Tetrachalkon

Rhegion's bronze coinage of this period reflects the city's precarious position during the Second Punic War — caught between Roman alliance and Hannibal's devastating campaigns through southern Italy. The city had been a Roman ally since the brutal suppression of its own mutinous garrison in 270 BC, and it held that alignment through the war's worst years, when much of Bruttium defected to Carthage after Cannae. Small bronze issues like this one kept local markets functioning when silver was being hoarded or requisitioned for military pay.