Stater - 108th Olympiad

Issued by the Sanctuary of Zeus at Olympia to commemorate the 108th Olympiad, this stater belongs to a series produced by one of the ancient world's most unusual minting authorities — a religious sanctuary rather than a city-state. The Olympic mint operated intermittently, striking coins primarily around the quadrennial games to facilitate the enormous commercial activity that accompanied the festival. In 348 BC, Philip II of Macedon was consolidating power to the north, and Greek interstate politics were fracturing in ways that would make these pan-Hellenic gatherings increasingly fraught.

Seltman's Temple series classification places this piece among the better-documented sanctuary issues.