Aegina's silver coinage was among the earliest struck in the Greek world, and by the mid-fourth century the city-state was fighting a losing battle to remain relevant in Aegean trade. The staters of this late period — roughly contemporary with Philip II's consolidation of Macedonia — were produced by a polis whose commercial reach had been dramatically curtailed since the Athenian expulsion of the Aeginetans in 431 BC. A truncated population, resettled briefly at Thyreatis, had eventually returned, but the mint never recovered its archaic dominance.
The "turtle" coinage of Aegina, switching from sea turtle to land tortoise around 404 BC, is one of the more debated typological transitions in Greek numismatics.
Aegina's silver coinage was among the earliest struck in the Greek world, and by the mid-fourth century the city-state was fighting a losing battle to remain relevant in Aegean trade. The staters of this late period — roughly contemporary with Philip II's consolidation of Macedonia — were produced by a polis whose commercial reach had been dramatically curtailed since the Athenian expulsion of the Aeginetans in 431 BC. A truncated population, resettled briefly at Thyreatis, had eventually returned, but the mint never recovered its archaic dominance.
The "turtle" coinage of Aegina, switching from sea turtle to land tortoise around 404 BC, is one of the more debated typological transitions in Greek numismatics.