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SICILY, Kamarina. Circa 425-405 BC. AR Tetradrachm (27mm, 17.04 g, 11h). Athena, holding reins, driving galloping quadriga left; above, Nike flying right, crowning Athena with wreath / Bearded head of Herakles left, wearing lion skin. Westermark & Jenkins 132 (O1/R2); HGC 2, 519 (same dies as illustration); SNG Ashmolean 1697 (same dies); BMC 11 (same dies); Jameson 522 = Warren 207 = Rizzo pl. 5, VI (same dies). Iridescent tone, light scrapes and nick on obverse. VF.
Ex Harlan J. Berk inventory cc39638 (2 January 2004).
Originally founded by settlers from Syracuse in 598 BC, Kamarina was dependent upon its mother-city for much of its history. A revolt in 553 BC left the city devastated and partly abandoned until 492 BC, when the tyrant Hippokrates of Gela re-founded the city with groups of mercenaries. The first coinage of Kamarina, with its martial design of a panoply of arms, dates from this era. The first period of coinage ended in 484 BC, when Hippokrates' successor Gelon forcibly relocated its residents to Syracuse. Kamarina was re-founded a third time in 461 BC, by settlers from Gela. This stunning tetradrachm, with its striking head of Herakles anticipating the similar coinage of Alexander the Great by nearly a century, dates from Kamarina’s third incarnation, in the last quarter of the fifth century BC. During this period, at least one athlete from the city, Psaumis, was victorious at the Olympics, a feat celebrated in Pindar’s fourth and fifth Olympian odes, and possibly alluded to with the prize urns below the racing chariot of this coin.
The final winners of all CNG Feature Auction 132 lots will be determined at the live online sale that will be held on 18-19 May 2026.
CNG Feature Auction 132 – Session One – Lot 1-318 will be held Monday morning, 18 May 2026 beginning at 9:00 AM ET.
Winning bids are subject to a 22.5% buyer's fee for bids placed on this website and 25% for all others.
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We recognize that our users may have various Internet Browsers and Operating Systems. We like our visitors to have the best possible experience when using our bidding platform. However, we do recognize that it is impossible to develop applications that work identically, efficiently and effectively on all web browsers. The CNG bidding platform supports the latest stable major version and stable previous version of Chrome and Firefox.
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