An Exceptional Gela Tetradrachm

5697189.

SICILY, Gela. Circa 480/75-475/70 BC. AR Tetradrachm (24mm, 17.31 g, 7h). Charioteer, wearing long chiton, holding kentron in right hand and reins in left, driving slow quadriga right; above, Nike, wearing long chiton, flying right, crowning horses with open wreath held in both hands / Forepart of bearded man-headed bull (river god) right; CEΛAΣ above; all within shallow incuse circle. Jenkins, Gela, Group II, 172 (O46/R101); HGC 2, 338; SNG ANS 38 (same dies); SNG Lockett 749 (same dies); Nanteuil 279 (same dies). Appealing even gray tone with light golden hues. EF. Well struck on a round flan. One of the finest Gela tetradrachms on the market in recent years.

Ex Neale Collection; Gasvoda Collection (Triton XXII, 9 January 2019) lot 114 (hammer $20,000); Classical Numismatic Group 87 (18 May 2011), lot 207; Tkalec (8 September 2008), lot 11.

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).