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Tetradrachm - Alexander I
| Issuer | Kingdom of Macedonia |
|---|---|
| Year | 498 BC - 454 BC |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Technique | Hammered, Incuse |
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| Obverse description | Mounted horseman advancing to right, wearing a flowing chlamys and broad-brimmed petasos, grasping two spears in his right hand; the horse depicted in a walking pose with careful attention to musculature, rendered in the archaic Greek artistic style typical of early Macedonian coinage. |
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| Edge | Plain |
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| Additional information |
Alexander I spent much of his reign navigating Macedonian submission to Achaemenid Persia — he was known to the Greeks as "Philhellene" partly as a diplomatic rehabilitation, having served as a Persian vassal during Xerxes' invasion of 480 BC. His coinage was almost certainly tied to the silver output of the Dysoron and Bisaltia mining regions, territories he seized after the Persian withdrawal, which gave Macedonia a bullion base serious enough to sustain a substantial striking program. Herodotus records that Alexander extracted a talent of silver daily from those mines.