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GREEK COINS] it is, gives promise of the care of the later coinage, and begins the agonistic types, thus indicating some early victory at a great Hellenic contest. Gelo, tyrant of Gela, won the chariot race at Olympia in 488, secured Syracuse in 485 , and, when the Carthaginians, probably by agreement with Xerxes, invaded Sicily, utterly routed them at the great battle of Himera (480 ), the Salamis of the West. These events find their record in the issue and subjects of his Syracusan money, which, however, was struck, as usual in that age, in the name of the people. The chariot type is varied, for Victory appears hovering above the charioteer, about to crown the horses, and the coins issued after the great battle show the lion of Libya beneath the car in the exergue (Pl. I. fig. 6). These last pieces are fixed in date by the famous story how Gelo’s wife Demarete, having gained favourable terms for the vanquished Carthaginians, was presented by them with a hundred talents of gold, by means of which were coined the great silver pieces of fifty litrae or ten drachms, which were called after her Demareteia. They bear the head of Victory, crowned with laurel, and the quadriga and lion. The battle of Himera and the death of Gelo (478 ) fix the date of these remarkable coins, which close the archaic series of Syracuse and give us a fixed point in Greek art, at about 479

Hiero I. (478–466 ), the brother and successor of Gelo, continues the same types, alluding, as Head well remarks (loc. cit.), to his great victory over the Etruscans off Cumae (474 ), by the marine monster in the exergue of the reverse which denotes the vanquished maritime power. It is to be noted that as Gelo introduces the Victory in the chariot type, so in the horseman type we now first see Victory crowning the rider. Gelo had won an Olympic victory in the four-horse contest, Hiero in the horse-race, though he also won with the four horses in the Pythian games. With Hiero’s money we say farewell to archaic art. The female heads on the obverse now have the eye in profile and show beauty and variety, and the horses are even exceptionally represented in rapid action. With the short rule of Thrasybulus, the last brother of the house, it came to an end, and the age of the democracy (466–406 ) began. The victories by land and sea of Gelo and Hiero had established the power of the city on a sure basis, and fifty years of prosperity followed. To the earlier part of this age belong the beautiful transitional coins in which the female heads are marked by a youthful simplicity of beauty combined with fanciful and even fantastic treatment of the hair; the reverses remain extremely severe. Towards the close of this age, beginning about 430, there are very fine works, the first signed coins, with the old dignity yet with greater freedom of style, the horses of the quadriga in rapid movement.

The victory of Syracuse in the contest with Athens was the occasion for the reissue of ten-drachm pieces, commonly but erroneously called medallions. On the reverses of these are a victorious chariot and a panoply of arms, representing the prizes offered at the games by which the Syracusans commemorated the defeat of the Athenians on the Assinarus in 413. On the obverses is the head of the local nymph Arethusa. The designs are by the artists Cimon (Pl. I. fig. 8), Euaenetus, and a third who is nameless. These pieces continued to be issued down to about 360 through the Dionysian period. Contemporary with them are numerous splendid tetradrachms—signed and unsigned—as well as the first gold and bronze issued by Syracuse. The interference of Dion in Syracusan politics (357–353) was marked by the introduction of an electrum coinage, and of a silver didrachm of Corinthian type, corresponding in weight to the tridrachm of Corinth, and with the same types, the head of Athena and the Pegasus. The Dionysian dynasty closed in anarchy, until Syracuse appealed to Corinth, and Timoleon was sent to restore order (344 ). His advent marks an epoch in Sicilian coinage. He restored the gold coinage and issued various silver coins which allude to Corinth and to liberty, and under his influence many small cities in Sicily awoke to political life as members of Timoleon’s league and issued a scanty but interesting bronze coinage. The Syracusan democracy was overthrown in 317

and the city seized by Agathocles (317–289 ), the worst of the tyrants of Syracuse. In the course of his reign he adopted the royal style, and his coins, a reflection of earlier work, give his name first without and then with the title king—a double innovation. The most interesting of his coins are those which bear allusions to his campaign in Africa.

The tyrant Hicetas (288–280 ) and the next ruler, Pyrrhus, king of Epirus (278–275 ), continue the coinage, Pyrrhus issuing money in the name of the Syracusans and also striking his own pieces. The departure of Pyrrhus led to the establishment by Hiero II. (c. 270–216 ) of a dynasty which, so long as he ruled, restored the ancient prosperity and preponderance of the rule of his namesake. At first content with inscribing his name alone, he soon not only takes the title of king, conferred on him in the early years of his reign, but also places his portrait on the money. Of his time is the beautiful portrait of his queen Philistis. The money of the short reign of Hieronymus (215–214 ) and of the brief democracy which fell before the Romans (214–212 ) close the independent series of this great city. But her name still appears in bronze money issued after the conquest.

Taking the rest of the money of Sicily in alphabetical order, we first note a very fine bronze coin bearing a beautiful female head, perhaps that of Sicilia, crowned with myrtle, and a lyre, which belongs to the time of Timoleon’s league. This coin is conjecturally attributed to Adranum. The first great

town is Agrigentum, represented by archaic, transitional, and fine coins, the fine series ending with the overthrow of the city by the Carthaginians in 406 —a blow from which it never recovered. The usual types are the eagle and the fresh-water crab, but in the age of finest art we see two eagles devouring a hare (cf. Aeschylus, Agam. 109 seq.) and a victorious chariot; these occur in the rare decadrachm (Pl. I. fig. 9), on which the river-god Acragas himself drives the car, and the tetradrachms. The eagle is superior to that of Croton, inferior to that of Elis. Many of the bronze coins are of good work. The type most worthy of note is the head of a river-god, with the name Acragas, which was that of the local stream, and on the reverse an eagle standing on an Ionic capital, the Olympic turning-post. The success of Agrigentum at the games is attested by Pindar, while Virgil (Aen. iii. 704), Gratius (Cyneg. 526) and Silius Italicus (xiv. 210) mention its ancient renown for horses.

The money of Camarina is of especial beauty and interest. Camarina struck but few coins before the year of liberation (461), soon after which was issued a didrachm having on the obverse a helmet upon a round shield and on the reverse a pair of greaves, between which is a dwarf palm. This piece is followed by tetradrachms and didrachms of the best period, most beautiful in style, and varying a little from difference of age. The tetradrachms bear on the obverse the head of Heracles in the lion’s skin, and on the reverse Athena as a victor at the Olympic games in a quadriga. It was Athena, protector of the city ( ), whose sacred grove was made more illustrious by the success of Psaumis. The didrachms have on the obverse the head of a river-god, portrayed as a young man with small horns and with wet hair. Of the two rivers of Camarina, the Oanus and the Hipparis, the Hipparis is here represented, for in one case the name is given on the coin. Pindar seems to show the same preference, for, while he merely mentions the Oanus ( ), he speaks of the sacred channels by which the Hipparis watered the city ( ). On the reverse the nymph Camarina ( ) is seen carried across her lake ( ) by a swan swimming with expanded wings, while she aids it by spreading her veil in the manner of a sail. Some of these didrachms have on either side, around the chief device, fresh-water fishes. The series of Catana comprises fine archaic tetradrachms and others of the time of the best art. The archaic tetradrachms have the types of a river in the form of a man-headed bull and of the figure of Victory, of a type remarkably advanced for the time at which they were struck. From 476 to 461, under the name of Aetna, its coinage is represented especially by a unique tetradrachm (Pl. I. fig. 10), with a wonderful head of Silenus, and Zeus as the god of the volcano holding a thunderbolt and a sceptre made of a vine-branch; before him is an eagle perched on one of the Aetnaean pines. The head of Apollo succeeds, with for reverse the victorious quadriga, in one case passing the turning-post, an Ionic column. Historically interesting is a small silver coin issued by Catana and Leontini in alliance between 405 and 403. Eryx towards the end of the 5th century produced some rare tetradrachms on which Eros is represented at the knees of his mother, asking for the dove which she holds.

Gela is represented by coins of which the archaic tetradrachms must be especially mentioned. They have on the obverse the forepart of the river-god Gelas, whence the city took its name. The Gelas is represented as a bull, having the face of a bearded man. On the reverse is a victorious quadriga, in some examples represented passing