SICILY. Himera. Circa 483-472 BC. Litra (Silver, 11 mm, 0.81 g, 3 h). Rooster standing to right; border of large dots. Rev. Head of a nymph or Apollo to right, his hair bound with a tainia, and with his long locks following down the back of his neck; border of dots. Buceti 22. Kraay, Himera, p. 92, note to 291 (for this reverse). Extremely rare. With a dark tone as found and with an interesting head on the reverse. Good very fine.
From the Dr. Paul Peter Urone Collection, ex Numismatica Ars Classica 72, 16 May 2013, 312 .
The head on the reverse of this coin is usually identified as that of a nymph on the basis of another litra that has what is certainly a female head on its reverse (as Buceti 21 = CsP 112). However, that head is completely different from this one. Our head has some parallels with heads of contemporary heads of Arethusa on tetradrachms of Syracuse; but at the same time this head is also very much like the heads on kouroi identified with Apollo (for a very much later and geographically distant parallel, see the mid 2nd century BC tetradrachms of Myrina!