Hekte

Mytilene and Phokaia operated under a formal agreement — likely renewed periodically — to jointly regulate electrum coinage on Lesbos, standardizing weights and alternating types across mints. The Mytilenean hekte series ran for roughly two centuries, with Bodenstedt's typology remaining the primary organizational framework since his 1981 publication. This piece falls in the earlier phase of that sequence, struck within a generation of the Persian Wars, when Mytilene was navigating its position as a tribute-paying member of the Delian League.