Sale: Triton XII, Lot: 76. Estimate $15000.  Closing Date: Monday, 5 January 2009.  Sold For $15000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

SICILY, Katane. Circa 450-445 BC. AR Tetradrachm (17.34 g, 11h). Charioteer, holding kentron in right hand and reins in both, driving slow quadriga right / Wreathed head of Apollo right; KATANA-IO-N around. Mirone 34 (same obv. die); SNG ANS 1244 (same obv. die); SNG Lloyd 892 (same obv. die); Rizzo pl. X, 3 (same dies); Basel 324 (same obv. die); Gulbenkian 177 (same dies); Kraay & Hirmer 35 (same dies). Near EF, underlying luster. Better quality than the Kraay & Hirmer specimen.

INTRO TO KATANE: Founded about 730/29 BC by the colonists from the neighboring Chalkidian colony of Naxos, the city of Katane was located on the eastern coast of Sicily on the fertile Katanian plain near the southern limits of the lava flows from Mt. Aitna. Like its neighbor to the north, Leontini, the city prospered from its exploitation of the fertile plain for the production of barley. When it began striking coinage in the mid-fifth century BC, Katane included on its issues the local river, Amenanos, which was responsible for the fertility of the soil. Like other contemporary Greek riverine depictions, the river-god is portrayed as a human-headed bull. Later issues, however, perhaps influenced by other regional coinages, give the river-god a more youthful and androgynous appearance.

Katane's prosperity attracted the attention of its immediate and more-powerful neighbor Syracuse. In 476 BC, Hieron I expelled the population from Katane, driving them north to Leontini. In turn, Katane was "refounded" with a new body of colonists consisting of Syracusan citizens and Dorian mercenaries. Renamed Aitna, it issued a short-lived and very rare coinage, featuring the head of Silenos on the obverse and either Zeus or his thunderbolt on the reverse. This Syracusan overlordship was short-lived, and in 461 BC the original inhabitants of Katane were restored to the city, while the inhabitants of Aitna were withdrawn to the fortress of Inessa, which they renamed Aitna. To commemorate the reinstatement of its original inhabitants, Katane struck a remarkable series of tetradrachms featuring the river-god Amenanos on the obverse and Nike holding a wreath, diadem, or fillet on the reverse. Several different adjuncts, such as a Silenos or a ketos are inlcuded on the obverse as well. Such additions may be evidence of regional influences resulting from Katane's recent history. Such is the case after about 460 BC when this issue was replaced by one featuring a quadriga similar to that of Syracuse, but without the additional Nike, on the obverse and the laureate head of Apollo, similar to that of Leontini, on the reverse.

Katane continued to prosper until the late 5th century BC, when the city entered a period when it became continually embroiled in conflicts between other states. In 415 BC, Katane was attacked and captured by Athens, which used the city as the base of operations for the first year of the famous Sicilian Expedition. Later, in 403 BC, Katane fell to Dionysios I of Syracuse, who, like Hieron I before him, re-founded the city, this time with Campanian mercenaries. Katane's close relationship with Syracuse then made the city a target for the Carthaginians, who captured the city in 396 BC, and held it for about 50 years, until it was liberated by Timoleon in the 340s BC. When Pyrrhos landed in Sicily in 278 BC, Katane was the first Sicilian city to welcome him, opening its gates and receiving him with great pomp (Diod. 19. 110; 22. 8). By the time of the First Punic War, however, Katane submitted itself to Rome, a friendly arrangement that allowed the city to regain much of its former prosperity. Katane was ravaged a final time, by Sextus Pompey during the Roman Civil War, but its refoundation as a colony under Augustus resulted in a renewed prosperity as a provincial town.