Obol

Olympia functioned not as a city-state but as a sanctuary administered by the Eleans, who controlled the site and its revenues for most of antiquity. This small silver issue belongs to a series struck specifically to facilitate exchange during the Panhellenic festival cycle — the Olympic Games drew tens of thousands of pilgrims every four years, creating a concentrated, temporary demand for small-denomination coinage that ordinary civic mints had little reason to supply.

By the mid-fourth century, Elis had already lost and regained control of Olympia following the conflict with Arcadia in 364 BC, when the Games were famously interrupted by armed fighting in the Altis itself.