Diobol

Tarentum's small silver fractions served the practical demands of a busy commercial port — paying harbor fees, market transactions, market stalls — in denominations too modest for the larger didrachms that dominate the series. The city's output during this precise window, roughly coinciding with the catastrophic aftermath of Pyrrhus's Italian campaigns and the grinding pressure of Roman encroachment, shows no meaningful drop in mint activity, suggesting the economy absorbed the political crisis better than the histories imply.

Vlasto's numbering of these diobols reflects tight die linkages across a compressed sequence, making this among the more systematically documented of Tarentine fractional issues.