Drachm - Heliodoros

Rhodes struck these late drachms under magistrate names — Heliodoros being one of the named officials responsible for a specific emission — during a period when the island's commercial dominance had already been broken by Rome's elevation of Delos as a free port in 166 BC. That single administrative decision collapsed Rhodian harbor revenues almost overnight. The island continued minting silver through sheer institutional momentum, supplying regional trade networks across the eastern Aegean long after its political leverage had diminished.

The dating range spans the final generation before Augustus reorganized the eastern provinces, by which point autonomous Rhodian coinage was already fading.