Perikles was the last great dynast of Lycia, ruling from roughly 380 to 360 BC before launching an extraordinary regional revolt against Achaemenid Persian authority that temporarily united much of southwestern Anatolia under his command. The revolt ultimately failed, and Perikles died — by his own hand, according to ancient sources — rather than submit to Persian retribution. His bronze issues are among the most historically loaded of all Lycian dynastic coinages precisely because they come from a ruler whose political ambitions far exceeded his small territory.
Perikles was the last great dynast of Lycia, ruling from roughly 380 to 360 BC before launching an extraordinary regional revolt against Achaemenid Persian authority that temporarily united much of southwestern Anatolia under his command. The revolt ultimately failed, and Perikles died — by his own hand, according to ancient sources — rather than submit to Persian retribution. His bronze issues are among the most historically loaded of all Lycian dynastic coinages precisely because they come from a ruler whose political ambitions far exceeded his small territory.