Tetradrachm

Potidaia's coinage reflects the city's unusual political position: a Corinthian colony on the Macedonian coast that paid tribute to Athens while maintaining Corinthian magistrates. This tetradrachm falls within a period bracketed by two upheavals — the Persian sack of 480 BC and the city's revolt against Athenian control around 432 BC, which triggered one of the immediate crises preceding the Peloponnesian War. The Athenian siege that followed lasted three years and reportedly cost Athens 2,000 talents, a drain Thucydides considered financially significant even by Athenian standards.