A Classic Rarity
SICILY, Naxos. Circa 430-420 BC. AR Tetradrachm (17.16 g, 11h). Bearded head of Dionysos right, wearing taenia decorated with an ivy branch /
NAXION, Silenos, nude and ithyphallic, squatting facing on rocks, head left, holding kantharos in right hand and thyrsos in left; ivy branch to left. Cahn 100 (V66/R82); Rizzo pl. 28, 16; Gulbenkian 232; Jameson 677; Hirsch 513; SNG München 761; SNG Fitzwilliam 1113 (all from the same dies). Superb EF, beautiful dark iridescent toning. Well struck and centered on a broad flan. An exceptional example. Very rare.
Located on the eastern shore of Sicily in the shadow of Mt. Aitna, Naxos was the oldest of the Greek colonies on the island, founded in 735 BC by colonists from Chalkis in Euboia, and Ionia. According to the historian Thucydides (1.100), Naxos established its own colony by founding Leontini in 730 BC, which was soon followed by the foundation of a second colony, Aitne, later known as Katane, soon after. Owing to the fertility of the surrounding volcanic soil of Mt. Aitna, Naxos developed an economy of viticulture, and along with Leontini and Katane, became very prosperous. This wealth attracted the attention of Syracuse, which subjugated Naxos in 476 BC, removing its citizens along with those of Katane to Leontini. Upon the death of Hieron in 461 BC, the Naxians were reinstated to their original city, and formed a close alliance with Leontini and Katane. During the disastrous Sicilian Expedition in 427 BC, Naxos actively provided support to the Athenians, who had sent a large fleet to attempt to neutralize Syracuse’s aid to Sparta. In 409 BC, Naxos sided with Syracuse against the Carthaginian threat to Sicily, but in 403 BC, the tyrant Dionysios of Syracuse turned against the Naxians, destroying the city and selling the women and children into slavery.
Between 430 and 420 BC, when Naxos was establishing its alliance in Sicily and assisting Athens, this tetradrachm was struck. With only one obverse and five reverse dies identified, the issue was apparently very short, and served a specific purpose for which we may only speculate today. Unlike the earlier archaic style tetradrachms, struck shortly after Naxian independence from Syracuse in 461 BC, these coins display a genuine classical style, with lifelike depictions of Dionysos, the god of the vine, on the obverse and Silenos on the reverse. The god’s languid eye and countenance are now more physiologically correct, replacing the earlier Archaic conventions. The hair of his head and beard are now tousled, and the diadem, with its interweaving ivy, is less formalized than earlier, with the ear now overlapping the diadem. Here too, the satyr Silenos is a more rounded version than that of the Aitna Master’s and a depiction much nearer his traditional description as a fleshy individual with a paunch and a round, balding head. A half-man-half goat follower of Dionysos, these satyrs were often depicted in an ithyphallic state as they pursued the god’s female attendants, the mainads. Silenos was the oldest, wisest, and most drunken of the satyrs, and according to Eurpides’ only surviving satyr-play, the Cyclops, he had been forced to attend Polyphemos, who dwelled in the region of Mt. Aitna, and hence one reason for its use on this coin of Naxos. The obvious reason for the choice of these types, however, is that they are direct allusions to the source of Naxos' wealth and power, her wine production.
