Tetradrachm In the name of Lysimachus

Byzantion continued striking tetradrachms in the name of Lysimachus well over a century after his death at Corupedium in 281 BC — a practice that had nothing to do with dynastic loyalty and everything to do with commercial trust. The type was so widely accepted across the Aegean and Black Sea trade networks that cities found it more profitable to mint a recognized dead king's coinage than to issue their own. Byzantion's position controlling the Bosphorus toll gave its mint unusual longevity in this tradition.

The Marinescu 501 attribution places this piece within a documented sequence specific to the Byzantion civic issues, distinguishable from contemporaneous posthumous strikes at other Thracian and Asia Minor mints by control marks.