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Hemidrachm
| Issuer | Thessalian League |
|---|---|
| Year | 470 BC - 460 BC |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Drachm |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Diameter | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Forepart of a prancing horse advancing to right, rendered in bold archaic relief against a plain field. The animal is depicted with musculature carefully articulated, its mane rendered with fine incised lines, forelegs raised in dynamic motion. The design fills the broadly oval, irregular flan characteristic of early Thessalian coinage, with no border or legend present. |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
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| Reverse script | Greek |
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| Additional information |
The Thessalian League's federal coinage of this period reflects one of the earliest sustained experiments in Greek interstate monetary cooperation, where individual poleis subordinated their civic minting traditions to a shared federal issue. The arrangement was politically fragile — Thessaly's aristocratic tagoi exercised loose authority over member cities, and the federation dissolved and reformed repeatedly across the fifth century.
BCD Thessaly II#13 places this hemidrachm among the earliest attributable federal issues, predating the disruptions of the Peloponnesian War that would fragment Thessalian political coherence considerably.