Stater - 83rd-87th Olympiad

Issued by the sanctuary at Olympia during a period when the quadrennial games were attracting pan-Hellenic attendance on an unprecedented scale, these staters served as a de facto international currency for the thousands of traders, athletes, and pilgrims converging on the Alpheios valley every four years. The sanctuary controlled its own mint independently of Elis for much of this period — a political arrangement that reflects the uneasy relationship between the religious authority of Olympia and the civic ambitions of the Eleans, who would eventually absorb minting rights entirely by the late fifth century.