Anyone who knows early Greek coinage will recognize this iconic early coin of Sybaris. But perhaps fewer are aware that the once-prosperous southern Italian city was, quite literally, wiped from the face of the earth. Thus, this design showing a standing bull and a deep incuse on the reverse is one of the only types to survive from Sybaris, a city once famed for its opulence and hedonism.

Near the middle of the Archaic Period (ca. 8th century BC), around the time of the possibly fictitious epic poet Homer, the Greeks began to set out from their mainland in search of founding new colonies. Some went north towards the Black Sea, some went southeast to Libya, and others went as far as southern France (modern Marseille). But the greatest concentration of colonies was just across the Ionian Sea, in Sicily and southern Italy – what became known as Magna Graecia (greater Greece).

Sybaris was settled around 720 BC and quickly flourished, due to a policy of admitting nearly anyone that would come and its fertile farmland. The population may have been 100,000 at its height around 550 BC, rivaling the largest mainland cities like Athens and Corinth. Sybaris grew so large that the colony began to found its own colonies, much in the same way as Carthage. Sybarians founded the great city of Poseidonia (later Paestum). The economy was modern for its time, with the government even issuing early forms of patents. One citizen, Smindyrides, was so renowned for his luxury and refined manner that he is cited in a preposterous number of major sources, given that his only major achievement was having good taste. Even a Roman historian, writing seven centuries later, wrote that he could not sleep on a bed of roses, as it would give him blisters.

Such was Sybaris. But the end was swift and cruel; a populist (or tyrant, according to Herodotus) came to power in 510 BC, exiling the wealthiest citizens and confiscating their property. They encouraged a rival city, Kroton, to help them expunge the populist, but the Krotonites ravaged the city, which soon faded from the historical record.