Roma Numismatics Ltd
Auction XXII 7-8 Oct 2021
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Sicily, Syracuse AR Tetradrachm. Time of Agathokles, circa 310-305 BC. Head of Kore to right, wearing wreath of grain ears, single-pendant earring, and necklace; KOPAΣ to left / Nike standing to right erecting trophy to right; AI monogram to lower left, triskeles to right, AΓAΘOKΛEOΣ in exergue. Ierardi 87 (O18/R56); BAR Issue 23; Gulbenkian 336 for type, 334 for same obv. die; McClean 2835; HGC 2, 1536. 17.10g, 18mm, 12h.
About Extremely Fine; beautiful light tone with golden iridescence.
From a private German collection, formed c.1980-2020.
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.
About Extremely Fine; beautiful light tone with golden iridescence.
From a private German collection, formed c.1980-2020.
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.