Drachm - Krethe

Sinope was the dominant Greek emporium on the Black Sea's southern coast, controlling trade routes that funneled Pontic grain, dried fish, and cinnabar — the city's most distinctive export — westward into the Aegean economy. The magistrate name Krethe appearing on this issue places it within a series of drachms that used rotating officials as a guarantor of civic coinage, a practice well documented at Sinope across the fourth century.

The city would fall under Mithridatic control within a generation of this coin's striking.