Stater

This issue falls within the final years of Pyrrhus of Epirus's Italian campaign, when Tarentum was effectively under his military administration. The gold stater series of this period is closely tied to war financing — Tarentum had invited Pyrrhus in 280 BC specifically to counter Roman expansion, and emergency gold coinage was a predictable consequence of sustaining a professional mercenary force. By 272 BC, Pyrrhus had withdrawn, the city capitulated to Rome, and the political apparatus that authorized these coins ceased to exist.

Vlasto 39 is among the rarer die pairings in the late Tarentine gold series.