A new study of the 87 coins (29 silver and 58 bronze) of Apollonia in Illyria which comprise the Dimalla treasure. The silver coins have as types a head of Apollo on the right and three nymphs dancing around the hearth of the Nymphaeon on the reverse, with names of mint officers (which are not those of the prytaneis), and having the same weight as the Roman denier. The bronze coins revert to the types that preceded the great 1st c. (...) monetary reform, but with different mint officers, names and above all different weights, which are exactly the same as those of the Roman bronze coins, and probably struck at Corinth by the praefectus of Antonius' fleet, Atratinus. This shows that Apollonia created its own monetary system between 38 and 36 BC, adapting it to the standards of the denier and the new Roman bronze coinage. (shrink)

The chance discovery in 1991 close to the fortress of Hollm (SE Albania) of a coin hoard consisting almost exclusively of silver Aiginetic staters, contained in a bronze oinochoe of Rhodian type, pro vides an opportunity to examine our present state of knowledge about the issues of Aiginetic "tortoises" struck between ca 520 and ca 300 B. C. The 394 staters in the hoard attest for the first time the penetration of Aiginetic coinage in Illyria. To judge from its composition (...) the hoard must have been hidden in the years around 420. A possible explanation for its unusual presence in Albania could be the diaspora of the Aiginetans after 432, when a group of those expelled took part in the foundation of Damastion (Strabo, VIII 6,16). (shrink)