 LOKROI EPIZEPHRYIOI. Bruttium. Ca. 275-272 B.C. Stater. Laureate Zeus head l. (copied from the Epirote Tetradrachm of Pyrrhos), NE ligated below. Rv. Pistis (Loyalty) standing l. crowning Roma enthroned r. before her. Roma is clad in a girdled chiton, a himation over her legs, one arm rests on an oblong shield, a sheated sword under her other arm. Pistis, her hair bunched in a knot at the top of her head, also wears a girdled chiton and himation; ΠIΣTIΣ-PΩMA, ΛOKPΩN in ex. 7.45 grams. Boston MFA 195, SNG ANS 531. Very rare. Nice old toning. Slight doubling on Roma. Choice Very Fine, Nearly Extremely Fine. (Est. $7,500-$8,500)
This seldom-seen type was likely issued soon after the end of the Pyrrhic War (280-275 B.C.), as a propaganda issue praising Lokrian loyalty to Rome, the politically corrected version of Rome's subjugation of Lokris and Magna Graecia.
In 282 B.C., the Tarentines recklessly sunk four Roman ships that had violated a treaty by sailing into the waters of Tarentum. Rome promptly declared war. A shaken Tarentum sent an embassy to Epiros to entreat its king Pyrrhos to their aid. Pyrrhos came with an army of 25,000 men and 20 elephants. Although they had asked him to be their saviour, the Tarentines and other southern Italian Greeks were resentful of supplying men and money to Pyrrhos. In 280 B.C., Pyrrhos met the Romans at Heraclea on the Gulf of Tarentum and there won a Pyrrhic victory over them (his heavy casualities, indeed, led Pyrrhos to question the certainty of ultimate success). The Bruttii, Lucani and Samnites now joined Pyrrhos, but as he advanced through Latium on Rome he found every city closed against him. The Roman Senate, meanwhile, rallied by the fiery speech of the blind ex-censor Appius Claudius, rejected a peace offer submitted by Cineas, Pyrrhos' ambassador. Soon after, Pyrrhos again defeated the Romans, this time at Ausculum in Apulia.
The Epirote king, though, quit Italy to campaign in Sicily, hoping to drive out the Carthaginians and make himself head of the Sicilian Greeks. In Sicily, he ruled as a despot for three years, engendering ill will from the Greek cities and reproach from the Samnites whom he had deserted. Finding his situation untenable, he returned to Italy. The Tarentines and the other Italian Greeks, having lost confidence in him, now refused him money and men. In 275 B.C., a disheartened Pyrrhos met the Romans at Beneventum in the land of the Samnites. He was defeated, losing his camp and the greater part of his army. Roman domination of Magna Graecia was now a matter of fact. Rome garrisoned Tarentum and the other Italian Greek cities, while reducing the Bruttii, Lucani and Samnites.
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