Rhegium. Tetradrachm circa 300-280, AR 17.29 g. [PHΓINOΣ] Laureate head of Apollo l., long hair falling in curls over neck. Rev. Lion's head facing. SNG ANS 676. Herzfelder 115. Historia Numorum Italy 2501.
Very rare and among the finest specimens known. A superb Hellenistic portrait of
enchanting beauty, work of a very talented master engraver. Struck in high
relief and with a lovely light iridescent tone. Good extremely fine

Ex Tkalec sale 19 February 2001, 18.Perhaps during the 290s, but conceivably a decade before, Agathocles of Syracuse was involved in a poorly recorded campaign in Bruttium in which he captured Hipponium and Croton. Rhegium, as an ancient enemy of Syracuse, which had burnt Rhegium nearly two centuries before, should have been involved in some way. Our coin seems closely related to certain issues from Syracuse and Punic Sicily, and moreover depicts the solar deity Apollo and a lion, which, although the emblems of the city since time immemorial, seem singularly appropriate to the typology favoured by the tyrants of the new Hellenistic world. These splendid dies could well have been engraved by the master who cut the best dies of the Agathocles Kore coinage and perhaps also those of the vastly rare Ptolemaic-type gold stater of the same ruler.