Beschreibung:

Bruttium, Rhegion AR Tetradrachm. Circa 356-351 BC. Laureate head of Apollo left, hair falling loosely behind neck; ΡΗΓΙΝΟΣ before / Lion’s head facing, eyes looking to left. Herzfelder 115 (D71/R97). 17.18g, 24mm, 5h. Very Rare. Extremely Fine; a few minor marks, but otherwise in excellent condition. Beautifully toned. Ex Numismatica Ars Classica 29, 11 May 2005, lot 63; Ex Numismatic Fine Arts XXVII, 4 December 1991, lot 7. Having seized supreme power of Syracuse, concluded peace with Carthage, and captured the cities of Naxos and Katane and enslaved their citizens, Dionysios I of Syracuse was unchallenged in Sicily and sought to extend his power still further afield. The city of Rhegion stood as the gateway to the rest of the Italian peninsula, and so despite repeated peace treaties with that city (the latter of which had in 389 BC included the surrender of its entire navy, 300 talents of indemnities and 100 hostages sent to the tyrant) in 387 Dionysios brought war against Rhegion and laid siege to it. After defending the city for eleven months, the citizens were at the point of starvation and so surrendered. Dionysios razed the city to the ground, put the Rhegian general Phyton to an ignominious death, and sold off as slaves all those inhabitants who could not raise for themselves a ransom of one silver mina. In 356 Dionysios II resolved to re-establish the city destroyed by his father, and thus refounded it. For a brief time during this period at least part of the refounded city was called Phoibia, and here Dionysios II lived while the work of restoring the ancient city was set about. In 351 however, civil strife at Syracuse required Rhegion to be garrisoned, but Dionysios was expelled from the city by two of his rivals, Leptines and Kallipos of Syracuse, who restored independence to Rhegion. It is from this brief period, after the refoundation and before independence, that this coin dates, having been apparently struck by Dionysios to pay for the reconstruction. The importance of Apollo at Rhegion is reflected in the foundation myths ascribed to that city, which included the story as related by Strabo (6.1.6) that it was founded by the Chalcidians who in accordance with an oracle, had been dedicated to Apollo, one man out of every ten, because of a dearth of crops, but who later on emigrated from Delphi to found Rhegion. This association was still further reinforced when Dionysios II, who was estranged from his father, gave to the refounded city the name of Phoibia, to honour his 'true' father the Olympian Apollo (who had supposedly cuckolded Dionysios the elder). On this stunning type we also witness the transferral of the lion’s head, the traditional symbol of Rhegion, from the obverse to the reverse, evidently to make way for the portrait of Dionysios' 'father' Apollo, which has been engraved with consummate skill, perhaps by die cutters brought over from Syracuse. The sheer elegance and beauty of this type have ensured that it has long been regarded as one of the masterpieces of Magna Graecian art.