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Type/Object Name: Ob:Four-horse chariot, fallen chariot wheel, broken rein, Nike overhead. | Re: Head of Arethusa with dolphins surrounding. Signed K = artist’s name, perhaps Kimon. Inscription ΣΥΡΑΚΟΣΙΟΝ (SYRAKOSION = “of the Syracusans”).

Dates: 405-400 BCE

Medium: Silver, Tetradrachm

Dimensions: Diameter 25.2 mm, Weight 17.1731 g

Credit Line: On loan to �鶹��Ѱ�����Art Museum, courtesy of John Nebel

Notes: Powerful Art in a Tiny Format

The coins of Syracuse are highly valued in modern times for their beauty. Many of them show a chariot race on the obverse, with the victorious charioteer being crowned by the goddess Nike. The reverse shows the head of the city’s patron goddess, a water nymph named Arethusa. Coins showing chariot victories were a particularly common image on Sicilian coins of 405 BCE, after Dionysius the Elder, tyrant of Syracuse, defeated the Carthaginians. This coin includes a rare portrayal of a chariot wreck, indicated by the broken rein under the leading horses’ hooves and the chariot wheel under the hind legs of the others. The nymph Arethusa on this coin wears an elaborately embroidered hair net. The dolphins swimming around her refer to a peculiarity of her myth: she was said to have journeyed under the sea from Greece to Syracuse, where she re-emerged as fresh water. The tiny backwards “K” behind her head may be the signature of a famous artist named Kimon.

Collection: Coin, John Nebel

Bibliography: 1913. Tudeer, Lauri O. Th. Die Tetradrachmenprägung von Syrakus in der Periode der signierenden Künstler Page 49 #68 A, Plate IV O25, and Plate III R42 (var). Berlin: W. Pormetter; Robinson, E.S.G. and M. Castro Hipólito. 1971. A Catalogue of The Calouste Gulbenkian Collection of Greek Coins. Page 98 #287 (these dies) and Plate XXX #287. Lisboa: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian.