Drachm - Basileides

Rhodes lost its independence as a free port in 167 BC when Rome transferred its Aegean trade privileges to Delos, devastating the island's economy. This drachm series, struck roughly a century later, belongs to the civic recovery coinage issued under the authority of named magistrates — the Basileides named here being one of dozens of eponymous officials whose identities remain almost entirely obscure beyond their appearance on coin legends. Ashton and Weiss catalogued this magistrate series exhaustively, distinguishing issues by die linkage rather than by any surviving documentary record.