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Greek city of Leontini
in
Sicily
Silver 15mm (2.04 grams) Struck circa 200-100 B.C.
Reference: HGC 2, 724; CNS III, p. 83, nos. 13-14
Laureate head of Apollo left.
ΛEON/TINΩN, Lion advancing left.
Founded by Chalkidians from Naxos in 729 B.C., Leontinoi produced no coinage in
the Archaic period. In the early part of the 5th Century B.C. the city was
under the rule of the Gelan and the Syracusan tyrants, but in 466 B.C. it
regained its independence. Enjoyed considerable prosperity until 422 B.C. when
it was reduced to a state of dependency on Syracuse.
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In
Greek
and
Roman mythology
,
Apollo,
is one of the most important and diverse of the
Olympian deities
kouros
(a beardless youth), Apollo has been
variously recognized as a god of light and the sun; truth and prophecy;
archery
; medicine and healing; music, poetry,
and the arts; and more. Apollo is the son of
Zeus and Leto
, and has a
twin
sister, the chaste huntress
Artemis
. Apollo is known in Greek-influenced
Etruscan mythology
as Apulu. Apollo was
worshiped in both
ancient Greek
and
Roman religion
, as well as in the modern
Greco
–Roman
Neopaganism
.
As the patron of Delphi
(Pythian Apollo), Apollo was an
oracular
god — the prophetic deity of the
Delphic Oracle
. Medicine and healing were
associated with Apollo, whether through the god himself or mediated through his
son Asclepius
, yet Apollo was also seen as a god
who could bring ill-health and deadly
plague
as well as one who had the ability to
cure. Amongst the god’s custodial charges, Apollo became associated with
dominion over
colonists
, and as the patron defender of herds
and flocks. As the leader of the
Muses (Apollon Musagetes) and director of their choir, Apollo
functioned as the patron god of music and
poetry
.
Hermes
created the
lyre for him, and the instrument became a common
attribute
of Apollo. Hymns sung to Apollo were
called paeans
.
In Hellenistic times, especially during the third century BCE, as Apollo
Helios he became identified among Greeks with
Helios
,
god of the sun
, and his sister Artemis
similarly equated with
Selene
,
goddess of the moon
. In Latin texts, on the
other hand, Joseph Fontenrose declared himself unable to find any conflation of
Apollo with
Sol
among the
Augustan poets
of the first century, not even
in the conjurations of
Aeneas
and
Latinus
in
Aeneid
XII (161–215). Apollo and Helios/Sol
remained separate beings in literary and mythological texts until the third
century CE..
The ancient city was founded as Leontini by colonists from
Naxos
in 729 BC, itself a
Chalcidian
colony
established five years earlier.
It is virtually the only
Greek
settlement in Sicily not located on the
coast, being some 6 miles inland. The site, originally held by the
Sicels
, was seized by the Greeks owing to its
command of the fertile plain to the north. The city was reduced to subject
status in 498 BC by
Hippocrates of Gela
, who made his ally
Aenesidemus
its tyrant. In 476 BC
Hieron of Syracuse
moved the inhabitants from
Catana
and Naxos to Leontini.
Later on, the city of Leontini regained its independence. However, as part of
the inhabitants’ efforts to retain that independence, they sought the
intervention of Athens
. It was mainly the eloquence of
Gorgias
of Leontini which led to the abortive
Athenian expedition of 427 BC.
In 422 BC Syracuse supported the oligarchs against the people and received
the oligarchs as citizens, the city of Leontini itself being forsaken. This led
to renewed Athenian intervention, at first mainly diplomatic; but the exiles of
Leontini joined the envoys of
Segesta
, in persuading Athens to undertake the
great
Sicilian Expedition
of 415 BC.
After the failure of the Expedition, Leontini became subject to Syracuse once
more. The city’s independence was guaranteed by the treaty of 405 BC between
Dionysius
and the
Carthaginians
, but lost again shortly after.
The city was finally stormed by
Marcus Claudius Marcellus
in 214 BC.
By Roman times it seems to have been of little importance. It was destroyed
by the
Saracens
in 848 AD, and almost totally ruined
by the
earthquake of 1693
. From the earthquake to
about the middle of the 20th century, Lentini was regarded by travel writers as
a malarial stop-over to Syracuse of minor historical importance.
The ancient city is described by
Polybius
as lying in a valley between two
hills, and facing north. On the western side of this valley ran a river with a
row of houses on its western bank under the hill. At each end was a gate, the
northern gate leading to the plain, the southern, at the upper end, leading to
Syracuse. There was an acropolis on each side of the valley, lying between
precipitous hills with flat tops, over which buildings had extended. The eastern
hill still has the remains of a strongly fortified medieval castle, in which
some writers are inclined (though wrongly) to recognize portions of Greek
masonry.
Excavations were made in 1899 in one of the ravines in a Sicel necropolis of
the third period—explorations in the various Greek cemeteries resulted in the
discovery of some fine bronzes, notably a fine bronze lebes, now in the Berlin
museum.
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