1⁄12 Stater - Philip II Pella

Philip II financed his military machine partly through exploitation of the gold and silver mines at Mount Pangaion, seized from Thracian control after 356 BC. That windfall funded not only his campaigns but an unprecedented expansion of Macedonian coinage, including fractional gold denominations small enough to pay individual soldiers or settle minor transactions in occupied territory. At 0.72 g, this twelfth-stater sits at the practical lower limit of ancient gold coinage — any lighter and the flan becomes nearly impossible to strike cleanly.