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Rhegion, Zankle-Messana and the Samians

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

E. S. G. Robinson
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Extract

In 493 Ionian emigrants from Samos and Miletos, on their way to Sicily to found a new city there at the invitation of the Zanklaians, were persuaded by Anaxilas, just risen to power in Rhegion, to seize Zankle instead, which Skythes, its ruler, had left temporarily unguarded. Skythes seems to have been a dependant of Hippokrates of Gela, but Hippokrates, instead of ejecting the Samians, came to terms and left them in possession. Some years later (probably after Hippokrates's death in 491) Anaxilas in his turn occupied the city which now, under the name of Messene, became his headquarters until his death in 476. In spite of the aberrations of Pausanias (iv. 23, 4–10) the literary authorities provide the material for a consistent account along broad lines of the incident and of the events which led up to and followed it. They show some uncertainty over the date when the name Zankle was changed to Messene and over the identity of Kadmos, son of Skythes (Was Skythes always one and the same? was it ‘with’ or ‘from’ the Samians that Kadmos took over and settled Zankle?), but the general outline emerges clearly. On the other hand, it is often held that the numismatic evidence (and it is abundant) contradicts the historical tradition at many points; and C. H. Dodd who first crystallised it in a careful and closely reasoned article in this Journal, arrived at very different conclusions.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 66 , November 1946 , pp. 13 - 20
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1946

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References

1 Herod, vi. 22; vii. 164: Thuc. vi. 4: Diod. xi. 48, fully discussed by Freeman, , Sicily II 484 ff.Google Scholar

2 JHS XXVIII 56 ff.Google Scholar

3 Leontinoi and Katana did not coin till well into the fifth century and therefore follow the dominant Euboïc Attic system of their suzerain Syracuse.

4 Most recent discussion in Cahn, H. A., Münzen der Siz. Stadt Naxos, 74Google Scholar (with full references to earlier work). My conclusions are sharper than his and he seems to go astray in several details, e.g., in regarding the smaller piece as merely a litra, though the mimimal fractions just mentioned may have aimed at the hexas or 2-ounce piece.

5 ZfN XXXV (1925) 193; JdI XL (1925) 1Google Scholar.

6 Later the standard may have been cut by half to make it conform with the Corinthian, for in the late sixth century we have double stater = 2 Corinthian staters, stater = 1 Corinthian stater, 1/6th stater = 1 drachm, etc. The same standard is used in early days in all Euboian colonies of Chalkidike. Unlike Chalkis, Eretria throughout follows Athens in its standard.

7 Hist. Num. 1, s.v. ‘Rhegium’; but the second (post humous) edition follows Dodd.

8 Babelon, E., Traité de monnaies grecqves.. II 11747Google Scholar.

9 Herod, vii. 164, whether μετά. or παρά be read does no matter much, and the words imply a position hardly compatible with service under Anaxilas when the latter intervened in person against the Samians.

10 Ad Pyth. ii. 34; cp. τύραννος Σικελίας; for Gelon (Herod. viii. 163), though Prof. Jacoby, whose patient kindness has answered so many queries, will not allow me to read significance into the scholiast's phrase.

11 Strabo vi. 1, 6.

12 Most recently by Gagliardi, , Atti e Memorie VI 101Google Scholar.

13 For other running solar figures, cf. coins of Mallos and of the Karp-Lykian border (‘Olbia’) B.M.C. Lycaonia Pl. xvi. 8–13; ibid., Lycia Pl. xxiii, 14–5; cf. Num. Chron. 1936, p. 267.

14 H.H. Ap. Pyth. 440 ff.

15 As Milne has noted, Num. Chron. 1938, p.38. The more advanced style of the dolphin and the longer legend show that it is not the earliest Zanklaian coin.

16 I can find no justification for Dodd's statement, p. 63, note 41a, to the contrary.

17 Num. Chron. 1896, pp. 109, but somewhere about 460 rather than 440, for trunk and legs of the figure are still treated in different aspects, and the elaborate palmette pattern on the altar is paralleled on contemporary coins of Gela (SNG II. Nos. 967–9).

18 This is still employed in Mikythos's inscription at Olympia which is to be dated not later than mid-fifth century. IGA 532; cf. Furtwangler, in Arch. Zeit. XXXVII 149, No. 300Google Scholar. A similar change including Γ for С takes place on Rhegine coins about the same time.

19 From the same obv. die as a didrachm of Messene, see No. 32 below.

20 The earlier coins as far as No. 28 have been studied and published in Corpus form by Gielow, H. E. (Mitt. d. Bayerisch. Num. Gesellsch., xlviii (1930), pp. 1 ff.)Google Scholar.

21 At Thurium the pebbles in the river-bed kicked up by the charging bull which represents the river-god are shown in the same way. S.P. Noe; Thurian distatcrs, Num. Notes 71, pl. III. F. 10 and 12.

22 One specimen from same obv. die as the didrachm of Rhegion, No. 6 above.

23 Gielow, op. cit., p. 47, No. 91 note.