Dilitron

Messana's bronze coinage of this period falls squarely within the city's recovery following the Carthaginian sack of 396 BC, after which the site was resettled — largely by Messenian exiles from the Peloponnese — under the name Messene before reverting to Messana. The dilitron denomination, a double litra unit rooted in the Sicilian bronze-by-weight tradition, reflects the broader shift across Greek Sicily toward fiduciary bronze as silver grew scarcer under the pressures of near-constant Carthaginian warfare. The date range coincides with Timoleon's reorganization of Sicilian Greek cities after 344 BC.