See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration! or register with email

Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!

Æ Drachm

Issuer Brettii
Year 208 BC - 203 BC
Type Log in to see details
Value Log in to see details
Currency Log in to see details
Composition Bronze
Weight Log in to see details
Diameter Log in to see details
Thickness Log in to see details
Shape Log in to see details
Technique Log in to see details
Orientation Log in to see details
Engraver(s) Log in to see details
In circulation to Log in to see details
Reference(s) Log in to see details
Obverse description Log in to see details
Obverse script Log in to see details
Obverse lettering Log in to see details
Reverse description An eagle stands left, wings partially spread, perched upon a thunderbolt rendered in stylized form beneath its talons, alluding to Zeus as divine patron. A lyre appears to the left of the eagle in the field, serving as a secondary symbol and cultural emblem of the Bruttian people. The ethnic legend BΡETTIΩN is distributed around the field in Greek characters, enclosed within a beaded border. The composition combines Hellenistic religious iconography with distinctly local numismatic symbolism, consistent with Bruttian coinage of the Second Punic War period.
Reverse script Log in to see details
Reverse lettering Log in to see details
Edge Plain
Mint Log in to see details
Mintage Log in to see details
Additional information

The Brettii — the Bruttian league of southern Italy — struck this issue during the closing years of their alliance with Hannibal, a partnership that had made them Rome's most committed Italian enemy after Cannae. By 203 BC, with Scipio pressing Carthage in Africa and Roman legions methodically reclaiming the south, Bruttium was effectively finished as an independent political force. Rome's retribution after 202 BC was severe: mass enslavement, land confiscation, and the reduction of the Bruttii to a servile class barred from military service. Coins from this terminal phase are among the last artifacts of a people Rome chose to erase rather than absorb.

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE