SICILY, Messana. 420-413 BC. AR Tetradrachm (27mm, 17.31 g, 8h). MEΣΣAN A, biga of mules being driven left by the nymph Messana, holding kentron in right hand and reins in both / MEΣ Σ AN IO N, hare springing right; below, fly seen from above. Caltabiano Series XIV, 516 (D205'/R214); SNG ANS 373 (same dies); SNG Lockett 824 (same dies); SNG Ashmolean 1846 (same dies); SNG Lewis 328 (same dies); BMC 43 (same dies); Jameson 650 (same dies); Ward 211 (same dies); HGC 2, 791. EF, toned with underlying luster, light obverse die rust, minor reverse die break. Among the finest known.
Ex Nomos FPL (Winter–Spring 2010), no. 16; Ex Lawrence R. Stack Collection (Stack’s, 14 January 2008), lot 2091.
In 493 BC, the city of Zankle invited a group of Samian refugees to settle in the region following Samos’ fall to the Persians. The Samians, at the behest of Anaxilas of Rhegion, chose instead to seize Zankle itself. After doing so, the Samians betrayed Anaxilas and allied themselves with Hippocrates of Gela. Anaxilas managed to suppress the Samians around 488 BC, seized Zankle, and resettled it with colonists from Peloponnesian Messenia. In honor of their loyalty, Anaxilas renamed the city Messana, after their homeland.
The standard coinage of Messana, as at Rhegion during Anaxilas’ reign, carried a biga of mules on the obverse and a hare on the reverse. The biga scene refers to the victory of Anaxilas' mule cart at the Olympic games of 480 BC. The origin of the hare type is less certain, although it is thought that Anaxilas introduced the animal to Sicily. Though the types at Rhegion changed following Anaxilas' death, the types at Messana continued to be used on all precious metal coinage for the remainder of the Classical period.
The dies used to strike this coin, although suffering from some minor defects as are the vast majority of the above cited coins, were rendered in very fine style, and the efforts of the celator to engrave even the thin veins of the fly’s wings speaks to the importance of natural observance in Classical art.
