Triton XIX, Lot: 36. Estimate $15000. Sold for $18000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

SICILY, Leontini. Circa 450-440 BC. AR Tetradrachm (25mm, 17.10 g, 5h). Head of Apollo right, wearing laurel wreath / Head of roaring lion right; LE-ON-TI-NO-N and four barley grains around. Boehringer, Münzgeschichte 39 (same dies as illustration); HGC 2, 667; SNG ANS 225–7; SNG Lloyd 1053 (same dies); Basel 349; Dewing –; Gillet 441; Rizzo pl. XXIII, 2. Choice EF, lovely cabinet tone.

Ex Numismatica Genevensis SA V (3 December 2008), lot 29.

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 to 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.