Beschreibung:

Sicily, Syracuse AR Stater. Time of Timoleon and the Third Democracy, circa 344-338 BC. Pegasos flying left / Helmeted head of Athena right, ΣVΡΑΚΟΣΙΩΝ around. Pegasi 1; SNG ANS 504. 8.57g, 22mm, 2h. Near Extremely Fine. Light cabinet tone with golden highlights. From the collection of W.M., United States; Privately purchased from Roma Numismatics, July 2013. Timoleon was dispatched from Corinth at the head of an army to answer a call for aid from Syracuse. When he arrived in Sicily there was no local currency sufficient to pay his mercenary troops, as no Greek coinage had been minted for several decades in Sicily and the older coins that remained in circulation were worn and of mixed origin. Timoleon undoubtedly brought with him a war-chest consisting primarily of staters (Pegasi) from his native Corinth and her allies and colonies in northwestern Greece which quickly became the dominant currency in Greek Sicily. When bullion became available, it is not surprising that Timoleon struck his own staters, based on the weight and bearing the types of his native Corinth, but with the Syracusan ethnikon.