Hemidrachm

Parion, the Mysian Greek colony on the eastern shore of the Propontis, maintained an unusually long commitment to its distinctive coin type long after neighboring mints had abandoned such archaic formats. The city's position controlling a key crossing point on the route between the Aegean and the Black Sea gave it enough commercial traffic to sustain independent coinage well into the period when Macedonian influence was absorbing much of the region's monetary output.

This hemidrachm falls within the window of Philip II's and then Alexander's campaigns eastward, yet Parion continued striking on its own authority throughout — one of the few Mysian mints to do so without interruption.