Siglos - Darius I / Xerxes I THE ROYAL COINAGE - 3rd type A

The 3rd type A siglos falls within the period bracketing Xerxes I's invasion of Greece — Marathon behind it, Thermopylae and Salamis ahead. These coins circulated as the logistical currency of empire, used to pay Greek mercenaries and Aegean traders who had little reason to care whose archer punched the die, so long as the silver was good. Achaemenid royal coinage was never tariffed against a fixed exchange with the gold daric by decree alone; the ratio held by weight convention and habit across an enormous geographic span.