|
SICILY, Syracuse. Hieron I. 478-466 BC. AR Tetradrachm (23mm, 17.23 g, 6h). Struck circa 478-475 BC. Charioteer, holding kentron and reins, driving slow quadriga right; above, Nike flying right, crowning horses / Head of Arethousa right, wearing pearl tainia; four dolphins around. Boehringer Series VIIIb, 156 (V70/R108); HGC 2, 1306; Randazzo 330–1 (same dies). Lightly toned. Near EF.
From the Thomas Palmer Collection. Ex Numismatic Fine Arts XXIX (13 August 1992), lot 31; Numismatic Fine Arts XXVI (14 August 1991), lot 26.
Hieron I, assuming power after his brother, Gelon’s, death, expanded Syracuse’s influence onto the Italian mainland, where he won a signal victory over the Etruscans at Cumae in 474 BC. Like his brother, Hieron embellished Syracuse with amphitheaters, libraries, and other civic buildings, and was a liberal patrons of art and literature. On the other hand, Hieron employed a secret police force, the first in Greek history, to retain his grip on power. Though both Gelon and Hieron were addressed as “king” by some contemporaries, there is no evidence they adopted the royal title and their names never appear on Syracusan coins. A third Deinomenid brother, Thrasybolos, attempted to rule Syracuse after Hieron’s death in 466 BC but was quickly overthrown and replaced by a democratic government.
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.
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.
|
