Drachm - Zenon and Philodamos

Dyrrachion — the Greek colonial city on the Adriatic coast known to Romans as Dyrrachium — produced drachms over a remarkably long period using a magistrate-naming convention that helps modern scholars sequence the series, though precise dating within the 229–100 BC window remains contested. The city controlled one of the finest natural harbors on the eastern Adriatic and sat at the western terminus of the Via Egnatia, which made it a commercial node of genuine strategic importance throughout the Macedonian and early Roman periods.

Zenon and Philodamos appear as the presiding magistrates on this issue. The dual-magistrate formula was consistent across the Dyrrachion series, pairing an eponymous civic official with a secondary name — a minting convention that likely reflects local oligarchic administration rather than any external authority.