The Cessetani were an Iberian people occupying the coastal territory around what is now Tarragona, a city the Romans called Tarraco and developed into the administrative capital of Hispania Citerior. Their bronze fractional coinage was produced during a period of accelerating Romanization following the Second Punic War, when indigenous mints across the Iberian Peninsula were permitted — and sometimes quietly encouraged — to strike small denomination bronzes to ease the chronic shortage of low-value currency in provincial circulation. The quarter unit sits at the bottom of the Cessetani denomination hierarchy, struck in quantities that suggest local market use rather than any tributary function.
The Cessetani were an Iberian people occupying the coastal territory around what is now Tarragona, a city the Romans called Tarraco and developed into the administrative capital of Hispania Citerior. Their bronze fractional coinage was produced during a period of accelerating Romanization following the Second Punic War, when indigenous mints across the Iberian Peninsula were permitted — and sometimes quietly encouraged — to strike small denomination bronzes to ease the chronic shortage of low-value currency in provincial circulation. The quarter unit sits at the bottom of the Cessetani denomination hierarchy, struck in quantities that suggest local market use rather than any tributary function.