Struck at Tarsos during Alexander's eastern campaigns, this issue dates to a period when the mint was operating under intense logistical pressure — Alexander's treasury needed coinage not just for pay but for the enormous administrative costs of governing freshly conquered territory stretching toward India. Tarsos had been a Persian satrapal mint before Alexander arrived in 333 BC, and its existing infrastructure was absorbed and redirected almost immediately.
Price 3019 places this emission in the final years of Alexander's reign, when output from eastern mints was beginning to dwarf anything produced in Macedonia itself.
Struck at Tarsos during Alexander's eastern campaigns, this issue dates to a period when the mint was operating under intense logistical pressure — Alexander's treasury needed coinage not just for pay but for the enormous administrative costs of governing freshly conquered territory stretching toward India. Tarsos had been a Persian satrapal mint before Alexander arrived in 333 BC, and its existing infrastructure was absorbed and redirected almost immediately.
Price 3019 places this emission in the final years of Alexander's reign, when output from eastern mints was beginning to dwarf anything produced in Macedonia itself.