Tetradrachm

Side was one of the most commercially active ports on the Pamphylian coast, and its tetradrachms circulated widely across the eastern Mediterranean trade networks from the late Hellenistic period onward. The city maintained unusual monetary independence for a non-royal issuer during this stretch, continuing to strike on the Attic standard while many neighbors deferred to Seleucid or later Ptolemaic weight conventions. Hoard evidence places these coins as far afield as Syria and Egypt, reflecting Side's role as a hub for grain, slaves, and pirate-brokered goods — the latter a trade the city was repeatedly accused of facilitating well into the first century BC.