Gold-Framed Ancient Zeus Seated, Holding Eagle and Scepter, Tetradrachm Coin (Replica) Charm Pendant, 24kt Gold, Silver & 0.02ct Diamonds

(330-320 BCE)

Alexander the Great, only twenty years old when he became king of Macedonia in 336 B.C., was perhaps the greatest general of all time. He was certainly a great empire builder. In the course of just thirteen years before his death at Babylon in 323 B.C., he changed the Mediterranean and Near Eastern world forever by bringing the territory of the Persian Empire under Greek rule. This vast region stretched from the borders of India and inner Afganistan in the east to the Adriatic Sea in the west and from Egypt in the south to the coasts of the Black Sea in the north. The Hellenistic Near East and the Hellenistic world beyond the Near East were the product of Alexander's adventure. The repercussions of his reign were thus profound, and nowhere more so than in the history of money. Alexander's coins, the most familiar being the silver issues bearing a head of Herakles on one face and a seated Zeus with the king's name on the other, were struck throughout the empire.