Silver 5 Asses Hippocamp facing right, value below

Luca — modern Lucca in northern Tuscany — was a Latin colony established in 180 BC, but this issue predates that foundation entirely, belonging instead to a poorly documented pre-colonial phase when the settlement functioned as a Roman ally during the wars against the Gauls and Ligurians. The precise issuing authority remains debated; some scholars attribute these pieces to a local Etruscan or Ligurian population rather than a Roman-affiliated civic body.

The five-asses denomination places this among the heavier silver fractions of the period, struck before Rome's mid-third-century monetary reforms began pulling allied coinage into tighter systemic conformity.