Stater

Kyme was among the earliest Greek colonies in Italy, founded by Euboean settlers around 750 BC, and by the early fifth century it had become the dominant power on the Campanian coast. This stater belongs to a formative period of Cumaean silver coinage, before the city's pivotal naval victories against the Etruscans — particularly the battle of 474 BC when a Cumaean-Syracusan fleet broke Etruscan control of the Tyrrhenian Sea. The mussel shell reverse type characteristic of early Kymean issues is a recognized chronological marker placing production firmly in the archaic phase of the mint.