Poseidonia — the Greek colonial city on the Tyrrhenian coast known to Rome as Paestum — occupied an unusual position among the western Greek mints. Its coinage circulated in a region where Oscan-speaking Lucanians were applying steady demographic and military pressure throughout the fifth century, and the city would eventually fall to them around 390 BC. This triobol belongs to the generation just before that transition, when Poseidonian civic identity was still expressed confidently through its silver issues.
The BMC Italian reference places this among a small group of fractional silver types that are considerably scarcer than the city's better-known staters.
Poseidonia — the Greek colonial city on the Tyrrhenian coast known to Rome as Paestum — occupied an unusual position among the western Greek mints. Its coinage circulated in a region where Oscan-speaking Lucanians were applying steady demographic and military pressure throughout the fifth century, and the city would eventually fall to them around 390 BC. This triobol belongs to the generation just before that transition, when Poseidonian civic identity was still expressed confidently through its silver issues.
The BMC Italian reference places this among a small group of fractional silver types that are considerably scarcer than the city's better-known staters.