Roma Numismatics Ltd
Auction XIX 26-27 Mar 2020
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Sicily, Syracuse AR Tetradrachm. Time of Agathokles, circa 310-306/5 BC. Head of Kore right, wearing earring, necklace and wreath of grain ears; KOPAΣ to left / Nike standing right, wearing drapery that falls to waist, attaching breastplate, shield and greaves with hammer she holds to tropaion to right; AΓAΘOKΛEIOΣ to outer left, triskeles to outer right. Ierardi 121 (O27/R77, this coin); BMC 379; SNG Copenhagen 765. 17.13g, 26mm, 11h.
Extremely Fine; excellent detail, wonderful old cabinet tone.
From the H.K. Collection;
This coin published in M. Ierardi, Tetradrachms of Agathocles of Syracuse, AJN 7-8 (1995-6);
Ex Fritz Rudolf Künker GmbH & Co. KG, Auction 295, 25 September 2017, lot 214;
Ex Hellmuth Kricheldorf Verlag eK, Auction 49, 20 February 2017, lot 56;
Ex F. Sternberg, Auction XIII, 17 November 1983, lot 97.
With the usurpation of Agathokles in 317 BC, Syracuse once more monopolised the right of coinage for the whole of Sicily, even more distinctly than in the time of Dionysios. Yet the reign of Agathokles, as noted by Malcolm Bell (Morgantine Studies I, 1981) "was a watershed for the arts in Sicily, just as it was for politics. The change from a conservative late-classical style to the new modes of the early-Hellenistic period came very quickly, within the space of a decade, and it coincided with the replacement of democratic government by the new monarchy. It is clearly perceptible in the coins that... document the full acceptance of early-Hellenistic style."
Depicted often as a cruel and unscrupulous adventurer and tyrant, Agathokles achieved little of lasting historical importance; indeed after his death anarchy erupted both in Syracuse, where a damnatio memoriae was decreed, and in other places that had been under his rule (Diod. Sic. 21. 18). Nonetheless, his patronage of the arts left a legacy of beauty as embodied by a small number of surviving works of art from his reign, and smaller but no less wonderful objects such as this stunning coin.
Extremely Fine; excellent detail, wonderful old cabinet tone.
From the H.K. Collection;
This coin published in M. Ierardi, Tetradrachms of Agathocles of Syracuse, AJN 7-8 (1995-6);
Ex Fritz Rudolf Künker GmbH & Co. KG, Auction 295, 25 September 2017, lot 214;
Ex Hellmuth Kricheldorf Verlag eK, Auction 49, 20 February 2017, lot 56;
Ex F. Sternberg, Auction XIII, 17 November 1983, lot 97.
With the usurpation of Agathokles in 317 BC, Syracuse once more monopolised the right of coinage for the whole of Sicily, even more distinctly than in the time of Dionysios. Yet the reign of Agathokles, as noted by Malcolm Bell (Morgantine Studies I, 1981) "was a watershed for the arts in Sicily, just as it was for politics. The change from a conservative late-classical style to the new modes of the early-Hellenistic period came very quickly, within the space of a decade, and it coincided with the replacement of democratic government by the new monarchy. It is clearly perceptible in the coins that... document the full acceptance of early-Hellenistic style."
Depicted often as a cruel and unscrupulous adventurer and tyrant, Agathokles achieved little of lasting historical importance; indeed after his death anarchy erupted both in Syracuse, where a damnatio memoriae was decreed, and in other places that had been under his rule (Diod. Sic. 21. 18). Nonetheless, his patronage of the arts left a legacy of beauty as embodied by a small number of surviving works of art from his reign, and smaller but no less wonderful objects such as this stunning coin.