The town of Thurii was very prosperous in the 5th century, for which there is no better witness than its rich coinage that began in the late 440s BC.
The coinage of Thurii was based on the Achean standard, with a stater of approximately 8 grams, and included from an early date not only staters, drachms, trioboloi and occasionally also smaller fractions, but also double staters. On all denominations the constant obverse type was a head of Athena wearing an Attic helmet and the reverse type a bull. On the earliest coins – this one, for instance – Athena's helmet is decorated with a wreath. The bulls on these early types walk sedately, while later they tend to charge. A fish swims in the exergue.