Sale: Triton VII, Lot: 49. Estimate $10000.  Closing Date: Monday, 12 January 2004.  Sold For $13000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

SICILY, Kamarina. Circa 492-484 BC. AR Didrachm (8.72 gm). Circular shield embossed with Corinthian helmet / KAM[A]-RI, dwarf palm tree between two greaves. Westermark & Jenkins 8 (O6/R7); SNG ANS 1202; SNG Lloyd 872 (same dies); SNG Copenhagen -; Pozzi 396; Basel 310; Kent & Hirmer pl. 52, 146 (same dies). Toned, good VF. Very rare. [See color enlargement on plate 5] ($10,000)

Kamarina was founded by Syracusan settlers in 598 BC, and throughout its history, its fate was dependent on its relations with the mother city. A revolt in 553 BC left the city devasted and partly abandoned, until 492 BC, when the expansionist tyrant Hippokrates of Gela was granted the site in return for a peace treaty with Syracuse. Hippokrates probably refounded the city with groups of mercenaries from his many wars across Sicily, and Kamarina became a source for new recruits. It is believed that this is the time of the first coinage of Kamarina, with its martial design of a panoply of arms. The first period of coinage ended in 484 BC, when Hippokrates' successor Gelon forceably relocated its residents to his new greater Syracuse.