Pharnabazus silver stater as Satrap of Cilicia 379 374 BC

Baaltars (combination of "

Baal Baal (), or Baʻal, was a title and honorific meaning 'owner' or 'lord Lord is an appellation for a person or deity who has authority, control, or power (social and political), power over others, acting as a master, chief, or ruler. The ...

" and " Tarsus";

Aramaic Aramaic (; ) is a Northwest Semitic language that originated in the ancient region of Syria and quickly spread to Mesopotamia, the southern Levant, Sinai, southeastern Anatolia, and Eastern Arabia, where it has been continually written a ...

: בעלתרז ''B‘LTRZ'') was the

tutelary deity A tutelary (; also tutelar) is a deity or a Nature spirit, spirit who is a guardian, patron, or protector of a particular place, geographic feature, person, lineage, nation, culture, or occupation. The etymology of "tutelary" expresses the concept ...

of the city of Tarsus in the

Persian Empire The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire, also known as the Persian Empire or First Persian Empire (; , , ), was an Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great of the Achaemenid dynasty in 550 BC. Based in modern-day Iran, it was the larg ...

.Hastings, p.686
/ref> His depiction appears on coins of the Persian governors (

satraps A satrap () was a governor of the provinces of the ancient Median kingdom, Median and Achaemenid Empire, Persian (Achaemenid) Empires and in several of their successors, such as in the Sasanian Empire and the Hellenistic period, Hellenistic empi ...

) of

Cilicia Cilicia () is a geographical region in southern Anatolia, extending inland from the northeastern coasts of the Mediterranean Sea. Cilicia has a population ranging over six million, concentrated mostly at the Cilician plain (). The region inclu ...

at Tarsus before the conquests of

Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon (; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), most commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia (ancient kingdom), Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip ...

, in the 5th and 4th century BCE, such as

Datames Datames (Old Persian: ''Dātama'' or ''Dātāma'', Aramaic: ''Tadanmu'', ; 407 BC – 362 BC), also known as Tarkamuwa, was an Iranian military leader, who served as the governor (satrap) of the Achaemenid satrapy of Cappadocia (or Cilicia; the e ...

, Pharnabazes, and

Mazaios Mazaeus or Mazday (Aramaic: 𐡌𐡆𐡃𐡉 MZDY, Greek: Μαζαῖος ''Mazaios'') (died 328 BC) was an Achaemenid Persian noble, satrap (a type of governor) of Cilicia and later satrap of Babylon for the Achaemenid Empire. He retained the sat ...

,Sayles, p.43
/ref> and also on coins of the early

Seleucid Empire The Seleucid Empire ( ) was a Greek state in West Asia during the Hellenistic period. It was founded in 312 BC by the Macedonian general Seleucus I Nicator, following the division of the Macedonian Empire founded by Alexander the Great ...

. The equivalent of Baaltars for the Greeks was

Zeus Zeus (, ) is the chief deity of the List of Greek deities, Greek pantheon. He is a sky father, sky and thunder god in ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, who rules as king of the gods on Mount Olympus. Zeus is the child ...

Notes

References

* Wayne G. Sayles, ''Ancient Coin Collecting VI: Non-Classical Cultures'' Krause Publications, 1999, * James Hastings, S R Driver, ''A Dictionary of the Bible: Volume IV, Part II (Shimrath - Zuzim)'' The Minerva Group, Inc., 2004

Notes

References

See also