The appearance of Pegasus on this Pannonian obol reflects a striking example of cultural and artistic transfer between the Hellenistic Greek world and the Celtic tribes of the Middle Danube. Pegasus, the winged horse of Greek mythology, is most famously associated with Corinthian coinage of the 5th–3rd centuries BC, where it served as the city’s emblem and a symbol of divine favor through its link to Bellerophon.

By the 2nd century BC, Celtic tribes in Pannonia and adjacent regions had absorbed vast amounts of Greek silver through trade, mercenary service, and contact with Macedonian and Thracian mints. Skilled local engravers adapted familiar Greek types into a distinctly Celtic visual language-simplifying forms, altering proportions, and imbuing the imagery with regional aesthetic sensibilities.

On this coin, Pegasus is rendered in a dynamic but abstracted style, its body reduced to bold, fluid lines that emphasize movement rather than anatomical precision. The obverse head, equally stylized, departs radically from classical naturalism, reflecting a Celtic preference for symbolic representation over realistic portraiture.

The persistence of Greek imagery in Pannonian issues indicates more than mere imitation-it speaks to ongoing exchange networks, in which Greek coinage circulated widely and Hellenistic iconography was adapted to serve as a local marker of prestige, power, and connectivity within the Celtic world.