Drachm - Meniskos and Philotas

Dyrrachion — the Greek colony Rome knew as Dyrrachium — occupied one of the most strategically pressured positions in the ancient Mediterranean: the western terminus of the Via Egnatia, the road connecting the Adriatic to Byzantium. By the late second and early first centuries BC, the city was effectively operating under Roman hegemony while nominally retaining its civic coinage traditions, and these magistrate-signed drachms reflect that uneasy autonomy. The pairing of two magistrate names, here Meniskos and Philotas, is the defining organizational feature of the late Dyrrachion series — each pair appears to represent a single issuing authority, likely annual officials.

The coinage was widely imitated across the Balkans, particularly by Illyrian and Celtic tribes, making authentic examples from the civic mint identifiable primarily through die study and fabric.