Stater

Carthage produced electrum staters of this type primarily to pay mercenary forces — Libyan, Iberian, and Greek soldiers who demanded hard currency and had no interest in credit arrangements with their employers. The specific electrum alloy used, well below the gold content of earlier issues, reflects deliberate cost management during a period of sustained military expenditure in Sicily, where Carthage was locked in grinding conflict with the Syracusan Greeks through much of the fourth and into the third century.

The controlled gold-to-silver ratio places this issue late in the electrum series, just before Carthage shifted predominantly to billon and silver for military coinage.