Didrachm

This issue falls squarely within the Second Punic War, struck while Carthaginian military finances were under extraordinary pressure. Hannibal's Italian campaign after 218 BC demanded continuous supply of silver coinage to pay mercenary troops — Iberian, Gallic, and Numidian soldiers who expected hard metal, not promises. Carthage maintained mint operations under conditions of strategic siege, and issues from this decade show accelerating die degradation consistent with high-volume emergency production.

Müller 102 is a well-documented type within a series that remains difficult to sequence precisely, as Carthaginian civic coinage of this period lacks the magistrate signatures that help anchor Hellenistic issues elsewhere.