SICILY, AKRAGAS, bronze hexas, no date (425-406 BC)

DescriptionAkragas was founded in the 6th century BC by Greek colonists from Gela, who themselves came from Rhodes and Crete. It was a rich city that rivalled Syracuse until it was sacked by Carthage in 406 BC. It went back and forth between Carthage and Rome for a couple of centuries. Today it is the town of Agrigento.Sicily was a border zone contested by Phoenicians from Carthage in North Africa and Greeks.We think that our culture grew out of the culture of Greece because it was in Greece (and in China) that people started thinking about how things could be different than they were in a world where everything was dangerous and might made right. They also established principles of artistic expression that we still use today. We see this approach to art in their coins.“Ancient Coins” includes Greek and Roman coins and those of neighbors and successors, geographically from Morocco and Spain all the way to Afghanistan. Date ranges for these begin with the world’s earliest coins of the 8th century BC to, in an extreme case, the end of Byzantine Empire, 1453 AD.