Alexander’s gold staters featured the head of Athena (the so-called Athena Alcidemus, the Macedonian goddess of war) on the obverse (Fig. 1) and on the reverse a winged Nike (victory) bearing a stylis (a naval standard) to indicate that a naval victory was being depicted. If this was a conciliatory gesture to the Athenians, then the Nike and the stylis represented the Athenians’ victory over the Persians at Salamis in 480 BCE.
Alexander ostentatiously conciliated the Athenians on other occasions also (for example, in 330 BCE he sent back to them the statues of Harmodius and Aristogeiton which the Persians had brought from the Acropolis to Susa in 480), and he had need of the Athenians’ good will in the early years of his war against Persia. Moreover, the pretext for Alexander’s campaign against Persia was revenge for the Persian invasions of Greece and Macedonia in 490 and 480 BCE, and especially for the burning of Athens in the latter year.
The Athenians, however, had been violently opposed to the rise of Macedonia until Philip defeated them and their allies at the battle of Chaeronea in 338 BCE. They had rebelled when they received news of Philip’s death and were only cowed into submission by the example set when Alexander razed the city of Thebes in 335. Some friendly gestures towards them may have seemed advisable – for example, putting the portrait of Athena (who was also the patron goddess of Athens) together with a reference to the great Athenian victory at Salamis on coins which circulated across Macedonia and Greece. These coins were also used to pay the troops on the campaign. It was a constant reminder of the campaign’s objective both to those taking part in it and to those back at home.
