Hemidrachm

Chersonesos, the Thracian Chersonese peninsula, issued these hemidrachms in enormous quantities over roughly five decades, making them one of the most widely circulated silver coins of the fourth-century Aegean world. They functioned as a kind of regional trade currency absorbed into commercial networks stretching well beyond Thrace — hoards containing them have turned up across the Black Sea basin and into Anatolia. The sheer volume minted suggests an issuing authority more concerned with facilitating exchange than with asserting political distinctiveness.

The type predates Philip II's consolidation of Macedonian power over the peninsula, which ended local autonomous coinage around 338 BC.