★ Published in Ierardi and Basel; Ex Star and Moretti Collections ★

Sicily, Syracuse AR Tetradrachm. Time of Agathokles, circa 310-306/5 BC. Head of Kore right, wearing wreath of grain ears, single-pendant earring, and necklace; KOPAΣ to left / Nike standing right erecting trophy to right; AI monogram to lower left, triskeles to right, AΓAΘOKΛEOΣ in exergue. Ierardi 88b (O18/R57, this coin) = Basel 512 (this coin); BAR Issue 23; Gulbenkian 334 (same obv. die); Hermitage Sale II 379 (same dies); McClean 2835 (same dies); HGC 2, 1536. 16.69g, 28mm, 10h.

Fleur De Coin; magnificent old cabinet tone, engraved in refined style, struck on a broad flan, very well centred and exceptionally complete for the type. Likely the finest known example of the type.

This coin published in M. Ierardi, Tetradrachms of Agathocles of Syracuse (AJN 7-8, 1995-1996);
This coin published in H.A. Cahn et al., Griechischen Münzen aus Grossgriechenland und Sizilien (Basel, 1988);
From the Long Valley River Collection;
Ex Star Collection, Numismatica Ars Classica, Auction 48, 21 October 2008, lot 53;
Ex Athos D. Moretti Collection, Numismatica Ars Classica, Auction 13, 8 October 1998, lot 512.

With the usurpation of Agathokles in 317 BC, Syracuse once more monopolised the right of coinage for the whole of Sicily, even more distinctly than in the time of Dionysios. Yet the reign of Agathokles, as noted by Malcolm Bell (Morgantine Studies I, 1981) “was a watershed for the arts in Sicily, just as it was for politics. The change from a conservative late-classical style to the new modes of the early-Hellenistic period came very quickly, within the space of a decade, and it coincided with the replacement of democratic government by the new monarchy. It is clearly perceptible in the coins that... document the full acceptance of early-Hellenistic style.”

Depicted often as a cruel and unscrupulous adventurer and tyrant, Agathokles achieved little of lasting historical importance; indeed after his death anarchy erupted both in Syracuse, where a damnatio memoriae was decreed, and in other places that had been under his rule (Diod. Sic. 21. 18). Nonetheless, his patronage of the arts left a legacy of beauty as embodied by a small number of surviving works of art from his reign, and smaller but no less wonderful objects such as this stunning coin.