Greek Coins Sicily, Messana as Zankle

Drachm circa 500, AR 25 mm, 4.99 g. DANKLE Dolphin leaping l., within sickle-shaped harbour of Messana. Rev. Dolphin and harbour incuse. Rizzo pl. XXV, 2. Gielow pl. I, 3 (these dies). SNG Lloyd 1073 (this obverse die).
Extremely rare. Wonderful old cabinet tone, surface somewhat porous, otherwise good very fine

Ex M&M 75, 1989, 148 and New York XXVII, 2012, Prospero, 141 sales. From the Collection of a Man in Love with Art.
This attractive and extremely rare drachm is a numismatic monument to the tragic history of Zancle, a city founded on the northern tip of Sicily by colonists from either Sicilian Naxos or from Cumae and Euboea around 735 BC. The city derived its name from its crescent-shaped harbour in which the dolphin is shown cavorting on the coin—zanklion was the word for “sickle” in the language of the native Sicels in the city’s hinterland. In the centuries of prosperity that followed the foundation of Zancle, the city expanded its influence in southern Italy and Sicily by establishing its own colonies at Rhegium, Mylae, and Himera. When the Zanclians decided to found a new colony at Kale Akte around 488 BC, they made the serious mistake of seeking help from Ionian settlers seeking freedom from Persian domination. Their request for participation in the new colony was answered by a contingent of Samians led by the individuals who had raised Samos against the Persians in the disastrous Ionian Revolt and were now seeking to escape punishment. Unfortunately for the Zanclians, the Samians stopped at Locri Epizephyrii on the way to Sicily. There, they learned from Anaxilus, the tyrant of Rhegium, that the Zanclians were away campaigning against the Sicels and that the city of Zancle would be easy to capture if they so desired. Since everyone knows that an already extant city is much more comfortable after a long sea voyage than one that still requires founding and constructing, the Samians took the easy way out and seized Zancle. When the Zanclians returned to discover their homes and property taken by the Samians they asked for military aid from Hippocrates, the tyrant of Gela. Like a good friend, Hippocrates arrived before the walls of Zancle with his army, but just as the Zanclians seemed on the verge of regaining control of their city, the tyrant then began negotiating the division of Zanclian territory with the Samians! Once the business was settled between Hippocrates and the Samians, the tyrant further increased his profit from the campaign by enslaving the Zanclians he had originally come to aid. The Samian occupation of Zancle only lasted for six years before Anaxilus crossed the strait between Italy and Sicily in 480 BC and drove them out. He had, in fact, always wanted possession of the city for himself so he could control shipping through the straits. He subsequently abandoned the name of Zancle and refounded the city as Messana in honour of his original Peloponnesian homeland.