Hemidrachm Tegea

The Arcadian League coinage of the mid-fifth century BC was a rare early experiment in federal Greek minting — one of the first instances of poleis surrendering individual civic coinage identity in favor of a shared federal type. Tegea, one of the more powerful Arcadian cities and home to a major sanctuary of Athena Alea, contributed substantially to this federal output. The hemidrachm denomination served inter-regional trade at a fractional level appropriate to Arcadian market activity, which was more pastoral than mercantile.

Williams's die study remains the essential reference for sorting this complex series by emission sequence.