Stater

This issue falls within the period of Tarentum's alliance with Pyrrhus of Epirus, whose intervention against Rome was formally requested in 281 BC after Tarentum's navy sank Roman ships in violation of an existing treaty. The city's gold coinage expanded sharply during this window — gold was not Tarentum's habitual metal — driven by the need to subsidize Pyrrhic mercenary forces and maintain a war footing against an advancing Roman republic.

Vlasto's close sequencing of nos. 16 and 18 suggests at least two obverse die pairings within this emission, a detail worth noting for specialists tracking die linkage across the series.