Sale: Triton VIII, Lot: 72. Estimate $4000.  Closing Date: Monday, 10 January 2005.  Sold For $2600. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

SICILY, Segesta. Circa 405-400 BC. AR Tetradrachm (17.39 gm, 6h). EGESTAIWN, the hero Egestes standing right, cap slung over shoulder and chlamys over left arm, resting left foot on rock; at his feet, two hounds standing right, one sniffing the ground; [small ithyphallic herm before] / Head of the nymph Segesta right, hair bound in ampyx and elaborately embroidered sakkos. Lederer 7 (same dies); Mildenberg, Kimon, pl. 11, 22 (this coin); SNG ANS 646 (same dies); SNG Copenhagen -; BMC Sicily pg. 133, 30-31 (same dies); Rizzo pl. 62, 15 (same dies); Jameson 709 (same dies); Pozzi 531 (same dies); Kraay & Hirmer pl. 71, 203 (same obverse die). Good VF, slight roughness. Very rare. ($4000)

Ex Leu 2 (25 April 1972), lot 99.

This fine obverse is combined with three other reverses, all imitating Syracuse with great skill, including the facing head after Kimon. Interestingly, the reverse die used for these Lederer type 7 tetradrachms was a didrachm die (see SNG ANS 644-645), providing a crucial chronological link within the denominations. Mildenberg suggests that this exceptional coinage was intended as a demonstration of political independence on the part of a city halfway between the Greek and Carthaginian world, around the time of Dionysos I's peace treaty with Carthage (404 BC).