Obol

Sparta's use of iron currency — the infamous iron spits (obeloi) mandated by Lycurgan law — kept silver coinage off the table for centuries while every neighboring polis struck it freely. This silver obol represents the eventual, grudging abandonment of that policy, likely forced by the financial realities of maintaining mercenary forces and conducting interstate commerce during the turbulent decades following the Battle of Leuctra in 371 BC, when Spartan power never fully recovered.

The BCD collection, assembled by a single dedicated scholar-collector over decades, remains the primary reference corpus for Peloponnesian coinage precisely because institutional collections neglected the region.