Catalog
Stater - Apollonios
| Issuer | Phaselis (Lycia) |
|---|---|
| Year | 167 BC - 130 BC |
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| Composition | Silver |
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| Obverse description | Laureate head of Apollo facing right, rendered in fine Hellenistic style with delicate facial features, a wreath of laurel encircling the hair. The portrait is youthful and idealized, with a slightly incuse field typical of hand-struck Lycian silver coinage of the period. The dotted border frames the design along the coin's periphery. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Athena Nikephoros standing right atop the prow of a warship (aphlaston), clad in helmet and aegis, brandishing a spear with her right hand and bearing a round shield on her left arm. The magistrate's name ΑΠΟΛΛΩΝΙΟΣ appears in the lower field, with the civic monogram or abbreviation ΦΣ referencing the issuing city of Phaselis. The composition is characteristic of the autonomous silver coinage struck at Phaselis during the second century BC. |
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| Additional information |
Phaselis occupied an unusual position among Lycian cities — geographically within Lycia but culturally and politically resistant to full integration into the Lycian League, which Rome formally reorganized in 168 BC following the defeat of Perseus of Macedon. These staters were struck in the decades immediately following that reorganization, a period when Phaselis was navigating its obligations to both the League and its own established trading relationships across the eastern Mediterranean. The city's harbor revenues from transit trade gave it enough financial autonomy to maintain a distinct civic coinage well into the second century.
The magistrate name Apollonios appearing on this issue helps anchor it within the Heipp-Tamer sequence, which catalogues the Phaselian stater series by controlling magistrate.