Hekte

Mytilene and Cyzicus dominated electrum coinage in the Aegean for much of the fourth century, but the two cities operated on entirely different commercial logics. Where Cyzicus issued a single continuous type, Mytilene changed its hekte designs with striking regularity — Bodenstedt catalogued over a hundred distinct pairings — apparently treating each issue as a kind of civic advertisement cycling through deities, heroes, and local associations. The natural electrum alloy used at Mytilene was not standardized; gold content fluctuates noticeably across the series, a fact ancient merchants would have factored into exchange.

By the time this piece was struck, Persian satrapal pressure and Macedonian expansion were reshaping Aegean trade networks that these coins had long served.