1/3 Stater - Kroisos

Kroisos reformed the Lydian monetary system around 560 BC by introducing the first true bimetallic coinage in history — separate gold and electrum series struck to fixed weight standards, replacing the earlier mixed electrum issues whose variable gold content made valuation difficult. The 1/3 stater, at roughly a third of the heavy gold stater, formed the fractional backbone of that system alongside the 1/6 and 1/12 denominations.

Croesus lost his kingdom to Cyrus the Great of Persia in 546 BC, and the Achaemenid administration subsequently adopted the Lydian weight standard for the daric — a direct institutional inheritance from the very monetary reforms these coins represent.