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Selinos/Selinus was founded in southwestern Sicily by Dorian Greek colonists from Megara in 628/7 BC. Unlike the bulk of archaic and classical Greek coinage, which most commonly features deities and animals as types, the coins of Selinus regularly depict the leaf of the wild celery. This type served as a punning reference to the city since the Greek name for the wild celery was selinon.
This attractive didrachm was probably struck to meet expenses incurred by Selinus during a period of political upheaval caused by both the rise of tyrants at the city and by the growing power of Carthage at the end of the fifth and the beginning of the fourth century BC. While Selinus was traditionally governed by an oligarchy, in 510 BC, a certain Peithagoras subverted the constitution and became the city's first tyrant. He was extremely unpopular and the Selinuntines finally deposed him with the military assistance of Euryleon, a Spartan adventurer who had come to Sicily as part of the colonising expedition of the Spartan prince Dorieus. Unfortunately, once Peithagoras was expelled, Euryleon decided that it was in his better interest to assume power as tyrant of Selinus than to restore traditional government to the city.
Dismayed by this betrayal, the Selinuntines rose up against Euryleon and his Spartan mercenaries, forcing him to seek sanctuary at the altar of Zeus in the agora of Selinus. To their great discredit, they did not respect the deposed tyrant as a suppliant of the god, but instead killed him on the spot. The infamy of Selinus increased in 480 BC, when it became the only Greek city of Sicily to support the Carthaginians in their great campaign against Himera. The Selinuntines even supplied a force of hoplites to fight against fellow Greeks, but this only arrived after the Carthaginian army had been miraculously defeated by the combined forces of Gelon I and Theron, the respective tyrants of Syracuse and Agrigentum. The Selinuntines only redeemed themselves some years later, when they joined other Greek cities of Sicily in toppling the Syracusan tyranny of Thrasybulus.
This attractive didrachm was probably struck to meet expenses incurred by Selinus during a period of political upheaval caused by both the rise of tyrants at the city and by the growing power of Carthage at the end of the fifth and the beginning of the fourth century BC. While Selinus was traditionally governed by an oligarchy, in 510 BC, a certain Peithagoras subverted the constitution and became the city's first tyrant. He was extremely unpopular and the Selinuntines finally deposed him with the military assistance of Euryleon, a Spartan adventurer who had come to Sicily as part of the colonising expedition of the Spartan prince Dorieus. Unfortunately, once Peithagoras was expelled, Euryleon decided that it was in his better interest to assume power as tyrant of Selinus than to restore traditional government to the city.
Dismayed by this betrayal, the Selinuntines rose up against Euryleon and his Spartan mercenaries, forcing him to seek sanctuary at the altar of Zeus in the agora of Selinus. To their great discredit, they did not respect the deposed tyrant as a suppliant of the god, but instead killed him on the spot. The infamy of Selinus increased in 480 BC, when it became the only Greek city of Sicily to support the Carthaginians in their great campaign against Himera. The Selinuntines even supplied a force of hoplites to fight against fellow Greeks, but this only arrived after the Carthaginian army had been miraculously defeated by the combined forces of Gelon I and Theron, the respective tyrants of Syracuse and Agrigentum. The Selinuntines only redeemed themselves some years later, when they joined other Greek cities of Sicily in toppling the Syracusan tyranny of Thrasybulus.