Nomos 22

SICILY. Mytistratos. 354/3-344 BC. Hemilitron (Bronze, 30 mm, 25.02 g, 5 h). Bearded head of Hephaistos to right, wearing pileus. Rev. Y M and six pellets within a laurel wreath. CNS 1. HGC 2, 953. Pozzi 1133. SNG ANS -. Extremely rare, and with an interesting head of Hephaistos. Traces of smoothing and tooling, otherwise, very fine.

Ex Chicago, USA estate, circa 1960s thereby to an American collector.

Struck by mercenaries who had served under Timoleon and subsequently settled in central Sicily, the coinage of Mytistratos is extremely rare. It consists of a small issue of silver litrai and a series of three denominations of bronze coins, which all bear the head of Hephaistos - possibly a Hellenized representation of the local Sikel god Adranos - on their obverses. The two larger bronze denominations of Mytistratos are invariably overstruck on earlier coins; when identifiable they are almost invariably on Syracusan issues struck c. 375-350 BC.