Heroic cults in Northern Sicily between numismatics and archaeology

This paper focuses on the coin iconography of Herakles, protagonist of a Sicilian mythological cycle. He is the most represented hero on Sicilian coins, issued by Greek cities in northern Sicily. In the modern age local antiquarian scholars associated the ruins of two ancient buildings in Alontion and Kephaloidion to the worship of Herakles and Iuppiter. The antiquarians used the numismatic evidence to interpret the archaeological evidences. These coins certainly prove how Herakles’ cult was widespread in Sicily and how local myths stimulated the creation of explicit or allusive iconographies from the Roman Republican age to the early Imperial period