SEGESTA SILVER DIDRACHM – CLASSICAL PERIOD ISSUE AND PLATE COIN IN HURTER – CHOICE VF NGC GRADED GREEK SICILY COIN (Inv. 19090)

$3,750.00

19090. SICILY. SEGESTA. Ca. 475-450 BC.
Silver didrachm, 8.39 g, 21 mm.
Obv. Hound hunting right. Rev. ΣAΓEΣAII B, head of nymph Egesta right.
Published: Silvia Hurter, Die Didrachmenprägung von Segesta, 40a (this coin listed and illustrated).
Ex Tony Hardy Collection, CNG 67, 9/22/2004, lot 322.
NGC graded CHOICE VF, Strike 5/5, Surface 2/5, “smoothing,” Hurter provenance noted on label.

The reverse of the coin depicts Egesta, a Trojan princess who was said to have fled to Sicily after the fall of Troy and reflects the strong influence of the ubiquitous Arethusa types of Syracuse. The obverse type, however, is distinctive and shows a hunting hound specific to the city of Segesta. The animal was a companion of the mythological hunter Egestes, a son of Egesta and the river-god Crimisus, who was regarded as the founder of Segesta. It has been suggested that the hound belongs to a Sicilian breed called Cirneco dell’Etna, an animal known for its skill at hunting rabbits. This breed was named after the hounds which lived in the environs of Mount Etna and were considered sacred to Adranus, a Sicilian fire god believed to live beneath Etna and source of the mountain’s frequent volcanic eruptions.