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Phaselis occupied an unusual position among Lycian cities — geographically within the region but politically resistant to full absorption into the Lycian League, which granted it a degree of autonomous coinage rights that most neighboring mints did not enjoy. This bronze was struck during a period when the city thrived as a transit port between the Aegean and the eastern Mediterranean, its harbor revenues funding civic institutions and, evidently, a sustained minting program. The date range corresponds broadly with the interval between Rome's defeat of Antiochus III and the Rhodian administration imposed on Lycia after 167 BC, after which local coinage became considerably more constrained.