Signed by Silanos

Sale: Triton XII, Lot: 65. Estimate $15000.  Closing Date: Monday, 5 January 2009.  Sold For $9500. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

SICILY, Akragas. Circa 409-406 BC. AR Tetradrachm (17.28 g, 9h). Reverse die signed by the artist Silanos. Nike, holding kentron in right hand, reins in left, driving galloping quadriga left; above, tablet inscribed AKPAΓ/ИO-ИITИA in two lines (with the ИO- outside the tablet); in exergue, club left / Two eagles standing left clutching at dead hare, the closest eagle with wings closed and head raised, the back eagle with spread wings and head down; behind them, at edge of coin, ΣIΛ[A-NOΣ]. Seltman, Engravers 16 (dies J/o); SNG ANS 1000; SNG Lloyd -; Rizzo pl. III, 3 (same dies); McClean 2041 (same dies); SNG Spencer-Churchill 30 (same dies). Good VF, toned. Well struck for issue.

From the Paul H. Gerrie Collection. Ex Classical Numismatic Group 64 (24 September 2003), lot 44; Leu 7 (9 May 1973), lot 48; Hess-Leu (7 April 1960), lot 66.

The symbols most associated with the coinage of Akragas are the eagle and the crab. Sometime after 420 BC, the Akragantines replaced the single eagle with a pair of eagles standing on a hare, the inspiration for which must have come from the Agamemnon of Aeschylus where men saw two eagles, representing Agamemnon and Menelaos, feasting upon a pregnant hare. It has always been believed that the city's dekadrachms were issued to celebrate the victory of Exainetos, an Akragantine, at the Olympic Games in 412 BC. It seems more likely, however, that they were part of the war preparations of Akragas against their enemy Carthage shortly before 406 BC. This tetradrachm is every bit the equal of the dekadrachm in terms of development of the traditional Akragantine themes and fineness of their representation.