Tetradrachm In the name of Lysimachus

Byzantion's posthumous tetradrachms in the name of Lysimachus — struck roughly a century and a half after his death at Corupedium in 281 BC — reflect the city's deliberate appropriation of a prestigious monetary type rather than any dynastic connection. By the second century BC, the deified Alexander-headed coinage of Lysimachus had become the dominant trade currency across the Black Sea and Aegean circuits, and Byzantion, positioned at the straits, had every commercial reason to keep issuing it. The city added its own magistrate names and control marks to distinguish local production without abandoning the trusted type.