Naxos tetradrachm: a numismatic Masterpiece from ancient Sicily

The Naxos coin marks the transition from archaic to classical Greek art. The obverse portrays its patron god, Dionysus but in a completely different style to that which had preceded it: he is constrained, groomed and even severe but is literally bursting out of the frame with vitality. The reverse depicts his companion, the drunken but athletic satyr, Silenus, precariously crouched, drinking from a kantharus; while more archaic in style the composition is highly innovative, achieving both visual balance and depth of perspective.

We cannot know the intended impact of this coin but it has been speculated that it was issued to celebrate the city’s return from enforced exile under the Syracuse tyrant, Hieron I. For this purpose, the city engaged the Aetna Master, considered the greatest of the period, who created a coin that went far beyond what would be expected of a small-to-medium sized city of perhaps 10,000 inhabitants. Naxos was no ordinary city, being the first Greek settlement in Sicily and a religious centre where sacrifices were made before return trips to Greece.

Herbert A. Cahn (1915-2002) was born to one of the ‘Frankfurt Four’, the great coin dealing dynasties that had dominated the trade across Europe from the late-nineteenth to early-twentieth centuries. He fled Nazi persecution, with his brother Erich Bernhard Cahn (1913-93), to complete their studies and re-establish the family business in Basel, Switzerland (ʺMünzen und Medaillen AGʺ). This academic-dealer dichotomy would dominate the remainder of his career as one of the most respected numismatists of his generation.

His PhD thesis, Die Münzen der sizilischen Stadt Naxos, was published in Basel in 1944, and almost immediately became the authoritative die-study of the entire Naxos series.  In it he distinguished 149 coin types from 95 obverse and 124 reverse dies and documented 651 known examples across public and private collections. Among these was the famous c. 460 BCE tetradrachm, produced from a single die-pair and for which he identified 56 known examples. With the benefit of modern research, it is possible to add a further 22 examples to this particular type, 16 of which have emerged since his work was published (including at least 5 from the Randazzo Hoard in 1980). 32 of the 78 surviving examples are in museums, including two in the Basel Historical Museum.