Description
Circa 494-488 BC. AR diobol, 0.99 gr., 10 mm.
Obv.: facing lions’ head skin.
Rev.: prow of Samaina to the left; all within incuse circle with dotted border.
Ref.: E. Clain-Stefanelli, “On some fractional silver coinages of Sicily and Magna Graecia during the fifth century B.C.”, RBN 133, 1987, pl. VIII, fig. 5-6, 5-8; E.S.G. Robinson, “Rhegion, Zankle-Messana and the Samians”, in JHS, 66, 1946, 48; SNG ANS 309 var. (Corinthian helmet before prow); HGC 2, 773 var.
Very rare. Dark tone. Good Very Fine.
From the collection of a Scientist. Ex CNG e-215 (Lancaster 2009), lot 20; ex Roma Numismatics e-53 (London 2019), lot 107.
In 494 BC Anaxilas, the tyrant of Rhegion, encouraged a force of Samian and Ionians, refugees from the Persian suppression of the Ionian revolt, to cross the strait and take Zankle. They did so, and issued coins using the types from their home city of Samos: the lion scalp, which had already appeared on Samian coins; and the galley prow, in commemoration of how they arrived in the West. Unfortunately for the Samians, in the spirit of the times some five years later Anaxilas threw them out, replaced them with Peloponnesian colonists, and renamed the city Messana in honour of his own native city, Messene in Messinia.
