Nike Stater Coin Pendant

The prosperity of the Ancient Greeks was by no means limited to Greece itself. In fact the most profitable ventures of the Greeks occurred overseas at the colonies they founded in Asia and Southern Italy. One such case was Kroton in Southern Italy – a region known as Magna Graecia, or “Greater Greece.”

At the time this silver coin was struck, Kroton was one of the leading colony in its region, and its coinage was one of the standard currencies for merchants and traders who came there to conduct business. Terina was the major city in Kroton, and the “Nymph Terina” on the coinage was considered the personification of the spirit of the city. Terina passed into the control of the Bruttians in 356 BC, submitted to Rome in 272 BC, and Hannibal burned it in 203 BC. But the beauty of the Terinian coinage remains.