Prototypes, Copies, and Fakes: A Case Study of the Croton, Thourioi, and the Italiote League (20 min)

Presenters

Marc Wahl, University of Vienna

Abstract

At the beginning of the fourth century B.C.E., a series of coins was struck in Croton that inspired numerous copies in Magna Grecia. The female deity on the obverse—commonly addressed as Hera Lacinia—was particularly popular in Campania. Among scholars, the use of this motif has been interpreted as the shared type of the Italiotic League. This symmachy, which had its seat and its federal sanctuary in Croton in the temple of Hera Lacinia, was founded as a defensive league against Dionysius I of Syracuse around 393 B.C.E. and later served as a defense against the Italic people.

Coins of koina, and, although more rarely, symmachies, as well as cooperative coinages, are well known in Greek numismatics in classical times. Sharing coin types may be one, but not the only, way in which such partnerships are expressed. A frequently mentioned example are the ΣΥΝ-coins, which document a symmachy of eight poleis in Asia Minor. The case of the Italiote league seems similar: the type of Hera Lacinia was used on the coins of six mints (Croton, Thourioi, Poseidonia, and Pandosia, as well as the Oscian settlements of Hyria, and Fensernia in Campania), two of which (Croton, and Thourioi) are explicitly mentioned in the literary sources as members of the league.

However, the commonly presented case of a symmachical coinage does not stand up to closer examination. First of all, it is noteworthy that some important members of the league, such as Velia, Caulonia, or Tarentum, did not strike coins with Hera Lacinia. Moreover, there are difficulties in the numismatic evidence as well. Already known for some time is that the coins of Hyria and Fensernia as well as those of Thourioi share the same obverse die. While this does not seem unusual for Hyria and Fenserni, after all the exchange of dies is quite common in the coinages of the Oscian settlements, the die transfer between Campania and Thourioi is remarkable. In the research it was mostly argued—implicitly based on a supposed cultural gap—that the die of Hera Lacinia migrated from Thourioi to Hyria/Fensernia, but a closer comparison of the wear of the die as well as stylistic comparisons with other Thurian coins shows that the die was produced in Campania and not in Thourioi.

The coin with the Hera Lacinia in the name of Thourioi seems to be a counterfeit, minted in the area of Campania. The coins from Poseidonia, which are all plated, also belong to this group. In this way, the theory is no longer tenable. Rather, it seems that the reason for the frequent use of Hera Lacinia on Italic coins is to be found in the artistic content of the Crotonic prototype, which itself derived from the Arethusa of Kimon in Syracuse.

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