2021-09-18 Sat

During the violent power struggles and turbulence in Sicily following Maenon’s assassination of Agathokles, the people of Syracuse appointed Hiketas their general and protector. For nine years he ruled as tyrant, but in 278 B.C. at the River Terias, he suffered a severe defeat at the hands of the Carthaginians. The tyrant Sosistratos, of Akragas, attacked Thoinon, and the city teetered on civil war.

Thoinon and Sosistratos were still in need of coinage and likely had no time to produce new coin dies. Instead, they continued to use earlier dies, but only after erasing the name of Hiketas from the reverse dies' exergue. The coin shows a grain-wreathed head of Kore-Persephone facing left, wearing a pendant earring and pearl necklace. The reverse features Nike in a biga (two-horse chariot) galloping right.

Image Courtesy: coinworld.com