Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/696

Rh 638 NUMISMATICS [SICILY. Anaxilaus, tyrant of Rhegium from 494 to 476 B.C., early in his rule acquired Messene through Samian adventurers. The coins of both towns at first present Samian types, and then, the Samians having been expelled, Anaxilaus commemorates his Olympic vic tory in the mule-car. As this race only lasted from 500 to 448 B.C., its occurrence here, represented only in the style of the earliest quarter of the 5th century, is historically valuable. The same type appears at Messene and lasts longer. In both cases the reverse bears a running hare, a symbol of Pan. The little-known town of Terina is illustrious as having produced a series of silver didrachms which, on the whole, is the most beautiful in Italy. The obverse has the head of a goddess, who is portrayed winged on the reverse, a wonderfully fine subject, well conceived and most delicately executed in a variety of different attitudes, some recalling the Nices which adorn the balustrade of the temple of Wingless Victory at Athens. Very curiously, the money of Terina begins with an archaic coin which bears on the reverse the named figure of Wingless Victory, surrounded by the olive-wreath. Does all this indicate a religious connexion with Athens ? Though the Athenian temple w r as not built till half a century or more after the date of the earlier coin, we may well think that the worship was of older date. The artist of the later coins, who signs &amp;lt;!&amp;gt;, is clearly the &amp;lt;J&amp;gt; of Thurium, Athenian in style if not in nationality, and perhaps he had seen the sculptures at Athens. At Terina lie rules art ; at Thurium he is one of several engravers ; at Heraclea and Neapolis he merely introduces the stronger style ; perhaps he appears once more executing a master piece at Pandosia. He must have had a long life and wide renown. It is significant that at Terina the later coins have a merit most unusual in the West. Sicily. The coinage of Sicily is Greek. The Hellenic and Carthaginian colonies of the coast left the barbarous natives undisturbed in the inland country, and both issued Greek money, the Punic with a tincture of Phoenician style. The coinage ranges from the 6th cen tury B.C. until the subjugation of the island by the Romans, after which a few cities struck colonial or imperial coins for a short space. The marked periods are those of the preponderance of Syracuse from 480 to 212 B.C., interrupted by the great Carthaginian wars, which were fatal to the cities of the southern coast. The coinage is in gold, mainly issued at Syracuse, in silver, and in bronze. The standard is Attic, except the earliest money of the Chalcidian colonies Himera, Messene, and Naxos, which follows the jEginetan weight. The metrology of Sicily has a distinct relation to that of Italy. Here also there is a double standard, silver and bronze, and in consequence an intrusive silver coin, differing but little from the obol, weighing 13 5 instead of 11 25 grs., the silver equivalent of the bronze litra, whose name it borrows. The litra in bronze was the Sicilian pound, equal to half an Attic mina, and to two-thirds of the Roman libra or pound. So important was the litra in Sicily that the silver litra supplanted the obol, and the didrachm was sometimes called a stater of ten litrse, the decadraclnn a piece of fifty litrse, pentecontalitron. The leading coin is the tetradrachm, not, as in Italy, the didrachm. The Sicilian money is of extremely careful artistic work, not un- frequently even in the case of bronze allowing for a more rapid execution of the die ; and the highest technical excellence is attained. The art is that of the southern branch of the great Western school, generally more skilful than the art of southern Italy, but less varied. The earlier fine work has a naive beauty peculiar to the West and al most confined to Sicily ; all that follows is evidently gem-engravers work. These coins are remarkable for the frequency of artists signatures, which for the short period of highest skill are almost universal on the larger silver money of Syracuse, and occur less frequently on that of the other great cities. As in Italy, the decline is more rapid than elsewhere in the Greek world, in consequence of the inherent weakness of the style ; but it is in part due to the calamities of the island, as of lower Italy. The fame won by the tyranni and other leading aristocrats of Sicily in the great national contests of Hellas, in the race with the quadriga, the mule-car, and the horse, led to the introduction and supremacy of types commemorating these victories, probably in most cases those achieved at Olympia. That these victories are intended is shown principally by the mode in which a chariot is portrayed at the critical moment of passing the turning - post, by the occurrence of the turning-post itself, by the correspondence of the cities issuing the type with those commemorated by Pindar, in whose Olympic Odes the six victories in the chariot-race are all won by Sicilians, and by the direct evidence of Aristotle (ap. Poll., v. 75) that Anaxilaus of Rhegium recorded on his coins his Olympic victory with the mule-car. It is obvious that no success could be so appropriately figured on the coinage. The religious idea was maintained ; the charioteer or the horseman was not the victor, but at the same time the renown of the city was indissolubly connected with the citizen who won it. Hence these types are confined to states ruled by tyranni or oligarchies ; outside Sicily they are only found at Rhegium when it was closely connected with Sicily, at Gyrene, and in the money of Philip II. of Macedon. The horseman is not a frequent type ; the mule - car is limited to Messene (and Rhegium) ; but the quadriga becomes the stereotyped subject for the reverse of the great Sicilian tetradrachms, the bulk of the coinage, and only escapes heraldic sameness by a charming variety in the details. In the age of finest art a divinity of the city takes, in Homeric guise, the place of the charioteer, or Nice herself so wins the victory ; commonly she hovers above about to crown the charioteer. Yet more interesting are the types connected with nature-worship, especially those portraying river-gods in the form of a man-headed bull, or a youth with the budding horns of a calf, or in the shape of a dog, where Phcenician influence is found, and also the subjects of the nymphs of fountains. These types occur 011 either side of the coin. The obverse of all is usually held by the head of a divinity, Persephone and Pallas taking the first place. The leading position which Syracuse held in the island makes it Syra- proper to notice her splendid currency first, the finest for knowledge cuse. of the materials, for skill in suitably filling the space, and for deli cacy of execution in the whole range of Greek money, though we miss the noble simplicity of Greece, the strong feeling of western Asia Minor, and the simple picturesqueness of Crete. These larger qualities are sacrificed to an excess of richness and even to tricks of art. Yet the beauty of the coins and their completeness, the artist having satisfied his intention, command our admiration; and our interest is raised by the story they tell of the vicissitudes of the great city of the West, the mother of liberty and the slave of tyrants, great in commerce, rich, luxurious, loving the arts, yet able to defend herself even under base rulers against all the power of Carthage and of Athens. Syracuse was founded in 734 B.C. by Archias of Corinth, an origin which, remembered on both sides, served her well in later history. In the 6th century, under the oligarchy of the Geomori, she issued her most archaic silver money, which, primitive as 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. Gelon, tyrant of Gela, won the chariot race at Olympia in 488 B.C., secured Syracuse in 485 B.C., and, when the Carthaginians, probably by agreement with Xerxes, invaded Sicily, utterly roiited them at the great battle of Himera (480 B. c. ), 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 typo is varied, for Nice appears hovering above the vic torious 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 (Head, Syracuse, 9). These last pieces are fixed in date by the famous story how Gelon s wife Demarete, having gained favour able terms for the vanquished Carthaginians, was presented by them with a hundred talents of gold, by means of which she coined the great silver pieces of fifty litrre or ten drachms, which were called after her demaretia. They bear the head of Nice, or it may be Pallas, crowned with olive, and the quadriga and lion. The battle of Himera and the death of Gelon (478 B.C.) 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 B.C. There is a touch of Egyptian in their style which makes xis think that Syracuse may have been influenced through Naucratis. Hieron (478-467 B.C.), the brother and successor of Gelon, con tinues the same types, alluding, as Head well remarks (loc. cit.), to his great victory over the Etruscans off Cumpe (474 B.C.), by the marine monster in the exergue of the reverse which denotes the vanquished maritime power. It is to be noted that as Gelon intro duces the Nice in the chariot type, so in the horseman type we now- first see Nice crowning the rider. Gelon had won an Olympic victory in the four-horse contest, Hieron in the horse-race, though he also won with the four horses in the Pythian games. With Hieron s money we say farewell to archaic art. The female hc ads 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 B.C.) began. The victories by land and sea of Gelon and Hieron 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 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 contest with Athens and the victory of Syracuse (415-412 B.C.) seem to have given the impulse of which we here see the effect. To the democracy also belong the earliest gold and bronze pieces. The tyranny of Dionysius and his successors (406-345 B.C.) is the age of the most splendid Syracusan coins, and that which shows the distinct beginning of decline. The wealth and prosperity of Diony sius led to the issue of the magnificent decadrachms, commonly but erroneously called medallions, with the heads of Persephone and Arethusa and the victorious chariot, as well as a variety of