Hemistater

The electrum and billon coinages of Lesbos present one of the earliest known examples of a multi-city monetary agreement in the Greek world, with several poleis on the island — almost certainly including Mytilene and Methymna — cooperating on shared weight standards while individual issuing authorities remain, even now, difficult to attribute with certainty. The billon alloy itself points to deliberate debasement of the electrum standard, a cost-saving decision that distinguishes Lesbian civic issues from the purer electrum of Lydian or Phocaean production.