Æ20 ΕΛΑΤΕΩΝ, Elatea

Elatea, the principal city of Phocis, had lost much of its strategic importance after its brutal sack by Philip II of Macedon in 338 BC — an event so alarming to Athens that Demosthenes famously described the city's terror upon hearing the news. By the late Republican period when this bronze was struck, the city was a shadow of its former self, minting small civic bronzes more out of civic habit than economic necessity, under the loose administrative umbrella of Roman provincial oversight in Achaia.