Tetradrachm ΣΙ∆ΩΝΙΩΝ ΤΗΣ ΙΕΡΑΣ ΚΑΙ ΑΣΥΛΟΥ

Sidon's civic tetradrachms of this period were struck under the Seleucid-derived autonomous coinage system the city maintained after Rome reorganized the Phoenician coast. The designation ΙΕΡΑΣ ΚΑΙ ΑΣΥΛΟΥ — "holy and inviolable" — was a formal civic status granted by Rome, conferring religious asylum rights on the city and its sanctuary. Such titles were actively lobbied for and carried real political weight in the late Republican period.

The specific dating places this piece in year 18 or 19 of Sidon's civic era, during the upheaval of Caesar's campaigns in the East and the political reorganization following Pompey's settlement of the Levant in 63 BC.