Æ Uncia

Venusia — modern Venosa in Basilicata — was planted as a Roman colony in 291 BC specifically to anchor Roman control over the Samnites following the Third Samnite War. The colony's right to strike its own bronze coinage was not indefinite; this uncia falls within a narrow window of local mint activity that effectively ceased as Rome consolidated monetary production in the second century BC. Venusia is also the birthplace of Horace, though that has no bearing on the coin.