Pre-Long Beach Auction #81

Bruttium, Rhegion. Silver Tetradrachm (16.9g), ca. 425-420 BC. Lion's head facing; in right field, olive spray with leaf and olive. Reverse: PHΓI-N-O-Σ (retrograde), Iokastos seated left, holding kantharos and staff; below chair, coiled serpent; all within olive wreath. Herzfelder grp. III/2, 59 (D34/R49); BMC 14 (same dies); SNG Lloyd 684 (same rev. die); de Luynes 790 (same rev. die); HN Italy 2491. Very Rare. Uncleaned with original deep patination. Extremely Fine/ Very Fine.
Iokastos was one of six sons of Aiolos, the king of the winds who sent each of his sons west to carve their own domains out of the lands of Italy and Sicily, and was the mythic founder, or oikistes, of Rhegion. He reportedly died of snakebite, and it is the coiled serpent under the chair on this coin which originally led to the seated figure's identification as Iokastos. The olive spray in the obverse field and the enclosing olive wreath on the reverse refer to Rhegion's alliance with Athens during this period, when the city provided a base for the twenty triremes under the Athenian general Lachares, who was aiding the Leontinoi in their fight against Syracuse. Estimated Value $7,500-UP