TARSOS CILICIA SILVER OBOL_______Ancient Greece________FEMALE CASTING ASTRAGALOI

Description

19H101
FRASCATIUS ANCIENTS
A BEAUTIFUL SILVER GREEK OBOL OF TARSOS CILICIA FROM CIRCA 370 BC .
Astragaloi (knucklebones), literally the ankle bones of sheep, were childrens' toys employed in a number of games like jacks.
Strabo praises the cultural level of Tarsos with its philosophers, poets and linguists. In his time the library of Tarsos held 200,000 books, including a huge collection of scientific works.
THE SIZE IS 9.0 MM AND 0.47 GRAMS.
SNG France 239
OBVERSE – Female kneeling left, casting astragaloi
REVERSE – Youthful male head right
In historical times, Tarsos was first ruled by the Hittites, followed by Assyria, and then the Persian Empire. Tarsos, as the principal town of Cilicia, was the seat of a Persian satrapy from 400 BC onward. Indeed, Xenophon records that in 401 BC, when Cyrus the Younger marched against Babylon, the city was governed by King Syennesis in the name of the Persian monarch.
At this period the patron god of the city was Sandon and a large monument to Sandon existed at Tarsos at least until the 3rd century A.D. Coins showed Sandon standing on a winged and horned lion and it is now thought likely that the lion of St Mark on the pillar in the Piazzetta in Venice was in origin a winged lion-griffin from such a monument at Tarsos.
Alexander the Great passed through with his armies in 333 BC and nearly met his death here after a bath in the Cydnus. By this time Tarsos was already largely influenced by Greek language and culture, and as part of the Seleucid Empire it became more and more hellenized. Strabo praises the cultural level of Tarsos in this period with its philosophers, poets and linguists. In his time the library of Tarsos held 200,000 books, including a huge collection of scientific works.
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