Stater

The Aetolian League struck gold coinage only sparingly, and this stater almost certainly relates to the financial pressures following the League's prolonged military dominance in central Greece — a period when Aetolia controlled Delphi and extracted considerable wealth from the sanctuary's resources. The precise decade of issue corresponds with escalating tensions preceding the Social War, when maintaining mercenary forces and political alliances demanded hard currency in a denomination that city-state bronzes could not fulfill.

HGC 4, 938 is among the rarer Aetolian gold issues, with surviving specimens thin enough that die linkage studies remain inconclusive.