Drachm (Coin) Depicting the Goddess Nike (216-203 BCE): Artwork and History

Drachm (Coin) Depicting the Goddess Nike (216-203 BCE) is in the Art Institute of Chicago collection. The museum lists its creator attribution as Greek; minted in Bruttium, Italy.

The work and its context

The Art Institute of Chicago describes the work:

The front (obverse) of this coin depicts the goddess Nike facing to the right. On the back (reverse) is the god Pan, holding a spear and a staff, crowning himself. When the Romans conquered the Italian Peninsula, the Bruttii, the native occupants of the “toe” of Italy, were allowed to issue their own coins until 203 BCE when the Romans closed the mints. This is one of the last coins issued by the city. The image of the winged goddess Nike was a favorite of the Bruttii, but a profile face of Nike is rare because of the difficulty in rendering the goddess’s trademark wings. Here the artist daintily tucked them on either side of her throat.

Object facts

• Title: Drachm (Coin) Depicting the Goddess Nike
• Date: 216-203 BCE
• Artist attribution: Greek; minted in Bruttium, Italy
• Place of origin: Sant'Eufemia Vecchia di Lamezia Terme
• Medium: Silver
• Dimensions: Diam.: 1.9 cm (3/4 in.)
• Type: Coin
• Department: Arts of Greece, Rome, and Byzantium
• Reference number: 1923.1135

Collection credit

Gift of Mrs. William Nelson Pelouze

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The description above is credited to the Art Institute of Chicago and reused under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0; HTML formatting has been converted to plain text. Other catalogue metadata and the public-domain image are provided under CC0 1.0.