SICILY. Naxos. Circa 420-403 BC. Didrachm (Silver, 23 mm, 8.38 g, 1 h). ΝΑΞΙΩΝ Laureate head of Apollo to right, his hair rolled at the back; to left, laurel leaf and berry. Rev. Nude and bearded Silenos squatting facing half-right, head turned to left, holding kantharos in his raised right hand and placing his left on his left knee; to right, upright thyrsos before ithyphallic herm; to left, ivy branch with leaves. Boston MFA 309 (same dies). Cahn, Naxos, 110 (V73/R91). Jameson 681 (same dies). HGC 2, 989. Rizzo pl. XXVIII, 26 (same dies). SNG ANS 526 (same dies). SNG Lockett 844 (same dies). SNG München 763 (same dies). Nicely toned and of excellent Classical style. Light marks and with minor deposits on the obverse, otherwise, very fine.

Naxos was the earliest of all Greek colonies in Sicily, founded in 735 BC by mostly Ionian Greeks from Chalkis, with additional settlers from Megara and a few from the Cycladic island of Naxos, which gave the new colony its name. Very little is known about Naxos' early history until it was captured in 493 BC by Hippokrates, the tyrant of Gela. Later, it fell to Hieron I of Syracuse, who forced the Naxians to relocate to Leontinoi; however, they returned after his death. Towards the end of the fifth century BC, Naxos was involved in conflicts against Syracuse, including the disastrous Sicilian Expedition launched by Athens in 415 BC. Naxos' participation in this campaign was never forgiven. When Athens lost to Sparta in 404 BC, the Syracusans slaughtered the male citizens of Naxos and sold the women and children into slavery. The few survivors eventually settled in Tauromenion, which had been established on Naxos' former territory. Before the wars with Gela and Syracuse, Naxos prospered due to its strategic location and harbor, facilitating trade in ceramics and goods from its rich agricultural lands. As a result, it began minting coinage early, in the sixth century BC. Its first issues consisted of Euboic standard drachms and Sicilian standard litrai, featuring a striking head of Dionysos on the obverse and a bunch of grapes on the vine on the reverse. At the same time, the city also produced its most famous tetradrachm, following the Attic standard. This type featured Dionysos on the obverse and, as seen on our coin, an ithyphallic figure of a drunken Silenos on the reverse. Our coin, struck in the final decades of the fifth century - likely during Naxos' alliance with Athens against Syracuse - features the head of Apollo Archagetas ('the Founder') on the obverse, accompanied by an inscription naming the Naxians as the issuing authority. On the reverse, Silenos sits drinking from his kantharos, with a thyrsos - the pinecone-tipped scepter of Dionysos - next to him, between an ivy vine to his left and an ithyphallic herm to his right