Semis

Oba was a Hispano-Roman mint of uncertain precise location, though most scholarship places it somewhere in the conventus Hispalensis in Baetica. The semis denomination here follows the Roman fractional system adopted by indigenous Iberian mints during the late Republican period, when Rome allowed allied and subject communities to strike their own bronze for local circulation while silver remained a Roman monopoly. Exactly when within that century-long span this piece was struck is unresolved — the dating range reflects the limits of die study rather than any anchored historical event.