Diomedes Ancient Coins
Caulonia
We know from Pausianus that Caulonia was a colony in Italy founded by Achaeans, and its founder was Typhon of Aegium , and archeological evidence shows that it was founded early in the second half of the seventh century BC. According to Strabo Caulonia was originally called Aulonia (aulon is ravine in Greek) but changed for some unspecified reason and from Polybius [Histories 2.39] that they joined with the other Achaean cities of Kroton and Sybaris in erecting a shared temple to Zeus Homorios “god of a common frontier". See the diobol below which has a retrograde ΛVA which seems to verify the comment by Strabo on the naming of the city. Pseudo-Scymnus claims the city was a foundation of Croton, but it may simply be associated by proximity and there is no hint in the numistmatic record of any link in the types used.
Bruttium, Caulonia. Ca. 475-410 BC. AR stater (20mm, 8.05 gm, 2h). Obv: KAVA, nude Apollo striding right, laurel branch in upraised right hand and small daemon running to right on outstretched left arm, stag standing right in field before, head reverted. Rev: KΑVA (retrograde), stag standing right.
Caulonia was a member of the Italiote league set up for mutual protection against the encroaching peoples of central Italy as well as the Dionysius I of Syracuse; however this did not prevent its capture by Dionysius in 389 BC. It was raised to the ground, its citizens deported to Syracuse and its territory handed over to Locri (a similar fate befell Hipponion). Sydney Noe notes in his The Coinage of Caulonia that this date also marks the end of coin production in Caulonia. The city does however seem to have been re-established, perhaps by Dionysius II (according to Diodorus), but only to fall once again during the Phyrric wars in 280-275 BC and then again in 204 BC when choosing the wrong side in the Punic wars, as noted by Livy.
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Fabius ordered the commandant to take this force into Bruttium and lay waste the country and then attack the city of Caulonia. They carried out their orders with alacrity and zest, and after plundering and scattering the peasants, they made a furious attack on the citadel.
In common with the other Achaian cities of southern Italy, the early coinage was incuse staters on the Achaean standard (7.8g to the tri-drachm stater). The early coins feature Apollo holding a laurel branch in a pose which, according to Oliver Hoover, is clearly derived from the contemporary Poseidon type of Poseidonia. Above the outstretched arm is often found a small daemon, but the intent of this representation is unclear. Another type of Caulonia sees the Apollo paired with a stag, which is often associated with Apollo’s sister Artemis. The coinage of Caulonia has two clear divisions – incuse and double relief. There is a reduction in the flan size of these coins from the earliest at 30mm down to the size found in the double relief staters at 21mm. The fractions tend to be more worn than the extant staters.
Bruttium. Caulonia. Late 6th century BC. AR stater or nomos (29mm, 6.83 g, 12h).Obv: KAVΛ (retrograde), full-length figure of Apollo, nude, advancing right, torso turned facing, olive branch in raised right hand, pursuing Daphne running right, transforming into laurel tree with branches as arms; O above stag standing right in right field, head reverted, dotted border on raised rim. Rev: KAΛO (retrograde), incuse of obverse, reversed, save for an ethnic, Daphne, and branch, which is in relief.
The large standing figure found on the incuse staters is identified by Raoul-Rochette as Apollo and there seems to be general consensus on that. He also points out that the subordination of the winged figure to that of Apollo precludes the suggestion of Hermes as other numismatists have suggested, and the absence of a single occurrence the caduceus among the symbols on the coinage of the city is surely conclusive evidence that the figure is not Hermes. Simply put Hermes is associated with the cadeuceus, not a lustral branch, an essential part of every sacrifice. Other suggestions for the smaller figure are a 'genius' or wind-god, both pretty non-specific and attempts to associate that with Apollo seem fairly strained. Sydney Noe summaries the lack of consensus on the meaning of the type.
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Let us conclude merely that the chief figure is probably that of Apollo, presented as the city's founder, that the daimon figure still eludes identification, and that the stag is the badge of the city.
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Colin Kraay sets into context the move from the incuse stater of Caulonia to the double-relief ones in relation to the other Achaian cities using this technique (after the destruction of Sybaris in 510 BC)
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I. Simultaneous use of medium-incuse fabric at Caulonia, Croton and Metapontum.
II. Roughly simultaneous change to dumpy incuse fabric at Caulonia, Croton, and Metapontum.
III. After a short interval change to double-relief fabric at Caulonia and resumption of coinage at Poseidonia in double-relief and on the Achaian weight standard.
IV. After a longer interval change to double-relief fabric at Croton and Metapontum
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​The coinage of Caulonia remains amongst my favourite of Southern Italy. The incuse reverses may be cruder than those of Sybaris, Metapontion and (some of) Croton, but the mystery of why a smaller city would have created such a unique obverse is fascinating. As with Sybaris, the fixed date for the cessation of coinage of the city provides a useful reference point for the numismatist.
Croton
Croton was founded by Achaian Greek colonists in 708 BC and as Aristotle notes in his Politics [book 5, section 1303a] the Troezenian population expelled from Sybaris also found a home at Croton. In his Metamorphoses, Ovid ties its origins to Hercules who, while resting from his labours in the house of a man named Croton, tells him that in future days shall be 'a city of his numerous race'. Hercules then comes to Myscelus in a dream and instructs him to leave home:​
Myscelus, breathing thanks to Hercules, with favouring wind sailed on the Ionian sea, past Sallentine Neretum, Sybaris, Spartan Tarentum, and the Sirine Bay, Crimisa, and on beyond the Iapygian fields. Then, skirting shores which face these lands, he found the place foretold the river Aesar's mouth, and found not far away a burial mound which covered with its soil the hallowed bones of Croton.—There, upon the appointed land, he built up walls—and he conferred the name of Croton, who was there entombed, on his new city, which has ever since been called Crotona. [book5, card 1]
Bruttium, Croton. Ca. 500-480 BC. AR stater or nomos (22mm, 7.45 gm, 3h). Obv: ?ΡO ornamented sacrificial tripod, legs terminating in leonine feet; dotted border on raised band. Rev: Incuse eagle flying right; striated border on incuse band.
Bruttium. Kroton. Circa 500-480 BC. Stater (Silver, 24 mm, 7.85 g, 11 h). Obv: ϘΡΟ Tripod with legs ending in lion's feet, and with three handles, to right, crab. Rev. ϘΡΟ Same type as the obverse, but incuse except for the legend and crab; rayed border.
Croton, together with Sybaris and Metapontion, came together in about 550 BC to destroy the neighbouring Ionian city of Siris.​
Croton flourished and in contrast with the reputation of Sybaris for luxurious living, its inhabitants were famous for their physical strength and for the simple sobriety of their lives. From 588 BC onwards, Croton produced many generations of victors in the Olympics and the other Panhellenic Games, the most famous of whom was Milo. According to Herodotus [3.131], the physicians of Croton were also considered the foremost among the Greeks.​
Croton seems to have existed in relative harmony with the other Archaean settlement in Southern Italy. That this Achaian harmony was shattered seems to have been in no small part due to Pythagoras who had arrived in Croton in the late sixth century and asserted considerable influence with the supreme council of one thousand who ruled the city. The events are related by Diodorus of Sicily when discussing the neighbouring Sybaris.
​Now there arose among the Sybarites a leader of the people named Telys, who brought charges against the most influential men and persuaded the Sybarites to exile the five hundred wealthiest citizens and confiscate their estates. And when these exiles went to Croton and took refuge at the altars in the marketplace, Telys dispatched ambassadors to the Crotoniates, commanding them either to deliver up the exiles or to expect war. …At first the sentiments of the masses, from fear of the war, leaned toward handing over the suppliants, but after this, when Pythagoras the philosopher advised that they grant safety to the suppliants, they changed their opinions and accepted the war. [Library, book 12, chapter 9]
​However it appears that dividing the spoils of the subsequent defeat of Sybaris did not go well and resulted in the expulsion of Pythagoras and his followers. The power of Croton waxed over the next 130 years and it dominated a large area of Southern Italy until in 480 BC it suffered a surprising defeat at the hands of Locri Epizephiroi (date is disputed). Just how surprising is related by Strabo
​On its banks [Sagra] are the altars of the Dioscuri, near which ten thousand Locri, with Rhegini, clashed with one hundred and thirty thousand Crotoniates and gained the victory—an occurrence which gave rise, it is said, to the proverb we use with incredulous people, "Truer than the result at Sagra." [Geography, book 6, chapter 1]​
Croton continued to be an important city but in the early 4th century the Greek cities of Southern Italy were coming under increasing pressures from the peoples of Central Italy such as the Lucanians and Brettians, and also threat from the regime of Dionysus I of Syracuse. In 393 BC Croton revived the Italiote league as a means to protecting themselves, but to no avail – it was captured by Dionysus just four years later and never really seems to have regained autonomy for any substantive time. It escaped the rule of Syracuse in 367 BC but under pressure from the Brettians in 324 BC sought aid from Syracuse. A consequence of this was that the Crotonite elite were expelled by a new democracy encouraged by Syracuse and the city was forced to ally itself with the Brettians to defend against the elite returning with a mercenary army. Croton once again fell under the influence of Syracuse.
Metapontion
Metapontum was an Achaean settlement founded in 630 BC at the instigation of Sybaris, which was seeking to restrict the power of the Dorian city of Taras which sat further to the north-east. According to Strabo [6.1.12] there was an account that Leukippos was the one sent by the Achaeans, and after obtaining the place from the Tarentines for a day and a night he would not give it up, telling those who asked for it back in the daytime that he had asked for and taken it for the next night, and at night that he had it for the next day. As with other cities its founding myth was that it was established by a notable figure in the Trojan war, in this case Epeus. The people of Metapontum, too, show in their temple of Minerva, the iron tools with which Epeus, by whom their city was founded, built the Trojan Horse [Justin, History of the World, 20.2].
Temple of Hera at Metapontion
Metapontum had strong ties with the neighbouring Achaean cities of Sybaris and Croton and participated with them in the destruction of the Ionian city of Siris in about 530 BC. It later became the place that Pythagoras and his followers fled to when they were expelled from Croton and where, according to Diogenes, he died a fugitive in the temple of the Muses after forty days' starvation.
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Initially the city was ruled as an oligarchy but by the late fifth century BC it was a democracy, which may explain why it participated with democratic Athens in the siege of Syracuse in 413 BC, which ended in total defeat. However Metapontum does not seem to have suffered any retribution in the subsequent invasion of Italy by Dionysius of Syracuse 20 years later. Its decline is linked to its participation in the Phyrric wars with Rome, where defeat in 275 BC caused it to fall under Roman influence. It again chose the wrong side in the Punic wars where it declared for Hannibal. After his defeat the city fell into decline, and it had disappeared completely by the second century BC.
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I focus on the silver coinage of Metapontum from it's earliest issues, when its wealth would have rivalled that of its Achaean neighbours, through to the end of the Phyrric war.
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The early coinage of Metapontum follows the same path as other cities in the region, with early broad-flan incuse coins on the Achaean standard becoming thicker and eventually giving way to double-relief coins. What is consistent at Metapontum is the use of the image of an ear of barley on the obverse. This emblem is appropriate given the observation by Strabo [Geographies, 6.1.12] that they were so prosperous from farming, they say, that they dedicated a golden harvest at Delphi. This also makes the coins of Metapontum relatively easy to identify. The ear of barley is structured so that the kernels are in groups of three (wheat kernels are irregularly structured). In describing the coins of Metapontum it is common to count the number of rows of kernels using the outside rather than the inner, which can be quite worn and difficult to distinguish. In addition to the almost constant use of the city emblem of the ear of barley there is a wide variety of subsidiary symbols, typically animals. Examples of these are grasshoppers, dolphins, lizards or mule heads, and are sometimes regarded as magistrates’ symbols.
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The most comprehensive study of these coins is The Coinage of Metapontum by Sydney P Noe, who was the librarian, then curator, of the American Numismatic Society. Part 1 of this work divides the early incuse coinage into 12 classes covering both thin and thick flan types. In dating the incuse coinage Noe agrees with Head in Historia Numorum that 550 BC is a reasonable start date and in the notes to Noe’s work Ann Johnston concludes that based on further hoard evidence that it is now clear from the ensemble of hoards that the double-relief coinage at Metapontum and Croton was not adopted until c 440 BC, long after incuse reverses had been abandoned elsewhere.
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The early double-relief coinage features a standing figure of Apollo, Heracles or Achelous. One interesting note is that in the representation of Achelous the river-god is represented as a bull-headed man, a unique divergence on coinage from his representation as the man-faced bull. Later these types were replaced by portrait heads and the grain ear was relegated to the reverse. There were a wide range of portrait heads used including Nike, Zeus, Apollo, Demeter and Herakles. According to Johnston, work by Kraay on hoard data has placed the seated Apollo and Heracles head staters back to the earliest portrait double relief coinage based on the use of epichoric form of mu.
Sybaris
In his Politics, Aristotle discusses the foundation of Sybaris around 720 BC
“most of the states that have hitherto admitted joint settlers or additional settlers have split into factions; for example Achaeans settled at Sybaris jointly with Troezenian, and afterwards the Achaeans having become more numerous expelled the Troezenians, which was the cause of the curse that fell on the Sybarites”
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So, what was the curse? Since its foundation Sybaris had become a very wealthy city due to the fertile land around it and its well-located port providing great trading opportunities. Indeed its famed wealth and the luxurious lifestyle of its population lends us the word Sybarite. As its population grew it founded other towns around it such as Laus and Poseidonia.
Sybaris Archaeological park
In 510 BC it entered into a war with another Achaean city called Croton in which it was totally defeated, its population fleeing. Strabo describes the events as follows
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"in the war with the Crotoniatæ it brought into the field 300,000 men, and occupied a circuit of 50 stadia on the Crati. But on account of the arrogance and turbulence of its citizens, it was deprived of all its prosperity by the Crotoniatæ in 70 days, who took the city, and turning the waters of the river [Crati], overwhelmed it with an inundation"
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The remaining Sybarites attempted to return in 453 BC with the assistance of Poseidonia but were expelled by Croton five years later. They tried once again in 443 BC, appealing to Athens for assistance. Additional settlers came from Athens and other Greek states but, as with the expulsion of the Troesenians at the foundation of the city, there were further disputes and once again the Sybarites were expelled. This is noted by Diodorus Siculus in his Library {book 12 chap 11] For a short time only did the Thurians live together in peace, and then they fell into serious civil strife, not without reason. The former Sybarites, it appears, were assigning the most important offices to themselves and the lower ones to the citizens who had been enrolled later...being more numerous and more powerful, put to death practically all of the original Sybarites and took upon themselves the colonization of the city. The original city was re-founded by the remaining settlers as Thurium.
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The coinage of Sybaris may be grouped according to the different phases of the city’s destruction and refoundation and are consistently on the Achaean standard of 7.9g to the tridrachm nomos. The coins of Group 1 had a thin flan with a raised reverse facing bull on the obverse and an incuse reverse that typically mirrors the obverse. Staters, drachms and tetrobols feature a bull on both sides. Triobols and obols respectively pair the bull obverse with an amphora or the initials of the city’s name.
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Group 2 coins ran from the defeat of Sybaris in 510 BC through to the first attempt at reforming the city in 453 BC. According to W. A. Hands, coins minted by Sybarite refugees of this period include staters, triobols and obols featuring bull type on the obverse and an incuse reverse with bull, amphora and accord respectively (the acorn was the civic badge of Laus, where many of the refugees from the original destruction had fled).
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Group 3 coins are from the second attempt at resettlement in 453 BC (assisted by Poseidonia) through to the expulsion by Kroton in 448 BC. The Poseidonian influence in clear on the obverse of the coins which features Poseidon wielding a trident. The use of incuse reverses on the coins of Southern Italy faded out around 480 BC so the flans of later coins are more in line with those of other Greek states and in relief.
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After the attempt to resettle at Sybaris in 453 BC was thwarted by Croton and the citizens appealed first to Sparta and then to Athens to send more settlers. Athens answered the call and ships containing peoples from across Greece sailed for Sybaris in 446 BC. For six years Sybaris was renewed and coins in this period are Group 4, however Aristotle tells that the “Sybarites quarreled with those who had settled there with them, for they claimed to have the larger share in the country as being their own, and were ejected.” [Politics 1303a]. The remaining settlers founded the city of Thurium close by. The coinage associated with the fourth group reflects the strong influence of the Athenian colonists sent to aid the Sybarites. Drachms and fractions of this period all bear the head of Athena on the obverse whilst the traditional Sybarite bull or its just its head appears on the reverse.
Some of the Sybarites managed to flee and founded Sybaris on the Traeis shortly after 440 BC. The staters of this Group 5 period did not retain the type of the backward-looking bull and instead resemble more the style of the reverse in Group 3. However this was no lasting refuge. According to Diodorus
"When Lysimachides was archon in Athens, the Romans elected as consuls Titus Menenius and Publius Sestius Capitolinus. In this year the Sybarites who were fleeing from the danger threatening them in the civil strife made their home on the Trais River. Here they remained for a time, but later they were driven out by the Brettii and destroyed."
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The coins are consistently on the Achaian standard of c 7.8g to the tridrachm nomos.