Obol

Phlious, a small polis in the northeastern Peloponnese, maintained a stubborn political independence that repeatedly put it at odds with its neighbors. The city was a Spartan ally during the Peloponnesian War, and its coinage from this decade reflects a mint operating in the shadow of larger regional powers — Corinth above all — yet refusing to abandon its own civic identity. Output was limited, and the obol denomination in particular was a workhorse fraction struck in small quantities to meet local transactional needs rather than interstate commerce.

BCD Peloponnesos 92 is among the better-documented specimens of this scarce type from the Bcd collection, one of the defining private assemblages of Peloponnesian bronzes and silvers ever formed.