The Coinage of Leontini

Sale: Triton XIII, Lot: 37. Estimate $5000.  Closing Date: Monday, 4 January 2010.  Sold For $9500. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

SICILY, Leontini. Circa 450-440 BC. AR Tetradrachm (17.39 g, 8h). Head of Apollo right, wearing laurel wreath / Head of roaring lion right; four barley grains and LE-O-NT-INO-N around. Boehringer, Münzgeschichte 37 (same obv. die); SNG ANS 225 (same dies); SNG Lloyd 1054 (same obv. die); Rizzo pl. XXIII, 4 (same dies); Gulbenkian 217 (same rev. die). EF, lustrous, lightly toned.

Leontini was founded in 729 BC by settlers from Naxos, the first Greek colony in Sicily, which itself had been established just a few years earlier. In the first decade of the 5th century the city was captured by the tyrant Hippocrates of Gela whose successor, Gelon, transferred his seat of government to Syracuse in 485. Thereafter, Leontini usually remained within the Syracusan sphere of influence though its 5th century coinage was on a considerable scale attesting the independent wealth of the community. A major political change took place in the late 460s — the expulsion of the tyrants and the restoration of democracy. This was reflected on the Leontine coinage by the introduction of new types featuring the head of Apollo on obverse and a lion's head on reverse. Apollo was especially revered at Leontini, as he was at the mother city of Naxos where there was a famous sanctuary of Apollo Archegetes. The lion apparently represents a punning allusion to the city name. The surrounding barley-grains are indicative of the exceptional fertility of the Leontine territory and doubtless refer to the local worship of Demeter, the goddess of agriculture.