Sale: CNG 64, Lot: 44. Estimate $20000.  Closing Date: Wednesday, 24 September 2003.  Sold For $12500. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

SICILY, Akragas. Circa 410 BC. AR Tetradrachm (17.28 gm). Signed by Silanos. AKRAG/ANTIN-ON in two lines on a hanging tablet, the second line retrograde, the last two letters off the tablet and to the right. Nike driving a galloping quadriga left, club in exergue / SIL[A-NOS], two eagles standing left clutching at dead hare, the closest eagle with wings closed and head raised, the back eagle with spread wings and head down. Seltman, "The Engravers of the Akragantine Decadrachms," NumChron 1948, 16; SNG ANS 1000; Rizzo pl. 3, 3; McClean 2041 (same dies). Toned, good VF, well struck for this issue. ($20,000)

Ex Leu 7 (9 May 1973), lot 48; Hess-Leu (April 1960), lot 66.

The symbols most associated with the coinage of Akragas are the eagle and the crab. Sometime after 420 BC, the Akragantines replaced the single eagle with a pair of eagles standing on a hare, the inspiration for which must have come from the Agamemnon of Aeschylus where men saw two eagles, representing Agamemnon and Menelaos, feasting upon a pregnant hare. It has always been believed that the city's dekadrachms were issued to celebrate the victory of Exainetos, an Akragantine, at the Olympic Games in 412 BC. It seems more likely, however, that they were part of the war preparations of Akragas against their enemy Carthage shortly before 406 BC. This tetradrachm is every bit the equal of the dekadrachm in terms of development of the traditional Akragantine themes and fineness of their representation.