Eretria's coinage predates most Greek civic issues by a generation, emerging from the city's pivotal role in the early Aegean trade network — the same commercial reach that made it a target for Persian punitive action in 490 BC, when Darius's forces sacked the city, deported its population to Susa, and effectively ended Eretria's first period of monetary prominence. A tetradrachm of this date was struck right at the edge of that catastrophe.
The BCD Euboia collection, from which this piece draws its primary reference, remains the most rigorously documented assembly of Euboean coinage ever formed.
Eretria's coinage predates most Greek civic issues by a generation, emerging from the city's pivotal role in the early Aegean trade network — the same commercial reach that made it a target for Persian punitive action in 490 BC, when Darius's forces sacked the city, deported its population to Susa, and effectively ended Eretria's first period of monetary prominence. A tetradrachm of this date was struck right at the edge of that catastrophe.
The BCD Euboia collection, from which this piece draws its primary reference, remains the most rigorously documented assembly of Euboean coinage ever formed.