Silver Tetradrachm, Catane, 412-403 BCE

Silver Tetradrachm, Catane, 412-403 BCE; Obverse: Four-horse chariot. Nike flying above holding a tablet with inscription ΕΥΑΙΝ (EUAIN = artist’s signature) in her left hand. A pellet under the horses; in the exergue, a crab.
Silver Tetradrachm, Catane, 412-403 BCE; Reverse: Laureate head of Apollo. At left, knotted rope with a hook at the top and bell on the bottom; at right, crayfish. Inscription ΚΑΤΑΝΑΙΩΝ (KATANAION = “of the people of Katane”).
Signed by Euainetos

Type/Object Name: Ob:Four-horse chariot. Nike flying above holding a tablet with inscription ΕΥΑΙΝ (EUAIN = artist’s signature) in her left hand. A pellet under the horses; in the exergue, a crab. | Re: Laureate head of Apollo. At left, knotted rope with a hook at the top and bell on the bottom; at right, crayfish. Inscription ΚΑΤΑΝΑΙΩΝ (KATANAION = “of the people of Katane”). 

Dates: 412-403 BCE

Medium: Silver, Tetradrachm

Dimensions: Diameter 29.5 mm, Weight 17.0581 g

Credit Line: Courtesy of John Nebel

Notes: This coin of Katane, north of Syracuse, draws on the chariot-race imagery of Syracuse on the obverse. Here, we see the charioteer completing the most skilled and dangerous part of a chariot race: guiding his horses at full gallop around the turning post at one end of the long oval racetrack. Above him, a small Nike (Victory) figure holds aloft a tablet proclaiming the name of the artist, Euainetos, himself. The reverse shows the head of Apollo, wearing a laurel wreath, with an elaborate rope with a bell in front of him. A long slender crayfish is behind him, and the city is named in the space above his curly hair. The detail shown in his eye, with its iris and pupil, the curve of his nostrils and lips, and the soft skin of his neck, matches the care taken on the obverse with the head-tossing horses, the slender taut body of the charioteer, and the crab at the bottom.

Collection: Coin, John Nebel

Bibliography: AMB 334; Gulbenkian 188-189; Kraay/Hirmer 42; Rizzo, Gulio Emanuele. 1946. Monete Greche Della Sicilia Plate XIV #6. Roma: La Libreria Dello Stato.