently countermarked in this period. Timoleon, circ. B.C. 338, recolonized the city (Plut. Tim. 35) with a body of Velians, and from this time it began to recover some small degree of prosperity. 123
Circ. B.C. 338-287.
BRONZE.
268 grs. is the average weight of the four specimens of the hemilitron in the British Museum, according to which the Litra would weigh 536 grs., which is intermediate between the first and the second reductions of the Litra. There are also bronze coins of this period without marks of value, obv. Head of Zeus, rev. Eagle devouring hare, or winged fulmen. Size, .75-.55. The coins attributed to this period are not numerous, owing to the fact that during the greater part of the reign of Agathocles at Syracuse (B.C. 317-289), Agrigentum was compelled to acknowledge the supremacy of that city, which for a time usurped the right of coining money for all those parts of the island subject to her dominion. After the death of Agathocles, a tyrant named Phintias rose to the supreme power at Agrigentum, and extended his dominions also over other parts of Sicily.
Phintias Tyrant. Circ. B.C. 287-279.
Coins struck by Phintias for all his dominions.
The type of these coins illustrates in a remarkable manner a passage of Diodorus (Reliq. xxii. 7), in which he tells how Phintias ειδεν οναρ δηλουν την του βιου καταστροφην, υν αγριον κυνηγοντος ορμησαι κατ’ αυτου την υν, και την πλενραν αυτου τοις οδουσι παταξαι και διελασαυτα την πληγην κτειναι. We seem here to have a clear instance of a coin-type having been chosen with the avowed object of propitiating the goddess Artemis whose anger the tyrant probably thought he had incurred. 124
Circ. B.C. 279-241.
Nearly all the remaining coins of Agrigentum may be classed to this period, during which the city was for the most part an independent ally of the Carthaginians against the Romans and Hieron II. On the conclusion of the First Punic War (B.C. 241) Agrigentum passed under Roman dominion.
Cicero (Verr. iv. 43) mentions a statue of Apollo by Myron which stood in the temple of Asklepios at Agrigentum. The curious coin-type above described, where a serpent is seen crawling up the face of Apollo, taken in conjunction with the words of Cicero, seems to indicate a connexion between the cults of Apollo and Asklepios at Agrigentum.
Circ. B.C. 241-210, and later.
The three coins last described sometimes occur with the name of the Roman Quaestor Manius Acilius on the reverse instead of ΑΚΡΑΓΑΝΤΙΝΩΝ; the same magistrate also issued from Agrigentum an As with the head of Janus and his name in a laurel-wreath, and a semis with the head of Jupiter. For the Imperial coins of Agrigentum struck under Augustus, see Holm, p. 727, nos. 735-6. Agyrium (Agira) was a large town in the interior of Sicily, standing on a steep hill, almost midway between Enna and Centuripae. At this town Herakles, during his wanderings in Sicily, had been received with divine honors, and down to a late period Herakles, his kinsman Iolaos, and Geryon, continued to be revered there. Its coins fall into three periods.
Circ. B.C. 420-353.
125
These two coins probably belong to the time when the city was governed by a tyrant named Agyris, a contemporary and ally of Dionysius (Diod. xiv. 9, 78, 95), or at latest to the time of Dion. Palankaios is perhaps the name of a river.
Circ. B.C. 345-300.
About the middle of the fourth century Agyrium was governed by another tyrant, by name Apolloniades. This despot was deposed by Timoleon, B. G. 339. The coins which I would give to the years immediately preceding the liberation by Timoleon are the following:—
The following, from their types, appear to be subsequent to B.C. 339 (inscr. ΑΓΥΡΙΝΑΙΩΝ or abbreviation):—
In the third century we hear of Agyrium as subject to Phintias of Agrigentum. Subsequently the territory of the city was largely increased by Hieron of Syracuse, and even under Roman rule it remained a place of some importance. It is to this late period that the following coins belong:—
After B.C. 241.
Alaesa (Tusa) was built on a hill about eight stadia from the sea (Diod. xiv. 16), on the north side of Sicily, in the year B.C. 403, by a colony of Sikels under a chief named Archonides, after whom the city was sometimes called Alaesa Archonidea (cf. the inscriptions on the later coins). Its earliest coins date from the period of Timoleon’s war with the Carthaginians (B.C. 340), when many Sikel and Sicanian towns joined the alliance against the Carthaginians (Diod. xvi. 73). From the inscription ΑΛΑΙΣΙΝΩΝ ΣΥΜΜΑΧΙΚΟΝ Alaesa would seem to have been among the chief of the Sicilian allies of Timoleon, but, as the word 126
ΑΛΑΙΣΙΝΩΝ is sometimes wanting, there is no absolute proof that all
the coins of the allies were struck there. The coins reading ΚΑΙΝΟΝ
(‘new money’) evidently belong to the same period as the rest.
Circ. B.C. 340.
The heads of Zeus Eleutherios, of Apollo as original leader of the colonists, and of Sikelia herself, are all most appropriate on coins of an alliance formed under the auspices of Timoleon, as are also the torch and ears of corn, the symbols of Demeter and Persephone, under whose special protection Timoleon set out (Plut. Tim. c. 8; Diod. xvi. 66). The remaining coins of Alaesa belong to the following century, when it began, simultaneously with many other Sicilian towns, to coin money again after its submission to Rome during the First Punic War.
After circ. B.C. 241.
Considerably later than the foregoing are the coins of Alaesa with Latin inscriptions:—
To the time of Augustus belong coins with the name of the magistrate M. PACCIVS MACXV(mus): see Holm, p. 729, nos. 754, 754a. Aluntium (San Marco d'Alunzio), on the north coast of the island 127
between Tyndaris and Calacte, a Sikel town of no great importance.
Its origin was ascribed to the followers of Aeneas under an Acarnanian
leader named Patron.
Circ. B.C. 400.
Circ. B.C. 241-210, or earlier.
Circ. B.C. 241-210, or earlier.
Assorus (Assaro), an inland Sikel town, midway between Enna and Agyrium.
After B.C. 210.
The figure on the first of these coins is probably a copy of that simulacrum praeclare factum ex marmore’ which Cicero (Verr. iv. 44) describes as having stood on the road from Enna to Assorus, perhaps on the bank of the river Chrysas. Caena. Concerning the coins reading ΚΑΙΝΟΝ, sometimes ascribed to this town, see Alaesa and p. 117. 128
Calacte (Caronia), on the northern coast, midway between Tyndaris and Cephaloedium, was a Peloponnesian colony founded in B.C. 446 by the Sikel chief Ducetius on his return from his exile in Corinth. Its coins are all of a late period.
Circ. B.C. 241-210.
The first of the above coins is clearly copied from the late Athenian coins. Note the close correspondence between obv. and rev. types (Maonald, Coin Types, pp. 119 ff.). Camarina was a colony of Syracuse, founded circ. B.C. 599, between, the mouths of the Oanis and the Hipparis, on the south coast of Sicily. In consequence of a revolt against Syracuse it was destroyed by that city about B.C. 552. In B.C. 495 it was rebuilt and recolonized by Hippocrates, tyrant of Gela, but again destroyed about B.C. 484 by Gelon, tyrant of Syracuse. To this period the following archaic silver litrae seem to belong.
The city was once more rebuilt as a colony of Gela in B.C. 461, and from this time until the removal of its citizens to Syracuse in B.C. 405 it enjoyed great prosperity. Pindar’s fourth Olympian ode and the ode which follows it record the victory of Psaumis the Camarinaean in the chariot race B.C. 456 or 452, an agonistic victory which Poole (Coins of Camarina, p. 2) believed to be commemorated on the tetradrachms of Camarina, struck during the latter half of the fifth century.
Circ. B.C. 461-405.
On the later specimens the head of Herakles is not bearded, and an artist’s name ΕΞΑΚΕΣΤΙΔΑΣ is sometimes written on the exergual line (Fig. 67), or (abbreviated) on a diptychon before the head of Herakles. 129
FIG. 67. The following gold coin (which is more probably of Camarina than of Catana) belongs to the close of this period :—
To the close of this period also belong the following beautiful didrachms :— FIG. 68.
The smaller silver coins are litrae weighing 13 grs. maximum.
Concerning these coins Poole remarks (l. c.) that nothing can be more striking than the agreement of the coin-types with the words of Pindar, with both, the Nymph Kamarina holds the foremost but not the highest place in the local worship, with both, Athena is the tutelary divinity, with both, the reverence for the river Hipparis is associated with that for the sacred lake.’ 130
The bronze coins of Camarina yield a litra of 221 grs. Cf. remarks on the bronze money of Agrigentum, p. 122, and Himera, p. 146.
Circ. B.C. 413 (?)-405.
Circ. B.C. 339.
In the time of Timoleon Camarina recovered to some extent from the calamities inflicted upon her by the Carthaginians (Diod. xvi. 82). It is to this period that both style and types of the following coins seem to point:—
After this time no coins of Camarina are known. Campani. To the Campanian mercenaries of Dionysius are usually attributed the following coins, of which the large bronze is struck over a Syracusan bronze litra (Holm, Nos. 370-2). They have also been given to Tauromenium (Head Syracuse, p. 36), and Mataurus (Hill Sicily, p. 185). The monogram may consist of the letters ΚΑΜ.
Circ. B.C. 344-339.
For other coins struck by the Campanians in Sicily see Aetna, Entella, Nacona, and Tyrrheni.
Before Circ. B.C. 476.
FIG. 69. 131
In style these tetradrachms are decidedly in advance of the contemporary coins of most other Sicilian cities. With regard to the meaning of the types, it is perhaps preferable to look upon the bull as the river-god Amenanos (who on later coins is represented in human form) rather than, with Eckhel, as the tauriform Dionysos. The figure of Nike on the reverse may be compared with the winged figure of Nike-Terina (see Terina). They are both doubtless agonistic types.
The form of the fulmen on these coins is unusual.
Coinage of Katane under the name of Aetna.
B.C. 476-461. FIG. 70.
This unique coin, now in the Brussels Cabinet (bequest of the Baron de Hirsch), is in many ways highly instructive as showing the point of development which art had attained in Sicily between B.C. 476 and 461. The scarabaei of Aetna were remarkable for their enormous size (cf. Schol. Ar. Pac., 73), hence the scarab as a symbol on the obverse. 132
As Mount Aetna was also famous for its prolific vines (cf. Strab., p. 269), Zeus Αιτναιος, under whose special protection the city of Aetna was placed, is appropriately shown as resting on a vine-staff. The pine-tree is also a local symbol no less characteristic than the vine-staff, for the slopes of Mount Aetna were at one time richly clad with pine and fir trees, την Αιτνην ορος γεμον κατ’ εκεινους τους χρονους πολυτελους ελατης τε και πευκης (Diod. xiv. 42). Cf. Pindar, Pyth. i. 53. For a full account of this coin see Num. Chron., 1883, p. 171.
The Aetnaeans, expelled B.C. 461, retired to a neighbouring stronghold called Inessa, to which they transferred the name of Aetna. For the coins struck at this new Aetna, see p. 119.
Coinage of Katane after the restoration.
B.C. 461-413. Inscr. ΚΑΤΑΝΑΙΟΝ or ΚΑΤΑΝΑΙΟS, never ΚΑΤΑΝΑΙΩΝ.
FIG. 71.
Circ. B.C. 413-404.
Katane was for a time the head-quarters of the Athenians during their expedition against Syracuse. The finest coins date from this time until the capture of the city by Dionysius in B.C. 404, when, according to his frequent practice, he sold the population into slavery and gave up the city to his Campanian mercenaries. For a gold coin of this period, which may belong to Catana, see Camarina. The tetradrachms of this period always have the inscr. ΚΑΤΑΝΑΙΩΝ. The heads of Amenanos (?) in profile resemble those of the previous period, but belong to a more advanced stage of art (Imhoof MG, Pl. A. 17). 133
The horses of the chariot on the reverse are in rapid action. On one beautiful specimen, signed on the reverse by the Syracusan engraver Euainetos, the chariot is seen wheeling round the goal. Aquatic symbols, such as a crab or a crayfish, are often added on one or other side of the coin. One piece is signed by an artist named ΠΡΟΚΛΗΣ who worked also for the Naxian mint (Weil, Winckcelmanns-Programm, 1884, Pl. II. 12). The following are the most important silver coins of this time:—
FIG. 72. Of this coin a variety (without bow and lyre), signed by the engraver Herakleidas, shows a laureate head facing with loose hair (Fig. 72). On some specimens the Nike holding wreath and caduceus is descending through the air in an upright posture towards the charioteer. Some of the heads on the Catanaean tetradrachms are bound with a plain taenia in place of the laurel-wreath; all such (and apparently some also which are laureate) are heads of the river Amenanos, although he is without the characteristic horn of the river-god. On the following small denominations Amenanos is represented as a horned youth:—
134
About B.C. 404 is to be dated an alliance coin of Katane and Leontini.
There are not many bronze coins of Katane which can be attributed to the best period of art. The following may, however, be mentioned :—
Of the subsequent history of Katane we possess very slight information. We know that the city continued to exist, but it does not seem to have struck any coins for more than a century. During the First Punic War it submitted to Rome, and under the Roman rule it attained great prosperity. The bronze coins of Catana, which belong chiefly to the end of the third and to the second century, are very numerous.
With marks of value.
Λασιος is probably a local name of Dionysos. The meaning of the word, ‘hairy,’ is appropriate to the god whose characteristic garment was the hairy fawn-skin, νεβρις.
These types allude to a popular tale that once during a fearful eruption of Aetna in the fifth century, when a stream of lava was descending upon Catana, and when every man was eagerly bent upon saving his treasures, the brothers Amphinomos and Anapias bore off on their shoulders their aged parents, but the lava overtook them, heavily laden as they were, and their doom seemed inevitable, when the fiery stream miraculously parted and let them pass unscathed. Ever after 135 the Catanaean brethren were held up as types of filial piety, and received divine honors (Holm, Gesch. Sic., i. pp. 25, 339). A denarius representing the same subject was issued by Sextus Pompeius from Catana.
The coins with marks of value in Roman numerals are clearly contemporary with those of Rhegium with similar marks (p. 112). They usually bear in addition very elaborate monograms. There is no evidence that the money of Katane was continued after the end of the second or the beginning of the first century B.C. Centuripae (Centorbi) was a city of the Sikels of some importance as a strong place. No coins are known of it before the middle of the fourth century, when, in common with many other Sicilian towns, it was liberated from tyrannical rule by Timoleon (B.C. 339). It then restruck with its own types the large bronze coins of Syracuse (obv. Head of Athena, rev. Star-fish between dolphins):—
Circ. B.C. 339.
Between this time and that of the First Punic War, when it submitted to Rome, no coins are known.
After circ. B.C. 241.
In style these coins are very uniform, and they seem to be all of the third century B.C. For the correspondence between obv. and rev. types see Maonald, Coin Types, p. 120. The territory of Centuripae was very productive of corn, and the inhabitants were farmers on a large scale, ‘arant enim tota Sicilia fere Centuripini’ (Cic. II Verr. iii. 45). 136
Cephaloedium (Cefalù), on the north side of the island, stood, as its name implies, on a headland jutting out into the sea. In early times it formed part of the territory of Himera, and in B.C. 409 it fell into the hands of the Carthaginians. The mint known as Rash Melkarth (‘Promontory of Herakles’) is probably to be identified with this place, rather than with Heraclea Minoa (see Holm, No. 398). Cephaloedium was recovered by Dionysius in B.C. 396. To the period of Carthaginian occupation belong the following coins:—
On some specimens the inscription is דאש מלקדח. The work is at first very good, but rapidly degenerates. Coins were issued during this period by the exiled inhabitants of Cephaloedium, but at what place we cannot say :—
The next coins of Cephaloedium belong to the period after its capture by the Romans in B.C. 254.
Circ. B.C. 254-210 (and later ?).
Enna (Castrogiovanni), in the center of Sicily, stood on a fertile plateau, about three miles in extent, on the lofty summit of a mountain defended on all sides by steep cliffs. It was held to be one of the most sacred places in Sicily, being the chief seat of the cultus of Demeter, and the scene of the rape of Persephone. Its earliest coins are litrae of the period of early transitional art. 137
Circ. B.C. 450.
The bronze coins of Enna are of two distinct periods.
Circ. B.C. 340.
Under the Romans after B.C. 258.
These statues of Demeter and Triptolemos, the former holding in her hand a Nike, are mentioned by Cicero (II Verr. iv. 49). The coins of Enna as a Roman Municipium, reading MVN. HENNAE, are the latest which we possess of the town. They bear the names of M. CESTIVS and L. MVNATIVS II VIR[I], and among the remarkable reverse-types are Hades in quadriga carrying off Persephone, and Triptolemos standing holding ears of corn. Entella (Rocca d'Entella), originally an Elymian town, stood on a lofty summit in the interior of the island on the river Hypsas. Its earliest coins are of silver :—
In B.C. 404 the Campanian mercenaries who had been in the service of the Carthaginians seized upon Entella, which they held for many years. The following coins were struck under their occupation, but not until the time of Timoleon. (Head, Syracuse, p. 36 note.) For other coins struck by the Campanians in Sicily see Aetna, Campani, Nacona, and Tyrrheni.
Circ. B.C. 340.
138
Period of Roman Dominion.
The name of L. Sempronius Atratinus, who commanded in Sicily in the time of M. Antonius, also occurs on coins of Lilybaeum. Eryx (Mte. S. Giuliano) stood on the summit of an isolated mountain at the north-west extremity of Sicily. Here was the far-famed temple of Aphrodite Erycina of Phoenician origin. In the archaic period Eryx would seem from its coin-types to have been for a time dependent upon Agrigentum, probably, like Himera, in the time of Theron.
In the transitional period the town appears to have been in close relations with the neighbouring city of Segesta, for the reverse-type, the dog, is common to the coins of both towns. Cf. also the unexplained termination ΖIB which occurs on coins of this city as well as at Segesta and on an alliance coin between the two cities (see Segesta).
Circ. B.C. 480-413.
Circ. B.C. 413-400.
Inscr. on obv. or rev. usually ΕΡΥΚΙΝΟΝ.
139
Circ. B.C. 400-300.
During the greater part of the fourth century Eryx was in the hands of the Carthaginians, and it is to this period that the coins with the Punic inscr. ארך belong.
The last type is due to the influence of the Corinthian coinage in Dion’s or Timoleon’s time. There are also bronze coins which belong to the middle of the fourth century.
The bearded head may be intended for that of the eponymous hero Eryx.
After circ. B.C. 241.
In Roman times the sanctuary of Aphrodite Erycina was held in great honor, a body of troops being appointed to watch over it, and the principal cities of Sicily being ordered to contribute towards the cost of its maintenance in due splendor.
Galaria (Gagliano ?). An ancient Sikel town about six miles to the
north of Agyrium, founded, according to Stephanus, by Morges, a Sikel
chief.
Circ. B.C. 460.
140
B.C. 498-491, and Gelon, B.C. 491-485, it extended its dominion over
a large part of the island. Gelon even made himself master of Syracuse,
and transported thither a great portion of the population of Gela, after
which its prosperity began to wane. Gelon’s coinage here is uniform in
its obverse type with his issues for Leontini and Syracuse (q. v.).
The city stood at the mouth of the river Gelas, ‘immanisque Gela
fluvii cognomine dicta’ (Aen. iii. 702), and the figure of this river in the
form of a swimming man-headed bull forms the type of nearly all its
coins. (Cp. Schol. Pind. Pyth. i. 185 : statue of the river Gelas as
a bull.)
FIG. 73.
The type of the first of these tetradrachms is agonistic. The appearance of the horseman on the coinage shows the importance of cavalry in the Geloan army.
On some of the tetradrachms and litrae the name is written <ΕΛΑ, which is less probably an abbreviation of the river-name <ΕΛΑΣ than the nominative of the city-name. After the expulsion from Syracuse of the dynasty of Gelon in B.C. 466, the inhabitants of Gela, who had been forcibly removed to Syracuse, returned to their native town, and from this time until its destruction by the Carthaginians in B.C. 405 it enjoyed great prosperity. 141
Circ. B.C. 466-413.
The goddess here called Sosipolis is the guardian divinity or Tyche of the city. She is represented as crowning the river-god. The coins were probably issued on the occasion of some local games.
Circ. B.C. 413-405.
The period immediately succeeding the defeat of the Athenians is that to which all these small Sicilian gold coins of Syracuse, Gela, and Camarina, weighing usually 27, 18, and 9 grs., undoubtedly belong. FIG. 74.
The presence of the Ω on this and the preceding coins shows that they belong to the last decade before the destruction of the city.
This type may commemorate the victory of the Geloan cavalry over Athenian hoplites (Holm, Gesch. Sic., ii. 415), or it may be agonistic. 142
Tetradrachms such as the above, with the horses in high action, resemble those struck at Syracuse after the final defeat of the Athenians, signed by the artists Kimon, Euainetos, &c.
The corn-wreath and corn-grain which so often appear in conjunction with the head of the river-god sufficiently indicate that to his beneficent influence the Geloans attributed the extraordinary fertility of their plains. Even now the upper course of the Terranova is rich in woods, vineyards, and corn-fields.
Circ. B.C. 340.
After an interval of more than half a century, during which the prosperity of Gela was at a very low ebb (for it never recovered from the ruin inflicted by the Carthaginians), it was recolonized in B.C. 338, and from this date until the time of Agathocles the town appears to have regained to some extent its ancient prosperity, although it never again struck large silver coins.
The epithet ΕΥΝΟΜΙΑ, here applied to the goddess Demeter, may be compared with that of ΥΓΙΕΙΑ on a coin of Metapontum (see above, p. 77). 143
Subsequently Phintias of Agrigentum, B.C. 287-279, removed the inhabitants of Gela to a new city called after himself, at the mouth of the river Himeras, midway between Gela and Agrigentum. Gela nevertheless continued to exist, and struck bronze coins after the time of the Roman conquest.
After circ. B.C. 241.
Heraclea Minoa. For the Punic coins usually attributed to this mint see under Cephaloedium. Herbessus. There were two towns of this name in Sicily, one in the Agrigentine territory, the other a Sikel town of more importance, a little to the west of Syracuse (Pantalica ?). It is to this last that the coins are usually attributed (Imhoof MG, p. 20).
After circ. B.C. 340.
These coins belong to the latter part of the fourth century and are restruck over coins of Syracuse with the head of Zeus Eleutherios (rev. thunderbolt) or Athena (rev. star and dolphins).
Before circ. B.C. 482.
144
These coins occasionally bear the inscr. ΗΙΜΕ, and sometimes the letters , ΤV, or V, which remain unexplained (N. C., 1898, pp. 190 ff.). The cock may be an emblem of a healing god and refer to the properties of the thermal springs near Himera. (Cf. the coins of Selinus, on which the cock as an adjunct symbol probably has a similar signification.) This bird, as the herald of the dawn of day, is thought by Eckhel to contain an allusion to the name of the town, Ιμερα, an old form of ημερα (Plato, Cratyl. 74; Plutarch, De Pyth. Orac. xii), but this is a very doubtful derivation.
Circ. B.C. 482-472.
Before B.C. 480 Theron of Agrigentum made himself master of Himera, and in that year, with the help of Gelon, gained a great victory over the Carthaginians, who had blockaded him in the town. Theron and his son Thrasydaeus for some years after this exercised undisputed sway over Himera, and reinforced its population with a Doric colony. At the same time the old Chalcidic (Aeginetic ?) coinage was abolished, and money of Attic weight introduced, on which the crab was adopted for the reverse type as a badge of Agrigentine dominion.
The astragalos as a religious symbol may refer to the practice of consulting oracles by the throwing of αστραγαλοι (Schol. ad Pind. Pyth. iv. 337).
Circ. B.C. 472-413.
Theron died in B.C. 472, and soon afterwards his son Thrasydaeus was expelled. From this time until B.C. 408, the date of the destruction of the town by the Carthaginians, Himera appears to have enjoyed an interval of uninterrupted prosperity.
FIG. 76. 145
The worship of Kronos at Himera is proved by a coin of the next period; that of Pelops, whom Pindar calls Κρονιος (Ol. iii. 41), falls perhaps into the same cycle. The presence of Pelops on a Himeraean coin might also be explained as referring to the Olympic victory gained by Ergoteles of Himera in B.C. 472 (Pind. Ol. xii), for Pelops was especially revered as the restorer of the Olympic festival.
On the supposed inscription ΙΑΤΟΝ on these coins see N. C., 1898, pp. 190 ff.
Circ. B.C. 413-408.
Kronos was revered as an ancient king of Sicily at various places in the island, one of which was probably at or near Himera (Diod. iii. 6). 146
BRONZE. Before circ. B.C. 413.
The earlier bronze coins of Himera fall into two distinct series:—
(α) Heavy class with marks of value.
(β) Light class with marks of value.
Circ. B.C. 413-408.
Of the above series of bronze coins the first (α), judging from the tetras, yields a litra of 990 grs., while the second (β), judging from the trias, only yields one of about 220 grs. At Agrigentum during the same period the litra appears to fall only from 750 to 613 grs., and there even in the latter half of the fourth century it stands as high as 536 grs. In the face of such contradictory evidence it is hazardous to draw any conclusions from the weights of the bronze coins as to the various reductions of the litra in Sicily. Cf. also the bronze coins of Panormus. Thermae Himerenses. In B.C. 408 the old town of Himera was utterly destroyed by the Carthaginians and the inhabitants partly put to the sword and partly driven into exile. The remnant of the population was, however, permitted to settle within the confines pf the Himeraean territory, at the hot springs not far from the old city (Cic. II Verr. ii. 35). Here a new city grew up which was called Thermae or Thermae Himeraea. These thermal fountains were traditionally said to have been opened by the nymphs at Himera and Segesta to refresh the wearied limbs of Herakles on his journey round Sicily (Diod. iv. 23). Cf. the type of Herakles in repose (borrowed probably from Croton).
147
After these coins there is a long interval, for Thermae does not appear to have struck money again until after its capture by the Romans in the course of the First Punic War.
UNDER ROMAN DOMINION.
After circ. B.C. 241.
Cicero (II Verr. ii. 35) mentions among the bronze statues which Scipio restored to Thermae after the destruction of Carthage that of the City of Himera, ‘in muliebrem figuram habitumque formata’; that of the poet Stesichorus, ‘erat enim Stesichori poetae statua senilis incurva, cum libro summo, ut putant, artificio facta; qui fuit Himerae sed et est et fuit tota Graecia summo propter ingenium honore et nomine,’ etc.; and that of a she-goat, ‘etiam quod paene praeterii capella quaedam est ... scite facta et venuste.’ It is interesting to find all these three statues copied on the latest coins of Thermae. Hipana. Polybius (i. 24) mentions a town of this name not far from Panormus. The following coin was struck there :—
Circ. B.C. 450.
A coin of Motya (q. v.) has very nearly the same types. 148
After circ. B.C. 210.
The head on the first coin is that of the goddess Hyblaea (Paus. v. 23).
Coinage after circ. B.C. 241.
FIG. 77.
149
The tetradrachms where the lion (not the lion of Leontini) appears as a symbol in the exergue, show affinities with the Demareteion of Syracuse (q.v.). Cf. Holm, p. 582. The coinage of Gelon at Leontini with Nike over the quadriga on the obverse is, in this respect, uniform with the coinage at Gela and Syracuse (q.v.). After passing successively under the dominion of Gelon and of Hieron, Leontini regained its independence in B.C. 466, and, like the rest of the Sicilian cities, enjoyed an interval of repose and prosperity until B.C. 427, when it became engaged in a struggle with Syracuse, which ended, circa B.C. 422, in its reduction into a state of dependency on that city. The coins which belong to this period are the following :—
Circ. B.C. 466-422.
Inscr. ΕΟΝΤΙΝΟΝ, ΕΟΝΤΙΝΟS, ΕΟΝ, or ΛΕΟΝ.
FIG. 78.
From the above described coin-types it is abundantly evident that Apollo was worshipped at Leontini with special devotion. The lion, his emblem, probably also contains here an allusion to the name of the town. The corn-grains remind us that the Leontine plain was renowned for its 150
extraordinary fertility (Cic. II Verr. iii. 18). After Apollo, Demeter
was apparently the divinity chiefly worshipped there.
Circ. B.C. 422-353.
Leontini was revived for a short period between B.C. 405 and 403, when it issued a coin in alliance with Katane (q. v.). In Dion’s time there was a small issue of Corinthian staters similar to those struck at Syracuse at the same period, and also of bronze.
Not until Leontini by the fall of Syracuse came into the hands of the Romans did it again begin to strike money.
After circ. B.C. 210.
Inscr. ΛΕΟΝΤΙΝΩΝ on reverse.
Lilybaeum (Marsala). This city was founded by the Carthaginians in B.C. 397, a remnant of the inhabitants of Motya which had been destroyed by Dionysius being then settled there. It remained a Carthaginian stronghold until it was taken by the Romans after a ten years’ siege, B.C. 241. All its coins are subsequent to this date, and of bronze.
After B.C. 241.
Inscr. ΛΙΛΥΒΑΙΙΤΑΝ or ΛΙΛΥΒΑΙΙΤΑΙC.
This head has been thought to represent the Cumaean Sibyl, whose tomb, Solinus states, was one of the ornaments of the city. It is more probably merely the city-goddess. L. Sempronius Atratinus, whose name also occurs on coins of Entella, was a lieutenant of M. Antonius in Sicily during the war against Sextus Pompeius. Lilybaeum also 151
struck money with the head of Augustus (rev. types: lyre. head of Apollo: inscr. LILVBIT. or Q_. TERENTIO CVLLEONE PRO COS
LILVB.).
Circ. B.C. 466-413.
Fourth century B.C.
Period of Roman Dominion. (Inscr. ΜΕΝΑΙΝΩΝ.)
Like the other Chalcidian colonies, Rhegium, Naxus, and Himera, Zancle began to coin at an early period on the Aeginetic (?) standard. Its earliest coins differ from all others issued in Sicily in that they bear the same type on obverse and reverse, but in the latter case incuse, thus showing that Zancle was in close commercial relation with the South Italian cities of which this fabric is characteristic.
Before circ. B.C. 490.
FIG. 79.
The coinage of this period presents difficult problems (see C. H. Dodd in J. H. S., xxviii).
Circ. B.C. 490-461.
Anaxilas of Rhegium, some time after his accession in B.C. 494, caused Zancle to be treacherously seized by a body of Samians and Milesians. He seems to have colonized the place with Samians and Messenian s and to have named it Messene. Thucydides (vi. 4) says that he gave it the name on the expulsion of the Samians; but the following coins with Samian types show that the name was in use during the Samian occupation. Similar types occur at Rhegium, but these probably belong to the earlier part of the reign of Anaxilas. FIG. 80. 153
Another coin of which the type is still more distinctly Samian was found some thirty years ago in a hoard near Messina. There were several examples of it, together with others of Rhegium and Messana, of the lion’s head and calf’s head type (Zeit. f. Num., iii. p. 135). Another specimen was found in Egypt. They are uninscribed, and it is highly probable that they were struck at Samos for the use of the Samian e migrants.
Anaxilas subsequently introduced at Messene, as at Rhegium, the types of the mule-car and the hare (see above, p. 108). The inscription ΜΕSSΕΝΙΟΝ was eventually changed to ΜΕSSΑΝΙΟΝ, and this change from the Ionic to the Doric form probably coincided with the expulsion of the Samian element in the population, which took place some time before the death of Anaxilas in B.C. 476. The chariot-type remained unchanged until the expulsion of the tyrants in B.C. 461. The type of the hare, whatever its origin (see Rhegium, p. 109 supra), was early associated by the Messanians with the worship of their god Pan, and was therefore not discarded.
Circ. B.C. 480-461.
To this period belongs, if genuine, the gold coin (wt. 22.6 grs.) with the same types as the tetradrachm, and inscr. ΜΕSSΕΝΙΟΝ. (Strozzi Sale Cat., No. 1337.)
B.C. 461-396.
After the expulsion of the tyrants, the Messanians continued at first to strike with the old types; but in the course of this period the male charioteer was replaced by the city-goddess Messana. FIG. 81. 154
The tetradrachm with ΛΟ probably indicates an alliance between Messana and Locri, the enemy of Rhegium. About the middle of the century the name of Zancle seems to have been temporarily restored, probably with the help of Croton, to judge from a coin struck at the latter city with the inscriptions QΡΟ and DΑ (Hill Sicily, Pl. IV. 9). The restored Zancleans issued the following remarkable pieces on which the forms D and must be archaisms such as occur frequently on coins and are especially natural here when the Zancleans were restoring the old régime.
FIG. 82. 155
The bronze coins corresponding to the ordinary issues of Messana in this period are :—
In the year B.C. 396 Messana was utterly destroyed by the Carthaginians under Himilcon. The above described coins show most clearly that Pan and Poseidon were the two chief divinities at Messana. The long sandy spit called Peloris or Pelorias, with its three lakes of volcanic origin, abounded with both game and fish—‘duplicem piscandi venandique praebent voluptatem’ (Solinus, v. 3)—and was a fitting home for the worship of the two divinities to the cult of which the coins bear witness. The nymph Pelorias is the local heroine. Pheraemon, one of the sons of Aeolos, was the local hero who, with his brother Androkles, ruled over the northern part of Sicily from the straits to the western point (Diod. v. 8).
Circ. B.C. 357-288.
It was long before Messana recovered from the blow inflicted upon her in B.C. 396. There is no evidence of any further coinage there until after the death of Dionysius of Syracuse, when we find the town in a condition to render assistance to Dion against the younger Dionysius. The following bronze coins range in style from the age of Timoleon to that of Agathocles.
Circ. B.C. 288-200.
About B.C. 288 the city was seized and all its inhabitants put to the sword by a body of Campanian or Oscan mercenaries, who styled themselves Mamertini. The Mamertini derived their name from Mamers, an Oscan form of Mars. Soon after their seizure of Messana they extended their dominion over the greater part of north-eastern Sicily, and were, in a short time, strong enough to maintain their independence against both Pyrrhus and Hieron II of Syracuse. They allied themselves closely with their Campanian kinsmen who seized Rhegium in B.C. 271, and they were also fortunate in obtaining the friendly aid of the Romans, with whom they 156
continued to enjoy, down to a late period, the privileges of an allied
state. Their coinage is wholly of bronze. The following are among
the most frequent types (inscr. on rev. usually. ΜΑΜΕΡΤΙΝΩΝ):—
Circ. B.C. 288-210.
With marks of value. After circ. B.C. 210.
Reduced weight.
These coins belong to the same monetary system as that which prevailed at Rhegium. Their weights show a steady reduction in the weight of the copper litra. The occurrence of the head of the god Adranos on Messanian coins 157 shows that the worship of this divinity was not confined to the immediate neighborhood of his great temple on Mt. Aetna (cf. Plut. Tim. 12
Αδρανο θεου τιμωμενου διαφεροντως εν ολη Σικελια), in the sacred enclosure of which more than a thousand splendid dogs were kept, which, according to Aelian (Hist. An. xi. 20), appear to have been the Mt. St. Bernard
dogs of antiquity, friendly guides to strangers who had lost their path. Adranos was an armed god, and partook of the nature both of Ares and of Hephaestos. His cultus was probably introduced into Sicily by the Phoenicians, and he seems to be identical in origin with Adar or Moloch, to whom the dog was also sacred (Movers, i. 340, 405).
Morgantina was a Sikel town of some importance, which lay in the fertile plain watered by the upper courses of the river Symaethus and its tributaries. Although it is often mentioned by ancient writers, we have no connected account of its history. Its coins may be classified by style in the following periods:—
Circ. B.C. 460.
Circ. B.C. 420-400.
The above coins seem to refer, though it is not clear in what sense, to the relations of Morgantina with Gela and Camarina; in the peace of Gela (B.C. 424) Morgantina was ceded to Camarina (Thuc. iv. 65; see Holm, iii. p. 637).
BRONZE. Circ. B.C. 340.
The type of the eagle on the serpent perhaps refers to the omen seen by Timoleon before the battle on the Crimissus (Plut. Tim. 26). Alkos is probably the name of the local god (Apollo ?). Motya (i. e. ‘spinning factory'—Schroeder, Phoen. Sprache, p. 279) was a Phoenician emporium on a small islet (S. Pantaleo) which lay off the west coast of Sicily, about five miles north of the Lilybaean promontory. The island was united to the mainland by an artificial mole. Possessing a good harbor, Motya rose to be the chief naval station of 158
the Carthaginians, and so remained until in B.C. 397 it was attacked by Dionysius, who put all the inhabitants to the sword. The coins of Motya, like those of the other Carthaginian settlements of Sicily, are imitated from the money of the Greeks, chiefly from the coins of the nearest important town, Segesta, but also from those of Agrigentum, Himera, &c. Sometimes they bear the Punic inscr. המטוא, sometimes the Greek ΜΟΤΥΑΙΟΝ.
Coins with Punic inscr. Circ. B.C. 480-413.
Circ. B.C. 413-397.
Coins with Greek inscr. Archaic and Transitional.
Mytistratus (Marianopoli) was a strongly fortified place in the interior of the island (Imhoof MG, p. 24). Its coins are of bronze and belong to about the time of Timoleon, being usually struck over Syracusan bronze.
Circ. B.C. 340.
159
Before circ. B.C. 400.
In the first half of the fourth century Nacona was held by Campanian mercenaries who had come over to Sicily in B.C. 412, just too late to help the Athenians against Syracuse. These soldiers of fortune, after serving the Carthaginians for a time, subsequently settled at various inland cities, among which, as we learn from the coins, were Nacona, Entella, and Aetna.
Circ. B.C. 357-317.
A number of coins reading Ν or ΝΑ, or uninscribed, may perhaps have been struck at Nacona (Imhoof, N. Z., 1886, pp. 258 ff.) :—
Early fourth century B.C.
After circ. B.C. 241.
Naxus (Capo di Schiso) was the most ancient Greek settlement in Sicily: it was a colony from Chalcis, founded about B.C. 735, and derived its name, we may suppose, from a preponderating contingent from the island of Naxos. Of the early history of this place little is known, but between B.C. 498 and 476 it passed successively under the dominion of Hippocrates of Gela and of Gelon and Hieron of Syracuse. In B.C. 476 its inhabitants were transferred to Leontini. In B.C. 461 it seems to have recovered its autonomy, which it retained until its destruction in B.C. 404 by Dionysius.
Before circ. B.C. 480. Aeginetic (?) Standard.
FIG. 83. 160
Some specimens of these early drachms of Aeginetic (?) weight (see p. 115, supra) are of extremely archaic style and seem to belong to a period not later than the middle of the sixth century.
Circ. B.C. 461-413. Attic standard.
FIG. 84.
FIG. 85.
Circ. B.C. 413-404.
161
In the Berlin Museum there is a diobol which in style and type resembles the coin with ΠΡΟΚΑΗΣ, but instead of ΝΑΞΙΩΝ on obv. it reads ΝΕΟΠΟ on rev. (Weil Künstlerinschriften Pl. II. 13). It is supposed by Holm (Gesch. Sic., ii. 432; iii. 627) that these pieces were issued by the Naxians at Mylae, where they found a new home (Diod. xiv. 87), after the destruction of their old town.
The river here called Assinos is either the Asines of Pliny (iii. 88) and the Akesines of Thucydides (iv. 25), the modern Cantara, or the torrent S. Venera, which is nearer to Naxus. Neopolis. See Naxus, supra. Panormus (Palermo) was the most important of all the Phoenician towns in Sicily. Its Greek name, however, is sufficient to show that here, as everywhere else in Sicily, the Greek language was predominant, at least in early times. Before the great repulse of the Carthaginians at Himera, in B.C. 480, no coins whatever were struck at Panormus. No Phoenician people had in those early days adopted the use of money. It was doubtless due to the victory of Gelon at Himera that the Greeks were able to extend their language and civilization even to the Phoenician settlements in the western portion of the island. Hence in the Transitional period the coins of Panormus bear for the most part Greek inscriptions.
Circ. B.C. 480-409.
A few, however, have the Punic inscr. ציץ (ziz), of which many explanations have been offered, none of them thoroughly satisfactory.
The word ΖΙΒ occurs frequently on coins of both Segesta and Eryx. Its juxtaposition on this coin with the equally unexplained Phoenician ziz, looks as if it were a Greek transcript of the same word. On the many 162
suggested interpretations of ziz (see Holm, iii. p. 647 f.), the most probable is that it is simply the Phoenician name for Panormus.
The signal successes of the Carthaginian arms in Sicily between B.C. 409 and 405, and the consequent influx of the precious metals from the devastated Greek towns into Panormus, led to the coinage by the latter of money on a far more liberal scale than before. The Greek language now completely disappears, but it is curious to note how from an entire lack of artistic originality the Phoenicians in Sicily were driven to-copy the types of the money of various other towns, e. g. Syracuse, Segesta, Himera, Agrigentum, Camarina, Gela, &c.
After circ. B.C. 409. (ציץ usually on rev.)
The inscr. on the last described coins sometimes runs שבעל ציץ (=shbaal ziz) ‘of the citizens of Panormus’ (?).
Bronze with marks of value.
The following bronze coins may be assigned to the latter part of the fifth century :—
Cf. also an onkia with same obv. type and an uncertain Punic inscr. (Imhoof, N. Z., 1886, p. 248, No. 18). This whole group is assigned by Imhoof to Solus. The weight of the litra, of which these coins are fractions, can hardly be ascertained. The hemilitron yields a litra of 380 grs., while the trias points to one of 604 grs. 163
Bronze without marks of value.
Circ. B.C. 400-254.
Panormus (?), perhaps in common with several of the western cities which joined Timoleon’s league, probably issued the following drachms which seem to refer to the victory of the Crimissus :—
In B.C. 254 Panormus was captured by the Romans, under whose rule it retained its municipal freedom, and remained for many years one of the principal cities of the island.
Bronze, with Greek inscr. ΠΑΝΟΡΜΙΤΑΝ, ΠΑΝΟΡΜΙ, or ΠΑΡ
(in monogram).
After B.C. 254.
Later than the above is a series of coins with, on the reverse, the Latin inscription ΠΟR (for P[an]or[mus]? or Por[tus]?) in monogram. Obv. Heads of Janus (on the as), Zeus (on the semis), or Demeter (on the quadrans). See Bahrfeldt, Die röm.-sicil. Münzen (Geneva, 1904). In the time of Augustus, Panormus received a Roman colony (Strab. vi. 272). Its bronze coins continued to be issued for some time longer, bearing the names of various resident magistrates, e. g. Aqu(illius), M. Aur(elius), Q. B(aebius?), L. (Caecilius) Me(tellus), Cn. Dom. 164
Proc(ulus), Laetor(ius) II VIR, Q. Fab(ius) Ma(ximus), L. Gn., Cato,
S. Pos(tumius), etc. These coins as a rule follow the Roman system.
the As being distinguished by the head of Janus, the Semis by that of Zeus, and the Quadrans by that of Herakles or Apollo. On some specimens the inscription is written PANHORMITANORVM. The heads of Augustus (Hill Sicily, Pl. XIV. 17) and Livia also occur.
Paropus (Polyb. i. 24) probably stood at Collesano, south-west of Cephaloedium. It coined in bronze during the period of Roman dominion after the end of the First Punic War.
After circ. B.C. 241.
Petra (Petralia), an inland town near the sources of the southern Himeras. It struck bronze money after the end of the First Punic War.
After circ. B.C. 241.
Circ. B.C. 415-400.
In style the head on this coin bears a striking resemblance to the laureate head on the tetradrachms of Katane (B. M. C., Sicily, p. 45, No. 25). Piacus may have been situated somewhere in the vicinity of that town. 165
coin-types were copied both at Motya and Eryx on the west and at Panormus on the east of Segesta.
Circ. B.C. 480-461.
FIG. 86. Inscr. SΑΓΕΣΤΑΙΙΒ, ΣΕΓΕΣΤΑΙΙΒΕΜΙ, ΣΕΓΕΣΤΑΙΙΕ, SΕΓΕSΤΑΙΙΑ or SΕΓΕΣΤΑΙΙΟΝ, usually retrograde. (For the various theories as to the meaning of the terminations ΖΙΒ, ΖΙΒΕΜΙ, ΖΙΑ, or ΖΙΕ, see the summary in Holm, iii. pp. 599, 600.) Types:—
To the same period belongs an alliance coin (litra) with Eryx, obv. Head of Segesta facing, ΣΕΓΕΣΤΑΙΟΝ; rev. Dog, ΕΡVΚΙΝΟΝ (Holm. No. 95 a).
Circ. B.C. 461-415.
Circ. B.C. 415-409.
FIG. 87. 166
The young hunter on the beautiful tetradrachms of Segesta is probably the river Krimissos, who, according to Aelian (Var. Hist. ii. 33), was worshipped at Segesta in human form; Αιγεσταιοι δε τον Πορπακα και τον Κριμισον και τον Τελμισσον εν ανδρων ειδει τιμωσι. The dog, his special attribute, serves here to distinguish the figure. On the didrachms the same river is symbolized by the dog. BRONZE. Before B.C. 409.
From the weights of these coins we can form no idea of the real weight of the copper litra, as the tetras of which the weight is 139 grs. yields a litra of 417 grs., while the hexas (wt. 86 grs.) yields one of 516 grs. Cf. B. M. C., Sicily, p. 136. For more than a century and a half Segesta was a mere dependency of Panormus, and struck no money whatever, unless indeed we suppose that the didrachms with Segestan types and the Punic legend ziz, here described under Panormus, were struck at Segesta.
After B.C. 241.
When, however, after the end of the First Punic War, Segesta had passed under the dominion of the Romans, it obtained once more the right of coinage, though only in bronze. The Segestans now made the most of their traditional Trojan descent, claiming relationship with the Romans on this ground (Cic. II Verr. iv. 33). 167
Under Augustus we find Segesta still in the enjoyment of the right of coinage (B. M. C., Sicily, p. 137); but it is probable that there was a considerable interval between the cessation of the autonomous and the commencement of the Imperial series. Selinus (Σελινοεις, Σελινους), the most western of all the Greek cities of Sicily, stood near the mouth of the river Selinus and a few miles west of that of the Hypsas. It derived its name from the river, which in its turn was called after the σελινον (probably the wild celery, apium grareolens), which grew plentifully on its banks. The Selinuntines adopted from the first the leaf of this plant as the badge of their town, συμβολον η παρασημον της πολεως (Plut. Pyth. Orac. xii), placing it upon their coins, and dedicating, on one occasion, a representation of it in gold in the temple of Apollo at Delphi (Plut. l. c.).
Circ. B.C. 480-466.
FIG. 88.
Obols or litrae and smaller coins also occur.
Circ. B.C. 466-415.
In the great Carthaginian invasion of Sicily in B.C. 480, Selinus appears to have sided with the invaders (Diod. xi. 21). During the period of general prosperity which followed the expulsion of the tyrants, B.C. 466, it rose to considerable power and wealth (Thuc. vi. 20). It must have been quite early in this period of peace that it was attacked by a devastating pestilence or malaria, caused by the stagnant waters in the neighbouring marsh lands (Diog. Laert. viii. 2.70). On that occasion 168
the citizens had recourse to the arts of Empedocles, then at the height of his fame. The philosopher put a stop to the plague, it would seem, by connecting the channels of two neighbouring streams (Diog. Laert. l. c.). In gratitude for this deliverance the Selinuntines conferred upon him divine honors, and their coin-types still bear witness to the depth and lasting character of the impression which the purification of the district made upon men’s minds. The coins of this period are as follows :— FIG. 89.
Apollo, who on one specimen (Imhoof MG, p. 28) appears alone, is here regarded as the healing god, αλεξικακος, who, with his radiant arrows, slays the pestilence as he slew the Python. Artemis stands behind him in her capacity of ειλειθυια or σουδινα, for the plague had fallen heavily on the women too, ωστε και τας γυναικας δυστοκειν (Diog. Laert. l. c.). On the reverse the river-god himself makes formal libation to the healer-god in gratitude for the cleansing of his waters, while the image of the bull, being sometimes man-headed, perhaps represents the river in its former aspect as an untamed natural force.
Here instead of Apollo it is the sun-god Herakles, who is shown struggling with the destructive powers of water symbolized by the bull, while on the reverse the Hypsas takes the place of the Selinos. Perhaps the marsh-bird is retreating, because she can no longer find a congenial home on the banks of the Hypsas now that Empedocles has drained the lands.
169
Eurymedusa appears to have been a fountain-nymph, for one of the daughters of Acheloos was so called (Preller, Gr. Myth., 2nd ed., ii. 392, note 2).
The obverse of this coin represents a local health-goddess or less probably Persephone visited by Zeus in the form of a serpent (Eckhel, ii. p. 240). The bull on the reverse is presumably the river Selinos.
Circ. B.C. 415-409.
The didrachms of this period resemble in type those of the last.
BRONZE.
The weight of the Litra according to this coin would be 552 grs. Selinus was destroyed by the Carthaginians B.C. 409, and although the Selinuntines are from time to time mentioned in later ages, the city was never again in a position to strike its own coins. Sergentium or Ergetium in the neighborhood of Mt. Aetna.
Before circ. B.C. 480.
These coins, usually assigned to an unknown city in Bruttium, have been attributed by Pais (Ancient Italy, pp. 117 sqq.) and De Foville (Rev. Num., 1906, pp. 445 sqq.) to Sergentium in Sicily. The low weight of the didrachm, supposing it to be of the Attic Standard, is remarkable. Μ for Σ in the inscr. may be due to the influence of the Chalcidian city of Naxus, for the Dionysiac types are evidently inspired by those of Naxian coins. Silerae. The site of this town is quite uncertain, nor is its name mentioned by any ancient author. Its rare bronze coins belong to the time of Timoleon. 170
Circ. B.C. 340.
Before circ. B.C. 400.
For other coins of this period, attributed to Solus, see under Panormus, p. 162.
Middle and second half of fourth century B.C.
First half of third century B.C.
The provenance of the following coins shows that they belong to Solus.
After the fall of Panormus, Solus passed under the dominion of the Romans. We then hear of it as a municipal town under the name of Soluntum. 171
After B.C. 241.
Stiela or Styella (Evans NC XVI 1896, pp. 124-6, and Holm, iii. p. 639), described by Steph. Byz. (s. v. Στυελλα) as a fortress of the Sicilian Megara. Leake (Num Hell., p. 70) places it near the mouth of the river Alabon, which flows into the Megarian Gulf.
Circ. B.C. 450-415.
The head on these coins, although not horned, is probably intended for a river-god. In expression it is quite unlike a head of Apollo, and may be compared with certain similar heads on coins of Catana.
| 115 SicilyAncient| Coins| from Sicily| in the Forum| Ancient| Coins| shop| Alexandropoulos, J. Les monnaies de l'Afrique antique: 400 av. J.-C. - 40 ap. J.-C. (Toulouse, 2000). ChronologyPeriod I. Before B.C. 480. First in this period comes the coinage of the Chalcidian colonies, Naxus, Zancle, and Himera. These early coins, some of which may belong to the end of the seventh century, follow the Aeginetic (?) standard, although as a rule the drachms do not exceed 5.83 grams, nor the obols 0.97 grams. It is possible that this standard was imported, together with the worship of Dionysos, from the island of Naxos, whence, as the name given to the earliest Sicilian settlement implies, a preponderating element of the first body of colonists must have been drawn. Possibly, however, the pieces of 5.83 grams are merely Euboïc-Attic octobols (see Holm, pp. 560 ff.). Somewhat later, probably about the middle of the sixth century, begins the coinage of the Dorian colonies, Syracuse, Gela, Agrigentum, etc. The standard here is certainly not (with one possible exception) the Aeginetic but the Euboïc-Attic, which was soon universally adopted throughout the island, even by those Chalcidian colonies which had begun to coin on the supposed Aeginetic standard. The definite change to the Attic standard took place at Naxos some time after B.C. 498, at Zancle between B.C. 493 and 480, and at Himera in B.C. 482. The original Sikel and Sicanian population of Sicily possessed, however, a standard of their own, based on the pound or litra of bronze. To this weight of bronze corresponded a silver litra of 0.875 grams. Even during the earliest period of the Aeginetic (?) standard Zancle struck silver coins of this weight, and as it happened to be exactly 1/5 of the Attic drachm, it was readily adopted by those Greek cities which used the Euboïc-Attic standard, as an additional denomination slightly heavier than their own obol, from which they took care to distinguish it by giving it a different type, or by a mark of value. Thus at Syracuse the litra was marked with a sepia and the obol with a wheel. The coins struck in Sicily during this first period exhibit all the characteristic peculiarities of archaic art, but they are far more advanced, both in style and execution, than the contemporary coins either of Magna Graecia or of Greece proper. Period II. B.C. 480-413. The great victory of the Greeks over the Carthaginians at Himera in B.C. 480 was the prelude to a long interval of peace and prosperity all over Sicily. The coins of this epoch, which are plentiful throughout the island, are of great variety and interest. In style they exhibit a continuous advance upon the methods of archaic art, and a nearer and nearer approach to the highest point of excellence ever reached in the art of die-engraving. The whole period between B.C. 480 and the failure of the Athenian expedition in B.C. 413 may therefore be appropriately called the Period of Transition. Greek art and civilization had already thoroughly penetrated the inland Sikel towns such as Abacaenum, Enna, Galaria, Morgantina, etc., and were now making their way even into the non-Hellenic cities in the western portion of the island, e.g. Segesta and Eryx, ancient cities of the Elymi, and Motya and Panormus, strongholds of Carthage. Towards the end of this period (not before 440) a new feature appears on the Sicilian coins, in the shape of the signatures of the artists. The following names of Sicilian engravers occur on coins of this period: at Syracuse, Eumenes or Eumenos, Sosion, Euainetos, Euth[ymos?], Phrygillos, and Euarchidas; and at Catana, Euainetos. Even before the age of Gelon and Hieron, whose victories at the great Greek games were celebrated by Pindar, it had been usual at many Greek towns in Sicily to issue coins on the occasion of agonistic contests with appropriate types, such as a quadriga crowned by Nike. It seems nevertheless certain that as a general rule no one special victory can have been alluded to in these agonistic types; they are rather a general expression of pride in the beauty of the horses and chariots which the city could enter in the lists, while perhaps they may likewise have been regarded, though in no very definite way, as a sort of invocation of the god who was the dispenser of victories: the Olympian Zeus, the Pythian Apollo, or some local divinity, perhaps a River-god or a Fountain-nymph, in whose honor games may have been celebrated in Sicily itself. Some such local import would account for the presence of the victorious quadriga on the money of some of the non-Hellenic towns in Sicily, which would certainly never have been admitted to compete at the Olympian, the Pythian, or other Greek games. The manner in which the quadriga is treated may be taken as a very accurate indication of date. Down to about B.C. 440 the horses are seen advancing at a slow and stately pace; after that date they are always in high and often violent action, prancing or galloping; not until quite a late period (on the coins of Philistis) are they again represented as walking. The only exception to this rule is the mule-car on the coins of Messana, where the animals are never in rapid movement. Period III. B.C. 413-346. The defeat of the Athenians was followed by an extraordinary outburst of artistic activity on the part of the great Sicilian cities, especially Syracuse. Syracuse and Agrigentum now issued their magnificent dekadrachms. The following names of engravers, among others, occur on coins of this period: at Syracuse, Euainetos, Kimon, Eukleidas, Parmenidas; at Agrigentum, Myr...; at Camarina, Exakestidas; at Himera, Mai...; at Messana, Kimon, Anan (?)...; at Naxus, Prokles; and at Catana, Herakleidas, Choirion) and Prokles. One of the most striking peculiarities of Sicilian coins is the frequency with which personifications of Rivers and Nymphs are met with. Thus on coins of Himera the type is that of the Nymph of the warm springs; on a coin of Naxus we see the head of a river Assinos (probably the same as the Akesines); at Katane we get a full-face head of the river Amenanos; at Gela and Agrigentum we see the rivers of those towns, the Gelas and the Akragas; while at Camarina the head of the Hipparis appears. On the coins of Selinus the rivers Hypsas and Selinos are represented as offering sacrifice. In the archaic period the Sicilian rivers usually take the form of a man-headed bull, but in the transitional and fine periods they more often assume the human form, and appear as youths with short bulls’ horns over their foreheads. Among the nymphs represented on Sicilian coins are Himera, Arethusa, Kyane (?), Kamarina, and Eurymedusa. The Carthaginian invasion at the close of the fifth century spread ruin through the island and put an end to the coinage almost everywhere. Syracuse alone of all the Greek silver-coining cities continued the uninterrupted issue of her beautiful tetradrachms and dekadrachms, and it was these which served as models for the Siculo-Punic currency of the Carthaginian towns. It was probably at the beginning of this period that gold and bronze coins were first struck in Sicily, at any rate in considerable quantities. At the time of Dion’s expedition electrum was also introduced, and at Syracuse a large bronze litra was issued, the size of which shows that it was intended as real money and not as a token of artificial value. Period IV. B.C. 345-317. With the expedition of the Corinthian Timoleon (B.C. 345) a new era began for Sicily. Timoleon was everywhere the Liberator, and his influence is especially noticeable in the Sicilian coinage of his time. There are a few coin-types which now appear for the first time, not only at Syracuse, but at many other towns which Timoleon freed from their oppressors. Two of these types are the head of Zeus Eleutherios and the Free Horse. Pegasos-staters (first introduced by Dion in the previous period) and other coins with Corinthian types were also now coined in Sicily in large quantities. The number of inland towns which at this particular time began to coin money is remarkable, e.g. Adranum, Aetna (Inessa), Agyrium, Alaesa, Centuripae, Herbessus, etc. At all the above-mentioned Sikel cities we note the appearance of large and heavy bronze coins, which, unlike the older small bronze currency, are without any marks of value. This monetization of bronze was probably due to the increasing influence of the native Sikel peoples of the interior of the island, accustomed to use bronze as a medium of exchange, who now combined to support Timoleon, and issued at Alaesa, and perhaps elsewhere, a new federal currency in bronze, with the legends ΚΑΙΝΟΝ and ΣΥΜΜΑΧΙΚΟΝ. Period V. B.C. 317-241. With the usurpation of Agathocles, Syracuse once more monopolizes the right of coinage for the whole of Sicily, even more distinctly than in the time of Dionysius. The civic coinages are entirely dominated by those of the great rulers, Agathocles, Hicetas, Pyrrhus, and Hieron II, down to the time of the First Punic War. 118
Period VI. B.C. 241-210. At the close of the First Punic War all Sicily, except the dominions of Hieron along the eastern coast from Tauromenium to Helorus, passed into the hands of the Romans. The immediate result of the new political status of the Sicilian communities was the issue of bronze money at a great number of mints, many of which, such as Amestratus, Cephaloedium, Iaetia, Lilybaeum, Menaenum, Paropus, Petra, etc., had never before possessed the right of coinage. Within the dominions of Syracuse, Tauromenium alone continued to coin in all metals. Period VII. After B.C. 210. After the fall of Syracuse and the constitution of all Sicily into a Province of the Roman Republic, bronze coins continued to be issued at Syracuse, Panormus, and a great many other towns, probably-for at least a century. These late coins possess, however, but slight interest. Abacaenum - StyellaAbacaenum (Tripi) was a Sikel town situated some eight miles from the coast, towards the north-east extremity of the island.
Circ. B.C. 450-400.
Inscr. ΑΒΑΚΑΙΝΙΝΟΝ (usually abbreviated, but sometimes divided between Obv. and Rev.).
Circ. B.C. 400-350.
After B.C. 241. Inscr. ΑΒΑΚΑΙΝΙΝΩΝ.
The bull is probably the little mountain-torrent Helikon.
After B.C. 210.
119
The bronze coins of Adranum apparently all belong to one period :—
Before B.C. 339.
The resemblance in style between the last mentioned coin and certain pieces of Nacona and Entella, issued while those cities were in the hands of the Campanians, is striking.
Circ. B.C. 339.
The coinage is not resumed until the Roman period.
After B.C. 210.
Its coinage begins during the prosperous period which intervened between the fall of the tyrant Phalaris (circ. B.C. 550), and the accession of Theron to supreme power (circ. B.C. 488). 120
Circ. B.C. 550-472.
Inscr. ΑΚRΑCΑΝΤΟS, ΑΚRΑCΑS (sometimes divided between Obv. and
Rev.), ΑΚRΑ, etc.
The Eagle and the Crab have been usually taken as emblems of Zeus and Poseidon, but it may be doubted whether the crab is not in this case the fresh-water crab common in the rivers of Italy, Sicily, and Greece. If so, the crab represents the river Akragas and is the παρασημον of the city. Theron of Agrigentum made himself master of Himera, B.C. 482. Α comparison of certain coins of Himera bearing Agrigentine types, which can only belong to the time of Theron, with some of the latest specimens of the series above described, is sufficient to fix the date of the latter. The great victory of Theron and Gelon of Syracuse over the Carthaginians at Himera resulted in the further aggrandizement of Agrigentum. Theron died B.C. 472, after which a democracy was established, and a period of unexampled prosperity commenced which terminated only with the Carthaginian invasion in B.C. 406. Numismatically, however, this space of sixty-seven years must be divided into two periods, which may be characterized as those of Transitional Art, B.C. 472-circ. B.C. 413, and of Finest Art, B.C. 413-406.
Circ. B.C. 472-413.
FIG. 65. Inscriptions and Types (Eagle and Crab), as in the Period of archaic art. The Eagle sometimes stands on the capital of a column. On the reverse symbols are of frequent occurrence, flying Nike, rose, star, volute ornament (Fig. 65), and others. Denominations. Tetradrachm, Didrachm, Drachm with letters ΠΕΝ (= Pentalitron), Litra (with ΛΙ), Pentonkion with mark of value :·:. There are also coins with obv. eagle’s head, viz. litra, rev. tripod; half-litra (?), rev. A; and hexas, rev. :. A bronze coin with eagle and crab also belongs to the close of this period. The Tetradrachm apparently was not struck at Agrigentum before circa B.C. 472. To this period may also be attributed a series of very strange-looking lumps of bronze, made in the shape of a tooth with a flat base, having on one side an eagle or eagle’s head, and on the other a crab, while on the base 1 A specimen at Paris (Salinas, Pl. IV. 15), weighing 173-77 grains, appears to show that Agrigentum also issued coins of the Aeginetic standard. 121
are marks of value ::, .·., : (Tetras, Trias, Hexas). The Uncia is almond
shaped, with an eagle’s head on one side and a crab’s claw on the other.
The weights of these coins point to a litra of about 750 grs.
Circ. B.C. 413-406.
FIG. 66. In this period the coinage reflects the splendor to which Agrigentum had now attained.
The finest known specimen of this rare and beautiful coin is in the Munich collection. See Th. Reinach, L'Histoire par les Monnaies, pp. 89-98.
Didrachms, Drachms, Hemidrachms, and Litrae, or Obols, with simpler varieties of the above types; the carapace of the crab on the drachm resembles a human face. As a powerful composition the type of the two eagles with the hare is perhaps superior to any other contemporary Sicilian coin-type, and is certainly the work of an artist of no mean capacity. The subject cannot fail to remind us of the famous passage in one of the grandest choruses of the Agamemnon (ll. 110-120), where the poet describes just such 122
a scene as is here represented. Two eagles, one black, and the other
white behind:—
οιωνων βασιλευς βασιλευσι νεων ο κελαινος, ο τ’ εξοπιν αργας,The victorious quadriga is an agonistic type of a class very prevalent in Sicily. The occasion of its adoption at Agrigentum may have been the Olympian games of B.C. 412, in which one of the victors was Exainetos, an Agrigentine citizen who, on his return to his native town, was brought into the city in a chariot escorted by 300 biga drawn by white horses (Diod. xiii. 82). But see above, p. 116. The names ΣΤΡΑΤΩΝ and ΣΙΛΑΝΟΣ are too conspicuous to be the signatures of artists; they must therefore be regarded as magistrates.
BRONZE. Before B.C. 406.
Inscr. ΑΚΡΑΓΑΝΤΙΝΟΝ, often abbreviated.
Other small bronze coins (Salinas, xi. 24-7) have modifications of the above types (eagle’s head, crab’s claw, etc.). The actual weights of these bronze coins, large and small, together yield an average of 613 grs. for the litra. This perhaps shows that the litra had already been reduced from 3375 grs., its original weight, to 1/5 of that weight, or 675 grs., a reduction which is thought by Mommsen (Momm.-Blacas, i. p. 112) to have taken place in the time of Dionysius, but which the weights of the bronze coins of Camarina (p. 130), and Himera (p. 146), if they are of any value as evidence, prove to have occurred much earlier. After the memorable destruction of Agrigentum by the Carthaginians in B.C. 406, the surviving inhabitants appear to have returned to their ruined homes; but until Timoleon’s time the town can hardly be said to have existed as an independent state. No new coins were issued in the interval, but the bronze money already in circulation seems to have been frequently countermarked in this period. Timoleon, circ. B.C. 338, recolonized the city (Plut. Tim. 35) with a body of Velians, and from this time it began to recover some small degree of prosperity. 123
Circ. B.C. 338-287.
BRONZE.
268 grs. is the average weight of the four specimens of the hemilitron in the British Museum, according to which the Litra would weigh 536 grs., which is intermediate between the first and the second reductions of the Litra. There are also bronze coins of this period without marks of value, obv. Head of Zeus, rev. Eagle devouring hare, or winged fulmen. Size, .75-.55. The coins attributed to this period are not numerous, owing to the fact that during the greater part of the reign of Agathocles at Syracuse (B.C. 317-289), Agrigentum was compelled to acknowledge the supremacy of that city, which for a time usurped the right of coining money for all those parts of the island subject to her dominion. After the death of Agathocles, a tyrant named Phintias rose to the supreme power at Agrigentum, and extended his dominions also over other parts of Sicily.
Phintias Tyrant. Circ. B.C. 287-279.
Coins struck by Phintias for all his dominions.
The type of these coins illustrates in a remarkable manner a passage of Diodorus (Reliq. xxii. 7), in which he tells how Phintias ειδεν οναρ δηλουν την του βιου καταστροφην, υν αγριον κυνηγοντος ορμησαι κατ’ αυτου την υν, και την πλενραν αυτου τοις οδουσι παταξαι και διελασαυτα την πληγην κτειναι. We seem here to have a clear instance of a coin-type having been chosen with the avowed object of propitiating the goddess Artemis whose anger the tyrant probably thought he had incurred. 124
Circ. B.C. 279-241.
Nearly all the remaining coins of Agrigentum may be classed to this period, during which the city was for the most part an independent ally of the Carthaginians against the Romans and Hieron II. On the conclusion of the First Punic War (B.C. 241) Agrigentum passed under Roman dominion.
Cicero (Verr. iv. 43) mentions a statue of Apollo by Myron which stood in the temple of Asklepios at Agrigentum. The curious coin-type above described, where a serpent is seen crawling up the face of Apollo, taken in conjunction with the words of Cicero, seems to indicate a connexion between the cults of Apollo and Asklepios at Agrigentum.
Circ. B.C. 241-210, and later.
The three coins last described sometimes occur with the name of the Roman Quaestor Manius Acilius on the reverse instead of ΑΚΡΑΓΑΝΤΙΝΩΝ; the same magistrate also issued from Agrigentum an As with the head of Janus and his name in a laurel-wreath, and a semis with the head of Jupiter. For the Imperial coins of Agrigentum struck under Augustus, see Holm, p. 727, nos. 735-6. Agyrium (Agira) was a large town in the interior of Sicily, standing on a steep hill, almost midway between Enna and Centuripae. At this town Herakles, during his wanderings in Sicily, had been received with divine honors, and down to a late period Herakles, his kinsman Iolaos, and Geryon, continued to be revered there. Its coins fall into three periods.
Circ. B.C. 420-353.
125
These two coins probably belong to the time when the city was governed by a tyrant named Agyris, a contemporary and ally of Dionysius (Diod. xiv. 9, 78, 95), or at latest to the time of Dion. Palankaios is perhaps the name of a river.
Circ. B.C. 345-300.
About the middle of the fourth century Agyrium was governed by another tyrant, by name Apolloniades. This despot was deposed by Timoleon, B. G. 339. The coins which I would give to the years immediately preceding the liberation by Timoleon are the following:—
The following, from their types, appear to be subsequent to B.C. 339 (inscr. ΑΓΥΡΙΝΑΙΩΝ or abbreviation):—
In the third century we hear of Agyrium as subject to Phintias of Agrigentum. Subsequently the territory of the city was largely increased by Hieron of Syracuse, and even under Roman rule it remained a place of some importance. It is to this late period that the following coins belong:—
After B.C. 241.
Alaesa (Tusa) was built on a hill about eight stadia from the sea (Diod. xiv. 16), on the north side of Sicily, in the year B.C. 403, by a colony of Sikels under a chief named Archonides, after whom the city was sometimes called Alaesa Archonidea (cf. the inscriptions on the later coins). Its earliest coins date from the period of Timoleon’s war with the Carthaginians (B.C. 340), when many Sikel and Sicanian towns joined the alliance against the Carthaginians (Diod. xvi. 73). From the inscription ΑΛΑΙΣΙΝΩΝ ΣΥΜΜΑΧΙΚΟΝ Alaesa would seem to have been among the chief of the Sicilian allies of Timoleon, but, as the word 126
ΑΛΑΙΣΙΝΩΝ is sometimes wanting, there is no absolute proof that all
the coins of the allies were struck there. The coins reading ΚΑΙΝΟΝ
(‘new money’) evidently belong to the same period as the rest.
Circ. B.C. 340.
The heads of Zeus Eleutherios, of Apollo as original leader of the colonists, and of Sikelia herself, are all most appropriate on coins of an alliance formed under the auspices of Timoleon, as are also the torch and ears of corn, the symbols of Demeter and Persephone, under whose special protection Timoleon set out (Plut. Tim. c. 8; Diod. xvi. 66). The remaining coins of Alaesa belong to the following century, when it began, simultaneously with many other Sicilian towns, to coin money again after its submission to Rome during the First Punic War.
After circ. B.C. 241.
Considerably later than the foregoing are the coins of Alaesa with Latin inscriptions:—
To the time of Augustus belong coins with the name of the magistrate M. PACCIVS MACXV(mus): see Holm, p. 729, nos. 754, 754a. Aluntium (San Marco d'Alunzio), on the north coast of the island 127
between Tyndaris and Calacte, a Sikel town of no great importance.
Its origin was ascribed to the followers of Aeneas under an Acarnanian
leader named Patron.
Circ. B.C. 400.
Circ. B.C. 241-210, or earlier.
Circ. B.C. 241-210, or earlier.
Assorus (Assaro), an inland Sikel town, midway between Enna and Agyrium.
After B.C. 210.
The figure on the first of these coins is probably a copy of that simulacrum praeclare factum ex marmore’ which Cicero (Verr. iv. 44) describes as having stood on the road from Enna to Assorus, perhaps on the bank of the river Chrysas. Caena. Concerning the coins reading ΚΑΙΝΟΝ, sometimes ascribed to this town, see Alaesa and p. 117. 128
Calacte (Caronia), on the northern coast, midway between Tyndaris and Cephaloedium, was a Peloponnesian colony founded in B.C. 446 by the Sikel chief Ducetius on his return from his exile in Corinth. Its coins are all of a late period.
Circ. B.C. 241-210.
The first of the above coins is clearly copied from the late Athenian coins. Note the close correspondence between obv. and rev. types (Maonald, Coin Types, pp. 119 ff.). Camarina was a colony of Syracuse, founded circ. B.C. 599, between, the mouths of the Oanis and the Hipparis, on the south coast of Sicily. In consequence of a revolt against Syracuse it was destroyed by that city about B.C. 552. In B.C. 495 it was rebuilt and recolonized by Hippocrates, tyrant of Gela, but again destroyed about B.C. 484 by Gelon, tyrant of Syracuse. To this period the following archaic silver litrae seem to belong.
The city was once more rebuilt as a colony of Gela in B.C. 461, and from this time until the removal of its citizens to Syracuse in B.C. 405 it enjoyed great prosperity. Pindar’s fourth Olympian ode and the ode which follows it record the victory of Psaumis the Camarinaean in the chariot race B.C. 456 or 452, an agonistic victory which Poole (Coins of Camarina, p. 2) believed to be commemorated on the tetradrachms of Camarina, struck during the latter half of the fifth century.
Circ. B.C. 461-405.
On the later specimens the head of Herakles is not bearded, and an artist’s name ΕΞΑΚΕΣΤΙΔΑΣ is sometimes written on the exergual line (Fig. 67), or (abbreviated) on a diptychon before the head of Herakles. 129
FIG. 67. The following gold coin (which is more probably of Camarina than of Catana) belongs to the close of this period :—
To the close of this period also belong the following beautiful didrachms :— FIG. 68.
The smaller silver coins are litrae weighing 13 grs. maximum.
Concerning these coins Poole remarks (l. c.) that nothing can be more striking than the agreement of the coin-types with the words of Pindar, with both, the Nymph Kamarina holds the foremost but not the highest place in the local worship, with both, Athena is the tutelary divinity, with both, the reverence for the river Hipparis is associated with that for the sacred lake.’ 130
The bronze coins of Camarina yield a litra of 221 grs. Cf. remarks on the bronze money of Agrigentum, p. 122, and Himera, p. 146.
Circ. B.C. 413 (?)-405.
Circ. B.C. 339.
In the time of Timoleon Camarina recovered to some extent from the calamities inflicted upon her by the Carthaginians (Diod. xvi. 82). It is to this period that both style and types of the following coins seem to point:—
After this time no coins of Camarina are known. Campani. To the Campanian mercenaries of Dionysius are usually attributed the following coins, of which the large bronze is struck over a Syracusan bronze litra (Holm, Nos. 370-2). They have also been given to Tauromenium (Head Syracuse, p. 36), and Mataurus (Hill Sicily, p. 185). The monogram may consist of the letters ΚΑΜ.
Circ. B.C. 344-339.
For other coins struck by the Campanians in Sicily see Aetna, Entella, Nacona, and Tyrrheni.
Before Circ. B.C. 476.
FIG. 69. 131
In style these tetradrachms are decidedly in advance of the contemporary coins of most other Sicilian cities. With regard to the meaning of the types, it is perhaps preferable to look upon the bull as the river-god Amenanos (who on later coins is represented in human form) rather than, with Eckhel, as the tauriform Dionysos. The figure of Nike on the reverse may be compared with the winged figure of Nike-Terina (see Terina). They are both doubtless agonistic types.
The form of the fulmen on these coins is unusual.
Coinage of Katane under the name of Aetna.
B.C. 476-461. FIG. 70.
This unique coin, now in the Brussels Cabinet (bequest of the Baron de Hirsch), is in many ways highly instructive as showing the point of development which art had attained in Sicily between B.C. 476 and 461. The scarabaei of Aetna were remarkable for their enormous size (cf. Schol. Ar. Pac., 73), hence the scarab as a symbol on the obverse. 132
As Mount Aetna was also famous for its prolific vines (cf. Strab., p. 269), Zeus Αιτναιος, under whose special protection the city of Aetna was placed, is appropriately shown as resting on a vine-staff. The pine-tree is also a local symbol no less characteristic than the vine-staff, for the slopes of Mount Aetna were at one time richly clad with pine and fir trees, την Αιτνην ορος γεμον κατ’ εκεινους τους χρονους πολυτελους ελατης τε και πευκης (Diod. xiv. 42). Cf. Pindar, Pyth. i. 53. For a full account of this coin see Num. Chron., 1883, p. 171.
The Aetnaeans, expelled B.C. 461, retired to a neighbouring stronghold called Inessa, to which they transferred the name of Aetna. For the coins struck at this new Aetna, see p. 119.
Coinage of Katane after the restoration.
B.C. 461-413. Inscr. ΚΑΤΑΝΑΙΟΝ or ΚΑΤΑΝΑΙΟS, never ΚΑΤΑΝΑΙΩΝ.
FIG. 71.
Circ. B.C. 413-404.
Katane was for a time the head-quarters of the Athenians during their expedition against Syracuse. The finest coins date from this time until the capture of the city by Dionysius in B.C. 404, when, according to his frequent practice, he sold the population into slavery and gave up the city to his Campanian mercenaries. For a gold coin of this period, which may belong to Catana, see Camarina. The tetradrachms of this period always have the inscr. ΚΑΤΑΝΑΙΩΝ. The heads of Amenanos (?) in profile resemble those of the previous period, but belong to a more advanced stage of art (Imhoof MG, Pl. A. 17). 133
The horses of the chariot on the reverse are in rapid action. On one beautiful specimen, signed on the reverse by the Syracusan engraver Euainetos, the chariot is seen wheeling round the goal. Aquatic symbols, such as a crab or a crayfish, are often added on one or other side of the coin. One piece is signed by an artist named ΠΡΟΚΛΗΣ who worked also for the Naxian mint (Weil, Winckcelmanns-Programm, 1884, Pl. II. 12). The following are the most important silver coins of this time:—
FIG. 72. Of this coin a variety (without bow and lyre), signed by the engraver Herakleidas, shows a laureate head facing with loose hair (Fig. 72). On some specimens the Nike holding wreath and caduceus is descending through the air in an upright posture towards the charioteer. Some of the heads on the Catanaean tetradrachms are bound with a plain taenia in place of the laurel-wreath; all such (and apparently some also which are laureate) are heads of the river Amenanos, although he is without the characteristic horn of the river-god. On the following small denominations Amenanos is represented as a horned youth:—
134
About B.C. 404 is to be dated an alliance coin of Katane and Leontini.
There are not many bronze coins of Katane which can be attributed to the best period of art. The following may, however, be mentioned :—
Of the subsequent history of Katane we possess very slight information. We know that the city continued to exist, but it does not seem to have struck any coins for more than a century. During the First Punic War it submitted to Rome, and under the Roman rule it attained great prosperity. The bronze coins of Catana, which belong chiefly to the end of the third and to the second century, are very numerous.
With marks of value.
Λασιος is probably a local name of Dionysos. The meaning of the word, ‘hairy,’ is appropriate to the god whose characteristic garment was the hairy fawn-skin, νεβρις.
These types allude to a popular tale that once during a fearful eruption of Aetna in the fifth century, when a stream of lava was descending upon Catana, and when every man was eagerly bent upon saving his treasures, the brothers Amphinomos and Anapias bore off on their shoulders their aged parents, but the lava overtook them, heavily laden as they were, and their doom seemed inevitable, when the fiery stream miraculously parted and let them pass unscathed. Ever after 135 the Catanaean brethren were held up as types of filial piety, and received divine honors (Holm, Gesch. Sic., i. pp. 25, 339). A denarius representing the same subject was issued by Sextus Pompeius from Catana.
The coins with marks of value in Roman numerals are clearly contemporary with those of Rhegium with similar marks (p. 112). They usually bear in addition very elaborate monograms. There is no evidence that the money of Katane was continued after the end of the second or the beginning of the first century B.C. Centuripae (Centorbi) was a city of the Sikels of some importance as a strong place. No coins are known of it before the middle of the fourth century, when, in common with many other Sicilian towns, it was liberated from tyrannical rule by Timoleon (B.C. 339). It then restruck with its own types the large bronze coins of Syracuse (obv. Head of Athena, rev. Star-fish between dolphins):—
Circ. B.C. 339.
Between this time and that of the First Punic War, when it submitted to Rome, no coins are known.
After circ. B.C. 241.
In style these coins are very uniform, and they seem to be all of the third century B.C. For the correspondence between obv. and rev. types see Maonald, Coin Types, p. 120. The territory of Centuripae was very productive of corn, and the inhabitants were farmers on a large scale, ‘arant enim tota Sicilia fere Centuripini’ (Cic. II Verr. iii. 45). 136
Cephaloedium (Cefalù), on the north side of the island, stood, as its name implies, on a headland jutting out into the sea. In early times it formed part of the territory of Himera, and in B.C. 409 it fell into the hands of the Carthaginians. The mint known as Rash Melkarth (‘Promontory of Herakles’) is probably to be identified with this place, rather than with Heraclea Minoa (see Holm, No. 398). Cephaloedium was recovered by Dionysius in B.C. 396. To the period of Carthaginian occupation belong the following coins:—
On some specimens the inscription is דאש מלקדח. The work is at first very good, but rapidly degenerates. Coins were issued during this period by the exiled inhabitants of Cephaloedium, but at what place we cannot say :—
The next coins of Cephaloedium belong to the period after its capture by the Romans in B.C. 254.
Circ. B.C. 254-210 (and later ?).
Enna (Castrogiovanni), in the center of Sicily, stood on a fertile plateau, about three miles in extent, on the lofty summit of a mountain defended on all sides by steep cliffs. It was held to be one of the most sacred places in Sicily, being the chief seat of the cultus of Demeter, and the scene of the rape of Persephone. Its earliest coins are litrae of the period of early transitional art. 137
Circ. B.C. 450.
The bronze coins of Enna are of two distinct periods.
Circ. B.C. 340.
Under the Romans after B.C. 258.
These statues of Demeter and Triptolemos, the former holding in her hand a Nike, are mentioned by Cicero (II Verr. iv. 49). The coins of Enna as a Roman Municipium, reading MVN. HENNAE, are the latest which we possess of the town. They bear the names of M. CESTIVS and L. MVNATIVS II VIR[I], and among the remarkable reverse-types are Hades in quadriga carrying off Persephone, and Triptolemos standing holding ears of corn. Entella (Rocca d'Entella), originally an Elymian town, stood on a lofty summit in the interior of the island on the river Hypsas. Its earliest coins are of silver :—
In B.C. 404 the Campanian mercenaries who had been in the service of the Carthaginians seized upon Entella, which they held for many years. The following coins were struck under their occupation, but not until the time of Timoleon. (Head, Syracuse, p. 36 note.) For other coins struck by the Campanians in Sicily see Aetna, Campani, Nacona, and Tyrrheni.
Circ. B.C. 340.
138
Period of Roman Dominion.
The name of L. Sempronius Atratinus, who commanded in Sicily in the time of M. Antonius, also occurs on coins of Lilybaeum. Eryx (Mte. S. Giuliano) stood on the summit of an isolated mountain at the north-west extremity of Sicily. Here was the far-famed temple of Aphrodite Erycina of Phoenician origin. In the archaic period Eryx would seem from its coin-types to have been for a time dependent upon Agrigentum, probably, like Himera, in the time of Theron.
In the transitional period the town appears to have been in close relations with the neighbouring city of Segesta, for the reverse-type, the dog, is common to the coins of both towns. Cf. also the unexplained termination ΖIB which occurs on coins of this city as well as at Segesta and on an alliance coin between the two cities (see Segesta).
Circ. B.C. 480-413.
Circ. B.C. 413-400.
Inscr. on obv. or rev. usually ΕΡΥΚΙΝΟΝ.
139
Circ. B.C. 400-300.
During the greater part of the fourth century Eryx was in the hands of the Carthaginians, and it is to this period that the coins with the Punic inscr. ארך belong.
The last type is due to the influence of the Corinthian coinage in Dion’s or Timoleon’s time. There are also bronze coins which belong to the middle of the fourth century.
The bearded head may be intended for that of the eponymous hero Eryx.
After circ. B.C. 241.
In Roman times the sanctuary of Aphrodite Erycina was held in great honor, a body of troops being appointed to watch over it, and the principal cities of Sicily being ordered to contribute towards the cost of its maintenance in due splendor.
Galaria (Gagliano ?). An ancient Sikel town about six miles to the
north of Agyrium, founded, according to Stephanus, by Morges, a Sikel
chief.
Circ. B.C. 460.
140
B.C. 498-491, and Gelon, B.C. 491-485, it extended its dominion over
a large part of the island. Gelon even made himself master of Syracuse,
and transported thither a great portion of the population of Gela, after
which its prosperity began to wane. Gelon’s coinage here is uniform in
its obverse type with his issues for Leontini and Syracuse (q. v.).
The city stood at the mouth of the river Gelas, ‘immanisque Gela
fluvii cognomine dicta’ (Aen. iii. 702), and the figure of this river in the
form of a swimming man-headed bull forms the type of nearly all its
coins. (Cp. Schol. Pind. Pyth. i. 185 : statue of the river Gelas as
a bull.)
FIG. 73.
The type of the first of these tetradrachms is agonistic. The appearance of the horseman on the coinage shows the importance of cavalry in the Geloan army.
On some of the tetradrachms and litrae the name is written <ΕΛΑ, which is less probably an abbreviation of the river-name <ΕΛΑΣ than the nominative of the city-name. After the expulsion from Syracuse of the dynasty of Gelon in B.C. 466, the inhabitants of Gela, who had been forcibly removed to Syracuse, returned to their native town, and from this time until its destruction by the Carthaginians in B.C. 405 it enjoyed great prosperity. 141
Circ. B.C. 466-413.
The goddess here called Sosipolis is the guardian divinity or Tyche of the city. She is represented as crowning the river-god. The coins were probably issued on the occasion of some local games.
Circ. B.C. 413-405.
The period immediately succeeding the defeat of the Athenians is that to which all these small Sicilian gold coins of Syracuse, Gela, and Camarina, weighing usually 27, 18, and 9 grs., undoubtedly belong. FIG. 74.
The presence of the Ω on this and the preceding coins shows that they belong to the last decade before the destruction of the city.
This type may commemorate the victory of the Geloan cavalry over Athenian hoplites (Holm, Gesch. Sic., ii. 415), or it may be agonistic. 142
Tetradrachms such as the above, with the horses in high action, resemble those struck at Syracuse after the final defeat of the Athenians, signed by the artists Kimon, Euainetos, &c.
The corn-wreath and corn-grain which so often appear in conjunction with the head of the river-god sufficiently indicate that to his beneficent influence the Geloans attributed the extraordinary fertility of their plains. Even now the upper course of the Terranova is rich in woods, vineyards, and corn-fields.
Circ. B.C. 340.
After an interval of more than half a century, during which the prosperity of Gela was at a very low ebb (for it never recovered from the ruin inflicted by the Carthaginians), it was recolonized in B.C. 338, and from this date until the time of Agathocles the town appears to have regained to some extent its ancient prosperity, although it never again struck large silver coins.
The epithet ΕΥΝΟΜΙΑ, here applied to the goddess Demeter, may be compared with that of ΥΓΙΕΙΑ on a coin of Metapontum (see above, p. 77). 143
Subsequently Phintias of Agrigentum, B.C. 287-279, removed the inhabitants of Gela to a new city called after himself, at the mouth of the river Himeras, midway between Gela and Agrigentum. Gela nevertheless continued to exist, and struck bronze coins after the time of the Roman conquest.
After circ. B.C. 241.
Heraclea Minoa. For the Punic coins usually attributed to this mint see under Cephaloedium. Herbessus. There were two towns of this name in Sicily, one in the Agrigentine territory, the other a Sikel town of more importance, a little to the west of Syracuse (Pantalica ?). It is to this last that the coins are usually attributed (Imhoof MG, p. 20).
After circ. B.C. 340.
These coins belong to the latter part of the fourth century and are restruck over coins of Syracuse with the head of Zeus Eleutherios (rev. thunderbolt) or Athena (rev. star and dolphins).
Before circ. B.C. 482.
144
These coins occasionally bear the inscr. ΗΙΜΕ, and sometimes the letters , ΤV, or V, which remain unexplained (N. C., 1898, pp. 190 ff.). The cock may be an emblem of a healing god and refer to the properties of the thermal springs near Himera. (Cf. the coins of Selinus, on which the cock as an adjunct symbol probably has a similar signification.) This bird, as the herald of the dawn of day, is thought by Eckhel to contain an allusion to the name of the town, Ιμερα, an old form of ημερα (Plato, Cratyl. 74; Plutarch, De Pyth. Orac. xii), but this is a very doubtful derivation.
Circ. B.C. 482-472.
Before B.C. 480 Theron of Agrigentum made himself master of Himera, and in that year, with the help of Gelon, gained a great victory over the Carthaginians, who had blockaded him in the town. Theron and his son Thrasydaeus for some years after this exercised undisputed sway over Himera, and reinforced its population with a Doric colony. At the same time the old Chalcidic (Aeginetic ?) coinage was abolished, and money of Attic weight introduced, on which the crab was adopted for the reverse type as a badge of Agrigentine dominion.
The astragalos as a religious symbol may refer to the practice of consulting oracles by the throwing of αστραγαλοι (Schol. ad Pind. Pyth. iv. 337).
Circ. B.C. 472-413.
Theron died in B.C. 472, and soon afterwards his son Thrasydaeus was expelled. From this time until B.C. 408, the date of the destruction of the town by the Carthaginians, Himera appears to have enjoyed an interval of uninterrupted prosperity.
FIG. 76. 145
The worship of Kronos at Himera is proved by a coin of the next period; that of Pelops, whom Pindar calls Κρονιος (Ol. iii. 41), falls perhaps into the same cycle. The presence of Pelops on a Himeraean coin might also be explained as referring to the Olympic victory gained by Ergoteles of Himera in B.C. 472 (Pind. Ol. xii), for Pelops was especially revered as the restorer of the Olympic festival.
On the supposed inscription ΙΑΤΟΝ on these coins see N. C., 1898, pp. 190 ff.
Circ. B.C. 413-408.
Kronos was revered as an ancient king of Sicily at various places in the island, one of which was probably at or near Himera (Diod. iii. 6). 146
BRONZE. Before circ. B.C. 413.
The earlier bronze coins of Himera fall into two distinct series:—
(α) Heavy class with marks of value.
(β) Light class with marks of value.
Circ. B.C. 413-408.
Of the above series of bronze coins the first (α), judging from the tetras, yields a litra of 990 grs., while the second (β), judging from the trias, only yields one of about 220 grs. At Agrigentum during the same period the litra appears to fall only from 750 to 613 grs., and there even in the latter half of the fourth century it stands as high as 536 grs. In the face of such contradictory evidence it is hazardous to draw any conclusions from the weights of the bronze coins as to the various reductions of the litra in Sicily. Cf. also the bronze coins of Panormus. Thermae Himerenses. In B.C. 408 the old town of Himera was utterly destroyed by the Carthaginians and the inhabitants partly put to the sword and partly driven into exile. The remnant of the population was, however, permitted to settle within the confines pf the Himeraean territory, at the hot springs not far from the old city (Cic. II Verr. ii. 35). Here a new city grew up which was called Thermae or Thermae Himeraea. These thermal fountains were traditionally said to have been opened by the nymphs at Himera and Segesta to refresh the wearied limbs of Herakles on his journey round Sicily (Diod. iv. 23). Cf. the type of Herakles in repose (borrowed probably from Croton).
147
After these coins there is a long interval, for Thermae does not appear to have struck money again until after its capture by the Romans in the course of the First Punic War.
UNDER ROMAN DOMINION.
After circ. B.C. 241.
Cicero (II Verr. ii. 35) mentions among the bronze statues which Scipio restored to Thermae after the destruction of Carthage that of the City of Himera, ‘in muliebrem figuram habitumque formata’; that of the poet Stesichorus, ‘erat enim Stesichori poetae statua senilis incurva, cum libro summo, ut putant, artificio facta; qui fuit Himerae sed et est et fuit tota Graecia summo propter ingenium honore et nomine,’ etc.; and that of a she-goat, ‘etiam quod paene praeterii capella quaedam est ... scite facta et venuste.’ It is interesting to find all these three statues copied on the latest coins of Thermae. Hipana. Polybius (i. 24) mentions a town of this name not far from Panormus. The following coin was struck there :—
Circ. B.C. 450.
A coin of Motya (q. v.) has very nearly the same types. 148
After circ. B.C. 210.
The head on the first coin is that of the goddess Hyblaea (Paus. v. 23).
Coinage after circ. B.C. 241.
FIG. 77.
149
The tetradrachms where the lion (not the lion of Leontini) appears as a symbol in the exergue, show affinities with the Demareteion of Syracuse (q.v.). Cf. Holm, p. 582. The coinage of Gelon at Leontini with Nike over the quadriga on the obverse is, in this respect, uniform with the coinage at Gela and Syracuse (q.v.). After passing successively under the dominion of Gelon and of Hieron, Leontini regained its independence in B.C. 466, and, like the rest of the Sicilian cities, enjoyed an interval of repose and prosperity until B.C. 427, when it became engaged in a struggle with Syracuse, which ended, circa B.C. 422, in its reduction into a state of dependency on that city. The coins which belong to this period are the following :—
Circ. B.C. 466-422.
Inscr. ΕΟΝΤΙΝΟΝ, ΕΟΝΤΙΝΟS, ΕΟΝ, or ΛΕΟΝ.
FIG. 78.
From the above described coin-types it is abundantly evident that Apollo was worshipped at Leontini with special devotion. The lion, his emblem, probably also contains here an allusion to the name of the town. The corn-grains remind us that the Leontine plain was renowned for its 150
extraordinary fertility (Cic. II Verr. iii. 18). After Apollo, Demeter
was apparently the divinity chiefly worshipped there.
Circ. B.C. 422-353.
Leontini was revived for a short period between B.C. 405 and 403, when it issued a coin in alliance with Katane (q. v.). In Dion’s time there was a small issue of Corinthian staters similar to those struck at Syracuse at the same period, and also of bronze.
Not until Leontini by the fall of Syracuse came into the hands of the Romans did it again begin to strike money.
After circ. B.C. 210.
Inscr. ΛΕΟΝΤΙΝΩΝ on reverse.
Lilybaeum (Marsala). This city was founded by the Carthaginians in B.C. 397, a remnant of the inhabitants of Motya which had been destroyed by Dionysius being then settled there. It remained a Carthaginian stronghold until it was taken by the Romans after a ten years’ siege, B.C. 241. All its coins are subsequent to this date, and of bronze.
After B.C. 241.
Inscr. ΛΙΛΥΒΑΙΙΤΑΝ or ΛΙΛΥΒΑΙΙΤΑΙC.
This head has been thought to represent the Cumaean Sibyl, whose tomb, Solinus states, was one of the ornaments of the city. It is more probably merely the city-goddess. L. Sempronius Atratinus, whose name also occurs on coins of Entella, was a lieutenant of M. Antonius in Sicily during the war against Sextus Pompeius. Lilybaeum also 151
struck money with the head of Augustus (rev. types: lyre. head of Apollo: inscr. LILVBIT. or Q_. TERENTIO CVLLEONE PRO COS
LILVB.).
Circ. B.C. 466-413.
Fourth century B.C.
Period of Roman Dominion. (Inscr. ΜΕΝΑΙΝΩΝ.)
Like the other Chalcidian colonies, Rhegium, Naxus, and Himera, Zancle began to coin at an early period on the Aeginetic (?) standard. Its earliest coins differ from all others issued in Sicily in that they bear the same type on obverse and reverse, but in the latter case incuse, thus showing that Zancle was in close commercial relation with the South Italian cities of which this fabric is characteristic.
Before circ. B.C. 490.
FIG. 79.
The coinage of this period presents difficult problems (see C. H. Dodd in J. H. S., xxviii).
Circ. B.C. 490-461.
Anaxilas of Rhegium, some time after his accession in B.C. 494, caused Zancle to be treacherously seized by a body of Samians and Milesians. He seems to have colonized the place with Samians and Messenian s and to have named it Messene. Thucydides (vi. 4) says that he gave it the name on the expulsion of the Samians; but the following coins with Samian types show that the name was in use during the Samian occupation. Similar types occur at Rhegium, but these probably belong to the earlier part of the reign of Anaxilas. FIG. 80. 153
Another coin of which the type is still more distinctly Samian was found some thirty years ago in a hoard near Messina. There were several examples of it, together with others of Rhegium and Messana, of the lion’s head and calf’s head type (Zeit. f. Num., iii. p. 135). Another specimen was found in Egypt. They are uninscribed, and it is highly probable that they were struck at Samos for the use of the Samian e migrants.
Anaxilas subsequently introduced at Messene, as at Rhegium, the types of the mule-car and the hare (see above, p. 108). The inscription ΜΕSSΕΝΙΟΝ was eventually changed to ΜΕSSΑΝΙΟΝ, and this change from the Ionic to the Doric form probably coincided with the expulsion of the Samian element in the population, which took place some time before the death of Anaxilas in B.C. 476. The chariot-type remained unchanged until the expulsion of the tyrants in B.C. 461. The type of the hare, whatever its origin (see Rhegium, p. 109 supra), was early associated by the Messanians with the worship of their god Pan, and was therefore not discarded.
Circ. B.C. 480-461.
To this period belongs, if genuine, the gold coin (wt. 22.6 grs.) with the same types as the tetradrachm, and inscr. ΜΕSSΕΝΙΟΝ. (Strozzi Sale Cat., No. 1337.)
B.C. 461-396.
After the expulsion of the tyrants, the Messanians continued at first to strike with the old types; but in the course of this period the male charioteer was replaced by the city-goddess Messana. FIG. 81. 154
The tetradrachm with ΛΟ probably indicates an alliance between Messana and Locri, the enemy of Rhegium. About the middle of the century the name of Zancle seems to have been temporarily restored, probably with the help of Croton, to judge from a coin struck at the latter city with the inscriptions QΡΟ and DΑ (Hill Sicily, Pl. IV. 9). The restored Zancleans issued the following remarkable pieces on which the forms D and must be archaisms such as occur frequently on coins and are especially natural here when the Zancleans were restoring the old régime.
FIG. 82. 155
The bronze coins corresponding to the ordinary issues of Messana in this period are :—
In the year B.C. 396 Messana was utterly destroyed by the Carthaginians under Himilcon. The above described coins show most clearly that Pan and Poseidon were the two chief divinities at Messana. The long sandy spit called Peloris or Pelorias, with its three lakes of volcanic origin, abounded with both game and fish—‘duplicem piscandi venandique praebent voluptatem’ (Solinus, v. 3)—and was a fitting home for the worship of the two divinities to the cult of which the coins bear witness. The nymph Pelorias is the local heroine. Pheraemon, one of the sons of Aeolos, was the local hero who, with his brother Androkles, ruled over the northern part of Sicily from the straits to the western point (Diod. v. 8).
Circ. B.C. 357-288.
It was long before Messana recovered from the blow inflicted upon her in B.C. 396. There is no evidence of any further coinage there until after the death of Dionysius of Syracuse, when we find the town in a condition to render assistance to Dion against the younger Dionysius. The following bronze coins range in style from the age of Timoleon to that of Agathocles.
Circ. B.C. 288-200.
About B.C. 288 the city was seized and all its inhabitants put to the sword by a body of Campanian or Oscan mercenaries, who styled themselves Mamertini. The Mamertini derived their name from Mamers, an Oscan form of Mars. Soon after their seizure of Messana they extended their dominion over the greater part of north-eastern Sicily, and were, in a short time, strong enough to maintain their independence against both Pyrrhus and Hieron II of Syracuse. They allied themselves closely with their Campanian kinsmen who seized Rhegium in B.C. 271, and they were also fortunate in obtaining the friendly aid of the Romans, with whom they 156
continued to enjoy, down to a late period, the privileges of an allied
state. Their coinage is wholly of bronze. The following are among
the most frequent types (inscr. on rev. usually. ΜΑΜΕΡΤΙΝΩΝ):—
Circ. B.C. 288-210.
With marks of value. After circ. B.C. 210.
Reduced weight.
These coins belong to the same monetary system as that which prevailed at Rhegium. Their weights show a steady reduction in the weight of the copper litra. The occurrence of the head of the god Adranos on Messanian coins 157 shows that the worship of this divinity was not confined to the immediate neighborhood of his great temple on Mt. Aetna (cf. Plut. Tim. 12
Αδρανο θεου τιμωμενου διαφεροντως εν ολη Σικελια), in the sacred enclosure of which more than a thousand splendid dogs were kept, which, according to Aelian (Hist. An. xi. 20), appear to have been the Mt. St. Bernard
dogs of antiquity, friendly guides to strangers who had lost their path. Adranos was an armed god, and partook of the nature both of Ares and of Hephaestos. His cultus was probably introduced into Sicily by the Phoenicians, and he seems to be identical in origin with Adar or Moloch, to whom the dog was also sacred (Movers, i. 340, 405).
Morgantina was a Sikel town of some importance, which lay in the fertile plain watered by the upper courses of the river Symaethus and its tributaries. Although it is often mentioned by ancient writers, we have no connected account of its history. Its coins may be classified by style in the following periods:—
Circ. B.C. 460.
Circ. B.C. 420-400.
The above coins seem to refer, though it is not clear in what sense, to the relations of Morgantina with Gela and Camarina; in the peace of Gela (B.C. 424) Morgantina was ceded to Camarina (Thuc. iv. 65; see Holm, iii. p. 637).
BRONZE. Circ. B.C. 340.
The type of the eagle on the serpent perhaps refers to the omen seen by Timoleon before the battle on the Crimissus (Plut. Tim. 26). Alkos is probably the name of the local god (Apollo ?). Motya (i. e. ‘spinning factory'—Schroeder, Phoen. Sprache, p. 279) was a Phoenician emporium on a small islet (S. Pantaleo) which lay off the west coast of Sicily, about five miles north of the Lilybaean promontory. The island was united to the mainland by an artificial mole. Possessing a good harbor, Motya rose to be the chief naval station of 158
the Carthaginians, and so remained until in B.C. 397 it was attacked by Dionysius, who put all the inhabitants to the sword. The coins of Motya, like those of the other Carthaginian settlements of Sicily, are imitated from the money of the Greeks, chiefly from the coins of the nearest important town, Segesta, but also from those of Agrigentum, Himera, &c. Sometimes they bear the Punic inscr. המטוא, sometimes the Greek ΜΟΤΥΑΙΟΝ.
Coins with Punic inscr. Circ. B.C. 480-413.
Circ. B.C. 413-397.
Coins with Greek inscr. Archaic and Transitional.
Mytistratus (Marianopoli) was a strongly fortified place in the interior of the island (Imhoof MG, p. 24). Its coins are of bronze and belong to about the time of Timoleon, being usually struck over Syracusan bronze.
Circ. B.C. 340.
159
Before circ. B.C. 400.
In the first half of the fourth century Nacona was held by Campanian mercenaries who had come over to Sicily in B.C. 412, just too late to help the Athenians against Syracuse. These soldiers of fortune, after serving the Carthaginians for a time, subsequently settled at various inland cities, among which, as we learn from the coins, were Nacona, Entella, and Aetna.
Circ. B.C. 357-317.
A number of coins reading Ν or ΝΑ, or uninscribed, may perhaps have been struck at Nacona (Imhoof, N. Z., 1886, pp. 258 ff.) :—
Early fourth century B.C.
After circ. B.C. 241.
Naxus (Capo di Schiso) was the most ancient Greek settlement in Sicily: it was a colony from Chalcis, founded about B.C. 735, and derived its name, we may suppose, from a preponderating contingent from the island of Naxos. Of the early history of this place little is known, but between B.C. 498 and 476 it passed successively under the dominion of Hippocrates of Gela and of Gelon and Hieron of Syracuse. In B.C. 476 its inhabitants were transferred to Leontini. In B.C. 461 it seems to have recovered its autonomy, which it retained until its destruction in B.C. 404 by Dionysius.
Before circ. B.C. 480. Aeginetic (?) Standard.
FIG. 83. 160
Some specimens of these early drachms of Aeginetic (?) weight (see p. 115, supra) are of extremely archaic style and seem to belong to a period not later than the middle of the sixth century.
Circ. B.C. 461-413. Attic standard.
FIG. 84.
FIG. 85.
Circ. B.C. 413-404.
161
In the Berlin Museum there is a diobol which in style and type resembles the coin with ΠΡΟΚΑΗΣ, but instead of ΝΑΞΙΩΝ on obv. it reads ΝΕΟΠΟ on rev. (Weil Künstlerinschriften Pl. II. 13). It is supposed by Holm (Gesch. Sic., ii. 432; iii. 627) that these pieces were issued by the Naxians at Mylae, where they found a new home (Diod. xiv. 87), after the destruction of their old town.
The river here called Assinos is either the Asines of Pliny (iii. 88) and the Akesines of Thucydides (iv. 25), the modern Cantara, or the torrent S. Venera, which is nearer to Naxus. Neopolis. See Naxus, supra. Panormus (Palermo) was the most important of all the Phoenician towns in Sicily. Its Greek name, however, is sufficient to show that here, as everywhere else in Sicily, the Greek language was predominant, at least in early times. Before the great repulse of the Carthaginians at Himera, in B.C. 480, no coins whatever were struck at Panormus. No Phoenician people had in those early days adopted the use of money. It was doubtless due to the victory of Gelon at Himera that the Greeks were able to extend their language and civilization even to the Phoenician settlements in the western portion of the island. Hence in the Transitional period the coins of Panormus bear for the most part Greek inscriptions.
Circ. B.C. 480-409.
A few, however, have the Punic inscr. ציץ (ziz), of which many explanations have been offered, none of them thoroughly satisfactory.
The word ΖΙΒ occurs frequently on coins of both Segesta and Eryx. Its juxtaposition on this coin with the equally unexplained Phoenician ziz, looks as if it were a Greek transcript of the same word. On the many 162
suggested interpretations of ziz (see Holm, iii. p. 647 f.), the most probable is that it is simply the Phoenician name for Panormus.
The signal successes of the Carthaginian arms in Sicily between B.C. 409 and 405, and the consequent influx of the precious metals from the devastated Greek towns into Panormus, led to the coinage by the latter of money on a far more liberal scale than before. The Greek language now completely disappears, but it is curious to note how from an entire lack of artistic originality the Phoenicians in Sicily were driven to-copy the types of the money of various other towns, e. g. Syracuse, Segesta, Himera, Agrigentum, Camarina, Gela, &c.
After circ. B.C. 409. (ציץ usually on rev.)
The inscr. on the last described coins sometimes runs שבעל ציץ (=shbaal ziz) ‘of the citizens of Panormus’ (?).
Bronze with marks of value.
The following bronze coins may be assigned to the latter part of the fifth century :—
Cf. also an onkia with same obv. type and an uncertain Punic inscr. (Imhoof, N. Z., 1886, p. 248, No. 18). This whole group is assigned by Imhoof to Solus. The weight of the litra, of which these coins are fractions, can hardly be ascertained. The hemilitron yields a litra of 380 grs., while the trias points to one of 604 grs. 163
Bronze without marks of value.
Circ. B.C. 400-254.
Panormus (?), perhaps in common with several of the western cities which joined Timoleon’s league, probably issued the following drachms which seem to refer to the victory of the Crimissus :—
In B.C. 254 Panormus was captured by the Romans, under whose rule it retained its municipal freedom, and remained for many years one of the principal cities of the island.
Bronze, with Greek inscr. ΠΑΝΟΡΜΙΤΑΝ, ΠΑΝΟΡΜΙ, or ΠΑΡ
(in monogram).
After B.C. 254.
Later than the above is a series of coins with, on the reverse, the Latin inscription ΠΟR (for P[an]or[mus]? or Por[tus]?) in monogram. Obv. Heads of Janus (on the as), Zeus (on the semis), or Demeter (on the quadrans). See Bahrfeldt, Die röm.-sicil. Münzen (Geneva, 1904). In the time of Augustus, Panormus received a Roman colony (Strab. vi. 272). Its bronze coins continued to be issued for some time longer, bearing the names of various resident magistrates, e. g. Aqu(illius), M. Aur(elius), Q. B(aebius?), L. (Caecilius) Me(tellus), Cn. Dom. 164
Proc(ulus), Laetor(ius) II VIR, Q. Fab(ius) Ma(ximus), L. Gn., Cato,
S. Pos(tumius), etc. These coins as a rule follow the Roman system.
the As being distinguished by the head of Janus, the Semis by that of Zeus, and the Quadrans by that of Herakles or Apollo. On some specimens the inscription is written PANHORMITANORVM. The heads of Augustus (Hill Sicily, Pl. XIV. 17) and Livia also occur.
Paropus (Polyb. i. 24) probably stood at Collesano, south-west of Cephaloedium. It coined in bronze during the period of Roman dominion after the end of the First Punic War.
After circ. B.C. 241.
Petra (Petralia), an inland town near the sources of the southern Himeras. It struck bronze money after the end of the First Punic War.
After circ. B.C. 241.
Circ. B.C. 415-400.
In style the head on this coin bears a striking resemblance to the laureate head on the tetradrachms of Katane (B. M. C., Sicily, p. 45, No. 25). Piacus may have been situated somewhere in the vicinity of that town. 165
coin-types were copied both at Motya and Eryx on the west and at Panormus on the east of Segesta.
Circ. B.C. 480-461.
FIG. 86. Inscr. SΑΓΕΣΤΑΙΙΒ, ΣΕΓΕΣΤΑΙΙΒΕΜΙ, ΣΕΓΕΣΤΑΙΙΕ, SΕΓΕSΤΑΙΙΑ or SΕΓΕΣΤΑΙΙΟΝ, usually retrograde. (For the various theories as to the meaning of the terminations ΖΙΒ, ΖΙΒΕΜΙ, ΖΙΑ, or ΖΙΕ, see the summary in Holm, iii. pp. 599, 600.) Types:—
To the same period belongs an alliance coin (litra) with Eryx, obv. Head of Segesta facing, ΣΕΓΕΣΤΑΙΟΝ; rev. Dog, ΕΡVΚΙΝΟΝ (Holm. No. 95 a).
Circ. B.C. 461-415.
Circ. B.C. 415-409.
FIG. 87. 166
The young hunter on the beautiful tetradrachms of Segesta is probably the river Krimissos, who, according to Aelian (Var. Hist. ii. 33), was worshipped at Segesta in human form; Αιγεσταιοι δε τον Πορπακα και τον Κριμισον και τον Τελμισσον εν ανδρων ειδει τιμωσι. The dog, his special attribute, serves here to distinguish the figure. On the didrachms the same river is symbolized by the dog. BRONZE. Before B.C. 409.
From the weights of these coins we can form no idea of the real weight of the copper litra, as the tetras of which the weight is 139 grs. yields a litra of 417 grs., while the hexas (wt. 86 grs.) yields one of 516 grs. Cf. B. M. C., Sicily, p. 136. For more than a century and a half Segesta was a mere dependency of Panormus, and struck no money whatever, unless indeed we suppose that the didrachms with Segestan types and the Punic legend ziz, here described under Panormus, were struck at Segesta.
After B.C. 241.
When, however, after the end of the First Punic War, Segesta had passed under the dominion of the Romans, it obtained once more the right of coinage, though only in bronze. The Segestans now made the most of their traditional Trojan descent, claiming relationship with the Romans on this ground (Cic. II Verr. iv. 33). 167
Under Augustus we find Segesta still in the enjoyment of the right of coinage (B. M. C., Sicily, p. 137); but it is probable that there was a considerable interval between the cessation of the autonomous and the commencement of the Imperial series. Selinus (Σελινοεις, Σελινους), the most western of all the Greek cities of Sicily, stood near the mouth of the river Selinus and a few miles west of that of the Hypsas. It derived its name from the river, which in its turn was called after the σελινον (probably the wild celery, apium grareolens), which grew plentifully on its banks. The Selinuntines adopted from the first the leaf of this plant as the badge of their town, συμβολον η παρασημον της πολεως (Plut. Pyth. Orac. xii), placing it upon their coins, and dedicating, on one occasion, a representation of it in gold in the temple of Apollo at Delphi (Plut. l. c.).
Circ. B.C. 480-466.
FIG. 88.
Obols or litrae and smaller coins also occur.
Circ. B.C. 466-415.
In the great Carthaginian invasion of Sicily in B.C. 480, Selinus appears to have sided with the invaders (Diod. xi. 21). During the period of general prosperity which followed the expulsion of the tyrants, B.C. 466, it rose to considerable power and wealth (Thuc. vi. 20). It must have been quite early in this period of peace that it was attacked by a devastating pestilence or malaria, caused by the stagnant waters in the neighbouring marsh lands (Diog. Laert. viii. 2.70). On that occasion 168
the citizens had recourse to the arts of Empedocles, then at the height of his fame. The philosopher put a stop to the plague, it would seem, by connecting the channels of two neighbouring streams (Diog. Laert. l. c.). In gratitude for this deliverance the Selinuntines conferred upon him divine honors, and their coin-types still bear witness to the depth and lasting character of the impression which the purification of the district made upon men’s minds. The coins of this period are as follows :— FIG. 89.
Apollo, who on one specimen (Imhoof MG, p. 28) appears alone, is here regarded as the healing god, αλεξικακος, who, with his radiant arrows, slays the pestilence as he slew the Python. Artemis stands behind him in her capacity of ειλειθυια or σουδινα, for the plague had fallen heavily on the women too, ωστε και τας γυναικας δυστοκειν (Diog. Laert. l. c.). On the reverse the river-god himself makes formal libation to the healer-god in gratitude for the cleansing of his waters, while the image of the bull, being sometimes man-headed, perhaps represents the river in its former aspect as an untamed natural force.
Here instead of Apollo it is the sun-god Herakles, who is shown struggling with the destructive powers of water symbolized by the bull, while on the reverse the Hypsas takes the place of the Selinos. Perhaps the marsh-bird is retreating, because she can no longer find a congenial home on the banks of the Hypsas now that Empedocles has drained the lands.
169
Eurymedusa appears to have been a fountain-nymph, for one of the daughters of Acheloos was so called (Preller, Gr. Myth., 2nd ed., ii. 392, note 2).
The obverse of this coin represents a local health-goddess or less probably Persephone visited by Zeus in the form of a serpent (Eckhel, ii. p. 240). The bull on the reverse is presumably the river Selinos.
Circ. B.C. 415-409.
The didrachms of this period resemble in type those of the last.
BRONZE.
The weight of the Litra according to this coin would be 552 grs. Selinus was destroyed by the Carthaginians B.C. 409, and although the Selinuntines are from time to time mentioned in later ages, the city was never again in a position to strike its own coins. Sergentium or Ergetium in the neighborhood of Mt. Aetna.
Before circ. B.C. 480.
These coins, usually assigned to an unknown city in Bruttium, have been attributed by Pais (Ancient Italy, pp. 117 sqq.) and De Foville (Rev. Num., 1906, pp. 445 sqq.) to Sergentium in Sicily. The low weight of the didrachm, supposing it to be of the Attic Standard, is remarkable. Μ for Σ in the inscr. may be due to the influence of the Chalcidian city of Naxus, for the Dionysiac types are evidently inspired by those of Naxian coins. Silerae. The site of this town is quite uncertain, nor is its name mentioned by any ancient author. Its rare bronze coins belong to the time of Timoleon. 170
Circ. B.C. 340.
Before circ. B.C. 400.
For other coins of this period, attributed to Solus, see under Panormus, p. 162.
Middle and second half of fourth century B.C.
First half of third century B.C.
The provenance of the following coins shows that they belong to Solus.
After the fall of Panormus, Solus passed under the dominion of the Romans. We then hear of it as a municipal town under the name of Soluntum. 171
After B.C. 241.
Stiela or Styella (Evans NC XVI 1896, pp. 124-6, and Holm, iii. p. 639), described by Steph. Byz. (s. v. Στυελλα) as a fortress of the Sicilian Megara. Leake (Num Hell., p. 70) places it near the mouth of the river Alabon, which flows into the Megarian Gulf.
Circ. B.C. 450-415.
The head on these coins, although not horned, is probably intended for a river-god. In expression it is quite unlike a head of Apollo, and may be compared with certain similar heads on coins of Catana.
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