Drachm

The Lycian League's early coinage belongs to a period when Lycia operated as a semi-autonomous satrapy under Achaemenid Persian oversight, struck local silver while nominally subject to Darius I and later Xerxes. These drachms were not federal coinage in any later administrative sense — the formalized League structure came centuries later. What circulated here was dynastic civic silver, its production driven by local rulers who retained striking rights as a Persian concession, likely to facilitate tribute payment and mercenary wages during the campaigns that culminated in the Persian Wars.