Hekte

Mytilene and Phocaea operated a formal agreement — attested in ancient sources — to jointly produce electrum coinage on alternating schedules, each city issuing its own types while sharing the broader currency zone of the eastern Aegean. The hekte was the workhorse denomination of this arrangement, circulating widely among merchants and mercenaries across the region during precisely the decades when Athenian imperial pressure on Lesbos was at its most acute.

Bodenstedt 56 falls within a sequence where the natural electrum alloy composition varies noticeably between dies, a consequence of Mytilene drawing on multiple ore sources rather than maintaining a fixed bullion standard.