This chapter discusses numismatics of the smaller states existing in the shadow of the Arsacid empire in Southern Iran. It considers coinage of minor dynasties include Persis, Elymais and Characene in smaller states. Being significantly different in types and fabric from the rest of the early Persid coinages seem closest to those struck by the Seleucid kings. The metrology of the coinage derived, as did that of the Parthians, from the Attic system was based on the silver drachm. The prince of the "Oborzos" coins may also have been the instigator of a massacre of the local Macedonian garrison. By now Susa itself had become so imbued with Greek ideas that it was scarcely suitable as a residence for Elymaean kings. During the later stages of the period under discussion, a gradual change occurred in the reverses of the Elymaean coinage. The earliest Characenian pieces stem directly in fabric and design from the Hellenistic money circulating in the locality.

The Achaemenian, Arsacid and Sasanian dynasties, which together ruled Iran for more than a millennium, their coinages are an invaluable source of information about the history, culture and economic life of the Sasanian state. The alteration in Sasanian numismatic portraiture stems from Iranian national tradition; such changes reflect a rejection of the Arsacid dynasty and all it stood for a deliberate challenge to the old enemy Rome. As regards weight-standard and choice of denominations, the Sasanians at first kept strictly to existing traditions. The silver drachm of Attic weight, which even in Parthian times was everywhere the commonest currency, became the chief denomination of the Sasanian state. The formulation of Sasanian coin inscriptions is determined by the political and religious motives of the dynasty. The coin inscriptions are in Sasanian Pahlavi (Middle Persian) and, in isolated instances, ideograms are used. The problems of Sasanian numismatic art are closely connected with those of technology.