Sale: Triton VII, Lot: 115. Estimate $2500.  Closing Date: Monday, 12 January 2004.  Sold For $2200. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

SICILY, Syracuse. Hieron II. 275-215 BC. Æ 34mm (36.41 gm). Struck circa 265 BC. Diademed head of Hieron II left / IERWNOS, Nike driving galloping biga right; N below. Calciati II pg. 393, 196, R1 4 = Virzi 1838 = Laffaille, "Choix de Monnaies Grecques en Bronze," 89 (this coin); SNG Morcom 816; SNG ANS 908 var. (A below); SNG Lloyd 1553; SNG Copenhagen 832 var. (monogram); Favorito -; Laffaille -. Good VF, black patina, light smoothing on the obverse and some encrustation around the devices. Very rare. ($2500)

Ex David Freedman Collection (Triton V, 15-16 January 2002), lot 265; J. Malter 1 (9-11 November 1973), lot 64; Tom Virzi Collection.

In 265 BC, Hieron II routed the Mamertines at the river Longanus west of Messana. This rare issue of about 36 grams may commemorate this victory and, if comparison is made with Mamertine bronze coins, is the equivalent of an octuple bronze piece (cf. SNG ANS Mamertini 401 [double of about 9 grams] and 402-409 [quadruples of about 18 grams]).

Hieron was sufficiently realistic to abandon his early imperial ambitions in favour of loyalty to Rome and the prosperity and well-being of his people. His system of taxation, adopted by Rome after her annexation of Sicily in 241 BC, and monetary reforms on both the international Attic and local litrai standards, eventually led to the introduction of the Roman denarius (equivalent of an Attic drachm of about 4.3 grams) at the time of the siege of Syracuse in 212/1 BC, and the abandonment of large cast bronze aes grave in favour of Greek-like fiduciary struck bronze.