Drachm

Apollonia Pontika, a Milesian colony on the Black Sea coast of Thrace, struck these small silver drachms as the city grew into a significant trading hub connecting Greek commercial networks with the interior of Thrace and the Pontic grain routes. The anchor type for which this series is known was no mere symbol — Apollonia's economy depended directly on its harbor, and the iconographic choice reflects that dependency with unusual literalism for the period.

The SNG BM Black Sea corpus remains the primary reference for sorting the considerable die variety within this series, and individual specimens frequently show subtle differences in the crayfish placement that allow attribution to specific emission groups.