Corinthian silver dominated western Greek trade routes throughout the archaic period to a degree that no other polis matched — the city's position on the diolkos, the overland ship-portage crossing the isthmus, made it the fulcrum of commerce between the Aegean and Adriatic. These drachms circulated as far as Sicily and the Adriatic coast, carried by Corinthian merchants who planted colonies at Syracuse and Corcyra. The archaic die-cutting tradition at Corinth was conservative by design; the city resisted the stylistic shifts sweeping other mints well into the fifth century.
Corinthian silver dominated western Greek trade routes throughout the archaic period to a degree that no other polis matched — the city's position on the diolkos, the overland ship-portage crossing the isthmus, made it the fulcrum of commerce between the Aegean and Adriatic. These drachms circulated as far as Sicily and the Adriatic coast, carried by Corinthian merchants who planted colonies at Syracuse and Corcyra. The archaic die-cutting tradition at Corinth was conservative by design; the city resisted the stylistic shifts sweeping other mints well into the fifth century.