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- 4 Şub 2022
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This remarkable tetradrachm features a hunter traditionally identified as Aigestes, the mythical founder of Segesta, whom Virgil wrote was the son of the Sicilian river god Krimisos and the nymph Aigeste, who is portrayed in a beautiful portrait on the reverse, rendered with an elaborate curled hairstyle and jewellery. According to Servius, the Trojan nymph was sent by her father to Sicily to avoid the monsters who had infested the territory of Troy during the Trojan war. In the Aeneid, Aigestes, called Acestes, appears as king of Segesta and receives Aeneas, his fellow Trojan, on his journey from Troy to Italy to found Rome [Aeneid 5.36].
Indeed, Virgil's description of King Acestes watching for Aeneas' ships, armed with javelins and dressed in bearskin, holds a striking similarity to the obverse composition of the present tetradrachm, which likely derives from a lost sculpture group that would have been familiar to the citizens of Segesta during the fifth century BC.
It depicts a vigilant hunter, heavily armed with two spears and a sword hanging around his shoulder, watchfully gazing into the distance, as two hunting dogs prowl around his feet. A herm stands before him, a traditional Greek sculpture, often erected to mark the boundaries of lands to ward off harm. The image is imbued with a sense of defensive alertness on the part of the city, which had been constantly at war with neighbouring Selinos from as early as 580 BC. Hostilities reached their zenith in the latter decades of the fifth century BC, and spurred on by assistance from first the Athenians and later the Carthaginians, Segesta achieved a decisive victory in 410 BC after which Selinos was destroyed. Thenceforth, Segesta was very much a dependent ally of Carthage.
Indeed, Virgil's description of King Acestes watching for Aeneas' ships, armed with javelins and dressed in bearskin, holds a striking similarity to the obverse composition of the present tetradrachm, which likely derives from a lost sculpture group that would have been familiar to the citizens of Segesta during the fifth century BC.
It depicts a vigilant hunter, heavily armed with two spears and a sword hanging around his shoulder, watchfully gazing into the distance, as two hunting dogs prowl around his feet. A herm stands before him, a traditional Greek sculpture, often erected to mark the boundaries of lands to ward off harm. The image is imbued with a sense of defensive alertness on the part of the city, which had been constantly at war with neighbouring Selinos from as early as 580 BC. Hostilities reached their zenith in the latter decades of the fifth century BC, and spurred on by assistance from first the Athenians and later the Carthaginians, Segesta achieved a decisive victory in 410 BC after which Selinos was destroyed. Thenceforth, Segesta was very much a dependent ally of Carthage.