Tetradrachm In the name of Alexander III

Chios was among the more active minting centers for posthumous Alexanders in the early second century BC, producing these tetradrachms under its own civic authority while maintaining the royal type — a commercial decision as much as a political one, since the Alexander coinage had become the dominant trade currency across the eastern Mediterranean. The island's proximity to the major Aegean shipping lanes made a trusted, widely accepted silver coinage a practical necessity.

Price 2442 places this emission within a well-documented Chian sequence. The Mavrogordato reference reflects the island's unusually thorough study in the literature, a consequence of Chios's prolific and systematically varied output during this period.