Hekte

Mytilene's electrum hektes were struck under a long-running civic agreement with Phokaia, the two cities alternating types on a shared weight standard — an arrangement unusual enough that ancient sources remarked on it. Bodenstedt 82 and its variants fall within the later phase of this series, issued after Mytilene's recovery from the catastrophic Athenian debate of 427 BC, when the assembly voted to massacre the entire male population before reversing course the following day.

The natural electrum alloy used by Mytilene varied in gold content between dies, a known inconsistency in this series that modern XRF analysis has repeatedly confirmed.