Tetradrachm

Messene struck this tetradrachm during a brief window of renewed autonomy following decades of Macedonian and Achaean political pressure. The city had been a Macedonian foundation of sorts — Philip II settled it as a counterweight to Sparta in 369 BC — and by the late third century it was navigating the increasingly volatile politics of Achaean League dominance. The specific dating to 183–182 BC places this issue within a year of the suicide of Philopoemen, the Achaean strategos whose death effectively ended his faction's hard grip on Messenian affairs.

BCD 710 is among the rarer documented die combinations for this type.