Balakros Stater

CILICIA, Tarsos. Balakros. Satrap of Cilicia, 333-323 BC. AR Stater. (22mm., 10,26g.)
O: Baaltars seated left, his torso facing, holding lotus-tipped scepter in extended right hand, left hand holding chlamys at his waist; grain ear to left, B’LTRZ (in Aramaic) to right, Σ (retrograde). There is the possibility that instead of this being a retrograde Σ below the throne it is a sideways M, making the mint Mallos for this issue.
R: Lion left, attacking bull right above two lines of turreted wall (Tarsos); club above.
- Casabonne series 1; cf. SNG France 363

Tarsus, the principal city of Cilicia, was used as a mint by a succession of Persian satraps during the fourth century BC. When Alexander the Great took the city in 333, he appointed a satrap of his own. The new satrap, Balacrus, continued to strike coinage at Tarsus very much in the manner of earlier satraps. The obverse of this stater depicts the local god of Tarsus, who is usually associated with symbols of fertility (in this case, the grain ear). The reverse type is a borrowing from the coinage the previous satrap, Mazaeus (361-334 BC). It shows a lion-bull combat—a typical theme of both Persian and Greek art—above the city walls of Tarsus. Author David Hendin has suggested that the impressive circuit of walls shown on the reverse may be those of Jerusalem, which fell within the jurisdiction of the Satrap of Cilicia.