Æ12 - Dolphin

Massalia — the Greek colony at modern Marseille — lost its political independence after siding with Pompey against Caesar in 49 BC, when Caesar besieged and captured the city. The colonial mint continued operating under Roman oversight, but the civic coinage that followed was a shadow of the earlier autonomous issues. These small bronzes circulated locally in a port economy that Rome had effectively absorbed but never entirely homogenized.