Choice Katane Tetradrachm

159, Lot: 7. Estimate $3000. Sold for $2100. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

SICILY, Katane. Circa 461-450 BC. AR Tetradrachm (24mm, 17.05 g). River-god Amenanos as a man-headed bull kneeling right; floral design in exergue / Nike advancing left, wearing long chiton, holding fillet and wreath; H to left. Randazzo 74-5 (same rev. die); SNG ANS 1236 (same dies). VF, toned. Rare.

The Sicilian city of Katane (modern Catania) was a Chalkidian colony founded from Naxos in 729 BC. Katane was located midway along the eastern coast of the island at the southern extremity of the slopes of Mount Aetna. Its fertile territory was coveted by neighboring Syracuse and in 476 BC the Syracusan tyrant Hieron I removed the population of Katane to the inland city of Leontinoi. Katane was then given the name of Aitna and re-peopled with Syracusan citizens and a group of Dorian mercenaries. On the fall of the Sicilian tyrannies in the late 460s BC, the alien population was expelled and the former inhabitants of Katane returned from exile in Leontinoi to reclaim their city, which now reverted to its original name. It seems unlikely that any coinage was produced at Katane prior to the events of 476 BC, so any issues bearing the name of the Katanians must postdate the restoration of the original population in 461 BC. This tetradrachm is from the beginning of this coinage and depicts on the obverse the local river god Amenanos in the guise of a man-headed bull. The spirited figure of Nike holding a diadem appears, like so many Sicilian coin types, to have an agonistic significance.