Drachm

The Brettii — the Bruttians of Calabria's toe — struck this drachm during the Second Punic War, almost certainly using silver stripped from captured Roman allies following Hannibal's catastrophic defeat of Roman forces at Cannae in 216 BC. The timing is not coincidental. Hannibal's victory prompted a wave of Italian defections, and the Brettii, long hostile to Roman expansion, formally allied with Carthage and rapidly developed their own coinage infrastructure to pay troops and conduct civic business independent of Rome.

The issue runs only a few years before Roman reconquest shut down Bruttian minting authority for good.