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Mesma was a Locrian colony on the Tyrrhenian coast of Bruttium, founded in the late fifth century BC, and its autonomous bronze coinage was produced during a period of intensifying pressure from the Brettian league — the indigenous Italic confederation that was steadily absorbing Greek settlements throughout the region. By the early third century, Mesma had effectively disappeared as an independent polis, absorbed into the Brettian sphere. That political fragility makes its coinage historically brief, and the weight of references this type accumulates across major collections reflects scholarly interest disproportionate to its issuing city's size.