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Greek city of Kentoripae in Sicily
Bronze Tetrachalkon 25mm (10.28 grams) Struck late 3rd-2nd centuries B.C.
Reference: HGC 2, 633; CNS III, pp. 169-172, nos. 3-4 Ds 6/4
Certification: NGC Ancients Ch F 4683032-017
Laureate head of Zeus right, eagle to left.
KENTO/PIΠΙΝΩΝ above and below winged thunderbolt, mark of value, Δ below.
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 In the ancient Greek religion, Zeus was the “Father of Gods and men” who ruled the Olympians of Mount Olympus as a father ruled the family. He was the god of sky and thunder in Greek mythology. His Roman counterpart is Jupiter and Etruscan counterpart is Tinia.
Zeus was the child of Cronus and Rhea, and the youngest of his siblings. In most traditions he was married to Hera, although, at the oracle of Dodona, his consort was Dione: according to the Iliad, he is the father of Aphrodite by Dione. He is known for his erotic escapades. These resulted in many godly and heroic offspring, including Athena, Apollo and Artemis, Hermes, Persephone (by Demeter), Dionysus, Perseus, Heracles, Helen of Troy, Minos, and the Muses (by Mnemosyne); by Hera, he is usually said to have fathered Ares, Hebe and Hephaestus.
As Walter Burkert points out in his book, Greek Religion, “Even the gods who are not his natural children address him as Father, and all the gods rise in his presence.” For the Greeks, he was the King of the Gods, who oversaw the universe. As Pausanias observed, “That Zeus is king in heaven is a saying common to all men”. In Hesiod’s Theogony Zeus assigns the various gods their roles. In the Homeric Hymns he is referred to as the chieftain of the gods.
His symbols are the thunderbolt, eagle, bull, and oak. In addition to his Indo-European inheritance, the classical “cloud-gatherer” also derives certain iconographic traits from the cultures of the Ancient Near East, such as the scepter. Zeus is frequently depicted by Greek artists in one of two poses: standing, striding forward, with a thunderbolt leveled in his raised right hand, or seated in majesty.
Centuripe (Latin: Centuripae; Sicilian: Centorbi; Arabic: شَنتورِب, Shentūrib) is a town and comune in the province of Enna (Sicily, southern Italy). The city is located 61 km from Enna, in the hill country between the Rivers Dittaìno and Salso.
The economy is mostly based on agriculture. There are caves for sulphur and salt mineral, and water springs.
History
Thucydides mentions Kentoripa as a city of the Sicels, hellenized in the 5th century BC. It became an ally of the Athenians at the time of their expedition against Syracuse, and maintained its independence almost uninterruptedly (though it fell under the power of Agathocles) until the First Punic War. Cicero describes it, perhaps with some exaggeration, as being by far the largest and richest city of Sicily, and as having a population of 10,000, engaged in the cultivation of an extensive territory. It was granted Latin rights before the rest of Sicily. It appears to have suffered much in the war against Sextus Pompeius, and not to have regained its former prosperity under the empire.
Emperor Frederick II entirely destroyed the city in 1233 in punishment for its rebellion, the inhabitants deported to Augusta. King Charles I of Anjou razed it completely to the ground, and the city was rebuilt only in 1548 by Francesco Moncada.
The city was known as Centorbi until 1863.
Main sights
Considerable remains of the ancient city walls and of buildings, mostly of the Roman period, still exist, and numerous antiquities, including some fine Hellenistic terra-cottas, have been discovered in casual excavations.
Other sights include the Chiesa Madre (17th century) and the ruins of the so-called Castle of Conradin, in fact a Roman construction of the Imperial age.
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