Obol

Thelpusa was a minor Arkadian polis situated in the upper Ladon valley, and its coinage output was slim even by regional standards. This obol falls within the period following the foundation of Megalopolis in 371 BC, when Sparta's defeat at Leuktra triggered a wholesale reorganization of Arkadian political geography. Many smaller communities were synoikized — their populations absorbed into the new federal city — yet Thelpusa retained enough autonomous function to strike its own silver, however briefly.

The BCD Peloponnesos reference traces to the collection of a single dedicated specialist whose holdings defined the scholarly baseline for this entire series.