Chalkon

Metapontion's bronze coinage of this period reflects the city's precarious position during the decades following Pyrrhus of Epirus's Italian campaigns — a time when many Lucanian Greek cities were minting heavily in bronze simply to keep local economies functional as silver drained away through military tribute and mercenary payments. The city itself would fall definitively under Roman control by the late third century BC, making issues from this window among the last expressions of independent civic minting in the region.