Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
Pentonkion
| Issuer | Menainon |
|---|---|
| Year | 200 BC - 150 BC |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Pentonkion (5⁄12) |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | Log in to see details |
| Diameter | Log in to see details |
| Thickness | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Technique | Log in to see details |
| Orientation | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Greek |
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | A kithara (lyre) depicted frontally and centrally in the field, rendered with clearly delineated strings and a characteristic resonating body, referencing Apollo's role as divine patron of music. The ethnic legend ΜΕΝΑΙΝΩΝ is disposed around the central type, identifying the issuing community of Menainon in Sicily. The lettering is in the Greek alphabet and the overall composition is well-centred despite the irregularity of the flan. |
| Reverse script | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Edge | Log in to see details |
| Mint | Log in to see details |
| Mintage | Log in to see details |
| Additional information |
Menainon was a small inland Sikel settlement in central Sicily, modern Mineo, that began issuing its own bronze coinage in the Hellenistic period as civic identity increasingly expressed itself through local mintage rather than reliance on the dominant issues of Syracuse. The pentonkion denomination — worth five onkiai — reflects the persistence of the Siculo-Greek weight standard long after Syracusan political dominance had collapsed under Roman pressure.
By the mid-second century BC, Roman Sicily was already a provincia, and civic bronze of this kind was operating on borrowed time.