CILICIA, Tarsos. Mazaios. Satrap of Cilicia, 361/0-334 BC. AR Twelfth Stater – Obol (11mm, 0.62 g, 3h). Crowned figure of Artaxerxes III, in the guise of Baal of Tarsos, seated right, holding lotus flower in right hand and lotus-tipped scepter in left / Lion walking left; Z (in Phoenician[?]) above. Casabonne Series 6 and p. 218, n. 913; Göktürk –; SNG BN 425 (Myriandros). Find patina, slightly off center and light scratch on reverse. Good VF.
The attribution of the walking-lion series of Mazaios had originally been given to the mint of Tarsos, but Newell argued that they more likely were struck at Myriandros in his study of that mint in AJN 53 (1919). Later, J.D. Bing, in AJN 1 (1989), argued for an alternative attribution of the Myriandros coinage to the mint of Issos. While most numismatic works continue to follow Newell, Casabonne’s significant study of Cilicia during the Persian period convincingly returns these coins of Mazaios to the mint of Tarsos (cf. Casabonne, pp. 215–7).
The appearance of Baal on this issue is significantly different from the relatively standard depiction of the deity on other coins of Tarsos. While the deity is typically shown nude to his waist, here the figure is fully clothed with attire that closely resembles that on the figure that appears on the royal Persian coinage struck at Sardes. More importantly, though, is the headdress on the figure. Baal typically wears a laurel wreath or no headdress, while this portrait shows the figure wearing an elaborate headdress. In a more recent article, Frank Kovacs analysed the type, and argued that this figure is actually the Great King Artaxeres III Ochos, in the guise of Baal, and the headdress is the combined crown of Upper and Lower Egypt, thus his appearance here is as pharaoh of Egypt (cf. F. Kovacs, "Two Persian Pharaonic Potraits" in JNG L [2000]; see also M. Thompson, in MN XII [1968], pp. 11–2, who notes the figure wearing a "high crown of Egyptian type"). This is plausible, as Artaxeres was the first pharaoh of the Thirty-First Dynasty of Egypt, and the date of his rule there, 343-338 BC, comports well with this issue under Mazaios.
O. Casabonne, while acknowledging that the figure here may represent a synthesis of Baal and the Great King, disagrees with the identification of the headdress as the Egyptian crown. Instead, he views the headdress as being a Phrygian style cap that is often depicted in contemporary art as being worn by warriors (cf. Casabonne, p. 121, fig. 8) but is here shown with the cheek guards in a raised position.
Nonetheless, it is doubtless that the figure here is a synthesized portrait of Baaltars and the Persian Great King. The fractional silver of this issue, interestingly, may be most instructive, as the headdress on the figure is shown wearing a crown that is identical to that on the figure of the royal Achaemenid coinage and his robes have interlocking circles reminiscent of the darics of Carradice Type IV Late (cf. M. Thompson, op. cit., p. 12).
