Siglos - Artaxerxes II / Artaxerxes III THE ROYAL COINAGE - 3rd type B - late

The royal siglos changed little over nearly a century of Achaemenid rule — deliberately so. Artaxerxes II inherited an empire shaken by the revolt of his brother Cyrus the Younger, whose Greek mercenary army nearly reached Babylon in 401 BC, and monetary conservatism was part of a broader effort to project continuity and stability. The 3rd type B siglos spans the reigns of two kings across 67 years, making precise attribution to either ruler essentially impossible without die study beyond what catalog references resolve.

Sigloi circulated widely in Anatolia and the Levant but were rarely seen in Persia proper, where commodity exchange dominated.