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GREEK - Calabria, Tarentum Silver Didrachm 19mm (6.2 grams)
Struck 272-235 B.C.
Reference: B.M.C. Italy, 161; cf.GCV.374 ---
Naked youth on horse pacing left, which he crowns with his right hand; behind,
ΣΥ; beneath horse, ΛΥΚΙ/ΝΟΣ.
Taras, naked, seated on dolphin left; right arm raised and hurling trident;
left, round which hangs chlamys, extended; behind, owl standing left, head
facing; below, TA ΡΑΣ.
You are bidding on the exact item pictured,
provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of
Authenticity.
Taranto was founded in 706 BC by
Dorian Greek
immigrants as the only
Spartan colony,
and its origin is peculiar: the founders were
Partheniae,
sons of unmarried Spartan women and
Perioeci
(free men, but not citizens of Sparta); these unions were permitted by the
Spartans to increase the number of soldiers (only the citizens of Sparta could
become soldiers) during the bloody
Messenian
wars, but later they were nullified, and the sons were forced to leave.
Phalanthus, the parthenian leader, went to
Delphi to
consult the oracle:
the puzzling answer designated the harbour of Taranto as the new home of the
exiles. The Partheniae arrived in Apulia, and founded the city, naming it
Taras after the son of the Greek sea god,
Poseidon,
and of a local nymph, Satyrion. According to other sources,
Heracles
founded the city. Another tradition indicates Taras as the founder of the city;
the symbol of the Greek city (as well as of the modern city) depicts the legend
of Taras being saved from a shipwreck by riding a dolphin that was sent to him
by Poseidon. Taranto increased its power, becoming a commercial power and a
sovereign city of
Magna
Graecia, ruling over the
Greek colonies in southern Italy. Its independece and power came to an end
as the Romans expanded throughout Italy. Taranto won the first of two wars
against Rome for the control of Southern Italy: it was helped by Pyrrhus, king
of Greek Epirus, who surprised Rome with the use of elephants in battle, a thing
never seen before by the Romans. The second war was conversely won by Rome, that
afterwards cut off Taranto from the centre of Mediterrean trade, by connecting
the Via Appia directly to the port of Brundisium.
Calabria (Greek:
Καλαβρία), in
Antiquity
known as Bruttium, is a
region in
southern Italy,
south of Naples,
located at the "toe" of the Italian peninsula. It is bounded to the north by the
region of
Basilicata, to the south-west by the region of
Sicily, to the
west by the
Tyrrhenian Sea, and to the east by the
Ionian Sea.
The region covers 15,080 kmē and has a population of 2 million. The regional
capital is the city of
Catanzaro.
The other two main cities are
Reggio Calabria and
Cosenza. The
demonym of
Calabria is Calabrian (Italian: calabrese).
Calabria was first settled by Italic
Oscan-speaking tribes. Two of these tribes included the
Oenotri
(roughly translated into the "vine-cultivators") and the Itali. Greek contact
with the latter resulted in the entire pela (modern Italy) taking the name of
the tribe.
Greeks settled heavily along the coast at an early date and several of their
settlements, including the first Italian city called Rhegion (Reggio
Calabria), and the next ones
Sybaris,
Kroton (Crotone),
and Locri, were
numbered among the leading cities of
Magna
Graecia during the
6th
and
5th centuries BC.
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