Arados, Phoenicia, 2nd-1st Century BC, Drachm

Arados, AR drachm, 2nd–1st Century BC, Arados mint, 3.61 g, 16 mm. Obverse with a bee shown with straight wings; date in the left field and a monogram in the right field. Reverse with the ethnic inscription APAΔIΩN. Well-centred strike with clear rendering of the bee and legible reverse inscription; minor irregularity to the flan consistent with the issue. Duyrat 2739.

Arados, the principal island city off the Phoenician coast, issued silver coinage for regional commerce during the late Hellenistic period, when Phoenician city-states operated under successive imperial frameworks while maintaining civic identities expressed through their own dated and inscribed issues. The bee type and the ethnic on this drachm function as explicit markers of Aradian authority and circulation, providing evidence for the city’s monetary administration and its participation in Mediterranean trade networks in the centuries preceding Roman provincial reorganization.