Southern Italy, Calabria, Taras, Diobol

The city of Taras, modern Taranto, was originally a Greek colony on the southeast coast of Italy. Taras' coinage started at about 500 BC and developed into one of the most various and comprehensive of all Italian towns. This might have had to do with the city's strategic location on the Gulf of Taranto, which led to many bellicose conflicts; to finance the resulting wars, Taras needed large sums of gold and silver coins at any one time.