An Extremely Rare Second Punic War Gold Issue

NORTH AFRICA

North Africa, Carthage AV Hemistater. Occupation of Hannibal. 216-211 BC. Head of Tanit or Ceres to left, wearing corn wreath / Nike driving biga to right, holding goad; retrograde K in exergue. HN Italy 479 (Capua, attribution not certain); SNG ANS 145; BM 1919,1120.19 = Weber 288 (same rev. die); ACR 87, 58 (hammer: 24,000 GBP); HGC 1, 377. 4.26g, 15mm, 9h.

Near Mint State; well-struck in high relief. Extremely Rare; one of four known examples.

From the inventory of a UK dealer.

Regarded as one of the greatest military leaders in history, Hannibal led the Carthaginian army in the Second Punic War against Roman forces, following in his father’s footsteps who had been the leading general in the First Punic War. The beginning of the war in 218 BC was marked by the remarkable feat of Hannibal invading Italy via the Alps with his soldiers, horsemen and, most extraordinarily, North African war elephants. For nearly fifteen years the conflict was fought on Italian soil, wreaking devastation on the peninsula on a scale it had never before endured, but it was the first venture of Hannibal crossing the Alps into the Po plain that was most shocking to the Roman generals. Having achieved one of the greatest accomplishments in the history of military logistics, Hannibal was then able to inflict humiliating defeats on the Roman legions in a succession of major battles, at the Trebia (December 218 BC), Lake Trasimene (June 217 BC), and Cannae (August 216 BC), bringing Rome to very near breaking point. As a measure of the extent of the devastation, Hannibal had defeated the equivalent of eight consular armies (16 legions plus an equal number of allies) and within the space of just three campaign seasons Rome had lost one-fifth of the entire population of male citizens over 17 years of age. Furthermore, the ruinous effect these defeats had on morale was such that most of southern Italy defected to Hannibal’s cause, thus prolonging the war for a decade. The need to pay mercenaries prompted Carthage to begin minting coins using gold, silver, electrum, bronze and billon. The great success of the Carthaginian army is highlighted in Carthage’s ability to use gold for coin issues, as exemplified by the present example. This was in sharp contrast to the Romans who had to debase their currency in order to pay for the war. Among the special coinage minted under Hannibal’s influence are the ever-popular issues featuring a war elephant on the reverse. On this coin, however, we are presented with a much rarer iconography; a head wreathed in corn and Nike driving a biga. Uncertainly attributed to Capua in the past due to the retrograde K (E.S.G. Robinson, ‘Carthaginian and other South Italian Coinages of the Second Punic War’ in The Numismatic Chronicle and Journal of the Royal Numismatic Society vol. 4 (1964), 40), the style of the obverse is truthfully more Punic (or Siculo-Punic) in character, particularly in the pronounced heavy chin, and the iconography is considerably more proximate to late gold issues of Syracuse around the time of Hiketas (287-278 BC). It moreover lacks the characteristic inscriptions that would be expected of a civil issue, the absence of which clearly indicate that this is a Carthaginian military issue rather than that of a self-governing city-state.

Sicily

76.

Sicily, Siculo-Punic AR Tetradrachm. ‘Quaestors’ issue. Entella(?), circa 300-289 BC. Head of Herakles to right, wearing lion skin headdress / Head of horse to left; club to left, date palm tree to right, ‘MḤSBM (Paymaster, or Quaestor) in Punic script below. Jenkins, Punic, Series 5b, 339 (O109/R278), see pp. 7-8 for interpretation of legend; CNP 272a; HGC 2, 295. 16.46g, 25mm, 9h.

Extremely Fine; pleasant iridescent highlights.

Ex North River Collection;

Ex Classical Numismatic Group, Triton X, 9 January 2007, lot 69.

1,800

Sicily, Siculo-Punic AR Tetradrachm. ‘Quaestors’ issue. Entella(?), circa 300-289 BC. Head of Herakles to right, wearing lion skin headdress / Head of horse to left; date palm tree to right, ‘MḤSBM (Paymaster, or Quaestor) in Punic script below. Jenkins, Punic, Series 5b, 375 (O116/R305), see pp. 7-8 for interpretation of legend; de Luynes 1457; CNP 272; HGC 2, 295. 17.03g, 23mm, 12h.