Diobol

Tarentum — modern Taranto — was a Spartan colonial foundation, the only one ancient Sparta ever planted, and that heritage informed the city's fiercely independent monetary policy throughout the fourth century. The diobol series ran alongside the city's celebrated didrachms but served a different economic register entirely, facilitating small transactions in a port economy where Tarentine wool, dyed cloth, and fish sauce moved in quantities requiring fractional silver. Vlasto's sequencing of this type places it squarely in the period before Archidamos III arrived with Spartan mercenaries in 338 BC, after which civic coin production was reorganized under military pressure.