Tetradrachm

Ephesos operated as one of the most commercially active minting centers in Asia Minor during the late Hellenistic period, and this series — conventionally dated to the city's time under Seleucid and then Roman provincial oversight — reflects a monetary tradition built around the Attic weight standard that Ephesos adopted to facilitate trade across the Aegean. The type was struck over a span of roughly six decades, which explains the considerable variation in die style and fabric collectors encounter across the series.

By 88 BC, Mithridates VI of Pontus sacked Ephesos and was initially welcomed by its citizens, who massacred some 80,000 Italian residents across Asia Minor at his instruction. Roman retribution reshaped the city's financial administration entirely, and issues struck in the final decades before 68 BC reflect that instability in both declining fabric quality and shrinking flans.