The numismatic chronicle and journal of the Royal Numismatic Society

SOME CYPRIOTE "ALEXANDERS". 321
before 315 to 312 B.C.), on whose coins Zeus 28
is a
common type. The mint of Marion would suit our
coin very well. It has many affinities with issues of
the near-by mint of Paphos, the Zeus thrones are
identical in shape, the general styles are not unlike,
and the dies were not at first adjusted as on the coins
of Salamis and Kition.
The Alexander coinages which thus far we have
been able to assign to Cyprus cover the period from
the time when the island kings first offered their
submission to Alexander, soon after the battle of Issos
in 333 B.C., down to the loss of the island by Ptolemy
Soter in 306 B.C. The coinages of Kition, Paphos, and
Marion appear, indeed, to have come to an end before
this latter date a fact which coincides well with what
we know of the island's history during this period.
For in 313 B.C. we know that, owing to a sudden revolt
of many of the Cypriote kings against his suzerainty,
Ptolemy was obliged to invade Cyprus, and soon
suppressed the disaffected kings among whom Pumiathon
of Kition and Stasioikos of Marion are expressly
stated to have been. In 310 B.C. Nikokles of Paphos
perished in a similar attempt to throw off the Egyptian
yoke. Salamis, on the other hand, stood loyally by
Ptolemy, and its king, Nikokreon, was awarded the
governorship
of the entire island. On his death
Ptolemy's brother Menelaos, who as general of the
Egyptian forces had assisted Nikokreon, succeeded
him. Salamis continued throughout his reign to be
the capital and administrative centre of the island.
28 In the environs of Marion there was a grove sacred to Zeus.
Strabo, xiv. 6, 3.