Stater

These electrum staters were almost certainly struck to pay mercenary troops — Libyan, Iberian, and Campanian soldiers whose loyalty depended entirely on reliable payment in hard metal. The timing coincides precisely with Carthage's desperate military mobilization following Agathocles of Syracuse's audacious invasion of North Africa in 310 BC, the first time a Greek army had ever landed on Carthaginian home soil. Agathocles burned his own ships on landing to prevent retreat.

The electrum alloy, while natural enough in Archaic Greek coinage, was a deliberate economic choice here — gold was too valuable to spend freely on soldiers, silver insufficient in prestige.