Nomos 32

SICILY. Syracuse. Dionysios I, 405-367 BC. Dekadrachm (Silver, 35 mm, 43.35 g, 12 h), signed on both sides by the master engraver Kimon, circa 405-400. Quadriga racing to left, driven by a charioteer holding the reins in his left hand and a goad with his right; above, Nike flying right to crown the driver; below ground line [inscribed KIMΩN], panoply of arms arranged on two steps, the lower inscribed, [ΑΘΛΑ]. Rev. [ΣΥΡΑΚΟΣΙΩN] Head of Arethusa to left, wearing a single pendant earring and a pearl necklace, her hair bound in a net and with the hair band over her forehead inscribed Κ; swimming around her head, four dolphins: two opposed before her face, one, inscribed KIMΩN below the neck truncation, and one behind her head. HGC 2, 1298. BMFA 432, de Luynes 1243, Gulbenkian 303, Jameson 819 (same dies). Jongkees 3p (dies A/γ, this coin) = J. De Foville, Choix des monnaies grecques du Cabinet de France, RN 1913, pl. I, 173 (this coin). Kraay-Hirmer 118 and Rizzo pl. LII, 3 (same dies). A splendid example of one of Kimon's great masterpieces. With a head of Arethusa depicted as a woman of great power and character; very attractively toned. Tiny die break and slightly off-centre reverse, otherwise, nearly extremely fine.

From an American collection, ex Triton XXV, 11 January 2022, 101, ex Morton & Eden 96, 24 October 2018, 316, Morton & Eden 66, 7 November 2013, 340, from the collection of D. Bérend and that of the Cabinet des Médailles of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, deaccessioned in Monnaies et Médailles XXV, 17 November 1962, 419.

The dekadrachms of Kimon are among the most beautiful and powerful of all Greek coins. Kimon first portrayed Arethusa as a young and rather innocent looking girl (as Kraay/Hirmer 117) but he almost immediately altered his vision of Arethusa to one, as here, who has a fully adult, imperious beauty of great power. This change must have been made on the orders of Dionysios I, and it must reflect his own personal taste. Dionysios I had two wives, Doris and Andromache, whom he married on the same day, and it has been suggested that the two different heads on Kimon's dekadrachms are actually portraits of those two wives (the fact the youthful head was only used once, while the usual type, as the present example, was the standard issue, implies that one of the two was more powerful than the other).