Southern Italy, Calabria, Taras, Diobol

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.