PHENICIA - TYR 289 - 175 - Lot 47

PHENICIA - TYR 289 - 175 Laureate head of Melqart right. R/. ΤΥΡΟΥ ΙΕΡΑΣ ΚΑΙΑΣΥΛΟΥ. "Holy Tyre and sacred asylum". Eagle standing left, posed on a ship's prow, a palm under its wing. In the field, club and monograms: ΔI (date) and ZB. ♦ BMC 79-80 Silver tetradrachm or shekel year 14 (113-). (14,18 g) Off-centered. Very handsome. Phoenicia-Tyr, according to tradition the city seems to have been founded by settlers from Sidon, its great rival. Tyrian settlers founded Carthage in 814 BC. Tyre was one of Phoenicia's main ports and one of the most important trading places in the eastern Mediterranean. Tyre refused to submit to Alexander the Great in 332 BC. The siege of the city lasted seven months, from January to August, under very difficult conditions. Alexander showed no mercy, having the population slaughtered or enslaved. Tyre did not disappear, however, and was rebuilt. After Alexander's death, Tyre changed rulers several times: Perdiccas in 321 BC, Ptolemy the following year, then Antigone the One-eyed in 314, before returning to Ptolemy two years later. In 294 BC, Tyre entered the Seleucid orbit. After 274 BC, a new era seemed to begin for Tyre. The city became autonomous after 126 BC, and enjoyed a new political, economic and monetary boom that continued under Roman rule.