Hekte

Mytilene and Phocaea operated under a formal agreement — renewed at intervals across the fourth century — that regulated the shared production of electrum coinage, standardizing weights and alternating types on a fixed schedule. This hekte falls within that treaty framework. The arrangement was unusual enough that ancient sources took note of it, and modern scholars have used die studies to reconstruct the sequence of issues with some precision.

Bodenstedt 88 places this piece late in the Mytilenean series, after the Persian-controlled disruption of Aegean trade networks had already reshaped the commercial pressures driving electrum production.