Obol

Zakynthos, the Ionian island colony with close ties to Corinth, occupied an awkward position during the Peloponnesian War — nominally allied with Athens yet geographically exposed to Spartan pressure from the Peloponnese. This small fractional silver was produced across roughly four decades that saw the island change hands more than once in strategic calculations between the two powers. The extreme lightness of the flan makes clean strikes rare; most known examples show some degree of off-center placement simply due to the difficulty of controlling such a small planchet.