During the 2nd century BC, in Hellenistic times, the Greek island of Thasos issued tetradrachms with the garlanded head of the wine god Dionysus. These coins circulated as international means of payment from the Balkans to Dacia, today's Hungary. The reverse depicted the hero Heracles, leaning naked on his club, a lion's skin over his left arm.
The style of the Thasian tetradrachms became the prototype for the coinage of the east European Celtic tribes; they copied the images and changed them according to their own fashion and taste.