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Drachm
| Issuer | Emporion |
|---|---|
| Year | 350 BC - 250 BC |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Diameter | 19 mm |
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| Obverse description | Female head facing right, rendered in archaic Greek style, identified as Persephone or a local nymph. The hair is elaborately dressed and adorned with a wreath or diadem bearing decorative elements, with loose tresses falling at the neck. The portrait is executed in high relief with a broad flat flan, and a dotted border is partially visible along the rim. The style reflects Sicilian and Rhodian artistic influences adopted by the Greek colonial mint of Emporion. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse lettering | ΕΜΠΟΡΙΤΩΝ (Translation: of Emporion) |
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| Additional information |
Emporion — modern Empúries on the Catalan coast — was a Phocaean Greek colony that maintained remarkable commercial independence even as Carthaginian and later Roman power reshaped the western Mediterranean. These drachms were struck primarily to facilitate trade with Iberian tribes in the interior, who accepted Greek coinage readily and occasionally imitated it, producing the so-called "Iberian imitations" that numismatists sometimes struggle to distinguish from official issues without careful die analysis.
The FAB 1118 attribution places this among the earlier emissions of the series, before the progressive stylistic degradation visible in later Emporitan coinage as the mint's Greek artistic tradition diluted under indigenous influence.