Ancient Coin Stories

Akragas, now known as Agrigento, was one of the leading cities of ancient Greece. Some ancient historians stated it contained 200,000 to 800,000 people, though most modern historians believe it was far fewer and in the neighborhood of 20,000 to 40,000, which was still a very large city for the time.

Akragas stayed neutral during Athens’ attack of Syracuse, but it was sacked by Carthage in 406 BCE and never quite recovered.

This coin was minted during the time when Phintias, a tyrant, took control after Agathokles of Syracuse, who had earlier controlled the city, died. In 262 BCE, Akragas was besieged by the Romans and taken. Its population was then sold into slavery, but later became an important city in the Roman Empire.

Per Athenaios:

Timaeus of Tauromenium reports that there is a house in Akragas referred to as the Trireme for the following reason. Some young men were getting drunk inside, and their drunkenness made them so feverishly crazy that they thought they were sailing on a trireme and had run into a terrible storm as sea. They were so out of their minds that they started throwing all the furniture and bedding ouf of the house, thinking that they were throwing it into the sea because the pilot was telling them that the ship’s cargo neeeded to be jettisoned on account of the storm. And even though a crowed began to gather and steal the items being thrown out, the young men continued to act crazily.

The next day the city’s chief officials came to the house, and a charge was issued against the young men, who were still seasick; when the magistrates questioned them, they responded that a storm had caused them trouble and forced them to jettison their excess cargo int the sea. When the officials expressed astonishment at their lunacy, one of the young men, who seemed in fact to be holder than the others, said “Triton sirs, I was so afraid, that I had thrown myself under the third course of rowing benches, since that seemed like the lowest part of the ship, and was lying there”. They therefore forgave them for their craziness, ordered them not to consume any more wine, and let them go, and the young men expressing their gratitude … “If,” he said,” we escape this rough sea and reach a harbor, we will set up altars in our fatherland to you, along with the other sea-divinities, as manifest Savior gods, since you revealed yourselves to us at a crucial moment.” The house therefore came to be referred to as the Trireme.