AGATHOCLES SILVER TETRADRACHM – EARLY FINE STYLE KORE/NIKE ISSUE – CHOICE XF FINE STYLE NGC GRADED GREEK SICILY COIN (Inv. 19619)

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19619. SICILY. SYRACUSE. AGATHOCLES, 317–289 BC.
Silver Tetradrachm, 17.00 g, 26 mm. Issue of ca. 310–306 BC.
Obv. KOPAΣ, wreathed head of Kore right. Rev. A[ΓA]ΘOKΛEOΣ, Nike standing right, nailing armor to trophy, AI monogram beneath left wing, triskeles in right field.
Ierardi 100 (O21/R58); SNG Fitzwilliam 1349 (same dies); Dewing Collection 946 (same dies); HGC 1, 1536.
Ex Edward J. Waddell, inventory 56857 = Waddell Fixed Price List 66, 1995, lot 42.
NGC graded CHOICE XF, Strike 4/5, Surface 3/5, FINE STYLE.

This beautiful tetradrachm of the Syracusan tyrant Agathocles is thought to have been struck to celebrate his major success against the Punic menace in Sicily that took place early in his rule. In 310 BC, Agathocles and a small force set out from Syracuse, which was closely besieged by the Carthaginians, and made his way to North Africa to take the fight to the Punic homeland. Once there he raised a great mercenary army and campaigned against the Carthaginians, forcing them to withdraw from Sicily. While the war in North Africa did not go nearly as well as the reverse of this coin might imply, and ultimately involved Agathocles secretly abandoning his army and returning to Syracuse in 307, he had been the first Sicilian Greek ruler to take the war to Carthage, thereby saving Syracuse. The reverse type of Nike erecting a trophy was evidently popular and widely appreciated. A few years later it seems to have provided the model for a remarkable series of tetradrachms and fractions struck by Seleucus I Nicator at distant the mint of Susa.