Æ13 ΡΚΑ

Chalcedon occupied one of the most strategically valuable positions in the ancient world — controlling the southern mouth of the Bosphorus directly opposite Byzantium. The Greeks called it "the city of the blind," a jibe attributed to the oracle at Delphi, implying its founders were fools to choose the Asian shore when the superior European site sat plainly visible across the strait. That geopolitical tension defined the city's entire monetary history, as Chalcedon repeatedly fell under Bithynian, Persian, Macedonian, and eventually Roman pressure across the five centuries this bronze type spans.