v31_0015 - SICILY - KAMARINA Onkiai, (PB, Æ 12)

SICILY - KAMARINA

(5th - 4th century BC)

Camarina was founded by Syracusan settlers in 599-598 BC. -VS. She often opposed her metropolis before being destroyed for the first time by the tyrant Gelon of Syracuse in 484 BC.. -VS. Its inhabitants were deported to the Sicilian metropolis. The city was refounded in 466-465 BC. -VS. with the help of inhabitants of Géla and Camarinian refugees. Coinage began around 461 BC.. -VS. The city was evacuated in 405 BC. -VS. before the Carthaginian danger. The inhabitants took refuge in Syracuse. Camarina after 405 found itself under Carthaginian influence before falling under the domination of Dionysius the Elder. The city sided with Dion against the son of Dionysius the Elder in 357 BC.. -VS. It passed successively under the control of Tiomoléon then of Agathoklès, tossed between Carthage and Syracuse and found itself victim of the incursions of the mercenaries Mamertines. Favorable to Rome, during the first Punic war, it was occupied by the Carthaginian forces. The city was definitively razed by the Romans during the First Punic War in 258 BC.. -VS. and its enslaved population. Nevertheless, a diminished city survived until the 2nd century AD.. -VS. , shadow of a glorious past.