v19_0106 - ASIE MINEURE - SATRAPES DE CARIE ou D'IONIE Tétradrachme

ASIA MINOR - SATRAPS OF CARIA or IONIA

(4th century BC)

After the conquest of Lydia by Cyrus in 546 BC, the Achaemenid kings organized the satrapies of western Asia Minor with Sardis as their capital. During the Ionian revolt in 494 BC, Darius I (521-486 BC) crushed Asia Minor's desire for independence and tried to reduce Greece. Only the Athenian victory at Marathon in 490 BC prevented it. Xerxes his son (486-465 BC) tried in his turn to enslave Greece, he was finally beaten at Salamis and at Plataea by the allied Greeks. For the next fifty years, the Athenian thalassocracy dominated Asia Minor. The fall of Athens allowed the great King to return to the political scene and to control Asia Minor again thanks to the Peace of Antalcidas (387 BC). In Asia Minor, the fourth century BC was marked by the lessening of Achaemenid power and the takeover by the satraps in Caria, Ionia, Lydia, Lycia and Cilicia who took the reality of power in the Asia Minor under nominal Achaemenid rule until the arrival of Alexander the Great in 334 BC.