Scylla – Terror at the Narrow Strait
A violent sea, a vulnerable ship, and a monster waiting beside the water: Scylla brings one of Greek mythology’s most unsettling encounters to silver. This 1 troy ounce .999 fine silver round places the legendary creature in the maritime world that made her name synonymous with danger, pairing the scene with the Greek Mythology Series architectural reverse.
A Peril from Homer’s Odyssey
In Book XII of the Odyssey, Odysseus must guide his ship between Scylla and Charybdis. One threat waits at a towering rock; the other churns the sea into a deadly whirlpool. Circe warns that avoiding every danger is impossible and advises him to pass nearer Scylla rather than risk losing the entire ship to Charybdis.
Homer’s Scylla has six heads on long necks, with rows of teeth and a strangely doglike cry. During the passage she seizes six of Odysseus’s companions. The episode is memorable because it gives the hero no clean victory: survival comes with a terrible cost. That tension between determination and helplessness gives this subject its dramatic force.
Design Details
Obverse: Scylla appears beside a turbulent sea with a ship in the foreground. The vessel gives the scene a human scale, setting a fragile craft against the creature and the surrounding water. The composition evokes the peril of the story without requiring a separate portrait of its hero.
Reverse: A Greek architectural dome, pillars, and base surround the “GREEK MYTHOLOGY” inscription. The hallmark appears along the lower circumference, connecting the round to the broader series of gods, heroes, and legendary creatures.
Specifications
- Weight: 1 troy ounce
- Purity: .999 fine silver
- Diameter: 39 mm
- Thickness: 3.10 mm
- Edge: Reeded
- Finish: Brilliant Uncirculated
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