BRUTTIUM. Terina. Circa 420-400 BC. Didrachm or Nomos (Silver, 21 mm, 7.81 g, 3 h), signed by P.... TEPINAION Head of the nymph Terina to right, wearing pearl necklace and with her hair bound in a sphendone ornamented with a maeander pattern; behind her neck, Π. Rev. Nike seated left on cippus, wearing kiton and himation, holding wreath in her lowered right hand and placing her left on cippus. Basel 240 (this coin). Holloway, Art, 21, 5 and p. 146 (this coin). Holloway & Jenkins 47 (this coin). HN Italy 2602. Regling 43 (same dies). A splendid piece of particularly fine style, with a magnificent head of the nymph Terina of remarkable serenity. Minor die break on the obverse, otherwise, good very fine.


We know surprisingly little about Terina, which produced one of the finest series of coins in all of Magna Graecia. The city was likely founded in the late 6th or early 5th century as a colony of Kroton, but as was common for many of the smaller Greek settlements in the region, periods of independence alternated with subjugations by hostile powers. Terina was sacked in 356 BC by native Bruttians and destroyed by Hannibal in 203; however, there must have been a Roman settlement at some point as Plinius refers to it in the 1st century AD (Plin. hist. nat. III, 10). The coinage of Terina has long attracted numismatists, and K. Reglings monography from 1906 was, in fact, the first die study of any Greek coinage ever to be published. What makes Terina's coinage particularly attractive is that it invariably shows the nymph Terina on the obverse and a full-body figure of Nike on the reverse, but the artists bring the monotonous types to life by changing styles, attributes and gestures. The present coin shows a particularly serene portrait of the nymph Terina, whereas Nike, on the reverse, is shown with fully spread wings and her left leg bent somewhat back: she looks tired, perhaps even exhausted, an attitude that is further underlined by her slumped torso and the wreath she holds hanging down in her right hand, which she places wearily on her right knee.