Tetradrachm ΔΠP, MΣ

Arados — modern Arwad, a small island off the Syrian coast — maintained its own civic era dating from 259 BC, making precise absolute dating of its tetradrachm series possible with unusual confidence. The ΔΠP and MΣ designations are magistrate monograms, a control system the mint used consistently across its late Hellenistic silver output to track die responsibility. By 76–75 BC, Arados was navigating the increasingly unstable politics of Seleucid collapse and the growing shadow of Tigranes of Armenia, who controlled much of the Syrian interior.