In 332, Alexander the Great started issuing gold coins with an image of Victory, symbol of his conquest of the Phoenician city of Tyre after a 6 months siege. This event gave him complete command of the sea and allowed him to penetrate eastward, to the core of the Persian Empire. In the following years, these coins and other gold coins were minted in huge quantities and flooded across his Empire. Symbol of the power of the Macedonian conquerors, they also shed light on the upheaval and profound changes brought by Alexander.

Short bibliography and/or website on lecture topic (for lay reader):

http://numismatics.org/pella/

Arnold-Biucchi 2006 : Carmen Arnold-Biucchi, Alexander’s Coins and Alexander’s Image, Cambridge, 2006.

Dahmen 2007 : Karsten Dahmen, The Legend of Alexander the Great on Greek and Roman Coins, 1st ed., New York, 2007 (Taylor & Francis eBooks).

Duyrat 2018 : Frédérique Duyrat, « Alexander’s Gold Distaters », dans Oğuz Tekin (éd.), Second International Congress on the of History of Money and Numismatics in the Mediterranean World, 5-8 January 2017, Antalya: Proceedings = İkinci Uluslararası Akdeniz Dünyasında Para Tarihi ve Numismatik Kongresi, 5-8 Ocak 2017, Antalya : Bildiriler, Antalya, 2018, p. 151‑159. Le Rider 2007 : Georges Le Rider, Alexander the Great: Coinage, Finances, and Policy, Philadelphia, 2007 (Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society ; v. 261). Price 1991 : Martin Jessop Price, The Coinage in the Name of Alexander the Great and Philip Arrhidaeus: A British Museum Catalogue, Zürich; London, 1991.