Sicile - Gela - Drachme (480-475). Très rare... Lot 10

Sicile - Gela - Drachme (480-475). Très rare dans cette qualité. Exemplaire de la vente Lanz 155 du 10 décembre 2012, N° 33. 4.10g - Jenkins 187 Superbe - AU Gela, on the southern coast of Sicily, had been founded by Dorian Greek colonists from the islands of Rhodes and Crete in 689 BC, and grew to become the most influential city of the island in the early fifth century BC. Already in the sixth century, the population had grown so much that colonists were sent from Gela to found the city of Acragas. In 505 BC, Kleander gained power and became the city’s first tyrant - until his assassination in 498 BC. He was succeeded by his son Hippokrates, who - thanks notably to his cavalry commander Gelon - conquered neighbouring cities such as Leontini and Naxos. Hippokrates was killed in 491 BC, whilst fighting the native Sicels, and Gelon took power - becoming the city’s third tyrant, capturing Syracuse in 484 BC and moving his capital-city there (leaving his brother Hieron in charge of Gela). Gelon died in 478 BC, after establishing the Deinomenid Tyranny which lasted until 466 BC, so this emission would be slightly posterior to his death, and the armed horseman on the obverse can certainly be interpreted as an homage. The reverse depicts the protome (head and upper torso) of the river-god Gelas as a bearded, man-faced bull. Gela meant ‘ice’ in the languages of the Opici and Siculi (as it does in Latin), and this local river - supposedly very cold - was mentioned by Virgil: ‘[the city? the river?] Gela, called by the nickname of its monstrous stream’ (Aeneid 3.702: “immanisque Gela fluvii cognomine dicta”) and by Ovid: ‘And you, Gela, whose whirlpools must not be approached’ (Fasti 4.470: “Et te vorticibus non adeunde Gela”). Its iconography is derived from that of Achelous the ‘father of all rivers and of all nymphs’ according to Homer, possibly derived from Asallúhi, the “princely bison” of Near Eastern traditions that “rises to the su