SICILY, Gela. Circa 465-450 BC. AR Tetradrachm (24mm, 17.15 g, 1h). Charioteer, holding kentron in left hand and reins in right, driving slow quadriga right; in background, column with Ionic capital set on plinth of two steps / Forepart of man-headed bull right; CEΛAΣ above. Jenkins,
Gela, Group III, 235 (O62/R125); HGC 2, 339; BMC 12 (same dies); Hunterian 3 (same obv. die). Attractively toned with some light iridescence, slight die wear, trace horn silver. EF. Well centered.
Ex Leu 53 (21 October 1991), lot 25.
Situated on the Gela river on the southern coast of Sicily, Gela was founded in 688 BC by Cretans and Rhodians. Although the city had a Creto-Rhodian foundation, the name of the river is of local Sikanian origin, meaning very cold, as the water runs from the Heraei mountains to the north. Its coinage is among the earliest in Sicily and began with a prolific series of didrachms. Gela had been known for its adept cavalry, and the obverse type is likely an allusion to that asset of the polis. On the reverse, the rather brutal half-length figure of the man-faced bull swimming right is based on the ‘father of all rivers’, Acheloös, and is clearly identified by the ethnic Gelas as the personification of the river rushing to its mouth, where the city Gela stood. It was defined by Virgil (Aen. 3, 702) as 'immanisque Gela fluvii cognomina dicta' (and Gela called by the nickname of its monstrous stream).
