Corinth, situated in the northeast corner of the Peloponnesus on the Isthmus of Corinth, was one of the largest cities in ancient Greece and a rival of Athens. The city controlled overland access to the Peloponnesus and to continental Greece, as well as the maritime ways to the East and West of the Mediterranean. In time, Corinth started to create a string of daughter cities, colonies such as Leukas, Ambrakia (Arta), Anactorium, Dyrrhachium (Durazzo) and even Terina in southern Italy and Syracuse in Sicily. All these cities followed Corinth's monetary system.
Coinage was essential to Corinth as an important commercial center. After Aegina, Corinth was one of the earliest cities in Greece to strike and use coins--in the 7th century B.C. Her silver staters, the "colts" or "poloi" (in Greek), issued from the earliest times, carried on their obverse the winged Pegasus, wondrous horse of Greek mythology, connected with Poseidon, god of the sea, and with Athena, goddess of wisdom. Her helmeted head graced the reverse of the Corinthian staters from the late 6th century B.C. onwards.
One century later, about 415 B.C., small letters and symbols were added to the reverses of these staters. The purpose of these little symbols, in a great variety of shapes and figures, has long been inconclusively debated. Nevertheless, their forms are clear enough to be identified, and thus we can admire a long series of items, such as weapons, a club, a shield, or birds and animals, such as an eagle, a dog, a rooster, a boar, and, of course, dolphins, the most popular inhabitants of the surrounding seas.
