Æ18 - Phokritos

Byzantion's bronze coinage of this period was minted under the financial strain of tribute payments to invading Galatian tribes — a protection racket imposed on Greek cities of the region following the Galatian migrations into Anatolia and Thrace after 279 BC. The magistrate name Phokritos appearing on this issue places it within Byzantion's practice of naming civic officials on bronze fractions, a useful chronological anchor but one whose precise dating within the roughly half-century window remains contested among specialists.