Drachm - Agatharkhos

Rhodes issued this series of plinthophoric drachms following a political realignment that saw the island emerge as a major power broker in the eastern Mediterranean after the Peace of Apamea in 188 BC. The magistrate name Agatharkhos — rendered in full on the reverse — reflects the Rhodian practice of rotating civic officials through the mint, a system that produced an enormous number of named types across barely two decades. Identifying individual magistrates from contemporary records remains largely impossible; the name survives on the coin and almost nowhere else.