Sale: Triton VII, Lot: 94. Estimate $7500.  Closing Date: Monday, 12 January 2004.  Sold For $7750. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

SICILY, Syracuse. Time of Dionysios I. 405-367 BC. AV Double Dekadrachm - 100 Litrae (5.78 gm). Struck circa 396 BC. [S]URAKOSIWN, head of Arethusa left, hair in ampyx and sphendone decorated with stars; star behind / Nude young Herakles strangling the Nemean lion, club below. C. Boehringer, "Zu Finanzpolitik und Münzprägung des Dionysios von Syrakus" in Essays Thompson, pl. 38, 15 var. (obverse symbol); Bérend 43.7 = SNG ANS 339 (same dies); cf. SNG Lloyd 1420; SNG Copenhagen -; Jameson 825; Rizzo pl. 53, 11 (same dies); Gulbenkian 325; cf. Pozzi 1265; cf. Weber 1609. EF. ($7500)

From the James A. Ferrendelli Collection. Ex Coin Galleries (16 February 1994), lot 1.

Boehringer, citing Jenkins and Kraay's analysis of the Avola Mammanelli Hoard (ICGH 2122), argues against the traditional dating of circa 405-400 BC for this issue. Instead, he proposes a date of 396 BC, based on the obverse type of Anapos found on the concurrent half-denomination, the dekadrachm - 50 litrae issue (see lot 95 below), as it was that year that Dionysios acheived his great victory over the Carthaginians at the river Anapos.