city was first ruled by the Hittites, followed by Assyria, and then by the Persian Empire. As the principal town of Cilicia, Tarsus was the seat of a Persian satrapy from 400 BC onward. Indeed, Xenophon records that in 401 BC, when Cyrus the Younger marched against Babylon, the city was governed by King Syennesis in the name of the Persian monarch. At this period the god of the city was Sandon, of whom a large monument existed at Tarsus at least until the 3rd century AD. Coins showed Sandon standing on a winged and horned lion, and it is now thought likely that the Lion of Saint Mark on the pillar in the Piazza San Marco in Venice was in origin a winged lion-griffin copied from such a monument in Tarsus. Alexander the Great passed through with his army in 333 BC and nearly met his death here after bathing in the Cydnus. By this time Tarsus was already largely influenced by Greek language and culture, and as part of the Seleucid Empire it became more and more Hellenised. Strabo praised the cultural level of Tarsus in this period with its philosophers, poets and linguists. The schools of Tarsus rivalled those of Athens and Alexandria. A reference in the Bible (2 Maccabees (4:30)) records the city's revolt against Antiochus IV Epiphanes in about 171 BC .The king had renamed the town Antiochia on the Cydnus although the name did not stick due because too many cities were named Antioch. At this time the library of Tarsus held 200,000 books, including a huge collection of scientific works. Roman period After crushing the feared Cilician pirates, Pompey brought Tarsus under Roman rule In 67 BC, and it became the capital of the Roman province of Cilicia. To flatter Julius Caesar, it was briefly named Juliopolis; this was also where Cassius Longinus planned to kill him as early as 47 BC. It was also here that Cleopatra and Mark Antony met and was the scene of the celebrated feasts they gave during the construction of their fleet (41 BC). In William Shakespeare's 1606 play Antony and Cleopatra (Act 5, Scene 2) Cleopatra says she is going to Cydnus to meet Antony after his death, (i.e., she will commit suicide to meet him in the afterlife). "Go fetch / My best attires: I am again for Cydnus, / To meet Mark Antony." In