Æ20

Beneventum — originally called Maleventum ("bad wind" or, more ominously, "ill outcome") — was renamed by Rome following its victory over Pyrrhus of Epirus in 275 BC, a deliberate act of linguistic revision meant to erase the memory of a battlefield that had briefly looked catastrophic for Roman arms. The city's subsequent bronze coinage, issued within a generation of that renaming, reflects its new status as a Latin colony planted directly on the Appian Way to consolidate Roman control over Samnium.

The dating window for this type overlaps with the First Punic War, during which Beneventum's strategic position made it a critical supply and mustering point.