Drachm

Sinope was the dominant Greek colonial city on the Black Sea's southern coast, controlling trade routes into the Pontic hinterland and serving as the principal conduit for Anatolian silver reaching the Aegean world. These drachms were struck during a period when the city operated with considerable autonomy, well before its eventual submission to Mithridates VI in 183 BC. The magistrate names appearing on issues of this period have allowed scholars to construct a rough sequential chronology, though attribution to specific decades remains contested.

The distinctive incuse punch on the reverse is a survival of archaic minting practice that Sinope retained long after most Greek mints had abandoned it.