Tetradrachm

Akanthos was a Chalkidian colony on the eastern prong of the Chalkidike peninsula, and its tetradrachms were struck at a time when the city controlled enough silver-rich hinterland to sustain a significant autonomous coinage. The type circulated widely across the northern Aegean trade network, competing with issues from Macedonian dynasts and Thracian tribes in an economically active but politically volatile region.

By the early fourth century, Olynthian expansion under the Chalkidian League steadily eroded Akanthian independence. The city's coinage essentially ceases around 390 BC — not from economic collapse but from political absorption.