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Message:: [QUOTE="Alegandron, post: 2951775, member: 51347"]Interesting approach [USER=82829]@PMONNEY[/USER] .  When I found this coin, I snapped it up.  I knew this story at the Battle of Granicus, Alexander II's first battle with the Persians.[ATTACH=full]721254[/ATTACH]Persian EmpireSpithridates, Achaemenid satrap of Sparda (Lydia and Ionia)ca 334 BC AE10, 1.20gObv: Head of satrap r., wearing Persian headdressRev: Forepart of galloping horse r., monogram above, Greek PI belowRef: VA 1823, Klein 367, Cop 1538 "Spithridates was one of the tragic heroes of the first of four great battles won by Alexander the Great as he progressed eastward from Western Asia Minor, through the Persian realm, all the way to India. Although the veracity of historical accounts purporting to depict pitched battle minutiae can always be brought into some question, Arrian's chronicle of [the Battle of] Granicus easily captures the imagination, valiantly thrusting the Macedinonian king into center field at the helm of his troops, cutting down opposing leaders while barely escaping their own mortal blows... The closest of the latter calls was apparently a deadly swing of Spithridates' scimitar aimed at Alexander, negated in the last moment through a nifty move by Cleitus, son of Dropides... The rest was, as they say - history, and regardless of whether one believes that Spithridates was truly within a hair of irrevocably changing it [Western History]"[/QUOTE]