Thurium
Nomos signed by Molossos circa 400-350, AR 23 mm, 7.98 g. Head of Athena r., wearing crested Attic helmet decorated with Scylla hurling a stone and holding rudder. In l. field, TE in monogram. Rev. ΘΟΥΡΙΩΝ Bull butting r.; on exergual line, signature ΜΟΛΟΣΣΟΣ. In exergue, fish r. Gillet 253 (this coin). SNG ANS 1020 (these dies). SNG Lloyd 477. Historia Numorum Italy 1785. δδδδδδ Very rare and in exceptional condition for the issue, possibly the finest specimen in private δδδδδδ hands. A portrait of masterly style perfectly struck and centred on a very fresh metal and with a magnificent cabinet tone. Good extremely fine

Ex Leu/M&M 28 May 1974, Kunstfreund, 183 and Morton & Eden 51, 2011, Exceptional Greek coins, 15 sales.

In 446/5 BC, the people of Sybaris in southern Italy sought aid from mainland Greece in restoring their destroyed city to its former glory. Decades earlier, in 510/09 BC, Sybaris was conquered by the Dorian Greeks of Croton and the original Achaean Greek colonists of the city were expelled. The exiled Sybarites attempted to reclaim their destroyed city on several occasions in the first half of the fifth century BC, but always failed due to the military strength of Croton. The situation changed when their plea for aid came to Athens and the Peloponnesus. An Athenian-led group of Pan-Hellenic colonists was dispatched to assist the Sybarites and the site of the ruined city was reclaimed from the Crotoniats. Unfortunately, just as the Sybarites seemed about to achieve the dream of refounding their city, they had a falling out with the new colonists and were forced to leave. Once the Sybarites were out of the way, the Athenians and Peloponnesians founded a new settlement named Thurium on part of the old site of Sybaris. The name of the colony was derived from an oracle that recommended establishing the city near to a local spring called Thuria. This exceptionally beautiful and well-struck silver nomos advertises the origin and location of the colony in its types. The obverse features the head of Athena, which alludes to the leading role of Athens in founding the new colony, but the depiction of Scylla on her helmet indicates the location of the colony in Italy. This sea monster was traditionally believed to inhabit the strait of Messina between the tip of southern Italy and northern Sicily. Likewise, the charging bull on the reverse represents the rushing waters of the spring Thuria. The coin is especially remarkable for the presence of a signature on the reverse die naming the artist Molossos. The signed die reflects the spreading influence of Sicilian engraving practices in southern Italy. At the end of the fifth century BC, it briefly became common for the great engravers of Syracuse and other Sicilian Greek cities to sign the dies that they engraved. Molossos seems to have adopted this custom out of understandable pride in his artistic execution of the traditional Thurian reverse type