Nomos 25

SICILY. Akragas. Circa 409-406 BC. Tetradrachm (Silver, 28 mm, 16.99 g, 4 h). Nymph, with her robes billowing behind her, driving quadriga galloping to right, about to turn; above, Nike flying left to crown the charioteer; in the exergue, ketos to right. Rev. ΑΚΡΑΓ-ΑΝΤOΣ (retrograde) Two eagles standing right on a dead hare lying on a rock; the closer eagle has closed wings and his head raised in triumph, while the further has open wings and his head bent down to tear at the hare; in the field to left, cicada. Jameson 510 = Gulbenkian 167. Rizzo pl. II, 4. Seltman, Engravers 1 (all from the same dies). Westermark, Akragas, 585.10 (this coin). About extremely fine.

From the Dionysus Collection, The New York Sale XLII, 9 January 2018, 23, ex Gorny & Mosch 138, 7 March 2005, 94, from the collection of N. B. Hunt, IV, Sotheby's New York, 19 June 1991, 55, ex Monnaies & Médailles 61, 7 October 1982, 34 (d'un style remarquable) and Schweizerischer Bankverein 2, 27 October 1977, 38.

The final coinages of Akragas before the city’s sack by the Carthaginians in 406 were among the most artistically impressive of all the Sicilian coinage of the 5th century BC. They included beautifully designed and struck tetradrachms (as this) and dekadrachms, as well as small gold pieces. While the city was immensely wealthy and must have issued very large numbers of coins during the years 409-406, after the city was captured it was so thoroughly pillaged by the Carthaginians that any remaining coins would have been seized and melted down. The coins taken away by refugees who managed to escape would have been used for sustenance and re-coined into more convenient issues elsewhere (it would be intriguing if the sudden explosion of dekadrachm coinage in Syracuse was enabled by an influx of silver from Akragas). This helps to explain why the late 5th century coinage of Akragas is so rare, and so desirable.