Classical Masterpiece

Sale: Triton XII, Lot: 95. Estimate $200000.  Closing Date: Monday, 5 January 2009.  Sold For $160000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

SICILY, Naxos. Circa 430-420 BC. AR Tetradrachm (16.72 g, 8h). Bearded head of Dionysos right, wearing stephanos ornamented with ivy wreath, hair hanging in loose curly locks / Satyr squatting facing on ground, his tail falling to the lower left, looking left at a kantharos he is holding up in his right hand, his left hand is holding a thrysos upright; to left, an ivy branch is springing upward from the ground; to right, nAx5on reads downward. Cahn 100 (V66/R82); SNG ANS 524 (same obv. die); SNG Lloyd 1156 (same obv. die); Rizzo pl. XXVIII, 16 (same obv. die); Basel 386 (same obv. die); Gulbenkian 232 (same dies); SNG München 761 (same dies); SNG Fitzwilliam 1113 (same dies); Jameson 677 (same dies); de Hirsch 513 (same dies); Ward 225 (same dies); Giesecke pl. V, 14 (same dies); Kraay & Hirmer 8-9 (same obv. die). EF, lightly toned. Lovely Classical style.

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 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, Aitna, later known as Katane. Owing to the fertility of the 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 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 Carthaginians, but in 403 BC, the tyrant Dionysios of Syracuse turned against the Naxians, destroying the city and selling the women and children into slavery.

This tetradrachm was struck between 430 and 420 BC, in the period when Naxos was assisting Athens. With only one obverse and five reverse dies, the issue was apparently very short, and must have served a specific purpose. 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. The Silenoi, half-man-half goat followers of Dionysos, 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 Silenoi, and according to Eurpides’ 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.