Sicily, Naxos. Circa 425 BC. AR Tetradrachm (17.19g). Bearded head of Dionysus right, hair bound with stephane which is ornamented with ivy-wreath. Reverse: NAXION, frontal view of Silenus, naked, squatting on rock, holding long thyrsus in left hand and raising cantharus in right hand, ivy plant climbing upwards in left field. Cahn 100 (same dies). Jameson 677 (same dies). Kraay-Hirmer 8, same obv. die. Excellent metal, well struck and delicately toned. A superb example and certainly among the finest known. Extremely Fine. Very rare.
Estimated Value $30,000-UP.
Naxos was among the earliest Greek colonies in Sicily, founded by Chalcidians in ca. 736 BC. The town's inhabitants were driven off by the Syracusan tyrant Hieron in 476 BC. but, with the collapse of the Syracusan empire, the population returned and the city was refounded in 461 BC. Perhaps in commemoration of this homecoming, archaic tetradrachms of the Dionysus/Silenus variety were struck. The present specimen, struck forty-five years later, updates the style, converting the archaic stiffness and formulaic depictions to a more natural rendition typical of the classical age. It is truly one of the numismatic masterpieces of the later fifth century.
