AR Tetradrachm 16.68g, 27mm, 2h
Struck under Stamenes or Archon
Babylon, circa 324/3 BCE
Price 3599; Müller 670.
As with many satraps, we don’t know a lot about Stamenes. We know that he was Persian, and that in 328 BCE after Mazaios died of apparently non-battle-related causes, Alexander the Great assigned Stamenes to head Babylon.
Stamenes remained there until Alexander the Great died in 323 BCE. At that time, he was replaced by Archon, who held the post only two years before he was replaced and killed by Dokimos.
From a numismatics perspective, Stamenes was hugely important because he was the satrap over the city where Alexander died, at the time he died. This coin, therefore, was around for some of the most dramatic history of the times.