Didrachm

Segesta was not a Greek city — it was Elymian, one of the indigenous peoples of western Sicily who adopted Greek coinage conventions for the practical purpose of participating in Mediterranean trade and, critically, hiring Greek mercenaries. The city's long conflict with neighboring Akragas and, later, Selinus drove repeated military expenditures that almost certainly account for the sustained production of heavy silver didrachms across this half-century span. It was Segesta's appeal to Athens in 416 BC — backed by promises of silver funding — that helped trigger the catastrophic Sicilian Expedition, one of the most consequential miscalculations in Athenian history.

Thucydides records that Athenian envoys were deceived about the city's actual wealth before the expedition sailed.