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Southern Italy, Calabria, Taras, Diobol

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Southern Italy, Calabria, Taras, Diobol (obverse) Southern Italy, Calabria, Taras, Diobol (reverse)

This diobol was issued in Southern Italy, in the Greek city of Taras (Roman Tarentum, toda's Taranto). It depicts the goddess Athena with a helmet that is decorated with a little hippocamp. The hippocamp – some sort of sea horse – was a creature of Greek mythology with the forepart of a winged horse and the lower body of a fish with a long, coiled tail. The reverse shows the Greek hero Hercules wrestling with the Nemean lion.

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Signet Sunflower Foundation