Stater - Mazaios

Mazaios served as satrap of Cilicia under Artaxerxes III and later Darius III, and his coinage is among the most prolific of any Achaemenid provincial issue — a direct reflection of his unusually long tenure and the region's strategic value as a staging ground for Persian campaigns into Egypt and the Levant. When Alexander crossed into Asia, Mazaios was commanding the Persian right wing at Gaugamela in 331 BC. He subsequently surrendered Babylon without a fight and was rewarded by Alexander with the satrapy of Babylonia, one of the few Persian officials to survive the conquest in power.