SICILY. Kamarina. Circa 415-405 BC. Tetradrachm (Silver, 27 mm, 16.89 g, 9 h). Charioteer driving quadriga galloping to left, holding the reins with his left hand and kentron in his right; above, Nike flying right, crowning the charioteer with a wreath; in exergue, heron flying left. Rev. KAMAPINAION Bearded head of Herakles to left, wearing lion skin headdress. Rizzo pl. V, 9 (same dies). SNG Lloyd 867 (same dies). Westermark & Jenkins 142 (O4/R10). An exceptionally sharp example of wonderful Classical style. Cleaning marks from removing horn silver, otherwise, extremely fine.




Kamarina was a rather small city on the south coast of Sicily where it was founded by Syracuse in 599 BC. The mother city, however, destroyed its colony in 552 BC and it took almost a century before it was refounded in 461 by settlers from nearby Gela. The late 5th century coinage of Kamarina is among the most artistic of Sicily, indicating that the city must have been prosperous enough to hire the best artists of the time. This impressive tetradrachm is from one of the finest die pairs in the series, struck in the years before the destruction of the city by the Carthaginians in 405 BC. While Kamarina was resettled from Syracuse some years later, it never fully recovered from the disaster, much like Akragas, and only struck some mediocre bronze and silver coins in the 4th century.