Some of the most magnificent representations of chariots in mid career are seen on the coins of Sicily and Southern Italy toward the close of the fifth century B.C. There are two major theories concerning the appearance of these striking compositions in Sicilian numismatic art. One theory is that dies for these coins are the independent products of local, native artists of highest competence. The other is that the dies for these pieces are the work of Attic artists who migrated to the prosperous cities of Sicily to take up new careers as workers in the minor metallic arts, as gem cutters, and as die sinkers for the various local rulers. We lack positive evidence. We cannot identify any artist who left Attica to pursue work of this type in Southern Italy or Sicily. Scholars have produced a mass of conjecture and speculation on this subject.
The treatment of space and depth in the chariot compositions seems to the writer to provide a new possibility for grouping and relating the representations of chariots in the late fifth century—both those on the major monuments in sculptured relief and those on the Tetradrachms and Dekadrachms of Syracuse and Akragas. From a restudy of the methods of relief representation and from a survey of information derived from such connecting links between major sculpture and coinage as silverware, gems, and vases further light may be thrown on the problems of the artistic derivation of the renowned die compositions of later fifth-century Sicily.