Greek SICILY, Syracuse. Hieron I. /i478-466 BC. AR Dekadrachm (33mm, 43.07 g, 8h). ‘Damareteion’ series. Struck circa 470-466 BC. Charioteer, wearing long chiton, holding kentron in right hand and reins in both, driving slow quadriga right; above, Nike, wearing long chiton, flying right, crowning horses with open wreath held in her extended hands; in exergue, lion advancing right / Head of Arethousa right, wearing laurel wreath, hoop earring with single pendant, and pearl necklace, enclosed within linear circle; ΣV-RAK-[O]ΣIO-N and four dolphins swimming clockwise around. Boehringer Series XIIe, 378.3 (V193/R267); HGC 2, 1297 (same dies as illustration); Hirsch 577 (same dies); Hunt I 64 (same dies). Toned, die break and chisel cuts on reverse, minor cuts and bumps on edge. Near VF. Very rare. From the Gerald F. Borrmann (Northern California Gentleman) Collection, purchased from Dr. Arnold Saslow, August 1986. Ex Virgil M. Brand Collection (Part 3, Sotheby’s Zurich, 9 June 1983), lot 30; Raffaele Garrucci Collection (J. Hirsch XXXIV, 5 May 1914), lot 186; Theodor Prowe Collection (Part III, Egger XL, 2 May 1912), lot 414./iThe story of the Damareteion coinage has its source in a passage in Diodorus (XI 26.3), that relates to the events following the defeat of the Carthaginians by the Syracusans after the battle of Himera in 479 BC. In the wake of their defeat, the Carthaginians expected harsh treatment by their foes, but Gelon, tyrant of Syracuse, imposed quite favorable terms upon them, supposedly at the behest of his wife, Damarete. In response, the Carthaginians are said to have presented Damarete with a crown of gold valued (or weighing) at a hundred talents, and from this gift was struck a coin, called the Damareteion, that weighed ten drachms on the Attic standard. The identification of the coin in question was one of the great mysteries of numismatics, due to the apparent contradictions in the story: the crown was said to be of gold, but the weight of the coin struck from it was given in Attic drachms, which implied a silver, not gold, coin. We know the metal of the coin must have been silver, as Syracuse apparently had no gold until many years after the event. Among the silver coinage, however, there is a suitable candidate that is known to have been struck relative to the time frame of the battle of Himera: the dekadrachms of Quadriga/Arethusa type. The appearance of these impressive coins was unprecedented at the time, and their style of such superior quality, that it is certain that they commemorated a particular, special event. Thus, these dekadrachms came to be known as the ‘Damareteion’ coinage, and their engraver labelled the ‘Damareteion Master.’ These dekadrachms were accompanied by a series of tetradrachms that featured the exact same iconography and style and are regarded as masterpieces themselves, only on a smaller scale. !--Silver--
