The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Coinage 0195305744, 9780195305746

Table of contents :
Contributors
Abbreviations
Preface
Introduction
The Substance of Coinage: The Role of Scientific Analysis in Ancient Numismatics
Archaic and Classical Greek Coinage
The Monetary Background of Early Coinage
Asia Minor to the Ionian Revolt
The Coinage of the Persian Empire
The Coinage of Athens, Sixth to First Century B.C.
Aegina, the Cyclades, and Crete
The Coinage of Italy
The Coinage of Sicily
Greece and the Balkans to 360 B.C.
The Hellenistic World
Royal Hellenistic Coinages: From Alexander to Mithradates
The Hellenistic World: The Cities of Mainland Greece and Asia Minor
The Coinage of the Ptolemies
The Seleucids
Greek Coinages of Palestine
The Coinage of the Parthians
The Roman World
Early Roman Coinage and Its Italian Context
The Denarius Coinage of the Roman Republic
The Julio-Claudians
The Ancient Coinages of the Iberian Peninsula
Flavian Coinage
The Coinage of the Roman Provinces through Hadrian
Trajan and Hadrian
Antonine Coinage
The Provinces after Commodus
Syria in the Roman Period, 64 BC–AD 260
Roman Coinages of Palestine
The Severans
From Gordian III to the Gallic Empire (AD 238–274)
The Later Third Century
The Coinage of Roman Egypt
Tetrarchy and the House of Constantine
The Coinage of the Later Roman Empire, 364–498
The Transformation of the West
Marks of Value (Certain and Possible) on Late Roman Coins with Intrinsic Values (from Aurelian)
References
Earliest Christian Symbols on Roman Coinsrichard abdy
Indices
Glossary
Persons
Mints and places
Hoards and finds
General

Citation preview

[UNTITLED]

Oxford Handbooks Online [UNTITLED] The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Coinage Edited by William E. Metcalf Pr nt Pub cat on Date: Feb 2012 Subject: C ass ca Stud es On ne Pub cat on Date: Nov 2012

(p. iv) Oxford University Press, Inc., publishes works that further Oxford University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Copyright © 2012 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 www.oup.com Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The Oxford handbook of Greek and Roman coinage / edited by William E. Metcalf. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978–0–19–530574–6 1. Coins, Greek—Handbooks, manuals, etc.2. Coins, Roman—Handbooks,

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[UNTITLED] manuals, etc. 3. Greece—Antiquities—Handbooks, manuals, etc.4. Rome— Antiquities—Handbooks, manuals, etc. I. Metcalf, William E. II. Title: Handbook of Greek and Roman coinage. CJ339.O95 2011 938—dc22  2010053536 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

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Contributors

Oxford Handbooks Online Contributors The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Coinage Edited by William E. Metcalf Pr nt Pub cat on Date: Feb 2012 Subject: C ass ca Stud es On ne Pub cat on Date: Nov 2012

Contributors R CHARD ABDY is Curator of Roman Coins in the Department of Coins and Medals, British

Museum, London.

M CHAEL ALRAM is Direktor des Münzkabinetts, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

M CHEL AMANDRY is Directeur du départment des monnaies, medailles, et antiques,

Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris.

R CHARD ASHTON is the editor of the Royal Numismatic Society's Special Publications and

co-editor of The Numismatic Chronicle.

MART N BECKMANN is Assistant Professor of Classics, McMaster University, Hamilton,

Ontario.

ROGER BLAND is Head of the Department of Portable Antiquities and Treasure, British

Museum, London.

ANDREW BURNETT is Deputy Director of the British Museum, London.

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Contributors

KEV N BUTCHER is Professor of Classics and Ancient History, University of Warwick,

Coventry.

AN CARRAD CE is Course Director and Professor of Museum and Gallery Studies and

Director of University Museum Collections, University of St. Andrews.

FRANÇO S DE CALLATAŸ is Head of Curatorial Departments, Bibliothèque Royale de Belgique,

Brussels.

SYLV ANE EST OT is Directeur de recherche, Centre national de la recherche scientifique,

Lyon.

WOLFGANG F SCHER BOSSERT is an independent scholar specializing in Greek coinage.

ANGELO GE SSEN is retired Academische Direktor and Custos der Münzsammlung,

Universität zu Köln.

(p. x) HA M G TLER is Curator of Numismatics, Israel Museum, Jerusalem.

ARTHUR HOUGHTON is an independent scholar and student of Seleucid coinage.

ANN OHNSTON was an independent scholar in Cambridge, England, best known for her

work on Roman provincial coinage.

KORAY KONUK is Senior Research Associate in the Centre National de recherche

Scientifique-Ausonius, Bordeaux.

OHN H. KROLL is Professor of Classics Emeritus, University of Texas at Austin.

CATHAR NE C. LORBER is an independent scholar specializing in Hellenistic coinage.

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Contributors

W LL AM E. METCALF is Professor (Adj.) of Classics, Yale University, and Ben Lee Damsky

Curator of Coins and Medals, Yale University Art Gallery.

SAM MOORHEAD is Finds Adviser for Iron Age and Roman Coins, Department of Portable

Antiquities and Treasure, British Museum, London.

MATTHEW . PONT NG is Lecturer in Science-based Archaeology, School of Archaeology,

Classics and Egyptology, University of Liverpool.

SELENE PSOMA is a collaborative researcher at the Research Centre for Greek and Roman

Antiquity, National Hellenic Research Foundation, Athens.

PERE P. R POLLÈS is Professor of Archaeology, University of Valencia.

N. K. RUTTER is Honorary Fellow and Professor Emeritus in Classics, University of

Edinburgh.

KENNETH SHEEDY is Director of the Australian Centre for Ancient Numismatic Studies,

Macquarie University, Sydney.

is Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiter in the Numismatic Commission of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna. FABR Z O S N S

ALAN M. STAHL is Curator of Numismatics, Princeton University.

OREN TAL is Chair, J. M. Alkow Department of Archaeology, Sonia and Marco Nadler

Institute of Archaeology, Tel Aviv University.

(p. xi) PETER G. VAN ALFEN is Margaret Thompson Curator of Greek Coins, American Numismatic Society, New York.

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Contributors

RE NHARD WOLTERS is University Professor and Head of Department, Institut für Numismatik

und Geldgeschichte, Vienna.

BERNHARD E. WOYTEK is Wisenschaftliche Mitarbeiter in the Numismatic Commission of the

Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna.

L V MAR AH YARROW is Associate Professor of Classics, Brooklyn College, City University of

New York.

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Abbreviations

Oxford Handbooks Online Abbreviations The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Coinage Edited by William E. Metcalf Pr nt Pub cat on Date: Feb 2012 Subject: C ass ca Stud es On ne Pub cat on Date: Nov 2012

Abbreviations In general, abbreviations of periodicals follow the conventions of L’année philologique or the American Numismatic Society's Numismatic Literature; some that are unlikely to be familiar are itemized here. AA

Archäologischer Anzeiger.

ABSA

Annual of the British School at Athens.

AIIN

Annali dell’ Istituto Italiano di Numismatica.

AJA

American Journal of Archaeology.

AJN

American Journal of Numismatics.

Anat. Stud.

Anatolian Studies.

Annales HSS

Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales.

ANRW

Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt.

ANS

American Numismatic Society, New York.

ANSMN

American Numismatic Society Museum Notes.

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Abbreviations

ANSNNM

American Numismatic Society Numismatic Notes and Monographs.

AnTard

Antiquité tardive.

AntKun

Antike Kunst.

BAR

British Archaeological Reports, Oxford.

BCH

Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique.

BSA

British School at Athens.

BASOR

Bulletin of the American School of Oriental Research.

BCD

Coins of the Peloponnesos: The BCD Collection. LHS auction 96. 8–9 May 2006.

BEFAR

Bibliothèque des Ecoles Françaises d’Athènes et de Rome.

BICS

Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies.

BIFAO

Bulletin de l’Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale de Caire.

BMC + suffix

Catalogue of Greek Coins in the British Museum. 29 vols. London, 1873– 1927.

BMCRE

H. Mattingly and R. A. G. Carson, Coins of the Roman Empire in the British Museum. London, 1923–1962.

BNJ

British Numismatic Journal.

BSFN

Bulletin de la Societé Française de Numismatique.

CAH

Cambridge Ancient History. 2nd ed. London, 1970–2005.

CHRB

Coin Hoards from Roman Britain.

CIL

Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. Berlin, 1862–.

(p. xiv) CR

Classical Review.

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Abbreviations

CRS

K. Butcher, Coinage in Roman Syria. RNS Special Publication 34, London, 2004.

CSE

A. Houghton, Coins of the Seleucid Empire from the Collection of Arthur Houghton. New York, 1983.

DNb, DPh

Achaemenid Royal Inscriptions.

DOC

A. Bellinger and P. Grierson, A Catalogue of Byzantine Coins in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection and the Whittemore Collection. Washington, D.C., 1973–1999.

GIC

C. J. Howgego, Greek Imperial Countermarks. RNS Special Publication 17, London, 1985.

HN 2

B. V. Head, Historia Numorum. 2nd ed. London, 1911.

HN 3

N. K. Rutter, ed., Historia Numorum Italy. London, 2001.

HTR

Harvard Theological Review.

Idelph

Corpus des inscriptions de Delphes.

IG

Inscriptiones Graecae.

IGCH

M. Thompson, O. Mørkholm, and C. M. Kraay, An Inventory of Greek Coin Hoards. New York, 1973.

INJ

Israel Numismatic Journal.

INR

Israel Numismatic Research.

JDAI

Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts.

JIAN

Journal International d’Archéologie Numismatique.

JNG

Jahrbuch für Numismatik und Geldgeschichte.

JHS

Journal of Hellenic Studies.

JÖAI

Jahreshefte des Österreichischen Archäologischen Instituts in Wien.

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Abbreviations

JRA

Journal of Roman Archaeology.

JRS

Journal of Roman Studies.

JSSEA

Journal of the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities.

LIMC

Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae.

LNV

Litterae Numismaticae Vindobonenses.

LRBC

R. A. G. Carson et al., Late Roman Bronze Coinage. London, 1960.

MEC

P. Grierson et al., Medieval European Coinage. Cambridge, 1986–.

MIB

W. Hahn, Moneta Imperii Byzantini. 3 vols. Vienna, 1973–1981.

MIBE

W. Hahn and M. Mettlich, Money of the Incipient Byzantine Empire. Vienna, 2000.

MIRB

W. Hahn, Moneta Imperii Romani Byzantini. Die Ostprägung des romischen Reiches im 5. Jahrhundert (408–491). Vienna, 1989.

NAC

Numismatica e Antichità Classiche. Quaderni Ticinesi.

NC

Numismatic Chronicle.

Nov. Val.

Novella Valentiniani.

OJA

Oxford Journal of Archaeology.

NCirc

Spink and Son's Numismatic Circular.

NNÅ

Nordisk Numismatisk Årsskrift.

NomKhron

Nomismatika Chronika.

(p. xv) NZ

Nuismatische Zeitschrift.

OGIS

W. Dittenberger, Orientis Graeci Inscriptiones Selectae. Leipzig, 1903– 1905.

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Abbreviations

PACT

Revue du groupe européen d’études sur les techniques physiques, chimiques et mathematiques appliquées à l’archéologie.

PAPS

Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society.

PCR

R. A. G. Carson, Principal Coins of the Romans. 3 vols. London, 1978–1981.

RIC

H. Mattingly et al., Roman Imperial Coinage. 10 vols. (2 in second eds.). London, 1920–2008.

RA

Revue Archéologique.

RBN

Revue Belge de Numismatique.

REA

Revue des Études Anciennes.

REL

Revue des Études Latines.

RIN

Rivista Italiana di Numismatica.

RN

Revue Numismatique.

RNS

Royal Numismatic Society, London.

RPC

A. Burnett et al., Roman Provincial Coinage. Vols. 1, 2, 7, 1. London and Paris, 1992–2006; vol. 4 available at http://rpc.ashmus.ox.ac.uk/.

RRC

M. H. Crawford, Coinage of the Roman Republic. 2 vols. Cambridge, 1974.

RSN

Revue Suisse de Numismatique.

SAN

Society for Ancient Numismatics.

SC1

A. Houghton and C. Lorber. Seleucid Coins. A Comprehensive Catalogue I. Seleucus I through Antiochus III. 2 parts in 2 vols. New York, 2002.

SC2

A. Houghton, C. Lorber, and O. Hoover. Seleucid Coins. A Comprehensive Catalogue II. Seleucus IV through Antiochus XIII. 2 parts in 2 vols. New York, 2008.

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Abbreviations

SNG + suffix

Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum.

SEG

Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum.

SFMA

Studien zu Fundmünzen der Antike.

SNR

Schweizerische Numismatische Rundschau.

TM

Trésors Monétaires.

ZfN

Zeitschrift für Numismatik.

ZPE

Zeitrschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik.

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Preface

Oxford Handbooks Online Preface The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Coinage Edited by William E. Metcalf Pr nt Pub cat on Date: Feb 2012 Subject: C ass ca Stud es On ne Pub cat on Date: Nov 2012

Preface Almost exactly 100 years ago, the second edition of Barclay Head's Historia Numorum appeared in London. It provided a comprehensive guide, arranged along geographical lines, to the Greek coinage, with an emphasis on coins of the archaic and classical periods. Shortly before, Ernst Babelon's Traité de numismatique grecque had appeared in France, based—as far as it went—on the best scholarship that had been generated to date, which was summarized in a treatment that has not been surpassed in the first volume. The surrounding years would see the appearance of the British Museum catalogue of Roman Republican coins, the first serious attempt to present the whole of a major collection in a historical way but, it is fair to say, without serious treatment of Continental and particularly German scholarship. All these treatments depended ultimately on style for their arrangement. Head hardly mentions hoards, and the elaborate tables that decorate volume 3 of BMCRR are no more than lip service; for the “historical” arrangement is based on the work of De Salis, whose almost exclusive criterion was style. He had been entitled to rearrange the British Museum collection, but at his untimely death left no notes about his principles of arrangement, and the ultimate volume displays Grueber's reluctance to step outside this framework. It was in Germany, largely under the influence of Mommsen, that serious study of Roman coinage had begun in the 1850s, finally to manifest itself in the advent of Max von Bahrfeldt; and in the hands of Fürtwangler the Berlin cabinet became a leading repository of Greek coins that would provide food for scholars for generations to come. Just before Head published, a new figure appeared on the scene—Edward Newell, an American with limited academic training and a massive appetite for acquisition. Newell revolutionized the study of Hellenistic coinage; his study of dies undermined everything that had been thought about the coinage of Alexander. Nor did he ignore hoards; he had access to many of the largest and most important ones to be recorded, and he used them to refine attributions. His attention to detail was unrivaled, and style, too, played its part; but it is fair to say that his successful application of other concrete methods, which entirely lacked the subjective Page 1 of 3

Preface element, led to their extension to other areas of coinage, particularly the Greek at first but, in the last few decades, the Roman as well. Two great icons of twentieth-century numismatic study were British—E. S. G. Robinson and Harold Mattingly. Robinson's keen eye and fertile mind produced many insights, almost all published in article form. He never produced a book, but was a motive force behind the Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum. Mattingly was a man of many parts—his Man in the Roman Street remains in print, and he translated some (p. xviii) of the works of Andreas Alföldi—but his monuments are the first editions of Roman Imperial Coinage and, more fully argued, the first five volumes of BMCRE. The introductions to the latter are mandatory reading for students even today, and the catalogues make accessible the riches of imperial coinage to nonnumismatists as well. One cannot fail to mention the work of the German scholarly community, which is to be credited almost single-handedly with the revival of interest in what is now called Roman provincial coinage (replacing the tired “Greek imperials”). At the head of this community was Konrad Kraft, whose own monument—the System—underlies much of the work done on the late second century and after; and his students and others laid out for scrutiny the magnificent collection of Hans von Aulock in SNG format. These and many other scholars have made this book appropriate. Numismatics has moved far beyond the standard reference works, yet its literature, which exists at many levels, is difficult to navigate even for the advanced student. In the proposal to Oxford University Press, I argued that “a new handbook ought to provide a systematic overview of the raw material as well as an annotated discussion to support the arguments and to facilitate further inquiry. … It should be useful to an academic and a lay audience, and above all it must be written in accessible fashion, making no assumptions about prior knowledge on the part of the reader.” In attempting to fulfill this daunting mission I engaged the willing help of leading scholars in their fields. Though there was a nominal limitation on the size of the essays, in the end this was relaxed to accommodate a higher level of detail, a deeper or fuller discussion, or the sheer size of the topic undertaken. In other areas, where there is no easily accessible standard treatment, fuller discussion seemed apt; and in any case it seemed appropriate for the real experts to write what they wanted to write. For all this, there are some gaps in coverage (notably North Africa and Bactria), but the result––a book that is somewhat different from its conception––should provide most students and scholars with the necessary background to engage with material of relevance to them. The book has been subject to considerable delay, and the contributors have been understanding in this regard. Along the way many debts have been incurred. John Dillon, formerly a student in the Department of Classics at Yale, contributed his linguistic skills in the handling of German-language manuscripts, and Sarah Cox of New York assisted with French. Lea Cline and Tyler Griffith cheerfully helped with the proofreading. Particular thanks for his patience are due to Stefan Vranka, who inherited this project and willingly undertook shepherding it through the press; Sarah Pirovitz of Oxford New York; and particularly to Christina S. Kraus, who made available funding from the Tarbell Fund of the Classics

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Preface Department at Yale in support of publication. The illustrations are produced at 1:1 except where otherwise noted. During the course of editing, Ann Johnston died after a long illness (January 2, 2010). The last publication from her hand appears here, and it is a source of satisfaction to all who knew her that she lived to see her book Greek Imperial Denominations through the press. In the hope that she would consider the work worthy, I willingly offer in her memory my own role in the creation of this work. William E. Metcalf New Haven, March 2010

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Preface Abbreviations Introduction, William E. Metcalf 1. The Substance of Coinage: The Role of Scientific Analysis in Ancient Numismatics, Matthew Ponting Archaic and Classical Greek Coinage 2. The Monetary Background of Early Coinage, John H. Kroll 3. Asia Minor to the Ionian Revolt, Koray Konuk 4. The Coinage of the Persian Empire, Michael Alram 5. The Coinage of Athens, 6th - 1st century B.C., Peter van Alfen 6. Aegina, the Cyclades and Crete, Kenneth Sheedy 7. The Coinage of Italy, N. K. Rutter 8. The Coinage of Sicily, Wolfgang Fischer-Bossert 9. Greece and the Balkans to 360 B.C., Selene Psoma The Hellenistic World 10. Royal Hellenistic Coinages from Alexander to Mithridates, François de Callatay 11. The Hellenistic World: The Cities of Mainland Greece and Asia Minor, Richard Ashton 12. The Coinage of the Ptolemies, Catharine C. Lorber 13. The Seleucids, Arthur Houghton 14. Greek Coinages of Palestine, Oren Tal 15. The Coinage of the Parthians, Fabrizio Sinisi The Roman World 16. Early Roman Coinage and its Italian Context, Andrew Burnett 17. The Denarius Coinage of the Roman Republic, Bernhard E. Woytek 18. The Julio-Claudians, Rienhold Wolters 19. Ancient Spain, Pere P. Ripollès 20. Flavian Coinage, Ian Carradice 21. The Coinage of the Provinces through Hadrian, Michel Amandry 22. Trajan and Hadrian, Martin Beckmann 23. Antonine Coinage, Liv Mariah Yarrow 24. The Provinces after Commodus, RAnn Johnston 25. Syria in the Roman Period, 64 B.C. - A.D. 260, Kevin Butcher 26. Roman Coinages of Palestine, Haim Gitler 27. The Severans, Richard Abdy 28. From Gordian III to the Gallic Empire (A.D. 238-74), Roger Bland 29. The Later Third Century, Sylviane Estiot 30. The Coinage of Roman Egypt, Angelo Geissen 31. Tetrarchy and the House of Constantine, Richard Abdy 32. The Coinage of the Later Roman Empire, A.D. 364-498, Sam Moorhead 33. The Transformation of the West, Alan M. Stahl Appendix 1: Marks of value on later Roman coins, Roger Bland Appendix 2: The earliest Christian symbols on Roman coins, Richard Abdy Indices a. Mints b. Persons c. General

Introduction

Oxford Handbooks Online Introduction William E. Metcalf The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Coinage Edited by William E Metcalf Pr nt Publ cat on Date: Feb 2012 Onl ne Publ cat on Date: Nov 2012

Subject: Class cal Stud es, Anc ent Greek H story, Anc ent Roman H story DO : 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195305746.013.0001

Abstract and Keywords This article elucidates the fundamentals of numismatic study. It defines a coin as “a piece of metal” certified by a mark or marks upon it to be of a definite exchange value, and issued by governmental authority to be used as money. These metals have to be scarce enough to have intrinsic value but plentiful enough to provide raw material. Virtually all other ancient coins are struck from gold, silver, or copper, sometimes alloyed with tin or zinc. The “mark or marks” have preoccupied numismatists since the beginning; this is probably owing to the interest in antiquity, roused in the Renaissance, that saw in coins miniature ancient monuments comparable to sculpture and other art forms. For the Greek world, discussion of economic history is surprisingly free of references to coinage. However, the numismatic evidence has not yet been exploited to the degree necessary for its proper appreciation. Keywords numismatic study coin money metal Greek world coinage

SOME aspects of the history of numismatics have been alluded to in the preface, and others are better read

elsewhere (Babelon 1904). This introduction is intended to explain, mainly for the benefit of the uninitiated, some fundamentals of numismatic study, many of which are employed or cited again and again in the texts that follow. We might begin with the definition of a coin, which the second edition of Webster's Dictionary describes as “A piece of metal (or, rarely, of some other material) certified by a mark or marks upon it to be of a definite exchange value, and issued by governmental authority to be used as money; also, such pieces collectively.” All the objects discussed here are of metal, and all bear marks of some kind; these are anticipated historically by ingots, which are pieces of metal of irregular weight and shape intended to represent a store of wealth. These metals had to be scarce enough to have intrinsic value but plentiful enough to provide raw material, and in fact availability may have dictated such choices as electrum for the early coinage of Asia and copper for the first coinage of Rome. Virtually all other ancient coins are struck from gold, silver, or copper, sometimes alloyed with tin or zinc. The latter alloy, with its yellowish appearance, was referred to by the Romans as orichalcum. The Webster's definition does not take account of weight, which was critical in ancient coinage—the value of a coin was intrinsic, so its tariff bore a direct relationship to its weight and fineness. The varying mints employed their own standards: just as the Athenian Currency Decree is about regulation of weights and measures as well as coinage, coin weights bore a direct relationship to the prevailing standard weight. They were also called by names deriving from weight systems: a drachm was normally 1/6000 talent, a tetradrachm 1/1500, and so on; and the Romans expressed their coin standards as so many units per pound (the Roman pound consisted of twelve ounces slightly lighter than the modern ounce). (p. 4) The “mark or marks” might be almost anything. Early coins from the Artemision (Robinson 1956, and see chapter 3 here) bear nothing more than striations on one face and punches on the other. The striations are

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Introduction sometimes taken to represent imperfections in the flat surface on which a globule of molten metal was initially poured, and the punches—though later they come to contain figures—are nothing more than a device to ensure that the piece was of pure metal down to its core. The “mark or marks” have preoccupied numismatists since the beginning; this probably owes to the interest in antiquity, roused in the Renaissance, that saw in coins miniature ancient monuments comparable to sculpture and other art forms. In any catalogue of coins produced prior to the advent of the Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum in the 1930s, and in many catalogues of Roman coins even today, most of the ink is used on descriptions of the two faces of the coin; some even omit the physical dimensions! The obverse (conventionally the “heads” side of the coin) is usually characterized by a bust or portrait; the reverse by an image—a god/goddess, hero, animal or plant, building, and so on. The principal device or image is known to numismatists as the type. Either side may have a legend (from Lat. legendum, something to be read) that describes or amplifies the image. The part of the legend that names the issuing authority is known as the ethnic. These types and legends may take varying forms and bear different relations to one another. The earliest coins had no legends at all; doubtless the type was originally a sufficient badge to identify the issuing authority, and indeed it normally occupied almost all the available space in the field. With the advent of varied types, but above all of coins with types on both faces, it may have become both necessary and possible to place a word or words on the coins. Initially, these were simple designations of the issuing authority, either abbreviated (ΑΘE) or spelled our (ΣΥΡΑΚΟΣΙΩΝ). Most often, when the legend describes the authority behind the issue, it is in the genitive, and this custom survives the transition to Hellenistic coinage, on which the name of the king (ΑΛΕΞΑΝΔΡΟΥ, ΦΙΛΕΤΑΙΡΟΥ) is rendered in the genitive. Later additions to the content of legends include identifications of the deities or heroes portrayed and of the magistrates responsible for the striking. The first Roman coins, the aes grave, were without legends, but it is no doubt owing to the origin of its silver coinage in Greek Italy that the first legends were simple mint identifications followed by magistrates’ names. These are, of course, in Latin. On Republican silver, other inscriptions occur as part of buildings or identifications of types. With the advent of empire, the imperial name, in simple (IMP CAESAR) or expanded (IMP NERO CLAVD CAES AVG GERM P M TR P P P) form, accompanies the portrait, often with iterations of imperial salutations, the tribunician power, or the consulship. These iterations are almost always absent from provincial coins of the period. The portrait/legend combination has been extremely useful to art historians attempting to identify or date portraits. Reverse legends in the imperial period often serve to identify the deity or personification portrayed, or to put it in context. Apart from the visual and verbal content of a coin, what struck early students was a difference of style This term, familiar mainly from the history of art, is at both (p. 5) its best and its worst when applied to numismatics. Granting that a consensus can often be reached on the style of an individual artist, how do we distinguish his work from the style of a period, or of a place, or indeed of a mint itself? How do we distinguish the archaic from the archaistic? The elusiveness of the criterion led Mattingly to the following formulation: “If two or three scholars readily agree on what they see, they obviously are seeing something that is really there, even if other scholars fail to see it” (1960: 42). The vagueness—or rather, the difficulty of expressing a visual impression in words—was obvious. Even so, this was the principal mode of classifying coins, for chronological purposes, almost from the beginning. It strains credence today that Barclay Head (HN2 lxi) could assert that “in every period there are coins of which the dates can be positively determined; and around these fixed points a little experience enables the numismatist to group, within certain limits, all the rest ” He went on to name no less than seven periods (“Period of archaic art,” “Period of transitional art,” “Period of finest art,” “Period of later fine art,” etc.). None of these remains current, though welldefined criteria of style—most often, in Greek coinage, at particular mints, and in the provincial coinage of the Roman Empire occasionally applied to geographical areas—can be applied successfully. Numismatics has come a long way, particularly with respect to portraiture. It is encouraging to see Hellenistic portraits on coins placed next to those in the round (e.g. Smith 1989) and even more to see coins, sculpture, and the historical record integrated (see especially Fittschen 1982), as well as the successive volumes of Das Römische Herrscherbild). Still, it is fortunate that there are more objective techniques for determining the when and where of coin production.

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Introduction The terms obverse and reverse, defined above with respect to types, also apply to the means of manufacture, which in most cases involves striking by die (the alternative is casting in a mold). The obverse die is normally fixed in what numismatists call an anvil. This describes a heavy piece of wood or metal with a hollow that contained the obverse die and both fixed its position and protected it from expansion under pressure. The reverse die was held in the hand. A blank—probably heated, for images of coining implements usually include tongs, and heating would have rendered the metal more malleable and would have work-hardened the dies—was placed on top of the obverse die, and the reverse brought down on it under a heavy hammer. (See fig. 0.1) This process has important consequences for the numismatist. Dies were hand-engraved; this means that each is unique. Each also had a finite lifetime, which has been variously estimated. When a die broke, a new one had to be substituted, but it would be the merest accident if both dies broke at once. Sometimes it is possible to be even more precise, since dies deteriorated before they broke, and visible cracks or other flaws developed. The more advanced the damage, the later in the sequence it must belong.

Fig 0 1

In theory, with a large enough sample, it would be possible to document the entire history of a coinage based on the history of its dies. In fact some samples—for example the silver coinage of the Roman Empire—are so large that study by die is a (p. 6) practical impossibility. At the very least, the sharing of a die among two or more coins is an indication of proximity in time and space. We shall return to one other use of die linkage below. One final aspect of die pairing is the die axis. This refers to the orientation of the dies vis-à-vis one another, and in modern times it is expressed in hours on the face of a clock. A 12:00 die axis indicates that when the coin is turned around its figurative equator, both images are “up”; if one is upside-down (as is the case in virtually all modern coinages, including that of the United States and Britain), that is a 6:00 die axis. Sometimes a particular die axis becomes entrenched at a mint; sometimes dies are paired as they come to hand, and the distribution of die axes is correspondingly random. A classic article by Sir George MacDonald (1906) explores the significance of the die axis in Greek coinages; modern applications can be found in Mildenberg (1989) and De Callataÿ (1996b). The axis is a standard part of catalogue descriptions and is ignored at one's peril. We have so far examined the coin as the product of a manufacturing process; its behavior in circulation also provides information about its time and place of production and about the purpose of its issue and its use as money. Here we examine coins in context, whether carefully secreted or simply lost or discarded in antiquity. A hoard is an aggregation of two or more coins put away by their owner with the intent of recovery. Through most of history there has been no accommodation for the thrifty saver. Carrying one's wealth around on one's person would have been imprudent, given the high levels of crime in antiquity; yet until recent times all but the wealthy have been excluded from the credit system and depository banks. In a world that lacked savings banks in the modern sense, burial was an easy and available option. (p. 7) It is conventional to see hoarding as an instinct reinforced by a sense of impending danger; often enough the perception was justified by the event, with the consequence that there is a slight tendency for unrecovered deposits to cluster in times of political, social, or economic unrest. Historically, agriculture—the clearing of land—

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Introduction has accounted for the bulk of recoveries; in more modern times, urban excavation (for building foundations, utility lines, etc.) has had a role. And the twentieth century saw the advent of the metal detector. The utility of hoards as a dating tool is straightforward: obviously, a hoard cannot have been deposited before the date of its latest coin. This normally provides only a terminus post quem, since most hoards are private stores whose manner of accumulation is strictly a matter for speculation. Conventionally a distinction is made between “savings hoards”—those accumulated over time—and “currency hoards,” which represent the conversion of assets to cash at a given moment. The savings hoard does not represent the currency of any given moment, since coins will have been added (and indeed subtracted—see Thompson 1962: 309) over time. Nor can the currency hoard give us an accurate picture of circulation over time. In practice, it is not always so easy to distinguish these classes, and some hoards (e.g., those caused by sudden destructions, as at Pompeii or Dura-Europus) may not be true hoards at all. Sometimes a single hoard (Asyut in Egypt; Dorchester in England [Mattingly 1939]; Lohe in Sweden [Thordemann 1948]) is of surpassing importance for its own sake. But the real utility of hoards rests in the assembly and comparison of those that contain common bodies of material. When a large number of hoards from a fairly constricted period is available, they are invaluable for establishing chronologies. A sequence of hoards will reveal a relative order of appearance of issues. As Crawford has put it, “of two hoards with some issues in common, that which is later will contain issues which do not occur in the other hoard and which are less worn [than other coins in the hoard]. A relative order of issues follows automatically.” The principle can be extended as far as the hoards permit, and the resulting chronology is sturdy and reliable. This technique has permitted the arrangement of virtually the whole of the coinage of the Roman Republic (Crawford 1969, 1974). Where it is abundant, the evidence of hoards is second only to that of die links in importance, with the caveat that is it susceptible to contamination in modern times. Hoards are infrequently found in controlled archaeological contexts, and there is almost always some doubt about the integrity of lots even when they are intrinsically plausible. A dealer will always have the inclination to skim the rarest coins, or those in freshest condition, because of the commercial premium these command. And it is no help that institutions are no longer competitive for acquisition of whole lots, on grounds of finance as well as specious ethical arguments. Site finds are another matter. Unlike hoards, which can be placed in time with greater or lesser certainty, coins recovered in excavations (unless themselves in hoards) have no fixed chronology of loss. The very fact that these are lost coins, rather than hoarded ones, defines the nature of the material: mostly base metal and generally lower denominations. One category—discarded coins—may be represented by the unusually high number of false precious-metal coins in (p. 8) excavations, since it was illegal at most times to possess, much less to attempt to pass, such coins. What is lost in terms of chronological control is regained in spatial control. From the numismatic point of view, the exact locus of find is seldom critical, and indeed is seldom reported in excavation catalogues. But the knowledge that a coin was excavated at, say, Antioch in Syria makes it a priori likely that the coin was produced there or in the neighborhood, since excavation finds themselves confirm that lower denominations did not stray far from their point of origin. Both site finds and hoards have been put to new uses in recent times. In a famous and much-cited article, Keith Hopkins (1980) combined the evidence of hoards and site finds to create a model of monetary movement in the Roman Empire. This subject has caused considerable controversy, as scholars have confronted a universal coinage (the denarius) that may have functioned on a regionalized level (Howgego 1992; Duncan-Jones 1994). That issue is far from resolved, as is another one that has given a whole new tilt to numismatic method: the estimate of sizes of coinage. Since the work of C. S. S. Lyon (1985) statisticians have used the evidence of dies surviving in a given sample to estimate the total number of dies used to produce a coinage. Other more sophisticated formulae have been developed since, but the goal is simply to estimate numbers of dies. Insofar as our sample is (charitably) treated as random, this is a simple application of established statistical method. But it has been carried further, in two directions. The first is to use known die populations, as represented by their issues in hoards, to project the number of dies that might have been used in a sample in which the dies have not

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Introduction been compared. The second is to estimate the number of coins a die might produce, based on available resources: patchy records from antiquity, more extensive ones from the Middle Ages, but also results obtained empirically in an attempt to replicate ancient minting procedure. Famously, Crawford (1974: 641–707) used these combined methods to gauge the size of virtually the whole of the Roman Republican coinage, thereby spawning a wave of imitators. The initial skepticism culminated in the forceful arguments of Buttrey (1993, 1994), who stated flatly that the only thing we can be sure about in such calculations is that the result will be wrong. We cross the line from primary evidence into speculation in a way that is difficult for historians to discern; in short, we fabricate history. A conciliatory response from De Callataÿ (1995) seems to govern recent approaches.

Applied Numismatics This book is intended to provide numismatic background; it would take a book of comparable length to scratch the surface of the ways the evidence of coins has been applied. Only a few of the categories can be mentioned here. (p. 9) History The importance of individual coins for history has long been recognized. The very introduction of coinage, still a matter of discussion as far as chronology is concerned, is a cultural watershed. Many smaller Greek poleis have left coins as the sole or major evidence for their existence. In an interesting interplay of archaeology and numismatics, the non-Roman coins from Morgantina date both its sack and the first denarii ever struck. The appearance of the temple of Janus on the coins of Nero helps to date its closing; recently discovered or rediscovered coins bear on the implementation of the Augustan “settlement” of 28/7 B.C., redating it to 28, and on the adoption of Hadrian. In the later third century, the appearance (or nonexistence) of coins of various short-term emperors or usurpers helps to document their historical reality; the recent emergence of two coins of the thirdcentury Gallic ruler Domitianus gives life to a personality otherwise attested only by the Historia Augusta, which in the absence of the coins would have been grounds for doubting his very existence. The striking of gold and silver in the later empire has been used to date imperial movements. Far more sophisticated applications are illustrated in the essays that follow. In a broader context, to take but a general example, the dominance of Athenian silver and later of the tetradrachm coinage of Alexander and his successors is clear from finds. This is a safe inference even in the absence of calculations, which, at least in the case of Athens, are a long way from implementation, considering the size of the coinage. Art history It is hardly surprising, given the original stimulus to study of ancient coins, that art history has been both a contributor to and a beneficiary of the discipline. The most often cited application of coins is for the identification of portraits: since portraits in the round are almost never accompanied by reliable identifications, coins—with their images accompanied by identifying legends—hold the key to the appearance of both Hellenistic rulers and Roman emperors and their families. Since the appearance of both these categories set fashion (bearded/beardless for men, a multiplicity of hairstyles for women) the information gleaned from coins, which are often very precisely dated, can be extended to private portraits as well. Economic history For the Greek world, discussion of economic history is surprisingly free of references to coinage. One recent exception is Von Reden (2007), a study of money in Ptolemaic Egypt in which coinage plays a significant part. One major work (Duncan-Jones 1996) has made considerable use of numismatic evidence in the context of the Roman economy, but somewhat surprisingly the role of coinage has been diminished as historians have come to appreciate the role of other forms of money in antiquity. The effort by Crawford (1974) to associate production of new coin with military expenditure has not proved convincing, even though the military must at most times have represented the largest single expenditure in the Roman budget. Clearly the numismatic evidence has not yet been exploited to the degree necessary for its proper appreciation. Fig. 0.1. Striking of a coin.

Bibliography Bibliography

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Introduction Babelon, E. (1904). Traité de numismatique grecque et romain. Vol. 1. Paris. Buttrey, T. V. (1993). “Calculating ancient coin production: Facts and fantasies.” NC 153: 335–351. ——— . (1994). “Calculating ancient coin production II: Why it cannot be done.” NC 154: 342–352. De Callataÿ, F. (1995). “Calculating ancient coin production: Seeking a balance.” NC 155: 289–311. ——— . (1996). Les monnaies grecques et l’orientation des axes Glaux 12. Milan. Crawford, M. H. (1969). Roman Republican Coin Hoards Royal Numismatic Society Special Publication 4. London. ——— . (1974). Roman Republican Coinage Cambridge. Duncan-Jones, R. P. (1994). Money and Government in the Roman Empire. Cambridge. Esry, W. W. (1986). “Estimation of the size of a coinage: A survey and comparison of methods.” NC 146: 185–215. Fittschen, K. (1982). Die Bildnistypen der Faustina II und die Fecunditas Augustae Göttingen. Fuchs, G. (1969). Architekturdarstellungen auf römischen Münzen der Republik und der frühen Kaiserzeit Berlin. Howgego, C. J. (1992). “The supply and use of money in the Roman world 200 B.C. to A.D. 300.” JRS 82: 1–31. Jones, T. B. (1963). “A numismatic riddle: The so-called Greek imperials.” PAPS 107.4: 308–347. Hopkins, K. (1980). “Taxes and trade in the Roman empire (200 B.C.–400 A.D.).” JRS 70: 101–125. Kleiner, F. S. (1985). The Arch of Nero at Rome: A Study of the Roman Honorary Arch before and under Nero. Rome. Lyon, C. S. S. (1985). “The estimation of the number of dies employed in a coinage.” NCirc 73: 180–181. Macdonald, G. (1906). “Fixed and loose dies in ancient coinage.” In Corolla Numismatica: Numismatic Essays in Honour of Barclay V Head London: 178–188. Mattingly, H. (1939). “The great Dorchester hoard of 1936.” NC5 19 (1939): 21–61. ——— . (1960). Roman Coins from the Earliest Times to the Fall of the Western Empire London. Mildenberg, L. (1989). “‘Those ridiculous arrows’: On the meaning of the die position.” Nomismatika Chronika 4: 23–27. Price, M. J., and N. M. Waggoner (1975). Archaic Greek Silver Coinage: The Asyut Hoard London. (p. 11) Reden, S. von (2007). Money in Ptolemaic Egypt: From the Macedonian Conquest to the End of the Third Century B C Cambridge. Rich, J. W., and J. H. C. Williams (1999). “Leges et ivra p. r. restituit: A new aureus of Octavian and the settlement of 28–27 B.C.” NC 159: 169–213. Sellwood, D. G. (1963). “Some experiments in Greek minting technique.” NC7 3: 217–231. Smith, R. R. R. (1989). Hellenistic Royal Portraits Oxford. Thordeman, B. (1948). “The Lohe hoard: A contribution to the methodology of numismatics.” NC6 9: 188–204. Wegner, M., et al. (1939–). Das römische Herrscherbild Berlin. Weiss, R. (1968). “The study of ancient numismatics during the Renaissance.” NC7 8: 177–187. William E. Metcalf

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Introduction W ll am E. Metcalf s Professor (Adj.) of Class cs, Yale Un vers ty, and Ben Lee Damsky Curator of Co ns and Medals, Yale Un vers ty Art Gallery.

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The Substance of Coinage: The Role of Scientific Analysis in Ancient Numismatics

Oxford Handbooks Online The Substance of Coinage: The Role of Scientific Analysis in Ancient Numismatics Matthew J. Ponting The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Coinage Edited by William E Metcalf Pr nt Publ cat on Date: Feb 2012 Onl ne Publ cat on Date: Nov 2012

Subject: Class cal Stud es, Greek and Roman Archaeology, Mater al Culture Stud es DO : 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195305746.013.0002

Abstract and Keywords Interest in the composition of ancient coins is not recent. Up to 1908, most analyses had consisted solely of the major elemental compositions; little attempt had been made to study the trace elements, or, indeed, the microstructures. It was not until 1912 that metallography was first used to suggest Roman minting procedures. Levels of fineness and the ratio of gold to silver were seen as the most important areas of interest and continue to be the focus of much current research. The 1960s and 1970s saw the development and increasing use of instrumental analytical techniques that could be used without the need to take a sample from a coin. Over the last forty years, a relatively large number of analyses have been conducted using x-ray fluorescence and neutron activation analysis techniques, and they continue to be favored in some quarters today. Keywords ancient coins metallography x ray fluorescence neutron activation analysis

N ERES in the composition of ancient coins is not recent; scholars such as Agricola in the sixteenth century mention the examination of ancient coins (Agricola 1550), although the first reports of actual chemical analyses don’t appear until the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The earliest recorded analyst was Martin Heinrich Klaproth, sometimes called the father of modern chemistry, who published the first quantitative analyses of six first-century orichalcum (brass) coins in Berlin in 1798 (Klaproth 1798). Thereafter interest in this field increased; in 1834 Akerman published the first fifteen assays of early imperial denarii (Akerman 1834); in 1842 Gobel analyzed Republican bronzes (Gobel 1842); and in 1852 Phillips published his “Chemical Examination of the Metals and Alloys Known to the Ancients,” a work that included a number of analyses of both silver and copper alloy coins (Phillips 1852).

Up to 1908, most analyses had consisted solely of the major elemental compositions; little attempt had been made to study the trace elements, or, indeed the microstructures. It was not until 1912 that Rose first used metallography to suggest Roman minting procedures (Rose 1912). Compositional analysis was of varying reliability; one of the most shocking instances occurred in 1924, when W. Brambach took a group of 216 coins from a hoard consisting of 1,017 Constantinian (AD 320–330) copper alloy pieces and melted them down. This provided a sample of around 675 g, which (p. 13) was then analyzed and found to contain 1.98% silver (Brambach 1924). The work of Cope (1972, 1974) has since shown that a number of different finenesses were in operation during the period covered by the hoard, a fact that such an obviously heavy-handed investigation failed to detect. Levels of fineness and the ratio of gold to silver were seen as the most important areas of interest and continue to be the focus of much current research. West (1941) looked at large numbers of gold and silver coins, covering the more important reigns, with a view to establishing the relationship between the gold and silver and relating it to known historical and textual events. Unfortunately, little attention was paid to the fact that not only did the weights of the denarius change but also the silver content.

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The Substance of Coinage: The Role of Scientific Analysis in Ancient Numismatics In 1964 Caley published “Orichalcum and Related Ancient Alloys,” a work that looked at the chronological variations in the composition of Roman brasses (Caley 1964). This marked what Cope saw as “the dawn of a new era of quality and accuracy in chemical analyses” (1974: 89). Indeed, Caley's work was of a previously unparalleled standard, although inevitably not without its shortcomings. Perhaps the most important area of potential criticism was that of sampling strategies. The techniques of wet-chemical analysis (traditional techniques of chemical analysis used before modern instrumental techniques became available) were well advanced by Caley's day, but sampling techniques still lagged behind. This led to many sweeping generalizations being made on the basis of small, heterogeneous sample groups. The problem with traditional wet-chemical methods was that large samples had to be taken and these severely disfigured the coin, prejudicing its value to scholars in terms of its numismatic and art historical worth and to collectors and dealers in terms of its market value. Furthermore, the technique is time consuming and requires considerable skill, making it expensive and limited in terms of the scale of project that could be attempted. The understandable consequence was that only small numbers of coins could be analyzed due to both the lack of available material and time and money constraints. However, the 1960s and 1970s saw the development and increasing use of instrumental analytical techniques that could be used without the need to take a sample from a coin. Two techniques especially stand out in this respect: x-ray fluorescence (XRF; both energy dispersive [ED-XRF] and wavelength dispersive [WD-XRF] types) and neutron activation analysis (NAA). The potential value of these “non-destructive” techniques in the scientific investigation of ancient coins was quickly appreciated, especially because their use encouraged museum curators to become considerably more willing to allow coins to be analyzed. As a result, over the last forty years, a relatively large number of analyses have been conducted using XRF and NAA techniques, and they continue to be favored in some quarters today for the same reasons. The reason for this interest in the composition of ancient coins is simple; the amount of silver (or gold) in coins provides important evidence for the study of the Roman economy, and the study of copper alloy coins provides evidence for numismatic history and broader aspects of economic history such as resource exploitation (p. 14) and technology transfer. Ostensibly, determining the composition of an ancient coin is straightforward enough, but the results have proved more complex the more that knowledge has been gained. Perhaps the first question that should be asked is what is it that we want to know the composition of? Is it the entire coin, as it exists today? Is it the surface of the coin? Or is it the composition of the alloy that was being mixed in the mint in antiquity according to the requirements of the day? Clearly the answers to each of these questions are likely to be different; the composition of the surface of the coin is likely to have been modified by corrosion processes, depending on the specific burial environment it lay in, or by modern conservation methods. It could also have been changed by treatments that were carried out at the mint before it was struck. Consequently, the composition of the surface of a coin is unlikely to represent the composition of the bulk of the coin and in fact may be quite different. An analysis of the entire coin as it is today runs into similar problems because the analysis will, by definition, include the surface metal, and this will have an effect on the global composition. To adequately address questions about the ancient world, its society, economy, and technology, it is necessary to reconstruct the composition of the alloy that was being mixed in antiquity. The only way to do this is to analyze a sample of metal taken from as broad a swath as possible within the coin, while excluding any metal that is likely to have been modified by corrosion and/or surface treatments.

The Great Debate: Destructive versus Non-destructive Analysis For better or worse, it remains a fact that ancient coins are a collectable commodity that command market-related price tags. Consequently, the value of a coin can be measured on at least two levels: the value of the information that the coin as an ancient artifact can provide to modern scholarship and the coin's monetary value to collectors in the art market. This dichotomy of value has serious ramifications for the scientific study of ancient coinage and can be shown to exercise considerable influence over the choice of analytical methods used to study coins and ultimately the quality of the data generated. The coins that are most collectable and therefore command the highest art market prices are often those that have come down to the present in the best condition—coins that exhibit the fewest signs of wear and/or damage through use and subsequent burial. Consequently the individuals and institutions that are responsible for curating ancient coins have tended to favor the analytical methods that are

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The Substance of Coinage: The Role of Scientific Analysis in Ancient Numismatics perceived as “non-destructive,” regardless of the differential in data quality between these techniques. In particular, XRF has gained considerable favor among numismatists as the technique of preference because of the ease with which it can be used non-destructively. (p. 15) A significant number of research projects have been undertaken using this method. Perhaps the most notable and influential of them has been David Walker's three-volume Metrology of the Roman Silver Coinage (Walker 1976, 1977, 1978). This project attempted to chart the variation in the silver content of Roman coinage from Augustus to the mid-third century, and because of the non-destructive nature of the technique, Walker was able to analyze over 5,000 coins. Unfortunately, using this type of technique in non-destructive mode to investigate significant numbers of coins means that only a small area, around 1–2 mm in diameter and a few microns deep, is actually analyzed. As noted, this throws up questions about how representative the area analyzed is of the whole coin and how representative of the original alloy, regardless of the type of metal. With silver-alloy coins the problems are extremely complex and pose particular problems for any non-destructive approach. First, the relatively large difference in the chemical reactivity (electrode potential) between silver and copper means that the corrosion rates of the two metals differ. This results in the preferential corrosion of the copper at the surface of the coin and the consequent apparent enrichment of the silver. This effect, often called “surface enrichment,” can occur with all alloys, resulting in, for example, enhanced tin contents on the surface of bronze coins and reduced zinc contents on brass coins; but it is usually most pronounced on silver-alloy coins. Much has been written about this topic and about how the problem can be overcome (e.g. Carter and Carter 1974; Condamin and Picon 1964, 1972; Cope 1972). Essentially, in order to overcome the effects of surface enrichment, it is necessary to abrade or clean away the surface layer to a depth where the unaltered heart-metal of the coin can be analyzed. Because it was understood that there would be a gradually decreasing concentration gradient of the more noble constituent from the surface to the heart-metal, it was estimated that if repeated readings were taken with cleaning/abrasion in between, then when three similar readings were obtained, the heart-metal had been reached and the analyses could then be regarded as representative of the alloy that had been prepared at the mint in antiquity. In the introduction to the Metrology of the Roman Silver Coinage, Walker shows a clear understanding of this phenomenon, stating that the problems associated with surface enrichment can only be overcome “by repeated cleaning and readings of the coin” (Walker 1976, 1). This is the approach discussed by Schweizer in a seminal paper he presented at the Royal Numismatic Society symposium on the scientific examination of coinage held in 1970, in which he thoroughly evaluated the method (Schweizer 1972). A few years later Carter published a paper investigating the reproducibility of essentially the same technique, measuring the silver content of Severan denarii. But Carter also estimated the amount of metal removed by the cleaning procedure and the effect of this on the analysis (Carter 1977). He used air-abrasion to clean the area to be analyzed; removing an estimated total 60 µm of surface metal. He found this was the amount of metal that needed to be removed in order to achieve a repeatable reading (three repeats starting at 20 µm, ending at about 60 µm), the assumption being that the metal thereby exposed was representative of the main bulk of the coin. (p. 16) This approach was subsequently found to be misleading. It was noticed that there is a significant difference between the measured silver values for denarii issued after 193 as measured by destructive analysis (Condamin and Picon 1964) and as measured non-destructively (Carter 1977). Carter gives an average figure of 58.4% ± 0.5% (normalized) silver value based on ten analyses (1977, 70) whereas Condamin and Picon give a value of 45%. This is a discrepancy of over 13% and therefore of concern to all scholars who rely on accurate analyses of ancient coinages for their work. Yet it is Carter's non-destructive method (or Schweizer's less rigorous version) that has been repeatedly used for numismatic research. Indeed, Walker gives a mean silver value of 57.59% for the same issues used by Carter. The apparent discrepancy between Carter's and Walker's results on the one hand and those of Condamin and Picon on the other suggests a fundamental flaw in the application of nondestructive XRF to coin analyses. The reason for this worrying difference was first identified by Cowell while conducting his analysis of Nabatean silver coins (Schmitt-Korte and Cowell 1989). Cowell found that there was significant difference between the results for coins that were analyzed by XRF, depending on the degree of abrasion or cleaning. Furthermore, by cutting a coin in half and analyzing a series of points across the cross-section, Cowell was able to show that representative values for the bulk composition were only obtained from core metal 0.45 mm (450 μm) beneath the coins surface,

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The Substance of Coinage: The Role of Scientific Analysis in Ancient Numismatics with the polished edge of the coin giving a reading of 82% by XRF, while the interior of the coin gave a value of 46% by the same technique. The study also showed that a total analysis (by two independent methods, atomic absorption and electro gravimetric analysis) on cut quarters of the same coin that included both core and surface metal gave a silver content of 64%. The authors conclude that 50–60% of the copper in the original alloy of the coin had been leached out from the surface of the coin over time, and therefore XRF analysis of silver coins is “futile if the sample area cannot be adequately cleaned” (48). Adequate cleaning of the area to be analyzed in the case of the Nabatean coin analyzed by Cowell would mean removing approximately 0.5 mm of surface metal. This is significantly more than the 60 μm (0.06 mm) of metal that Carter had reported needed to be removed to obtain three consistent XRF readings, which was assumed to indicate that the surface-enriched metal had been removed. Subsequent work by the present author shows that Carter's three consistent readings were taken from within a thick layer of enriched metal that the early investigators had not predicted (fig. 1.1). Indeed, work on corrosion theory would indicate that natural leaching of copper from silver-copper alloys will generally only penetrate a few microns. This was demonstrated during the examination of an assemblage of metal waste related to the casting of imitation denarii of Septimius Severus where the sprues and other waste material made of a 57% silver alloy only showed evidence of surface enrichment a few tens of microns deep, while the coins of the same alloy have enriched zones that are 200 μm deep or more (Gitler and Ponting 2003) (fig. 1.2). This evidence indicates that the heavily enriched surfaces observed on coins were the result of processes other than natural corrosion and that this could not have (p. 17) been foreseen by scientists—such as Schweizer and Carter—who developed the non-destructive use of XRF. However, science-based archaeologists who specialize in the development of ancient technologies are aware of our ancestors’ abilities to disguise the true nature of metals using simple chemistry. As far back as the third millennium BC (La Niece 1995), oxidation and acid leaching were combined to strip the copper out of the surface of alloys of gold or silver and copper. This results in a layer of metal that has become a honeycomb of silver-rich metal with voids where the copper-rich metal used to be (fig. 1.3). The layer looks like pure precious metal once it is compressed by striking or burnishing; analysis of this material will consequently show a higher precious metal content than in the bulk alloy. This is the process referred to as “surface enrichment” or, perhaps more correctly, “depletion silvering/gilding.”

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The Substance of Coinage: The Role of Scientific Analysis in Ancient Numismatics Fig 1 2

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The study of numerous cut cross-sections of silver coins has confirmed that the process of “depletion silvering/gilding” was applied to Roman silver coins from the reign of Nero onward (Butcher and Ponting 2005) and may have been used for earlier coinages such as Mark Antony's debased legionary denarii, although this has yet to be confirmed (fig. 1.4). The reason for the use of this process is also quite clear; as the amount of copper that is being added to silver bullion is increased, the metal takes on an increasingly pinkish hue, and the process was used on silver coins to disguise this effect. Even an alloy that contains 20% copper, such as that used for Nero's post-reform denarii, will appear pinkish when compared to pure silver, and alloys that contain 40% or 50% copper look quite distinctly coppery. The process that was used to disguise the visual signs of debasement has also

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The Substance of Coinage: The Role of Scientific Analysis in Ancient Numismatics disguised them from many analysts. In retrospect, the comments of scholars trying to interpret and understand the data produced by the non-destructive application of techniques (p. 18) such as XRF should have sounded the alarm. Walker was perplexed by the apparent inconsistency of his data and was surprised that the technically accomplished Roman state seemed unable to maintain a consistent level of fineness in its coinage (Walker 1978, 159). It is now understood that the variability Walker observed is the variability in the depth of the enriched zone that masked the true consistency of the coinage alloys (fig. 1.5). Furthermore, the effect of the depth of the enriched zone (p. 19) (p. 20) also masked more frequent and profound alterations to the fineness of the Roman silver coinage that are only just beginning to be discovered. In copper-based alloys the problems are less serious and are invariably the result of a combination of segregation during solidification of the molten alloy and corrosion processes. Important work on this topic relating to copperalloy coins was conducted by Notsu, Sano, Tominaga, and Mabushi (Sano and Tominaga 1982; Sano et al. 1983). This work looks at the effects on the different constituent elements in the coins that become segregated during cooling/solidification after casting. Samples were taken from sixteen separate locations on each of eight coins (four of bronze, four of brass) and these were analyzed. The tin-bronze alloy coins were found to exhibit considerably greater variation of composition among the sixteen points than the coins made of brass. The conclusion of this study was that any analytical technique that does not involve the destruction of the whole coin will not produce a fully representative analysis where the alloy concerned is tin-bronze. Similarly, Carter and Kimiatek's (1986) comparison of surface with interior alloy compositions of Roman copper and brass coins has shown them to be broadly consistent, provided the area to be analyzed has been adequately cleaned. However, more complex copper alloys, such as the leaded argentiferous bronzes commonly used in third- and fourth-century Roman coinage, are a different matter. Cope reports an experiment in which two halves of the same argentiferous bronze coin (a follis of the Rome mint) were analyzed separately for silver. The results gave a silver value of 1.42% and 1.08%, respectively, each of which corresponded to a different theoretical standard, as postulated by Cope (4 and 3 scrupulae per libra of alloy). Thus, says Cope, “which one is intended by the moneyer cannot therefore, be determined from a single analysis … but only by statistically significant numbers of analyses of closely dated coins” (1972: 17). Cope also advocated analysis of complete half coins as being the best way of achieving a reliable analysis. However, obtaining adequate numbers of coins for such destructive analysis is impossible and so undermines the assertion that statistically valid numbers of coins need to be analyzed in order to gain a correct understanding of composition. A compromise has to be made.

Click to view larger Fig 1 6

With modern sophisticated instrumentation, accurate and precise results can be routinely obtained from very small samples that can be removed from a coin without inflicting significant damage. These samples are usually removed by drilling into the cylindrical edge of the coin and penetrating some 10 or so mm across the coin's structure while not breaking out into either face (fig. 1.6). This method has the advantage of providing a reasonably representative and homogeneous sample of metal from within the coin and, if the first millimeter or so of drillings is not collected, can exclude the enriched or corroded surface metal. The drill used can be as small as 0.6 mm in diameter, leaving a barely visible hole that can, if desired, be filled and disguised by a conservator, although in the author's experience, most institutions wish the holes to remain open. By this process a sample weight of circa 10 mg can be obtained, which is sufficient for a representative analysis. (p. 21) Experimentation has shown the reliability of this

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The Substance of Coinage: The Role of Scientific Analysis in Ancient Numismatics approach; three drillings were taken from one half of a coin and three from the other and analyzed by atomic absorption analysis (AAS). The results (table 1.1) show that the variability of most elements is minimal (in most cases, less than the instrumental error of the technique). Lead shows the greatest variability—the result of its insolubility in copper is that it is present as minute droplets unevenly distributed throughout the coin. However, the difference between the two halves is only 1%, which is about the same as the estimated instrumental precision of AAS. Another non-destructive technique that has achieved increasing acceptability over the last thirty years is NAA; in particular, the cyclotron-based fast instrumental version developed in France by Barrandon and Guerra (1998) has become popular. This technique provides a highly accurate and precise analysis of an entire coin as it is today and as such is a very reliable non-destructive technique. The problem is the very fact that it does provide an accurate chemical analysis of the entire coin as it is today. Essentially, the technique homogenizes any variability in composition caused by either corrosion processes or by artificial means to provide an average bulk composition of the whole coin. The problem with this approach was demonstrated by Condamin and Picon, who compared the “present total composition” of silver denarii with the composition of the remaining heart-metal of the coins and found that in certain cases between 1/3 and 1/2 of the original total copper content had been lost (Condamin and Picon 1972). In practical terms, this would represent a measured total present silver content of 56% being recorded when the original composition of the heart-metal is only 47%. Such measurements may be an accurate determination of the total composition of an individual coin as it is today but are not an accurate determination of the original alloy from which the coin was made. (p. 22) Table 1.1 Drillings from opposite sides of the same coin (weight percent) Pb

Sn

Zn

Ag

Fe

Ni

As

Sb

Au

Side A

15.90

2.712

0.069

0.611

0.470

0.035

0.293

0.116

0.033

Side B

14.89

3.010

0.072

0.558

0.487

0.035

0.288

0.116

0.034

Methods It should be clear from the preceding discussion that there are serious problems with the use of analytical techniques such as XRF to analyze the composition of the surface of any ancient coin. Furthermore, the use of methods such as NAA or its derivatives to measure the composition of complete coins is also problematic because what the technique analyzes is not what the scholar of the ancient world needs analyzed: the method does not provide an analysis that represents the alloy that was prepared in the mint in antiquity. Methodologies that involve the removal of a small sample of the heart-metal of the coin, free of surface contamination, provide the best way of achieving a reliable and representative analysis. Once a good sample has been taken, any of a number of analytical techniques can be used to measure its composition, including XRF and NAA. Because the sample consists of metal turnings, it is best for most techniques to homogenize these by dissolving them in acids. Dissolution techniques for various archaeological materials are discussed in the seminal paper by Hughes, Cowell, and Craddock (1976), and papers discussing variants on these procedures more suited to modern instrumentation are in preparation. Once the sample is in solution and the correct dilution factor has been calculated, the analysis can be performed by a number of techniques, including XRF (using fluid handling equipment such as mylar cups). However, it is easier if techniques designed for liquid samples are used, such as AAS, inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES), or the mass spectrometry version (ICP-MS), all of which also have the advantage of giving better sensitivity. For analysis by NAA, the solid turnings can be irradiated without the need for dissolution, but certain elements of potential interest, such as lead and bismuth, cannot be measured by conventional NAA (Gilmore 1998).

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The Substance of Coinage: The Role of Scientific Analysis in Ancient Numismatics

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One of the advantages of using very sensitive instrumental techniques such as ICP-AES is that the trace elements associated with the main alloy components can also be measured. These data allow the metal used for different issues of coinage to be characterized and can shed light on difficult numismatic questions, such as mint attributions and changes in metal supply. Trace element data have been used in this way to show that certain issues of Roman provincial coins were produced in Rome and sent to the provinces rather than being produced locally (fig. 1.7 (Carradice and Cowell 1987; Butcher and Ponting 1995) and to separate the eastern issues of the Severan dynasty from those of Rome (fig. 1.8; Gitler and Ponting 2003). Current research is beginning to reveal the potential of trace element studies of Roman (p. 23) (p. 24) imperial silver coins to identify changes in mint location, metal procurement, technological change, and other areas of Roman numismatics that cannot be investigated adequately by other means.

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The Substance of Coinage: The Role of Scientific Analysis in Ancient Numismatics

Click to view larger Fig 1 9

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In recent years the use of lasers has been developed for the fine point analysis of geological samples, and this approach has been taken up in some quarters as a potential new “non-destructive” technique for use on coins. The argument is that the laser can be used to shoot through the surface layers and analyze the heart-metal while leaving a crater that is invisible to the naked eye (Guillaume et al. 2007). Such an approach, if shown to be fully reliable, would certainly be useful; however, the problem of assessing how deep the crater needs to be before the heart-metal is reached remains. Furthermore, the deeper the crater, the greater the risk becomes of isotopic fractionation causing unacceptably poor reproducibility of the resulting data. Recent research suggests that an ablated depth of 200 μm (0.02 mm) is possible with acceptable precision (Guillaume et al. 2007); however, enriched zones considerably in excess of this are frequently observed in ancient coins (fig. 1.9). In addition, minor and trace elements have to be measured by surface spot analysis because of the reproducibility problem. This again raises the question of the analysis being representative of the bulk; it is not only the major elements that are affected by surface enrichment. For silver alloys, it is important in numismatic studies to gain precise values for gold, lead, and bismuth. Research shows that in silver alloys, gold will be enriched at the surface along with the silver, while the lead and bismuth will be depleted (fig. 1.10). Clearly, this technique is in its developmental stages, and overly optimistic claims by scientists must be fully evaluated and the cost (p. 25) implications assessed. Similar optimism accompanied the development of surface XRF until its drawbacks came to be appreciated once it had been fully evaluated by science-based archaeologists. Methods of chemical analysis can provide tools by which ancient coinages can be characterized and their precious metal content ascertained. But finding evidence for the sources of the precious metal is extremely problematic. The trace elements gold, bismuth, and lead can sometimes be useful in discriminating between metal from different sources (fig. 1.11) and, on occasion, may even allow discussion of potential ore types; but so many changes occur to the trace element concentrations during the smelting, refining, and subsequent recycling of metals that any attempt at attributing provenance on this basis alone is doomed to failure.

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The Substance of Coinage: The Role of Scientific Analysis in Ancient Numismatics

Click to view larger Fig 1 11

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The Substance of Coinage: The Role of Scientific Analysis in Ancient Numismatics However, it has been shown that most silver and copper ores contain small traces of lead, some of which will be carried through processing into the finished coin. Lead exists in four different isotopic states, numbered 204, 206, 207 and 208, and these can be measured. The ratios of these have been shown to vary depending on the geological age of the ore deposit, and in the Mediterranean region, most of the known ore bodies are of different geological ages. Consequently, it is sometimes possible to measure (by mass spectrometry) the lead isotope ratios in a coin and to use these to attribute it to a particular ore source. Unfortunately, there are many complicating factors, the most important being the mixing of metal from various sources through recycling and the addition of lead from different sources to the silver or copper. Indeed, lead would have been added to silver (p. 26) (p. 27) alloys during recycling in order to purify the silver prior to realloying. The combination of lead isotope analysis and trace element analysis, however, is a powerful tool, and together they provide complementary data that can be used to great advantage (figs. 1.12, 1.13). Scientific analysis clearly continues to have great potential in the study of ancient coinages and the ancient economy. As our knowledge of the past increases and analytical techniques develop, the vast amount of information trapped in ancient coins will gradually be released. Still, new scientific techniques, especially those tagged “non-destructive,” need to be fully evaluated in the light of our growing understanding of the ancient mind. The lessons learned following the introduction of “non-destructive” XRF analysis need to be used to temper the sometimes overly enthusiastic and naive attitudes of our scientist colleagues. Fig. 1.1. SEM micrograph of a cross-section through a silver denarius of Geta (surface at bottom right), showing the different silver contents at different depths and the depth of the silver-enriched zone (240 μm). Fig. 1.2. SEM micrograph of a cross-section through the casting sprue from an assemblage of third-century casting waste (surface is on the right). Note the absence of a clear enriched zone. (p. 28) Fig. 1.3. Optical micrograph (x 100) of a cross-section through a Syrian tetradrachm of Severus; showing (right) the heart-metal and (left) the enriched zone. Note the voids in the enriched zone where the copper-rich metal has been leached out. Fig. 1.4. Optical micrograph (x 50) of a cross-section through a post-reform denarius of Nero showing the enriched zones on either face. Fig. 1.5. Graph plotting the silver contents of sixteen Roman silver coins measured by two methods; surface XRF (data from Walker 1978) and AAS analysis of drilled samples. In all cases the coins are the same for both analytical methods. Note the increased consistency of the AAS analyses. Fig. 1.6. Silver denarius after sampling, showing two drill holes (one is normally sufficient to provide an adequate sample). Photo by Irit Narkiss. Fig. 1.7. Plot of the lead and gold contents (scaled to silver) of examples of the two styles of Caesarean didrachm issued under the Flavian emperors, compared with the contemporary denarii struck in Rome. The Rome style didrachms are made of the same metal as the contemporary denarii, with the exception of two denarii that appear to be overstruck on Caesarean drachms. Fig. 1.8. Graph showing how the nickel content of Severan denarii differs between coins struck in Rome and coins struck in eastern mints. Fig. 1.9. SEM micrograph of a cross-section through an Alexandrian tetradrachm of Otho. From the surface of the coin (top right corner) the enriched zone can clearly be seen to stretch some 500 μm into the bulk of the coin. The large black circle in the left of the picture is the hole left by removing a drilled sample. Fig. 1.10. An electron-microprobe elemental map for lead taken over the cross-section of a Roman Republican silver denarius. The edge of the coin runs in a semicircle from (top center to bottom center). The white dots indicate the presence of lead and clearly show that the lead has been leached out at the coin's surface. Fig. 1.11. Graph of the bismuth and gold contents of Civil War denarii (AD 68/69) showing how the issues of Rome and the issues of Gaul and Spain are differentiated. Gold and bismuth are elements associated with the original silver ores and therefore indicate the use of two different sources of silver bullion. Fig. 1.12. The combined trace element data for a group of provincial coins of Nero struck in Caesarea, Antioch, and Tyre; coin A17 has been attributed to both Caesarea and Antioch on the basis of style. While excluding Tyre as a possible origin, the trace element data only hint toward a Caesarean origin for A17 and are inconclusive. Fig. 1.13. The results of lead isotope analysis conducted on a subset of the group shown in fig. 1.12. Here coin A17 is clearly grouped with Caesarean coins and therefore reinforces the origin suggested by the trace

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The Substance of Coinage: The Role of Scientific Analysis in Ancient Numismatics element data in fig. 1.12.

Bibliography Bibliography Agricola, G. (1550). De mensuris et ponderibus Romanorum atque Graecorum, libri V Basel. Akerman, J. Y. (1834). A descriptive catalogue of rare and unedited Roman coins London. Barrandon, J.-N., and M. F. Guerra. (1998). “Ion beam activation analysis with a cyclotron.” In Oddy and Cowell: 15–34. Brambach, W. (1924). “Centenionalis.” Mitteilungen für Munzsammler 1: 84–86. (p. 29) Butcher, K., and M. J. Ponting. (2005). “The Roman denarius under the Julio-Claudian emperors: Mints, metallurgy and technology.” Oxford Journal of Archaeology 24(2): 163–197. Butcher, K. E. T., and M. J. Ponting. (1995). “Rome and the East: Production of Roman provincial silver coinage for Caesarea in Cappadocia under Vespasian, AD 69–79.” Oxford Journal of Archaeology 14(1): 63–77. Caley, E. (1964). Orichalcum and related ancient alloys ANA Numismatic Notes and Monographs 151. New York. Carradice, I., and M. R. Cowell. (1987). “The minting of Roman Imperial bronze coins for circulation in the east: Vespasian to Trajan.” NC 147: 26–50. Carter, G. F. (1977). “Reproducibility of x-ray fluorescence analysis of Septimius Severus Denarii,” NC7 19: 67–73. Carter, G. F., and W. H. Carter. (1974). “Chemical compositions of ten Septimius Severus denarii.” Archaeometry 16(2): 201–209. Carter, G. F., and M. H. Kimiatek. (1986). Comparison of surface with interior composition of eight Roman copper based coins.” Proceedings of the Eighteenth International Symposium on Archaeometry and Archaeological Prospection, 14–17 March 1978: 82–96. Condamin, J., and M. Picon. (1964). “Notes on diffusion in ancient alloys.” Archaeometry 7: 98–105. ——— . (1972). “Changes suffered by coins in the course of time and the influence of these on the results of different methods of analysis.” In Hall and Metcalf: 49–66. Cope, L. H. (1972). “The metallurgical analysis of Roman Imperial silver and aes coinage.” In Hall and Metcalf: 3– 47. ——— . (1974). “The metallurgical development of the Roman imperial coinage during the first five centuries A.D.” Ph.D. diss., Liverpool John Moores University. Gilmore, G. (1998). “Neutron activation using a reactor.” In Oddy and Cowell: 1–14. Gitler, H., and M. J. Ponting. (2003). The silver coinage of Septimius Severus and his family (19–211 AD). Milan. Gobel, F. (1842). Uber den Einfluss der Chemie auf die Ermittelung der Völker der Vorzeitt oder Resultate der chemischen Untersuchung metallischer alterthumer Erlangen. Guillaume, S., B. Gratuze, and J.-N. Barrandon. (2007). “Application of laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) for the investigation of ancient silver coins.” Journal of Analytical Atomic Spectroscopy 22, 1163–1167. Hall, E. T., and D. M. Metcalf. (1972). Methods of chemical and metallurgical investigation of ancient coinage RNS Special Publication 8. London.

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The Substance of Coinage: The Role of Scientific Analysis in Ancient Numismatics Hughes, M. J., M. R. Cowell, and P. T. Craddock. (1976). “Atomic absorption techniques in archaeology.” Archaeometry 18: 19–37. Klaproth, M. H. (1798). “Memoires de l’academie royale des sciences et belles-lettres.” Classe de philosophie experimentale: 97–113. La Niece, S. (1995). “Depletion gilding from third millennium Ur.” Iraq 57: 41–47. Oddy, A., and M. Cowell. (1998). Metallurgy in Numismatics 4. RNS Special Publication 30. London. Phillips, J. A. (1852). “A chemical examination of the metals and alloys known to the ancients.” Journal of the Chemical Society 4: 252–300. Rose, T. K. (1912). “On the annealing of coinage alloys.” Journal of the Institute of Metals 1: 86–125. Sano, Y., K. Notsu, and T. Tominaga. (1983). “Studies on chemical composition of ancient coins by multivariate analysis.” Journal of Japanese Antiques and Art Crafts 28: 44–58. (p. 30) Sano, Y., and T. Tominaga. (1982). “Segregation of elements in ancient Chinese coinage.” Journal of Japanese Antiques and Art Crafts 27: 12–17. Schmitt-Korte, K., and M. R. Cowell. (1989). “Nabataean coinage. Pt. 1. The silver content measured by x-ray fluorescence analysis.” NC 149: 33–58. Schweizer, F. (1972). “Analysis of ancient coins using a point source linear x-ray spectrometer: A critical review.” In Hall and Metcalf: 153–169. Walker, D. R. (1976). The metrology of the Roman silver coinage Pt. 1. From Augustus to Domitian BAR Supplementary Series 5. Oxford. ——— . (1977). The metrology of the Roman silver coinage Pt. 2. From Nerva to Commodus. BAR Supplementary Series 22. Oxford. ——— . (1978). The metrology of the Roman silver coinage Pt. 3. From Pertinax to Uranius Antoninus BAR supp. ser. 40. Oxford. West, L. C. (1941). Gold and silver standards in the Roman empire. New York. Matthew J. Ponting Matthew J. Pont ng s Lecturer n Sc ence based Archaeology, School of Archaeology, Class cs and Egyptology, Un vers ty of L verpool.

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Archaic and Classical Greek Coinage

Oxford Handbooks Online Archaic and Classical Greek Coinage The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Coinage Edited by William E. Metcalf Pr nt Pub cat on Date: Feb 2012 Subject: C ass ca Stud es On ne Pub cat on Date: Nov 2012

(p. 32)

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Archaic and Classical Greek Coinage

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The Monetary Background of Early Coinage

Oxford Handbooks Online The Monetary Background of Early Coinage John H. Kroll The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Coinage Edited by William E Metcalf Pr nt Publ cat on Date: Feb 2012 Onl ne Publ cat on Date: Nov 2012

Subject: Class cal Stud es, Anc ent Greek H story, Anc ent Roman H story DO : 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195305746.013.0003

Abstract and Keywords In the Greek world, monetary practices included the transactional use of weighed bullion. Special circumstances explain why coinage happened to originate in the Greek region. One was that electrum was indigenous to Lydia and by the seventh century was being extracted from the Pactolus River in legendary quantities. Consequently, among the Lydians and their Greek neighbors, electrum had become more abundant than silver and pure gold. The second circumstance was that electrum was an inconsistent and easily adulterated metal and thus poorly suited for reliable monetary exchange. Finally, the key factor that made coinage possible and distinguished it from all earlier forms of money was the involvement of the state. Coinage quickly came to be regarded as both an indispensable instrument of economic and public life and, like standard weights and measures, with which it was often associated, a fundamental responsibility of the well-ordered state. Keywords Greek weighted bullion coinage money monetary practices

CO NAGE did not emerge out of a vacuum. Although its invention in seventh-century BCE western Asia Minor is

responsible for ushering in money as we know it, it was a relatively late development in the long history of monetary activity. The written records of the Near East attest that money in the form of weighed metal bullion was being used in Mesopotamia as early as the third millennium BCE (Le Rider 2001: 1–24). In the Greek world, monetary practices before coinage cannot be traced nearly as far back as that, but we know that they, too, included the transactional use of weighed bullion, as well as several more rudimentary monetary conventions. The evidence for these early Greek monetary instruments and traditions is regrettably limited and often quite indirect, but its collective importance can hardly be overstated, for if we are to understand and appreciate the origin and early character of coinage, it is essential to know as much as possible about the preceding customs and instruments of monetary exchange.

Standards of Value in Early Iron Age Greece In the Early Iron Age (eleventh through eighth centuries BCE), as reflected in the Homeric epics, goods were exchanged without the use of an exchange medium. Such direct commodity or barter exchange was nevertheless facilitated by reference (p. 34) to a conventionally accepted standard of value, which in certain Homeric passages is specified as that of an ox. Thus in the Iliad (23.885, 703, 705; 6.236) a bronze cauldron (lebes) is valued at one ox, a fine tripod is described as a “twelve-ox” tripod, a skilled female slave as a “four-ox” woman, and a set of bronze armor is worth nine oxen, compared with gold armor worth one hundred oxen. In the Odyssey (1.431) we are told that Odysseus's father paid a price of 20 oxen “with his own possessions” for his household servant Euryclea. Equivalency units like Homeric oxen were a routine feature of most early economies. In the older civilizations of the

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The Monetary Background of Early Coinage Near East and Egypt, the standard of value was a weight unit of metal bullion, shekel weights of silver in Mesopotamia, deben weights of copper in Pharaonic Egypt. An inscribed twelfth-century BCE potsherd from Egypt, for example, records a transaction in which a variety of items, each notionally priced in deben weights of copper, was assembled to make payment for a coffin worth 25 1/2 debens of copper (Kemp 2006: 321). For most of Iron Age Greece, however, apart from the cattle-based valuations attested in Homer, prices or payments were stipulated in numbers of standard bronze or iron utensils. From Crete, fragmentary archaic laws inscribed on stone, some probably as early as the seventh century BCE, prescribe fines and compensatory payments in bronze cauldrons (lebetes). Penalties of 5, 50, and 100 lebetes are mentioned, and in the case of a bronze tripod that was to be paid for some infraction, the tripod is specified as “a tripod of [i.e., worth] ten lebetes” (Van Effenterre and Ruzé 1994–1995: I, nos. 12, 82; II, nos. 11, 38, 92). In a striking instance of the economic and legal conservatism that often retains the names of long-obsolete monetary instruments, a law requiring payment of five lebetes for damage to the horns of an ox was still in force in Hellenistic Knossos, although by this time the value term could only have denoted an amount of silver coin. Other, later laws that were included in the same inscription specify payments in stater and triobol coins (Melville Jones 1993: no. 46). The “ten double-axes [pelekus] of meat” mentioned in an archaic Cretan inscription from Arkades gives another early value unit derived from a metal implement (Van Effenterre and Ruzé 1994–1995: I, no. 22); but in this instance the unit is, as stated by the lexicographer Hesychius, specifically a unit of weight. This “double-axe” weight denomination shows up again in a Cypriote inscription of the early fifth century that is concerned with sizable payments in silver, presumably silver coin (Van Effenterre and Ruzé 1994–1995: I, no. 33 = Melville Jones 1993: no. 49, with no. 795), and in a lead market weight of the fourth-century BCE excavated at Olynthus in northern Greece (Robinson 1941: 447, no. 2382). The iron spit (obelos), of which six frequently made up a handful (a drax or drachme), was another metal implement with monetary significance in the early Greek world, primarily in the Peloponnesus and central Greece. Iron spits were essential for roasting meat at banquets and sacrifices, but because of their metallic worth, they, like bronze cauldrons, came to have two secondary uses: as wealth objects for dedication to the gods in sanctuaries and as unit measures of value. Dedications of spits are known from Herodotus (2.135), from inscribed stone bases, (p. 35) and from finds of spits themselves (Seaford 2004: 103), most notably a substantial bundle of about 100 spits that was excavated in the Sanctuary of Hera near Argos in 1894; the spits were leaded together at one end for upright display and were found with part of a massive iron bar that was made in the shape of a spit, although it was so large that it could not have served any purpose except as an extravagant offering (Kroll 2001: 85–86). The third or monetary use of spits is etymologically attested from the circumstance that the spit words obelos/obolos and drachme came to denote small weight and coin denominations of precious metal, implying that gold and silver—as doubtless very many other things as well—must have been once valued in terms of iron spits. Aware of the etymological connection, ancient commentators assumed that spits had once been used as a primitive currency. Thus the scholar Heracleides of Pontus attributed the changeover from iron spits to silver coins to Pheidon, the obscure seventh-century ruler of Argos who, according to the historian Ephoros, minted the first coins on Aegina. Heracleides wrote that when Pheidon issued Aeginetan coins, he requisitioned the spits and dedicated them to Hera at Argos (Orion, Eytmologicum: obeliskos, with Strabo 8.3.33, 8.6.16 =Melville Jones 1993, nos. 27–29, 781). But such ancient conjectures involving Pheidon's monetary activities are no longer credible. Aeginetan coins were first minted not by a seventh-century Argive but in the sixth century by the Aeginetans themselves. Even if Pheidon was responsible for the great dedication of spits in the Sanctuary of Argive Hera, this wealthy dedication of sacrificial implements need not have been a dedication of currency. And although spits may have been employed physically as a means of payment on occasions when this was convenient and circumstances allowed, it does not follow that they were generally used in this way. So far as the etymological evidence allows, the monetary importance of spits would seem to derive primarily from their role as a recognized measure of value, like cauldrons on Crete, before this role was taken over by precious metals (Seaford 2004: 105). How did the value of spits get transferred to small weights of precious metal? We may suppose that at some point in Early Iron Age Greece, the average size iron spit—roughly 1 1/2 meters in length and between 1 and 2 kg in weight —was equated with about 1 g's weight of a precious metal, a mass that in the traditional Greek system of weight denominations corresponded to the “twelfth,” or hemihekte, of a stater (see the note at the end of this chapter). Over time, this approximately 1 g unit of precious metal came to be known simply as an obol's weight of it; and six of these obol weight units (or twelfths of a stater) made up a drachma unit (or half stater). In this way, apparently,

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The Monetary Background of Early Coinage the terminology of spits came to be grafted onto the traditional denominational weight system of the stater and its fractions.

Click to view larger Fig 2 1

Given what is known about the relative values of iron and silver in antiquity, it is uncertain whether the 1,000–2,000 g of an iron spit could have been worth as little as 1 g of silver, even at an early time when the relative value of silver was much higher than it was in the fifth and fourth centuries (Seaford 2004: 104–105). Perhaps, then, the 1,000–2,000:1 weight ratio was the ratio between an iron spit and its value (p. 36) equivalent in gold, which in historical Greek times was 10–15 times more valuable than silver. In the Early Iron Age, gold was the more prominent precious metal, chiefly because of its prestigious associations with wealth and high social status. It is mentioned far more than silver in Homer (Seaford 2004: 30–32) and occurs frequently in the form of jewelry in wealthy graves, whereas silver is rare (Coldstream 2003: 123–126, 198). The hoard of about 0.5 kg of unworked pieces of gold and electrum (fig. 2.1) that was buried in a pot under the floor of a house in the Euboean city of Eretria in the eighth century BCE is the only precoinage hoard of precious metal known to have been recovered in Greece to this day (Themelis 1983; Kroll 2001: 85–86; Le Rider and Verdan 2002).

The Advent of Silver Currency in Archaic Greece But while gold may have played a larger role in the epic and material culture of Greece well into the eighth century, monetary references in the laws of Solon make it clear that by the early sixth century, silver had become the dominant metal in the economic life of Greece. Silver was more plentiful than gold, and for currency purposes it was far more flexible and convenient, better suited for exchange at the lower end of the value spectrum and consequently for the full range of monetary transactions. It had long been the primary monetary metal in (p. 37) the Near East, where it served as the medium of exchange as well as the value standard; and its rise to prominence in the cities of Greece may be attributed to the great wave of Orientalizing influence in the seventh century that transformed many aspects of Greek culture and life (Descat 2006). Its specific importance for monetary use is likely to have intensified demand for the metal at the same time that its supply was also increasing within the Greek world, which had now expanded westward to include the thriving poleis of coastal Sicily and South Italy. Sources of the metal will have included the Near East, where Greek exiles and adventurers sought employment as mercenary soldiers (Niemeier 2001); the mines of southern Spain, whose silver was traded chiefly by the Phoenicians (Aubet 2001: 279–285); and early exploitation of some of the rich deposits of silver in Thrace, Macedon, and the central Aegean (Coldstream 2003: 70), if not also some of the less well known deposits in Anatolia, Italy, and elsewhere (Seaford 2004: 114 n. 66). In his Life of Solon, Plutarch cites a number of statutes from the body of laws that the Athenian lawgiver compiled and put on public display during or around the time of his archonship in 594/593 BCE. Eight of these statutes make mention of fines, prices, and state payments in terms of drachmas, which, as shown by other laws anciently attributed to Solon, were weight drachmas of silver (Kroll 1998, 2008b: 14–17). Some of these laws pertained explicitly to the collecting and spending of silver by the early Athenian officials known as the naukraroi (Aristotle, Athenaion Politeia 8.3). Another, a law on usury, refers to silver that was lent at interest as “weighed out silver” (argurion stasimon; Lysias 10.18, with the lexicographical entries nos. 781–784 and 815, in Melville Jones 1993). It is but one of several instances in Greek where lending, paying, and receiving money was expressed in terms of

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The Monetary Background of Early Coinage “weighing,” which of course was the indispensable step in any transaction involving metal currency before the advent of coinage. In light of this evidence, it would seem that around the middle of the sixth century when Greek states began to strike coins out of silver, they did not do so to fulfill any need for new money or for making or receiving specific types of payments. Such transactions, including lending at interest, could have been and evidently had been managed by the weighing out of pieces of silver bullion on the balance, as in the contemporary Near East (Descat 2001: 77–79; Seaford 2004: 93). Quite a few specimens of such Hacksilber currency—irregularly chopped pieces of ingots, broken jewelry, and other silver scrap, similar to the cut-up pieces of gold and electrum in the much earlier Eretria hoard (fig. 2.1)— have been recovered from hoards from western Asia Minor, Sicily, and southern Italy that have also contained a sizable admixture of early silver coins (Kroll 2008b: 21–24, 28–33). As in the Near East (Thompson 2003), large payments in such cut-silver bullion would have been made using sealed bags marked with the preweighed amounts of metal they contained. But while this practice made large-scale transactions a relatively simple matter, minor sums or only part of a bag's contents would have required weighing on the balance and, frequently, a need to chop up pieces of silver in order to obtain an exact weight.

(p. 38) Electrum and the Beginning of Coinage Although coinage did away with these cumbersome procedures, that was not why coinage was originally devised. In fact, at the outset coinage had nothing to do with silver at all. The earliest coins—and for a period perhaps as long as half a century the only coins—were made of electrum, the variable gold-silver alloy in which gold occurs naturally in streambed deposits. Herodotus (1.50) called it “white gold,” contrasting it with “boiled gold,” that is, refined or pure gold. Notably, this early electrum coinage was employed in a fairly limited geographical area of westernmost Asia Minor: the territory of Lydia and the adjacent Greek cities and islands of the Aegean coast (see chapter 3). Two special circumstances explain why coinage happened to originate in this particular region. One was that electrum was indigenous to Lydia and by the seventh century was being extracted from the Pactolus River and other Lydian streams and mines in legendary quantities (Ramage and Craddock 2000: 19–20). Consequently, among the Lydians and their Greek neighbors, electrum had probably become more abundant than silver and pure gold. The second circumstance is that electrum is an inconsistent and easily adulterated metal and thus poorly suited for reliable monetary exchange. An alloy whose silver-gold proportions varied in nature, electrum was commonly made even more variable by artificially diluting its gold content with refined silver. Hence, when exchanged, its quality first had to be tested visually from the color of streaks made on a touchstone, and while such testing presented no problems with relatively large pieces of electrum bullion, it is not hard to imagine how impractical it would have been to have to test a bagful of dozens of small nuggets and crumbs of the metal, like the tiny pieces of pale yellow electrum in the gold hoard from Eretria (fig. 2.1). Even if each small piece could be tested separately, it would have been extremely hard to determine with any accuracy the value of an entire bag of pieces, each with a different weight and fineness. Over time, as the complexities and transactional unreliability of electrum bullion became manifest, Lydians and Greeks with large stocks of this metal must have found it increasingly difficult to utilize their bullion in payments that others would accept. One way out of this dilemma would have been to avoid dealing in electrum bullion altogether and, if possible, to separate it metallurgically into its pure gold and silver components, whose exchange use was straightforward. But, despite textual evidence for gold refining in second-millennium Mesopotamia and Egypt, it is not altogether certain whether a technique for fully parting silver and gold (as opposed to removing base metal impurities) from electrum was developed before the sixth century (Ramage and Craddock 2000: 31; Le Rider 2001: 90–93). Be that as it may, authorities in seventh-century Asia Minor hit upon a much simpler expedient for making acceptable payments with electrum, namely, by making them in the form of small, stamped ingots of uniform weight, that is, coins, whose value was set and guaranteed by the authority whose stamp they bore (Wallace 1987). (p. 39) Since this expedient effectively transferred valuation from the metal itself to the issuing authority, it brought with it an incentive for issuers to profit by overvaluing their coins, a temptation that some minting authorities seem to have found difficult to resist. For example, there is fairly decisive evidence that the much-

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The Monetary Background of Early Coinage analyzed royal Lydian lion-head electrum coins that date before Croesus were officially valued as if they were made of average natural Lydian electrum (c. 73% gold, 27% silver), whereas their actual metal content had been artificially altered (54% gold, 44% silver, 1 or 2% copper), resulting in a extraordinary profit of roughly 15–20% for the Lydian state (Cahill-Kroll 2005: 612–613; Le Rider 2001: 94–95). One assumes that in time, as this discrepancy and its serious complications for the exchange of overvalued electrum coins for pure gold and silver became widely appreciated, people refused to accept the coins. It is therefore hardly surprising that around the middle of the sixth century, by which time the cementation process for parting electrum into silver and gold had certainly become available, Croesus called in the electrum coins of his realm and replaced them with a bimetallic coinage of pure gold and silver (see chapter 3).

States and the Coining of Precious Metal Whether or not Croesus was the first to issue a nonelectrum coinage, it seems that other early coinages of silver made their first appearances in Caria and the Greek world also around the middle of the sixth century (see chapter 3). Previously, as we have seen, silver was transacted monetarily in the form of cut-up bullion weighed out on the balance. Since its valuation, like that of pure gold, was unproblematic, it did not require an expedient like coinage or political authority to allow it to function as a means of exchange. In pre-Croesus Asia Minor, silver and gold bullion were presumably still being weighed out transactionally even as transactions in electrum were being managed with coins (Kroll 2008b: 17–21). What Croesus and his Lydian, Carian, and Greek contemporaries had come to recognize through their experience with electrum coins was that coinage, while not necessary for the transactional use of silver, was nevertheless a hugely advantageous practical convention for facilitating its use. The key factor, which made coinage possible and distinguished it from all earlier forms of money, was the involvement of the state. Unlike anonymously supplied bullion, coins were supplied by the state and were guaranteed by its authority. As small, preweighed and hence prevalued ingots of precious metal that were stamped with the certifying badge of the issuing government, they were instantly acceptable in payment on trust (Seaford 2004: 136). Total sums were determined quickly and exactly by the counting out of coins and by the fact that coins, from the very start (Kim 2002; Kagan 2006; Psoma 2006: 64, 68), were normally issued in small fractional denominations as well as in single and multiple weight units. Moreover, since (p. 40) the state issued coins to serve as the official currency within its territory, it could use its legal authority to protect against falsification and to enforce acceptance at time of issue (Seaford 2004: 140–142). Given these tremendous advantages of a stateproduced and state-controlled currency, it is not hard to see why silver-using Greek cities chose to intervene and replace weighed bullion with the institution of coinage, just as the cities had earlier used their authority to set and enforce official weights and measures. Very much as standardized weights and measures were necessary for the orderly functioning of a local economy, a standard, convenient, and legally protected exchange currency promoted and enhanced efficiency both in the private economic sector and in the state's handling of its own receipts and expenditures. In sum, coinage did not do anything that other forms of money had not always done; it only did them better. Hence, because of its sheer practicality, it quickly came to be regarded as both an indispensable instrument of economic and public life and, like standard weights and measures, with which it was often associated (e.g., Plato, Laws 746; Polybius, 2.37.10; IG I3 , 1453, the “Athenian Standards Decree”), a fundamental responsibility of the well-ordered state.

Note: The Greek Stater and Its Fractions The stater was the basic Greek weight unit. Differing in mass according to the regional or local Greek weight standard in use, it was in all cases divided into twelfths, like the Italian-Roman pound (as, libra), which was divided into 12 ounces (uncia). For example, as known from coins, the 12.2 g stater of the Aeginetan standard was divided into halves (drachmas of 6.1 g), each of which were divided into sixths (obols of 1.01 g); the Attic 8.64 g stater was similarly divided into 2 drachmas (of 4.32 g), each with 6 obols (of 0.72 g). Although, like other staters of the eastern Greek world, the Lydian-Milesian stater of 14.2 g did not employ the obol/drachma nomenclature for fractions, it, too, was divided duodecimally into 6ths, 12ths (1.18 g), 24ths, 48ths, and in some early electrum coinages, even 96ths (0.18 g).

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The Monetary Background of Early Coinage There is disappointingly little that can be said about the obscure origins of the various Greek weight standards. The exception is the 8.64 g stater of the Attic-Euboeic weight system, which can be traced back though the stone balance weights in a ninth-century BCE tomb at Lefkandi, Euboea, to the Babylonian shekel of third-millennium BCE Mesopotamia (Kroll 2008a: 44–47). The Greek term stater seems to be a translation of the Semitic shekel; not only do both words mean simply “weight” in their respective languages, but the units’ mass ranges are similar (7.5 g to 11.5 g for shekels; 7.5 g to c. 14 g for staters). The larger weight units of Greek metrology, talent and mina, are likewise of Near Eastern origin and were familiar in the Aegean already during Mycenaean times. Fig. 2.1. Hoard of gold and electrum from Eretria, Euboea. 8th century BCE. Photo courtesy of P. Themelis.

Bibliography Bibliography Ashton, R., and S. Hurter, eds. (1998). Studies in Greek Numismatics in Memory of Martin Jessop Price. London. Aubet, M. E. (2001). The Phoenicians and the West: Politics, Colonies and Trade 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Balmuth, M. S., ed. (2001). Hacksilber to Coinage: New Insights into the Monetary History of the Near East and Greece American Numismatic Society Numismatic Studies 24. New York. Cahill, N., and J. H. Kroll. (2005). “New Archaic Coin Finds from Sardis.” AJA 109: 589–617. Cartledge, P., E. Cohen, and L. Foxhall, eds. (2002). Money, Labour and Land: Approaches to the Economies of ancient Greece London. Coldstream, J. N. (2003). Geometric Greece: 900–700 B C 2nd ed. London: Routledge. Descat, R. (2001). “Monnaie multiple et monnaie frappée en Grèce archaïque.” RN 157: 69–81. ——— . (2006). “Argyronetos: Les transformations de l’éxchange dans la Grèce archaïque.” In Van Alfen: 21–36. Harris, W. V., ed. (2008). The Monetary Systems of the Greeks and Romans Oxford. Kagan, J. H. (2006). “Small Change and the Beginning of Coinage at Abdera.” In Van Alfen: 49–60. Kemp, B. J. (2006). Ancient Egypt: Anatomy of a Civilization 2nd ed. London. Kim, H. S. (2002). “Small Change and the Moneyed Economy.” In Cartledge et al.: 44–51. Kroll, J. H. (1998). “Silver in Solon's Laws.” In Ashton and Hurter: 225–232. ——— . (2001). “Observations on Monetary Instruments in Pre-coinage Greece.” In Balmuth: 77–91. ——— . (2008a). “Early Iron Age Balance Weights at Lefkandi, Euboea.” Oxford Journal of Archaeology 27: 37–48. ——— . (2008b). “The Monetary Use of Weighed Bullion in Archaic Greece.” In Harris: 13–37. Le Rider, G. (2001). La naissance de la monnaie, Pratiques monétaires de l’Orient ancien Paris. Le Rider, G., and S. Verdan. (2002). “La trouvaille d’Erétrie: Réserve d’un orfèvre ou dépôt monetaire?” AntKun 45: 141–152. Melville Jones, J. R. (1993). Testimonia Numaria: Greek and Latin Texts Concerning Ancient Greek Coinage. Vol. 1. Texts and Translations. London. Niemeier, W.-D. (2001). “Archaic Greeks in the Orient: Textual and Archaeological Evidence.” BASOR 322: 11–32. Psoma, S. (2006). “The ‘Lete’ Coinage Reconsidered.” In Van Alfen: 61–85.

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The Monetary Background of Early Coinage Ramage, A., and P. Craddock. (2000). King Croesus’ Gold: Excavations at Sardis and the History of Gold Refining Archaeological Exploration of Sardis Monograph 11. Cambridge, Mass. (p. 42) Robinson, D. M. (1941). Excavations at Olynthus. Pt. 10. Metal and Minor Miscellaneous Finds Baltimore. Seaford, R. (2004). Money and the Early Greek Mind Cambridge. Themelis, P. G. (1983). “An 8th Century Goldsmith's Workshop at Eretria.” In R. Hägg, ed., The Greek Renaissance of the Eighth Century B C Stockholm: Paul Akströms Förlag: 189–193. Thompson, C. M. (2003). “Sealed Silver in Iron Age Cisjordan and the ‘Invention’ of Coinage.” Oxford Journal of Archaeology 22: 67–107. Van Alfen, P. G., ed. (2006). Agoranomia: Studies in Money and Exchange Presented to John H Kroll New York. Van Effenterre, H., and F. Ruzé. (1994–1995). Nomima, Recueil d’inscriptions politiques et juridiques de l’archaïsme grec Vols. 1–2. Rome. Wallace, R. W. (1987). “The Origin of Electrum Coinage.” AJA 91: 385–397. John H. Kroll John H. Kroll s Professor of Class cs Emer tus, Un vers ty of Texas at Aust n.

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Asia Minor to the Ionian Revolt

Oxford Handbooks Online Asia Minor to the Ionian Revolt Koray Konuk The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Coinage Edited by William E Metcalf Pr nt Publ cat on Date: Feb 2012 Onl ne Publ cat on Date: Nov 2012

Subject: Class cal Stud es, Greek and Roman Archaeology, Anc ent Greek H story DO : 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195305746.013.0004

Abstract and Keywords Monetary exchange in Asia Minor started with barter and continued with the use of a wide range of commodities as money. Coinage originated in the middle of the seventh century. In Anatolia and parts of the Near East, precious metals had long been in general use for commercial purposes before the advent of coinage, and constituted the usual means of payment. Gold and especially silver were saved and transacted by weight in the form of cut and broken vessels and jewelry, as well as whole and fragmentary ingots of various shapes and sizes. In the years following the Persian conquest, many of the major city-states of western Asia Minor started to produce their own civic silver coinage. With coinage, an issuing authority, usually the state, weighed the pieces of precious metal to a recognized standard in a system of denominations and marked them with an official stamp to guarantee their value in the area of influence of that authority. Keywords monetary exchange Asia Minor Anatolia metals barter coinage

CO NAGE , as we know it, originated in western Asia Minor around the middle of the seventh century (all ancient dates

are B.C.). This was a significant step in a long development that started with barter and continued with the use of a wide range of commodities as money. In Anatolia and parts of the Near East, precious metals had long been in general use for commercial purposes before the advent of coinage and constituted the usual means of payment. Gold and especially silver were saved and transacted by weight in the form of cut and broken vessels and jewelery as well as whole and fragmentary ingots of various shapes and sizes (see chapter 2 here). With coinage, an issuing authority, usually the state, weighed the pieces of precious metal to a recognized standard in a system of denominations and marked them with an official stamp to guarantee their value in the area of influence of that authority.

Coinage Emerging from a Fickle Metal: Electrum The first coins were almost certainly minted in the Lydian capital Sardis in western Asia Minor. Coinage was quickly adopted and struck in neighboring areas, chiefly Ionia, which came under the control or influence of the Lydians, who seem to have nurtured a particular disposition for commerce and, according to Herodotus, were the first people to engage in retail trade. Under the Mermnad (p. 44) kings, Lydia prospered and became the most powerful state in the region by seizing control of a number of Ionian cities. An important feature of these first coins is that they were all made of electrum, an alloy of gold and silver with small amounts of other elements (copper, traces of tin, lead, and iron). Deposits of electrum occurred in the silts of rivers, such as the Hermus and the Pactolus, which flowed through the Lydian capital Sardis (Ramage and Craddock 2000: 14–26). The name of the alloy derives from the Greek elektron, which originally meant amber and was later applied to the alloy because of its pale yellow color. Herodotus calls it “white gold” in opposition to boiled (refined or pure) gold. Electrum was a commodity available locally and was largely controlled by the Lydian kings, who turned some of it into coins by

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Asia Minor to the Ionian Revolt applying a design on lumps of electrum of consistent weights. With its naturally variable content of gold, electrum in its bullion form was a difficult metal to use in exchanges, for every time it changed hands, its intrinsic value had to be ascertained using a “Lydian stone” (touchstone; Craddock 2000: 247). The gold content of alluvial electrum varied greatly, from around 65% to 85% (Meeks 2000: 145–148; Keyser and Clark 2001: 107). To counter this problem, Lydians turned bullion electrum into coins. Coinage was invented precisely because of the varying intrinsic value of electrum, which could not readily circulate without a guarantee (Wallace 1987; Kroll 2008: 18). Coinage was meant to solve a local difficulty in Lydia and its subject territories: that of using a metal of inconsistent value in transactions. By putting devices on carefully weighed lumps of electrum, the issuing authority would fix the face value of electrum at apparently the highest point of its intrinsic value (Price 1983: 5). A number of early electrum coins have been analyzed to determine their exact alloy composition. A set of data involving 30 coins from two hoards from Samos shows a wide range of gold percentages, from 84% to 46%, with a mean percentage at around 55–60% (Nicolet-Pierre and Barrandon 1997: 130; Konuk 2005: 49). This contrasts with their weights, which feature remarkable accuracy and consistency between various denominations. Just a few of these coins might have been struck with natural electrum (three or four of the coins with the highest content of gold), whereas all the remaining ones must have been minted with artificially made or altered electrum, containing less gold and more silver and copper (Keyser and Clark 2001: 106). The amount of copper increases (up to 3.6%) as the gold proportion decreases; copper may have been added proportionally to standardize the appearance of coins of varying gold content (Konuk 2005: 51). A further set of coins to have been probed are the Lydian lion head issues, which have a much more stable proportion of gold, at around 54%, with around 2% copper (Cowell and Hyne 2000: 170–171; Keyser and Clark 2001: 114). Lydian coins were clearly struck with a manipulated alloy that contained a lower proportion of gold than is found in natural electrum (70–75% gold on average). The face or exchange value of these coins would have been superior to their intrinsic value, perhaps by as much as some 20%, to coincide with a value close to that of natural electrum (Le Rider 2001: 94–95; see below for an anecdote in Herodotus involving a gift made by Croesus from which the value in question may perhaps be determined).

Click to view larger Fig 3 1 3 25

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Asia Minor to the Ionian Revolt (p. 45) With the exception of some electrum issues with a plain surface or simple striations on their main side (called the obverse, fig. 3.1), the earliest coinage is characterized by a large diversity of designs that are called “types” (Coins with plain and/or striated surfaces and coins carrying types circulated together and are therefore contemporary as hoard evidence shows; a punch-sharing has also been noted between a typeless coin and a lion type coin: Karwiese 1991: 9–10.) Wild and domestic animals are most frequently represented, often just foreparts, heads, or body parts (lion paws); lions (figs. 3.2, 3.8, 3.12, 3.13, 3.15) were especially popular in the electrum bestiary, which included rams, goats (fig. 3.3), stags (fig. 3.11), boars, bulls (fig. 3.15), horses (fig. 3.4), hares, foxes, dogs, tortoises, various birds, fish, seals, octopus (fig. 3.9), crabs, dolphins, insects such as bees (fig. 3.7), and beetles. Fantastic animals (winged horses, griffins, the Chimaera), monsters (gorgons, sirens, winged men), objects (fibulae, thunderbolts, shields), human depictions (fig. 3.5), geometric patterns and irregular markings (fig. 3.6) also adorn the obverse of these coins (Spier 1990: 111). Close to a hundred different devices have been identified, and new ones continue to surface. The type was engraved on a die on which was placed a preweighed piece of electrum, which was then struck with a punch (a simple rod) and a hammer. As a result, the main side received the type in positive; the other side was left with one or several punch marks (called an incuse), which exposed the interior of the coin. Each issuing authority used a principal identifying type on its coinage, but some mints used several types (Weidauer 1975). At Sardis it was the lion, the royal animal par excellence and closely associated with the Lydian dynasty, most commonly the lion's head (figs. 3.12, 3.13) but also its forepart or just its paw. A rare Lydian issue with a head of a boar, sometimes inscribed, should also be placed at Sardis (Spier 1998: 331). In Ionia, the earliest identifiable mints adopted the following types: Ephesus: a stag or a bee (figs. 3.11, 3.7); Phocaea: a seal (fig. 3.9); Miletus: a recumbent lion (fig. 3.8) or just its head; the island of Samos: a lion's head facing, irregular markings, a reclining lamb or a bird; the island of Chios: a seated Sphinx; Cyzicus: a tuna, or its head in a composition (fig. 3.10). In the case of Phocaea, the seal, phoke in Greek, is a pun on the city's name (fig. 3.6). There were clearly a number of other mints in Ionia that cannot be identified as yet, but the number of mints was smaller than the multiplicity of types would suggest, different types being often linked by the same punches. Just a handful of inscriptions on very early coins are extant, mostly in Lydian, but the longest inscription is in Greek and reads “I am the badge (or seal) of Phanes”; it is placed above a grazing stag that is depicted on a series of staters of which four specimens are known today (fig. 3.11); the third one to have come to light (Zhuyuetang collection) has just “phaneos emi.” These staters were issued by a mint, usually identified as Ephesus, that produced a whole range of smaller denominations (down to 1/96ths); the thirds have simply “phaneos,” “of Phanes,” depicting the stag as a forepart or just its head on smaller fractions (punch sharing has been noted between stater and sixth). Who this Phanes was remains a matter of conjecture, but the fact that a fraction was discovered in a hoard from Ephesus (Spier 1998: 330) and that the “phaneos emi” stater reportedly came to light near (p. 46) (p. 47) the modern town of Torbalı (not far from Ephesus) strengthens an attribution to Ephesus, where the stag associated with Artemis was a long-standing civic coin type. The Phanes inscription derives from an earlier tradition of seal inscriptions (Seaford 2004: 115–124), and it has been pointed out (Spier 1990: 117) that the word sema does not refer to the device of the stag alone but rather to both the device and the inscription taken together as a means of identifying the issuer of the coin (perhaps an official of Ephesus responsible for the issue). Rather than badge or emblem, sema would be better translated as “seal” or “signature.” The most prolific mint for early electrum coins was Sardis, which produced large quantities of the lion head thirds, sixths, and twelfths, along with lion paw fractions. Some of the lion head coins are inscribed in Lydian with walwet or kukalim (presumably meaning “I am of Kukaś” or “I belong to Kukaś,” which reminds one of the signet seal tradition; the legend is placed between opposing lion's heads (Wallace 2006; fig. 3.12). There is also a variant that reads late, between two opposing boar's heads (Karwiese 2008: 147: found in 1986 in the Artemisium foundations). On both series, one of the two heads is usually off flan, for the dies seem to have been made for staters that are not extant. These coins are punch linked, and they seem to form a fairly compact series. Walwet has been usually identified as the Lydian name of King Alyattes (c. 610–560), and the other two names may also be connected to the royal household. One difficulty with attributing the series to the time of Alyattes is the discovery in 1994 of a kukalim third (inv. ART 94 K277) in the eastern sekos (sacred open-air chamber) of the temple of Croesus in a context that is dated to around 630/620 (Kerschner 1997: 100; Karwiese 2008: 146). Four walwet coins (third, sixth, and two twelfths) were also among the 93 Artemisium deposit coins (see below; Robinson 1951: 166–167). Lion head coins show a stylistic evolution, and a classification has been proposed by Weidauer. A hoard from Gordion in Phrygia of the later lion head coins (fig. 3.13), which were issued in large quantities, produced 45 specimens in all three denominations (Bellinger 1968). A few of these carry tiny punch marks (called countermarks). Other examples have one, two, and very often three, usually on both sides and sometimes on their

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Asia Minor to the Ionian Revolt edges. Some lion coins are completely covered by countermarks, in some cases more than 10. These marks were probably applied by money changers and bankers to coins they considered of correct weight and alloy (counterfeits were not uncommon). If these coins came into their hands again, they would recognize their marks and have no need to test them again. This practice became commonplace under the Persians on their sigloi. We do not know whether there was a state monopoly on issuing coinage or whether some wealthy private individuals such as bankers or merchants were also allowed to strike coins of their own (Price 1983). Although irregular in size and shape, these early electrum coins were minted according to a strict weight standard. The denominations ranged from the unit called stater (14.15 g in the Lydo-Milesian weight system) down through half staters, thirds, sixths, twelfths, 1/24ths, 1/48ths, 1/96ths to 1/192nds of a stater (about 0.08 g; fig. 3.14; this denomination has been recently identified: Stingl 2001: 42; Konuk 2003: 33). The rich (p. 48) iconography of the obverse of the early electrum coins contrasts with the dull appearance of their reverse, which usually carries only punch marks. The shape and number of these punches varied according to their denomination and weight standard. Although there are some exceptions, the following system was in place: in the Lydo-Milesian standard, by far the most widely used, staters (14.15 g) carried an oblong punch mark between two square ones (figs. 3.1, 3.4, 3.8, half staters had the same reverse as staters (fig. 3.5) or they simply had two oblong punch marks, thirds and sixths had two square punch marks (figs. 3.2, 3.3, 3.7), and smaller fractions had only a square one (fig. 3.14). In the Samian (Euboeic) weight system, the stater (17.4 g) had two oblong punch marks, the half stater a rectangular and a square (sometimes triangular) punch mark (fig. 3.6), and smaller denominations only a square one. In the Phocaic weight system, the stater (16.8 g) had two square punch marks, one bigger than the other (figs. 3.9, 3.10), although there are a few examples with only one punch mark, which was the rule for smaller Phocaic fractions.

The Date of the Early Electrum Coinage Excavations carried out by the British Museum at the temple of Artemis at Ephesus in 1904–1905 yielded 93 coins among the foundation deposits of the archaic temple (Robinson 1951). These finds are critical for our understanding of how and when the earliest coins appeared. Among these deposits was the earliest known pot hoard: a group of 19 electrum coins sealed and buried together in an olpe. The majority of the Artemisium coins are Lydian issues of the lion head type and lion paw fractions. The interpretation of the Artemisium coins, and their dating in particular, has been the subject of an intense debate among scholars, some advocating a high dating (first quarter of the seventh century: Weidauer 1974; Furtwängler 1986), others a low dating for their introduction (first quarter of the sixth century: Price 1983: 4, who later suggested a date shortly before 600; Carradice and Price: 20), with a majority of numismatists opting for a middle chronology of around 630 (Robinson 1951; Kraay 1976: 21–22; Wallace 1987: 385). Recently, an architectural reassessment of the excavations made in the “central basis” of the Artemisium dated the earliest context for the foundation deposit coins to around 560 (Bammer 1990, 1991: 83). However, this interpretation has been vehemently opposed (Weissl 2002: 315–321, 2005: 365), and in any event around 560 was only a terminus ante quem, and how much earlier the first coins were to be placed remained uncertain. The latest evidence from the Artemisium in the form of stratigraphical data of some recently found electrum coins suggest that electrum coinage was already in place in around 625 (Kerschner 1997). During the excavations of 1993–1994 in the eastern sekos of the dipteros of Croesus, a few coins were found in pre-Croesus levels. The most important context was a stratified deposit of sacrificial residues dating to the last third of the seventh (p. 49) century. The sacrificial deposits were covered by river sand after the area had been inundated. A third-stater, which belongs to the Lydian lion head group inscribed kukalim (inv. ART 94 K 277), was found in the earliest layers: “Opferschicht G or F,” which can be dated to around 630/620 (Kerschner 1997: 100, 226). Five more coins have been found in a layer of debris on the north side of the archaic dipteros of Croesus. The pottery finds of these contexts, however, have not yet been studied. These new stratigraphical data provided by the Austrian excavators are consistent with a dating that had been proposed for the olpe of the pot hoard (Williams 1991–1993). The vessel was reckoned to have been buried between 650 and 625, and the beginning of electrum coinage was therefore placed around 650. It appears that in the light of the latest stratigraphical evidence from the Artemisium, the middle dating should gain further support, with perhaps an adjustment on the upside of a decade or two.

Croesus and the Advent of Bimetallism

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Asia Minor to the Ionian Revolt For 80 years or so, electrum remained the sole metal used for coinage. Its varying intrinsic value and the rarity of its natural occurrence outside Lydia discouraged the spread of electrum coinage to other parts of the ancient world. Electrum coinage remained in effect a local phenomenon limited to Lydia and its subjected territories. But toward the middle of the sixth century, Croesus (561–546), the last and the wealthiest king of Lydia, was responsible for a remarkable monetary innovation, one that was to have a profound impact on the diffusion of coinage throughout the ancient world. Herodotus reported this event in these words: “So far as we have any knowledge, they [the Lydians] were the first people to introduce the use of gold and silver coins, and the first who sold goods by retail” (1.94). Croesus replaced the electrum coinage by a currency system of pure gold and pure silver coins, struck at Sardis. The multiplicity of types on electrum coins was replaced by a single coin type used both on gold and silver issues and for all denominations, namely the confronted foreparts of lion and bull stamped on the obverse (fig. 3.16). A rare issue of staters in electrum (fig. 3.15) depicting the same foreparts but back to back has been alleged to represent the last electrum coinage of Croesus, the animals attached by their backs symbolizing gold (lion) and silver (bull) still mixed in one metal: electrum (Robinson 1958: 585). The confronted lion-bull coinage was later struck by the Persians after the conquest of Sardis (see below), but lifetime issues of Croesus show a more naturalistic rendering of the two animals (Naster 1965: 30; Nimchuk 2000). The reverse was struck with two incuse squares, one a little bigger than the other, the bigger always positioned underneath the lion. Smaller fractions have just one incuse square; in recent years a great many of these have surfaced, in both metals, attesting that it was not a coinage issued for making large payments only (Walburg 1991: 15–18). We are now confident that the lionbull coinage belongs indeed to Croesus, at least in its initial phase, thanks to three lion-bull fractions (one gold twelfth and two silver: 1/12 and 1/24) unearthed recently during excavations at Sardis in pre-540s levels (Cahill and Kroll 2005). Furthermore, the discovery at Sardis of a large workshop for refining electrum into ingots of pure gold and pure silver, dated independently by the diggers to around 560–550, helps us to understand how the precious metal for coinage was obtained (Ramage and Craddock 2000: 81–96). Analyses of the gold fragments found in this workshop and of the gold used for coins attributed to Croesus produced similar results (Cowell and Hyne 2000). No doubt part of the gold and silver purified in that workshop was used under Croesus to strike coins. Croesus thus established the first known example of bimetallism, commonly defined as a monetary system in which the state fixes the exchange rate between gold and silver. The gold staters were reduced from 14.15 g of electrum to 10.8 g of gold, coins referred to in ancient sources as kroiseioi stateres (Le Rider 2001: 102) and today as Croeseids (fig. 3.16). Not long after their introduction, gold Croeseids and their fractions came to be struck on a lighter standard of 8.1 g, some specimens being struck with dies and punches used for the production of heavy staters, which have survived in fewer examples than those on the light standard. Staters in pure silver of 10.8 g were also issued together with a wide range of smaller denominations (1/3, 1/6, 1/12, 1/24, 1/48). The weights of the new coins are believed to have been designed to facilitate the exchange of old electrum coins for new gold ones. By the ratio between gold and silver prevailing in that period (1:13.3), a stater of 14.15 g of electrum would have been equivalent to a stater of 10.8 g of gold. Kroll has suggested that the Lydian state first used this heavy standard to recall old electrum coins at a 1:1 bullion ratio between pure gold and electrum at its natural intrinsic value (70–80% gold, which was probably the face value of electrum coins; Cahill and Kroll 2005). Later, when enough electrum was redeemed from private ownership, the Lydian treasury issued the light gold stater at 8.1 g, a weight that corresponded to the gold content of Lydian electrum coins, which typically contained around 54% gold and around 44% silver. Accordingly a 14.15 g electrum stater contained around 7.6 g of gold and around 6.2 g of silver, the latter being equivalent to 0.46 g of gold, which would amount to the total intrinsic value of a light gold Croeseid. Croesus was particularly munificent toward sanctuaries and sent generous offerings to the oracles of Apollo at Miletus and Delphi in Greece. Among the lavish gifts reported in Herodotus (1.50) one, made to the oracle at Delphi, attests that the use of electrum as bullion had not been completely abandoned. It was a prodigious amount, as Croesus presented a total of 117 brick-shaped ingots of equal size (presumably all cast in the same mold), four of them of “refined” (pure) gold, each weighing two and a half talents, and the rest of white gold (electrum), each weighing two talents. From that information, we can calculate that these white gold ingots consisted of about 72% gold, a proportion corresponding to that found in alluvial (natural) electrum. One can only be amazed by Croesus's largesse toward Delphi, (p. 51) for what he sent weighed about four and a half tons of pure gold. In the same vain, Herodotus reported that, pleased by an auspicious oracle, Croesus presented each citizen of Delphi with two

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Asia Minor to the Ionian Revolt gold staters (1.54).

The Great King's “Archers” After the demise of the kingdom of Lydia in 546, the coinage of the Persian kings became one of the most important currencies of western Asia Minor. However, the death of Croesus did not mean the end of Lydian coinage. Indeed, Cyrus adopted for his purposes the bimetallic system introduced by Croesus and continued at Sardis to strike gold and silver issues on the Croeseid model. Coin hoards indicate clearly that the issues of Lydian type continued until around 520 (Carradice 1989a; Robinson 1960). Persian authorities continued to strike gold staters on the light standard of 8.1 g, and silver units weighed half of their former weight at 5.4 g. The Persian issues are characterized by a more dynamic style, with a vivid sense of movement that can sometimes result in a relatively schematic rendering of the two animals. As we have seen, on earlier (Lydian) issues, the confronted lion and the bull foreparts were depicted in a more naturalistic and neat manner. Coin hoards show that the issues attributed to Croesus did not circulate with those struck by the Persians. The foundation deposit boxes of the apadana at Persepolis included eight light gold Croeseids together with silver coins of Aegina, Abdera, and Cyprus (Meadows 2003). Dating the construction of the apadana has proved more problematic that had been assumed, and it would be wiser, until more conclusive evidence is found, not to use the foundation deposit coins for dating the end of the Croeseid issues (and the introduction of the Persian-type coinage by Darius). Darius I (521–486) reformed the Lydian system adopted by his predecessors by introducing new Persian types and weights, while maintaining bimetallism. The name of the pure gold coin called by Greek authors the daric, or more usually daric stater, no doubt derives from the name of Darius, who is also known to have reformed the tribute system of the empire. The weight of the daric, around 8.4 g, was slightly higher than the standard used previously (8.1 g) and was thus brought into relation with the old Mesopotamian shekel measure (1 mina: c. 504 g; one-sixtieth mina: 8.4 g). On the other hand, the weight of the unit of silver, known as a siglos or siklos in Greek, after the Semitic unit of weight the sheqel, remained at 5.4 g. The types changed, however, with the obverse depicting the figure of the royal hero, a conventional representation of the king as an archer wearing crown, and the reverse an oblong punch mark. Under Darius, the ratio of value between gold and silver in the new Achaemenid imperial system was 1:13, and the official exchange rate between the daric and the siglos was set at 1:20. The oldest type (Type I, fig. 3.18) is known so far in sigloi only and started around 520. The Persian hero-king is depicted from the waist upward; he holds a (p. 52) bow in the left hand and two or three arrows in the other. The depiction of only the upper part of the figure recalls the foreparts of animals used on previous issues, but this design may have rather reflected the king in state procession or ceremonial in his chariot (Root 1989: 47). There are no known examples of fractions of the siglos for this first type, which is the rarest of all Persian silver issues. So far as we can ascertain, one or two decades after the introduction of these sigloi—around 510–505—the royal figure began to be depicted with his right knee on the ground and drawing an arrow (fig. 3.19). This new depiction has been labeled Type II. The majority of recorded specimens are sigloi and their fractions, but there are also some rare darics, the first Persian-type gold coins, and fractions of the daric. Until recently, silver fractions of Type II were rare, but many have surfaced over the past few years. A precious terminus ante quem is thankfully provided by a clay tablet discovered in Persepolis, which is precisely dated to 500 (the twenty-second year of reign of Darius) and was stamped with a Type II coin used as a seal (Root 1988). A short while later, around 490–480, perhaps on the accession of Xerxes (485–460), the royal figure was given, in addition to his bow, a long spear, which he held obliquely in his right hand—this is known as Type III. One can distinguish two subgroups: the first and earliest is characterized by two small pellets behind the beard of the figure (fig. 3.20). The following subgroup (Type IIIb) omits the pellets, and has its weight increased from 5.4 g to 5.55 g. The change probably took place after the second Persian wars, toward 475 or a little later. When studying the coinage of the Persian kings, it is important not to simply regard it as the currency of their whole empire. In fact, coin finds clearly show that sigloi mainly circulated in a very small part of the empire: western Asia Minor. It was a regional coinage, struck at Sardis but perhaps also, later on, at other administrative centers like Dascylium, and was only intended for the coastal provinces of Asia Minor. The circulation pattern of darics, however, was wider, and hoards have been found not only in western Asia Minor but also in Greece, Macedonia, and Italy. There is little doubt that most of the available silver and, to a lesser extent, the gold that circulated in the empire was not minted. The few metal analyses of Persian coins that are available to us do not allow any detailed

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Asia Minor to the Ionian Revolt conclusions to be drawn. The following observations are however worth making. Darics were struck in extremely pure gold, the recorded percentages falling only very rarely below 98%, with the majority of the specimens analyzed reaching 99%; Herodotus (4.166) mentions the exceptional purity of Darius's gold coins. This level of purity is not, however, achieved in the silver sigloi, whose metal is normally around 97–98% pure silver, with some specimens going as low as 94–95%. Toxotai (archers), as the Greeks called darics, were thus employed primarily in transactions between Persian authorities and the western populations that had long been familiar with coinage. Their fundamental purpose may have been to pay for mercenary soldiers. Darics were also a very effective instrument of foreign policy, buying support for Persian interests among key politicians on the Greek mainland. Since the striking of small silver coins in the coastal cities of Asia Minor developed during this period of Persian rule, it would seem that the Persians left (p. 53) the production of the small change to vassal Greek cities, which were allowed to use their own civic types on their coinage.

The Spread of Silver Coinage In the years following the Persian conquest, many of the major city-states of western Asia Minor started to produce their own civic silver coinage. Most had already taken part in the first wave of electrum minting, and the passage to silver was only a natural development, which quickly spread to other non-electrum-minting cities. Owing to its lower value and wider acceptance, silver made way for coins to be ever more commonly used in a wide range of transactions. Hoard evidence suggests that unminted silver continued to be exchanged in areas that produced coinage. Gold was not struck, and the daric remained the only gold currency until the second half of the fifth century. Besides Greek, inscriptions in Carian and Lycian began to appear on coins, and the habit of indicating ethnics slowly spread but did not become a common practice until the first half of the fifth century. Among the earliest mints to issue silver were first and foremost the Ionian cities of Ephesus (Karwiese 1995), Clazomenae (Dengate 1967), Erythrae (Işık 2003), Teos (Balcer 1968; Matzke 2002), Phocaea (Cahn 1998), Miletus (Pfeiler 1966; Becker 1988), Colophon (Kim and Kroll 2008), Chios (Hardwick 1991), and Samos (Barron 1966), although we lack secure chronological pegs in most cases for dating precisely the beginning and sequence of these coinages. The Lydo-Milesian, Phocaic, and Samian weight standards continued to be used for silver, in addition to which the Aeginetan standard (c. 12.4 g) was sometimes adopted by mints of Ionia and Caria. Some mints struck units (staters) or large denominations together with fractions, whereas others like Miletus or Colophon confined themselves to small denominations. A hoard of Colophonian fractions (12ths and 24ths) and unminted silver testifies to the considerable quantities that could be minted, albeit of minute size. A staggering total of 393 obverse and 413 reverse dies have been identified for the 903 fractions of the hoard (Kim and Kroll 2008: 54). A single hoard can radically change our understanding of a mint, but also it can help us to reassess the role of small change in late archaic communities (Kim 2002). A far greater amount of fractional coinage was issued than previously thought, and one should be in no doubt that a moneyed economy was being established as early as the late sixth century. Numerous finds of small denominations of Teos that have appeared over the past decade or two illustrate that Colophon was not an isolated case in the massive production of small change. Besides silver, however, three mints continued to issue a regular electrum coinage: Phocaea, Mytilene, and Cyzicus. All three struck on the Phocaic standard: all minted sixths in quantity, but Cyzicus also minted staters. This was to be a longstanding tradition that would only cease with the arrival of Alexander the Great. Another noteworthy feature of the coinage of Lesbos, probably minted at Mytilene, was a production of base silver staters and fractions, whereas (p. 54) contemporary coins of Asia Minor were invariably made of silver of the highest purity. However, a group of lead pieces from the island of Samos have reverses with two parallel rectangular incuse that remind one of the electrum staters struck earlier on the island, but their types do not find any parallel on its regular coinage (Robinson 1958: 591–592; Kraay 1976: 29–30). The elaborate designs suggest that these should be dated somewhat later that the first phase of the city's electrum coinage. Five types were known until the recent discovery of a hoard from the Mycale region, which has revealed a number of new types (Chimaera, silen head, dog, lotus flowers) along with lead pieces bearing the emblem of Miletus (reclining lion with head reverted). The lead pieces of Samos have been brought into connection with an anecdote, incredulously retailed by Herodotus (3.56.2), that Polycrates, the tyrant of Samos, persuaded the Spartans to lift their siege of the island in 525/524 by bribing them with a payment of staters in gilded lead. No trace of gilding can be detected on any of the extant specimens, and Herodotus’ story, whose veracity he doubted himself, might derive from an earlier occasion involving the

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Asia Minor to the Ionian Revolt production of a lead token coinage. Further south, in Caria, a hoard was reportedly found south of Iasos in the mid-1980s. It included over 600 fragments of jewelery and other scrap silver together with nearly 280 silver Croeseids and over a hundred silver issues from Caria of the lion forepart type from staters down to 48ths (CH 8: 9–10; Kroll 2008: 24; Carradice and Price 1988: 31; Price 1989: 10). This find shows that Caria started to mint silver at an early period, around 540– 520; the Carian issues probably belong to Mylasa (Konuk 2000: 172, 2007: 472–473), which appears to have also minted a small series of late electrum coins that could be placed in the context of the Ionian revolt (Konuk 2003: 89). A further lion forepart type series on the Aeginetan standard was struck in Caria in around 500 and bears what is possibly the earliest Carian legend on a coin: oul (Konuk 2007: 489). Not far from Mylasa, Kindya has been identified as the mint of a prolific series of silver coins weighing around 2.2 g with a head of a ketos (sea monster) on the obverse and an incuse geometric pattern on the reverse (Kagan and Kritt 1995), but an alternative attribution can be made to the Carian Telmessus (fig. 3.21; Konuk 2003: 94; SNG Kayhan, 810). Cnidus (Cahn 1970) initiated its coinage in the last quarter of the sixth century along with their neighbors from the Loryma peninsula, the Chersonesians, though their coinage might be of a slightly later date. The island of Rhodes with Camirus and Lindus (Cahn 1957) issued early silver coins and some electrum coins that are probably contemporary, although some have suggested that they might be of later date (fig. 3.22). In Lycia, large amounts of silver coins were issued, and their obverse usually depicted a wild boar, sometimes winged, and various incuse shapes on their reverse (fig. 3.23; Vismara 1989). The Rhodian colony of Phaselis was among the first to issue a coinage in Lycia, and with its strong maritime tradition, it chose the prow of a warship on the obverse of its coinage, but as a Lycian city it made it resemble the forepart of a boar (Heipp-Tamer 1993). There is also an early series of Aeginetan-weight staters with various obverse types (dolphins, crab, sphinx, and a female head) that has been tentatively attributed to Lycia (Sheedy 1998). Within a few years of the fall of Sardis, the whole of Ionia was incorporated into the Persian Empire. As was the case under the Lydians, Ionians had to pay an annual (p. 55) tribute to the Great King, but the cities were left to manage their own affairs, and most of them were ruled by Greek tyrants approved and supported by the Persians. However, in 499 the Ionian cities revolted against their Persian overlords, expelled their pro-Persian tyrants, and managed in some cases to establish democracies; this is known as the Ionian revolt. Aristagoras, the tyrant of Miletus, resigned from his own position and led a coalition against Artaphernes, the Persian governor of Sardis. The coalition marched on, captured, and burnt Sardis in 498, but it was defeated at the battle of Ephesus. In 494, the Persians finally managed to capture and destroy Miletus and reduced the cities along the west coast that still held out against them. A series of rare electrum coins, showing a variety of obverse types but with a uniform fabric and square incuse in the reverse, has been associated with the Ionian revolt, though decisive proof of the connection is still lacking (Kraay 1976: 30; Carradice and Price 1988: 33). These coins are staters and fractions on the old Lydo-Milesian standard used for the earlier electrum coinage. Some of the obverse types have been attributed to specific mints such as Lampsacus (winged horse), Abydus (?) (cock), Kyme (?) (horse, fig. 3.24), Clazomenae (winged boar), Samos (bull forepart), and Priene (?) (Athena head). It is rather puzzling that no type can be attributed to Ephesus, or to Miletus, the leading city of the revolt, which has been proposed as possible mint for the entire series. Clazomenae has also been suggested as central mint on account of punch sharing between winged boar staters and regular silver issues of the city (Dengate 1968). In addition, most of the types were represented in a hoard found in Vourla (Urla, IGCH 1167), the site of Clazomenae. The common features of this coinage, however, may not be sufficient in themselves to warrant a centralized mint, and there are later examples of alliance coinages struck by individual mints. In any case, the absence of punch sharing between staters of different types would support coordinated but separate minting. A further noteworthy civic coinage in that context is that of Miletus, whose extensive silver issues are the most important of archaic Asia Minor (Pfeiler 1966; Becker 1988). These were twelfth staters (obols, 1.2 g) on the Lydo-Milesian standard, which are today extant in thousands of specimens (fig. 3.25); a few in electrum are also known (SNG Kayhan, 482). They were minted for a decade or two before the destruction of Miletus in 494, and it is possible that the bulk of this coinage was produced during the troubled period of the Ionian revolt. Hoard evidence suggests that a smaller production resumed sometime after the destruction of the city. I am very grateful to Professor John Kroll for his useful suggestions and to Dr. Michael Kerschner, second substitute head of the Ephesus excavation, for providing valuable information on the latest research at the Artemisium. Fig. 3.1. Uncertain mint of Ionia, c. 650–600, EL Lydo-Milesian stater (14.32 g). Obv. Striated surface. Rev.

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Asia Minor to the Ionian Revolt Oblong incuse between two roughly square incuses. Triton IX (2006), 938. (p. 56) Fig. 3.2. Uncertain mint of Ionia, c. 650–600, EL Lydo-Milesian third stater (4.79 g). Obv. Forepart of a lion right in linear style. Rev. Two square incuses. Muharrem Kayhan coll., MK1380. Fig. 3.3. Uncertain mint of Ionia, c. 650–600, EL Lydo-Milesian third stater (4.72 g). Obv. Confronted foreparts of two goats. Rev. Two square incuses. Muharrem Kayhan coll., MK1615. Fig. 3.4. Uncertain mint of Ionia, c. 650–600, EL Lydo-Milesian stater (14.31 g). Obv. Forepart of bridled horse right. Rev. Rectangular incuse between two square incuses. SNG Kayhan, 714; Konuk 2003: 36. Fig. 3.5. Uncertain mint of Ionia, c. 650–600, EL Lydo-Milesian half stater (7.19 g). Obv. Striated surface on which are the confronted heads of lion and man. Rev. Oblong incuse between two square incuses. Triton VIII (2005), 444. Fig. 3.6. Samos, c. 600–550, EL Samian half stater (8.64 g). Obv. Typeless rough surface with irregular markings. Rev. Square and rectangular incuses. SNG Kayhan, 628. Fig. 3.7. Ephesus, c. 600–550, EL Lydo-Milesian third stater (4.48 g). Obv. Bee within rectangular frame. Rev. Two square incuses. SNG Kayhan, 112; Konuk 2003: 26. Fig. 3.8. Miletus, c. 600–550, EL Lydo-Milesian stater (14.05 g). Obv. Lion reclining left; its head turned back; all within rectangular frame divided into smaller rectangular and square compartments. Rev. Central oblong incuse containing a running fox, two dividing lines and two pellets; square incuse to right containing five pellets connected by lines; square incuse to left containing a stag's head. CNG Triton VIII (2005), 419. Fig. 3.9. Phocaea, c. 600–550, EL Phocaic standard stater (16.46 g). Obv. Seal swimming left, an octopus clamped in its mouth, letter phi at the base of the tail; around, three incuse squares in positive. Rev. Two square incuses, the right one smaller. The New York Sale XIV (2007), 110. Fig. 3.10. Cyzicus, c. 600–550, EL Phocaic standard stater (16.22 g). Obv. Gamecock standing right, holding a tuna head in its beak. Obv. Two square incuses, the right one smaller. Berlin Münzkabinett (Löbbecke coll.). Fig. 3.11. Ephesus?, c. 600, EL Lydo-Milesian stater (14.14 g). Obv. Stag grazing right; on its back, phanos emi sema. Rev. Rectangular incuse between two square incuses, all striated. Gorny & Mosch, Giessener Münzhandlung 185 (2010), 146. Fig. 3.12. Sardis, c. 650–600, EL Lydo-Milesian third stater (2.36 g). Obv. Confronted heads of two roaring lions, between them, walwel. Rev. Two square incuses. SNG Kayhan, 1012; Konuk 2003: 33. Fig. 3.13. Sardis, c. 600–560, EL Lydo-Milesian sixth stater (4.74 g). Obv. Head of roaring lion left, sun with multiple rays on forehead. Rev. Two square incuses. CNG. Fig. 3.14. Uncertain mint of Ionia, c. 650–600, EL Lydo-Milesian 192nd stater (0.08 g). Obv. Globule (eye?). Rev. Rough incuse. SNG Kayhan, 691; Konuk 2003: 33. Fig. 3.15. Sardis? Croesus?, c. 560, EL Lydo-Milesian stater (13.93 g). Obv. Joined foreparts of lion and bull. Rev. Rectangular incuse between two square incuses. Oxford, Ashmolean Museum (Loan coll.). Fig. 3.16. Sardis, Croesus (561–546), AV heavy Croeseid (10.77 g). Obv. Confronted foreparts of lion and bull. Rev. Two square incuses. CNG. Fig. 3.17. Sardis, Achaemenid period, c. 530 BC AV light stater (8.09 g). Obv. Confronted foreparts of lion and bull. Rev. Two square incuses. CNG Triton XII (2009), 320. Fig. 3.18. Sardis, Darius I (521–485), c. 520–510, AR siglos (5.18 g). Obv. Upper part of Persian hero-king right holding a bow in his left hand and arrows in the other. Rev. Square incuse. Muharrem Kayhan coll., MK1374; Konuk 2003: 54. (p. 57) Fig. 3.19. Sardis, Darius I (521–485), c. 500, AV daric (8.36 g). Obv. Persian hero-king right, in kneeling-running position, drawing bow. Rev. Square incuse. Seen in trade. Fig. 3.20. Sardis, Xerxes I (485–465), AR siglos (5.28 g). Obv. Persian hero-king right. Rev. Square. incuse. Muharrem Kayhan coll., MK1376; Konuk 2003: 55. Fig. 3.21. Kindya or Telmessus in Caria, c. 510, AR (2.22 g). Obv. Head of ketos (sea-monster) right, with gaping mouth. Rev. Incuse geometric pattern. SNG Kayhan, 814. Fig. 3.22. Camirus, c. 500, EL Lydo-Milesian 24th (0.48 g). Obv. Head of griffin right. Rev. Two rectangular incuses with the letters ka. Muharrem Kayhan collection, MK1562. Fig. 3.23. Uncertain mint of Lycia, c. 510 BC, AR Lycian stater (9.16 g). Obv. Forepart of boar left. Rev. Rectangular incuse. SNG Kayhan, 1044. Fig. 3.24. Kyme?, c. 500 BC, EL Lydo-Milesian stater (14.06 g). Obv. Horse prancing left; pellet above and floral motif below; all within linear circle. Rev. Quadripartite square incuse. SNG Kayhan, 735; Konuk 2003: 45. Fig. 3.25. Miletus, c. 520–490, AR Lydo-Milesian obol (1.13 g). Obv. Forepart of lion left with its head turned

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Asia Minor to the Ionian Revolt back. Rev. Starlike floral design in square incuse; one side of the incuse in the shape of the letter M. SNG Kayhan, 468. Konuk 2003: 69.

Bibliography Bibliography Adiego, I. J. (2007). The Carian Language. Leiden. Ashton, R., and S. Hurter, eds. (1998). Studies in Greek Numismatics in Memory of Martin Jessop Price. London. Balcer, J. M. (1968). “The Early Silver Coinage of Teos.” SNR 1968: 5–50. Balmuth, M. S., ed. (2001). Hacksilber to Coinage: New Insights into the Monetary History of the Near East and Greece. New York. Bammer, A. (1990). “A Peripteros of the Geometric Period in the Artemisium of Ephesus.” Anat St 40: 137–160. ——— . (1991). “Les sanctuaires des VIIIe et VIIe siècles à l’Artémision d’Ephèse.” RA 1: 63–83. Barron, J. P. (1966). The Silver Coins of Samos. London. Becker, F. (1988). “Ein Fund von 75 milesischen Obolen.” SNR 67: 5–33. Bellinger, A. R. (1968). “Electrum Coins from Gordion.” In Kraay and Jenkins: 10–15. Brandt, B., V. Gassner, and S. Ladstätter, eds. (2005). Synergia Festschrift für Friedrich Krinzinger I Vienna. Brooke, C. N. L., B. H. I. H. Stewart, J. G. Pollard and T. R. Volk, eds. (1983). Studies in Numismatic Method Presented to Philip Grierson Cambridge. Cahill, N., and J. H. Kroll (2005). “New Archaic Coin Finds from Sardis.” AJA 109: 589–617. Cahn, H. A. (1957). “Die archaischen Silberstatere von Lindos.” In Schauenburg: 18–26. ——— . (1970). Knidos, Die Münzen des sechsten und des fünften Jahrhunderts v Chr. Berlin. ——— . (1998). “Ionische Damen.” In Ashton and Hurter: 59–63. Carradice, I. (1989a). “The ‘Regal’ Coinage of the Persian Empire.” In Carradice 1989b: 73–95. ———, ed. (1989b). Coinage and Administration in the Athenian and Persian Empires. Oxford. ——— . (1998). “Two Achaemenid Hoards.” NC 158: 1–23. Carradice, I., and M. Price. (1988). Coinage in the Greek World. London. (p. 58) Cartledge, P., E. E. Cohen, and L. Foxhall, eds. (2002). Money, Labour and Land: Approaches to the Economies of Ancient Greece. London. Casabonne, O., ed. (2000). Mécanismes et innovations monétaires dans l’Anatolie achéménide Numismatique et histoire. Istanbul. Cowell, M. R., et al. (1998). “Analyses of the Lydian Electrum, Gold and Silver Coinages.” In Oddy and Cowell: 526– 538. Cowell, M. R., and K. Hyne. (2000). “Scientific Examination of the Lydian Precious Metal Coinages.” In Ramage and Craddock: 169–174. Craddock, P. T. (2000). “Assaying in Antiquity.” Ramage and Craddock: 245–250.

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Asia Minor to the Ionian Revolt Dengate, J. A. (1967). “The Coinage of Klazomenai.” Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania. ——— . (1968). “A Mint for the Ionian Revolt.” AJA 72(2): 164. Furtwängler, A. (1986). “Neue Beobachtungen zur frühesten Münzprägung.” SNR 65: 153–165. Hardwick, N. M. M. (1991). “The Coinage of Chios from the Sixth to the Fourth Century B.C.” Ph.D. diss., University of Oxford. Harris, W. V., ed. (2008). The Monetary Systems of the Greeks and Romans. Oxford. Heipp-Tamer, C. (1993). Die Münzprägung der lykischen Stadt Phaselis in griechischer Zeit. Saarbrücken. Işık, E. (2003). Frühe Silberprägungen in Städten Westkleinasiens. Saarbrücken. Kagan, J., and B. Kritt. (1995). “The Coinage of Kindya.” NC 155: 261–265. Karwiese, S. (1991). “The Artemisium Coin Hoard and the First Coins of Ephesus.” RBN 137: 1–28. ——— . (1995). Die Münzprägung von Ephesos I, Die Anfänge: Die ältesten Prägungen und der Beginn der Münzprägung überhaupt. Vienna. ——— . (2008). “Das Artemision von Ephesos und die ‘Er-Findung’ der Münze.” In Muss: 133–148. Kerschner, M. (1997). “Ein stratifizierter Opferkomplex des 7. Jhs. v. Chr. aus dem Artemision von Ephesos.” JÖAI 66: 85–226. Keyser, P. T., and D. D. Clark. (2001). “Analyzing and Interpreting the Metallurgy of Early Electrum Coins.” In Balmuth: 105–126. Kim, H. S. (2002). “Small Change and the Moneyed Economy.” In Cartledge et al.: 44–51. Kim, H. S., and J. H. Kroll. (2008). “A Hoard of Archaic Coins of Colophon and Unminted Silver (CH I.3).” AJN 20: 53– 103. Konuk, K. (2000). “Influences et éléments achéménides dans le monnayage de la Carie.” In Casabonne: 171–183. ——— . (2003). From Kroisos to Karia: Early Anatolian Coins from the Muharrem Kayhan Collection. Istanbul. ——— . (2005). “The Electrum Coinage of Samos in the Light of a Recent Hoard.” In Schwertheim and Winter: 44– 53. ——— . (2007). “Coin Legends in Carian.” In Adiego: 471–492. Kraay, C. M. (1964). “Hoards, Small Change and the Origin of Coinage.” JHS 84: 76–91. ——— . (1976). Archaic and Classical Greek Coins London. Kraay, C. M., and G. K. Jenkins, eds. (1968). Essays in Greek Coinage Presented to Stanley Robinson. Oxford. Kroll, J. H. (2001). “Review of Le Rider 2001.” SNR 80: 199–206. ——— . (2008). “The Monetary Use of Weighed Bullion in Archaic Greece.” In Harris: 12–37. Kurke, L. (1999). Coins, Bodies, Games and Gold: The Politics of Meaning in Archaic Greece. Princeton. Le Rider, G. (2001). La naissance de la monnaie. Pratiques monétaires de l’Orient ancien. Paris. (p. 59) Matzke, M. (2002). “Die frühe Münzprägung von Teos in Ionien: Chronologische und metrologische Untersuchungen um die Frühzeit der Silbermünzprägung.” JNG 50 (2000): 21–53. Meadows, A. R. (2003). “The Apadana Foundation Deposit (IGCH 1789).” NC 163: 342–344.

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Asia Minor to the Ionian Revolt Meeks, N. D. (2000). “Scanning Electron Microscopy of the Refractory Remains and the Gold and the Gold from Sardis.” Ramage and Craddock: 99–156. Muss, U., ed. (2008). Die Archäologie der ephesischen Artemis Gestalt und Ritual eines Heiligtums. Vienna. Naster, P. (1965). “Remarques charactéroscopiques et technologiques au sujet des créséides.” In Congresso Internationale di Numismatica, Rome, 1961: Atti. Rome: 25–36. ——— . (1976). “The Weight-System of the Coinage of Croesus.” In Proceedings of the International Congress of Numismatics 1973. Paris: 125–133. Nicolet-Pierre, H., and J.-N. Barrandon. (1997). “Monnaies d’électrum archaïques. Le trésor de Samos de 1894 (IGCH 1158) conservé à Paris.” RN 152: 121–135. Nimchuk, C. L. (2000). “The Lion and Bull Coinage of Croesus.” Journal of the Classical and Medieval Numismatic Society, 2nd ser., 1: 5–44. Oddy, W. A., and M. R. Cowell, eds. (1998). Metallurgy in Numismatics 4. London. Pfeiler, B. (1966). “Die Silberprägung von Milet im 6. Jahrhundert v. Chr.” SNR 45: 5–26. Price, M. J. (1983). “Thoughts on the Beginnings of Coinage.” In Brooke et al.: 1–10. ——— . (1989). “Darius I and the Daric.” REA 91: 9–13. Ramage, A., and P. Craddock, eds. (2000). King Croesus’ Gold: Excavations at Sardis and the History of Gold Refining. Cambridge, Mass. Robinson, E. S. G. (1951). “The Coins from the Ephesian Artemision Reconsidered.” JHS 71: 156–167. ——— . (1958). “Some Electrum and Gold Greek Coins.” In Centennial Volume of the American Numismatic Society. New York: 585–594. ——— . (1960). “Two Greek Coin Hoards.” NC 6th ser., 10: 31–36. Root, M. C. (1988). “Evidence from Persepolis for the Dating of Persian and Archaic Greek Coinage.” NC 148: 1–12. ——— . (1989). “The Persian Archer at Persepolis: Aspects of Chronology, Style and Symbolism.” REA 91: 33–50. Schauenburg, K., ed. (1957). Charites: Studien zur Altertumwissenschaft Festschrift für E Langlotz. Bonn. Schwertheim, E., and E. Winter, eds. (2005). Neue forschungen zu Ionien. Asia Minor Studien 54. Seaford, R. (2004). Money and the Early Greek Mind. Cambridge. Sheedy, K. A. (1998).“The Dolphins, the Crab, the Sphinx, and ‘Aphrodite.’ ” In Ashton and Hurter: 321–326. Spier, J. (1990). “Emblems in Archaic Greece.” BICS 37: 107–129. ——— . (1998). “Notes on Early Electrum Coinage and a Die-Linked Issue from Lydia.” In Ashton and Hurter: 321– 326. Stingl, T. (2001). “Barren oder Münzen? Überlegungen zum Beginn der Elektronprägung in Westkleinasien.” Boreas 23/24: 35–52. Thompson, C. M. (2003). “Sealed Silver in Iron Age Cisjordan and the ‘Invention’ of Coinage.” OJA 22: 67–107. van Alfen, P. G., ed. (2006). Agoranomia Studies in Money and Exchange Presented to John H Kroll. New York. Vismara, N. (1989). Monetazione arcaica della Lycia II La collezione Winsemann Falghera. Glaux 3. Milan. (p. 60) Walburg, R. (1991). “Lydisch oder persisch? Ein Goldobjekt aus der frühzeit der Münzprägung.” SNR 70: 5–17.

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Asia Minor to the Ionian Revolt Wallace, R. W. (1987). “The Origin of Electrum Coinage.” AJA 91: 385–397. ——— . (1989). “On the Production and Exchange of Early Anatolian Electrum Coinage.” REA 91: 87–94. ——— . (2001). “Remarks on the Value and Standards of Early Electrum Coins.” In Balmuth: 127–134. ——— . (2006). “Kukalim, Walwet, and the Artemision Deposit: Problems in Early Anatolian Electrum Coinages.” In van Alfen: 37–49. Weidauer, L. (1975). Probleme der Frühen Elektronprägung Freiburg. Weissl, M. (2002). “Grundzüge der Bau- und Schichtenfolge im Artemision von Ephesos.” ÖJh 71: 313–346. Weissl, M. (2005). “Zur Datierung des ‘Foundation-Deposit’ aus dem Artemision von Ephesos.” In Brandt, Gassner, and Ladstätter: 363–370. Williams, D. (1991–1993). “The Pot Hoard from the Archaic Artemision of Ephesus.” BICS 38: 98–103. Koray Konuk Koray Konuk s Sen or Research Assoc ate n the Centre Nat onal de recherche Sc ent f que Auson us, Bordeaux.

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The Coinage of the Persian Empire

Oxford Handbooks Online The Coinage of the Persian Empire Michael Alram The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Coinage Edited by William E Metcalf Pr nt Publ cat on Date: Feb 2012 Onl ne Publ cat on Date: Nov 2012

Subject: Class cal Stud es, Greek and Roman Archaeology, Mater al Culture Stud es DO : 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195305746.013.0005

Abstract and Keywords The Lydian coinage system completely changed with an ingenious coin reform. With Alyattes's electrum coinage, the recipient had no way of judging the gold or silver content. Therefore, Croesus replaced the electrum coins with pure gold and silver, and changed the lion head design to that of the confronted foreparts of a lion and a bull. The Croesus stater was one of the most popular coins among the Greeks, since they did not strike any gold and because, due to its high value, it was chosen in particular for public and private savings. Darius's introduction of a Persian imperial coinage in Asia Minor was a pathbreaking financial reorganization and an important contribution to the further consolidation of the Achaemenid Empire in the west. Money supply and circulation within the Persian Empire reached an enormous level under Artaxerxes III, indicating an extraordinary prosperity-based economy and trade in the empire. Keywords coinage Persian Empire stater economy coins

CYRUS II, the Great (559–530 B.C.), was the first Persian to step into the center of ancient world politics. Within a short

period of time he established a multinational conglomeration of states that is rightly referred to as the first empire in history (Briant 1996, 2002; Brosius 2006: 6–78; Wiesehöfer 1993/2005: 19–148, 1996: 7–101). With the conquest of the Lydian Kingdom in the 540s B.C. (Cahill-Kroll 2005: 605–609; Rollinger 2008), Cyrus extended the area of his power beyond Iran across Asia Minor, and in 539 into Babylonia. His son and successor, Cambyses II (530–522), conquered Egypt, Nubia, and Cyrene. Under Darius I (522–486) the Achaemenid Empire finally reached its greatest size: from the Indus River in the east, to Thrace and Macedonia in the northwest, and from the Jaxartes River (Syr Darya) in Central Asia to Nubia in Africa. In the Babylonian temple economy, economic specialization advanced in the course of the first millennium B.C. and was further developed during Achaemenid rule. In this way, silver bullion became the most important medium of exchange and also functioned as money of account. The amount of circulating silver must have drastically increased from the sixth century onward and thus could only have happened through long-distance trade (see Jursa 2004; cf. also Vargyas 1999; Le Rider 2001: 1–39). In the Iranian heartland, however, payments in uncoined silver seem to have started only in the second half of Darius’ reign (cf. Cameron 1948, 1965). Around the middle of the sixth century, when Cyrus was in the process of forming the Persian Empire, metal coinage as an economic medium of exchange was still unfamiliar in Iran. Neither the Egyptian nor the Mesopotamian civilizations had needed coinage as a form of money; further, the Achaemenids in the Iranian heartland (p. 62) remained attached to a barter and exchange economy throughout their reign, using commodities like corn, meat, and wine, as well as silver bullion (Koch 1990). Even though the Greek cities in the western satrapies had an already functioning money economy under Darius the Great and his successors, the Achaemenids did without their own mint in Iran—this was only to be changed under Alexander the Great and the

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The Coinage of the Persian Empire Seleucids. With his defeat of Lydia, his first conquest outside of Iran, Cyrus acquired a land that had been using coinage for over fifty years. The Lydian Kingdom was one of the leading trade powers of the time, not only controlling the trade of Asia Minor but also playing a dominant role in the Aegean and having trade links with Mesopotamia and Egypt. Alyattes (c. 610–561), the father of the last king of Lydia, Croesus, already had his own coins of electrum (an alloy of gold and silver; see Kraay 1976, Le Rider 1998, 2001; Weidauer 1975; Wolters 2003), based on the so-called Milesian or Lydian-Ionian standard, with a stater weighing around 14.33 g and the individual denominations ranging from 1/3 to 1/96 stater. (For the weights see Karwiese 1980, 1995; for the composition of the electrum, Cowell-Hyne 2000.) Alyattes used the lion's head, the emblem of his lineage, as the design on the obverse (fig. 4.1). This broad range of different denominations indicates the important role of that coinage already in the Lydian economy and society. Moreover, even the smallest denomination was so valuable that it was high enough to be a daily wage. Under Croesus (c. 561–546), the Lydian coinage system completely changed with an ingenious coin reform. With Alyattes's electrum coinage, the recipient had no way of judging the gold or silver content and so could not easily discern its intrinsic value. To remedy this, Croesus replaced the electrum coins with pure gold and silver and changed the lion head design to that of the confronted foreparts of a lion and a bull (fig. 4.2). Now 10 silver staters (± 10.75 g) equaled 1 gold stater (± 8.06 g), the ratio of silver to gold being 13 1/3 to 1. This groundbreaking reform in the history of money is also mentioned by Herodotus (1.94.1), who states that “They [the Lydians] were the first men (known to us) who coined and used gold and silver currency [nomisma chrysou kai argyrou]; and they were the first to sell by retail.” We must also keep in mind that in the time of Croesus, Lydian metallurgy was already highly developed. This is proved by the fascinating discovery of a gold refinery in the course of the Harvard-Cornell Sardis Expedition. In this workshop, the impure alluvial gold from the Pactolus River and other materials were refined in a cementation process that yielded gold of highest purity (Ramage-Craddock 2000).

Fig 4 1

Fig 4 2

(p. 63) It is not by chance that under the influence of Croesus's reform Athens (c. 560 B.C. under Peisistratus) undertook its own reform of weights and measures. By fixing the new mina at around 430 g, Athens began to strike its own coins. Measured in silver, the weight of the new mina corresponded exactly to 3 gold or 40 silver Croesus staters. The Attic drachm was henceforth exactly convertible to Lydian coinage, insofar as 25 Attic drachms equaled 1 (light) Lydian gold stater. In this way, Athens became one of the most important trade partners of the Lydians (Karwiese 1980: 37–38). It would have been more than shortsighted of Cyrus to give up the Lydian coinage system—the most modern of its time—because he would have caused damage to the economic supremacy of Lydia in Asia Minor and in turn to the nascent Persian Empire. That Cyrus correctly recognized the political and economic importance of Lydia is also apparent in his establishing the Lydian capital of Sardis as the administrative center of his western satrapies. The location of the Lydian mint, already in Sardis, allowed its operation to be continued without any problem. Today most numismatists assume that Cyrus took over the Lydian coinage as it stood and continued to strike the Croesus type with the lion-bull image. The large number of preserved pieces, the wide range of dies, and the stylistic developments of the designs on the obverse, as well as the evidence of the coin hoards, however sparse and poor they may be, provide the basis for this assumption. Still, a detailed die study of the Lydian coinage in conjunction with a comprehensive hoard analysis remains a desideratum for numismatic science. (The contributions of Naster 1965; Carradice 1987b, 1998a; Nimchuck 2000 should be considered as the basis of all further research; cf. also Le Rider 2001: 101–121.)

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The Coinage of the Persian Empire The unorthodox theory that would date the earliest lion and bull coinage to a period after Cyrus's takeover of Lydia (Breglia 1974; Price 1984; Vickers 1985) is now obsolete. This was proved by archaeological evidence from Sardis (Cahill-Kroll 2005). In 2002 the Harvard-Cornell Archaeological Exploration of Sardis recovered two Lydian 1/12 staters, 1 gold (heavy series) and 1 silver piece, beneath debris from the fortification wall's destruction. The archaeologists convincingly related the destruction of the fortification wall to the capture of Sardis by Cyrus in the 540s B.C. This means, without any doubt, that the lion and bull type coins must have been in circulation already before that time.

Fig 4 3

The Croesus stater was one of the most popular coins among the Greeks, since they did not strike any gold and because, due to its high value, it was chosen in particular for public and private savings. More than 100 years after the defeat of Croesus, the price of 110 Croesus staters was mentioned in an Athenian inscription (p. 64) of 439/438 for the completion of the famous statue of the Athena Parthenos by Pheidias (IG I3 458). If Cyrus did not destroy the Lydian coinage system but for economic reasons maintained the coin striking in Sardis in order to supply the western parts of his empire, then the question arises as to when the Achaemenids left the stage of pure imitation and gave an individual touch to their coinage in Asia Minor. The literary evidence leaves no doubt that this change is to be attributed to Darius I the Great, who in the course of his administration reforms also changed the coinage system of his Lydian satrapy in a comprehensive way. The most striking difference can be seen immediately in the images on the coins: the lion-bull coin type is no longer used. It is replaced by the picture of the Achaemenid Great King, first as half figure with a bow in the right hand and two arrows in the left (fig. 4.3). He wears a crenellated crown and a long, flowing chiton, both basic parts of the Persian regalia worn by the king at court, especially on ceremonial occasions. (See Shabazi 1992 and Jacobs 1994; for the Achaemenid crowns see Henkelmann 1996; cf. also Azarpay 1972; von Gall 1974; Eilers and Calmeyer 1977.)

Fig 4 4

Fig 4 5

In the first phase of this coin reform, Darius limited himself to changing the image and simplifying the striking procedures, insofar as he replaced the double reverse punches used by the Croeseids with one larger oblong punch. The new type (type I) was minted initially only in silver. The standard introduced by Croesus was maintained (half stater of 5.375 g). The second phase of the reform saw the introduction of the king as an archer (type II), which was minted for the first time also in gold (fig. 4.4). (For alternative views see Root 1989: 44–45; Vargyas 1999: 260, 2000; Descat 1989: 251–253, 2000: 40–42.) This new gold coin, which the Greeks referred to as daric (dareikos stater; probably derived from Old Persian *daru(i)yaka or *zaruyaka = “golden”; rather than from the name of Darius, as was believed by the Greeks (Pollux Onom 3.87); cf. Herzfeld 1938: 416; Alram 1994; Le Rider 2001: 145–148 with further references), became the heir of the Croesus stater and was popular throughout the entire ancient world for more than 150 years. The weight of the daric was, in comparison to the Croesus stater, increased by 3/10 g from 8.06 g to 8.36 g, thereby restoring the ancient Mesopotamian weight standard. The silver coin, the siglos medikos, was, however, still minted according to the Croesus standard, so the daric and the siglos were not compatible—a situation that could hardly be maintained forever. A third type was also introduced in this second phase of Darius's coin reform that shows the Great King “kneeling-running” (Knielauf), with a bow and a lance (fig. 4.5). This type was also struck in gold and silver. (For detailed bibliography on the

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The Coinage of the Persian Empire Achaemenid royal coinage see Alram 1994; most important are (p. 65) Robinson 1958; Bivar 1985; Carradice 1987b; Stronach 1989; Alram 1993; cf. also Le Rider 1998; Vargyas 1999; Descat 2000; Vargyas 2000; Le Rider 2001: 122–164.) That the introduction of the daric and siglos is to be attributed to Darius has, on the basis of the Greek sources (Hdt. 4.166.2; Pollux Onom 3.87), never been doubted. However, when this reform actually happened has been the subject of intense debate with the proposed dates ranging from 522 (Darius’ accession) to 490 B.C. The famous Apadana foundation deposit of Darius represented a crucial piece of evidence. This deposit, consisting of two stone boxes with the foundation documents of Darius's throne room, was found in 1933. Under each box were four gold staters of the so-called Croeseid type (of light standard and a later style) in rather fresh condition, together with two worn Greek silver coins from Aegina and Abdera (North-East Deposit) and two Cypriot staters (South-East Deposit), all roughly datable to the end of the sixth century (Herzfeld 1938; reconsidered by Meadows 2003; cf. also Curtis and Tallis 2005: 58, no. 4). Immediately numismatists questioned why Darius had not used darics and sigloi for his foundation deposit and came to the conclusion that at the time the deposit was laid, the daric and the siglos were not yet in circulation; therefore they must have been issued at a later date (Bivar 1985: 617; Robinson 1958: 190). Furthermore, the analysis of the document texts (DPh) has led to the conclusion that the deposit of the boxes and with it the deposit of the coins must have occurred between 519/18 B.C.—the conquest of India, which is already mentioned in DPh—and 511/10 B.C., the last possible date for the expedition to Thrace, which was not included in the text. (The dating of the Apadana deposit is much disputed; compare the different views summarized at Root 1988 and 1989: 38–43 and Vargyas 1999: 251–253, 2000: 40–42.) With this somewhat uncertain and disputed terminus post quem, the way remained open for numismatic speculations. But in 1988 Margret Cool Root presented irrefutable evidence for the beginning of the minting of the Achaemenid darics and sigloi (Root 1988, 1989: 33–38). The document presented by Cool Root deals with one of the Persepolis Fortification Tablets (no. 1495), which is dated to the twenty-second year of reign of Darius and henceforth dates to 500/499 B.C. Its obverse bears the impressions of two type II archer coins. Therefore, type II must have been issued at the beginning of the year 500 at the latest. Thus, the coin reform of Darius must have been executed in the last decade of the sixth century at the latest, because of the number of dies and also because type I, type II, and the beginning of type III (IIIa) are always encountered together. In addition, the absence of archer coins from the Apadana foundation deposit was explained by Cool Root (1989: 33–38) as deliberate: Darius probably did not include such coins because he wanted the coins of his foundation deposit to illustrate Persian power over non-Persian territories—this idea, however, remains speculative. For a further rather speculative view see Vargyas (2000: 40–41).

Fig 4 6

Darius's introduction of a Persian imperial coinage in Asia Minor was a path-breaking financial reorganization and an important contribution to the further (p. 66) consolidation of the Achaemenid Empire in the west (Mildenberg 1993). Moreover, that a type II archer coin was used as a seal on an administrative document at Persepolis demonstrates that its introduction also had a certain significance for the Iranian heartland, where these coins normally did not circulate. Darius had left his son and successor Xerxes a newly ordered coinage system, which, due to its impressive imagery and its constant value, became a distinctive medium of exchange and an effective propaganda tool of the Achaemenid Empire. The king of kings “kneeling-running” with bow and spear, weapons that appear as a kind of royal insignia, is a vivid and powerful image firmly rooted in Near Eastern and Achaemenid art. (For the interpretation of the obverse image see Root 1989; Calmeyer 1979; Stronach 1989: 266–278.) On both the famous rock relief at Bisitun and on his tomb in Naqsh-i Rustam, Darius holds a bow in his hands. In his Naqsh-i Rustam inscription (DNb) Darius explains what distinguishes him and his reign: love of justice, truth, and self-control—and he concludes: “As a horseman I am a good horseman. As a bowman I am a good bowman both afoot and on horseback. As a spearman I am a good spearman both afoot and on horseback.” In this context Stronach (1989: 278) has convincingly concluded that “the ‘archer coins’ may have sought to depict the king (in line with an

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The Coinage of the Persian Empire ethical message which has been recognized in the Achaemenid royal inscriptions) as a constant warrior in defense of the values of ‘order-truth’ (arta).” The image of the “kneeling-running king” became part of Persian identity and was a clear manifestation of Achaemenid power. It was also understood by the Greeks, who considered the royalarcher coins to be barbaric money (barbarikon nomisma: Pollux Onom 9.82) but nonetheless greatly appreciated it—especially the gold coins—and even called them toxotai (archers: Plut. Art 20.6; Ages 15.8). The first inscriptional evidence for the darics dates to the year 429/8 B.C.: In a statement of account of an Athenian assembly that administered treasuries of the Athena Parthenos and other gods, there is an entry of 105 dareiko chrysio stateres (IG I3 : 383, 17–18; cf. also Le Rider 2001: 145–148). Sigloi are also mentioned in an Attic treasure inventory dated to the last decade of the fifth century (IG II2 : 1382, 10).

Fig 4 7

Fig 4 8

Under Xerxes, Achaemenid imperial coinage received its final form. Type II, the king as an archer, was replaced by type IV, showing the king “kneeling-running” with a dagger (or short sword) and a spear (figs. 4.7, 4.8), while type III, the king with bow and spear (fig. 4.6), continued to be struck. Both of these coin types (III and IV), struck in gold and silver, continued unchanged until the end of Persian rule. It was probably Xerxes who completed the longoverdue metrological reordering of the siglos. He increased its weight by about 2/10 gram (from 5.375 g to 5.57 g), thereby providing a precise exchange rate for gold, with 1 daric now equaling 20 (p. 67) sigloi (Karwiese 1993: 47). According to Xenophon (Anab 1.3.21) 1 daric was the monthly income of a soldier in the Persian army (increased by Cyrus the Younger to 1½ darics a month) and the Persian siglos equaled 7½ Attic obols (Anab 1.5.6). Difficulties confront the numismatist when trying to reconstruct the chronological development of Achaemenid coin production from the time of Xerxes onward. The images are so stereotypical that attribution to a particular king or time period cannot be made, and thus a chronological sequence cannot easily be discerned. First and foremost, hoards can be helpful when the anonymous sigloi are found together with other, better datable, Greek currencies. However, hoards that mix sigloi with Greek coins are by no means numerous and are frequently disputed in their dating. Hoard complexes also occur that consist only of sigloi and thus necessitate stylistic analysis and examination of the dies as well as metrological analysis to establish the chronological sequence of the individual type variants. (See the list of hoards in Carradice 1987b: 79, table A, and 87, table B.) Such closed sigloi complexes, which are encountered mostly in Asia Minor and often contain many thousands of pieces, are indeed quite frequent. As a rule, however, such hoards are typically found by people who are concerned with their economic rather than their academic value, and so most hoards leave the country unregistered, to be spread across the international coin market. Among the most interesting phenomena in Achaemenid coinage, first mentioned by Sydney P. Noe (1956), is the reverse die linkage. Due to the lack of images on them, these dies were in use for an extremely long time, and even if they had tears or small cracks were not withdrawn from use. Their pattern is so characteristic that complete die sequences can be established relatively easily, which in turn permit conclusions to be drawn about the stylistic development of the obverse types. In a siglos hoard that I was able to examine, up to 107 pieces were struck with one and the same reverse die (Alram 1993; cf. Carradice 1998a and 1998b for technical observations). The striking process for this mass production was precisely organized, as demonstrated by the regularity and unchanged die axis of both darics and sigloi. Another phenomenon, first mentioned by Noe (1956), is the use of multiple anvil dies, which contained at least two engraved obverse images to yield two separate coins. If a blank was not placed exactly on a multiple die, parts of the image of the second die were also impressed on the blank, so that the king's crown and sometimes even parts of his head can appear under the base line of the main image in the exergue of the coin struck from the first die (Noe 1956: 34–35; Woytek 2006: pl. 11.13–14).

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The Coinage of the Persian Empire (p. 68) Starting from Noe's (1956) and Robinson's (1958) studies, Carradice (1987b) worked out a relative chronological arrangement of the different coin types, based on the available hoard evidence, detailed die analysis, and stylistic observations. I have already stated that types I, II, and IIIa (figs. 4.3–4.5) all derive from the time of Darius the Great (522–486). The beginning of type IIIb (fig. 4.6) can be dated to the 480s and thus should be attributed to the reign of Darius's son Xerxes (486–465). Also under Xerxes the striking of type IV most likely began (figs. 4.7, 4.8). Two siglos hoards, one of uncertain origin but certainly Asia Minor (1,491 sigloi, Alram 1993) and the other from Dinar (Apamea, Phrygia) (424 sigloi, Carradice 1998b) help with the further stylistic development. Both hoards seem to contain a cross-section of the siglos production from the time of Xerxes to the end of the Achaemenid Empire in the 330s B.C. The chronological arrangement and classification of the various subtypes proposed by Alram (1993) corresponds roughly to that of Carradice (1998a), but there are still some divergences that can only be solved with the help of new hoard evidence. With all due caution, we may attribute the “Early Group” of types IIIb and IV (Alram 1993, type IIIb/1A–1D; type IV/1A–1C) to the time of Xerxes (486–465) and Artaxerxes I (465–425/24; figs. 4.6–4.8); the “Middle Group” (Alram 1993, type IIIb/2A–2C, 3; type IV, 1B–1E, 2) to Darius II (424–405/4) and Artaxerxes II (405/04–359/58; figs. 4.9, 4.10); and the “Final Group” (Alram 1993, type IV/3, 4) of types IIIb and IV to Artaxerxes III (359/58–338/37) and Darius III (336/35–333; figs. 4.11, 4.12).

Fig 4 9

Fig 4 10

Fig 4 11

Fig 4 12

Another unsolved question is the mint: was the entire production of darics and sigloi concentrated in a single mint (most probably Sardis), or were two separate mints in operation? Hoard evidence and the absence of die links between the later phases of types IIIb and IV led Carradice to postulate that probably two mints were in operation (Carradice 1987b: 84–85, 1998a: 80; cf. Alram 1993: 28 and 40); on the other hand, we might assume that the production was organized in two separate workshops in Sardis. In the earliest phase of types IIIb and IV, Robinson (1958) already discovered a reverse punch that was used not only for type IV darics and sigloi (“early group”) but also for type IIIb darics (“early group”; figs. 4.6–4.8). (p. 69) Carradice (1987b: 85) is skeptical; but see Alram (1993: 40 n. 55). This might suggest that at least in this early phase both types were produced in the same mint and that the bipartition of production, if it really took place, started later when output had to be increased. Moreover, it should be mentioned that in the Dinar hoard Carradice found one type IIIb siglos that appears to have been struck from a reverse die also used for type IV coins (Carradice 1998b: nos. 123, 293). This would seem to undermine the two-mint theory. Only more die studies and new hoard evidence will offer a solution. In the earliest phase of type IV sigloi small images, engraved in the original die, are sometimes included in the reverse punches (Alram 1993: 42, pl. 4, nos. 31–32, 40; pl. 5, no. 41). Another phenomenon is the variety of countermarks and bankers’ marks that sometimes cover the whole surface of the sigloi so that the original image of the Great King, as well as the reverse dies, are hardly visible. These marks are an indication of the rather long circulation of these sigloi in different areas, where they were used as bullion by weight. The marks also suggest that a lot of forgeries must have been illegally produced. Some of these fakes, which consist of a copper core covered by a thin silver sheet, have survived. (For analysis of sigloi see the preliminary results in Reade 1986: 89;

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The Coinage of the Persian Empire the silver content ranges between 96.4 and 98.1%.) The latest variants of types IIIb and IV (“final group”; figs. 4.11, 4.12) form the model for the double darics that are believed to have been issued by Alexander the Great in Babylonia (see below; figs. 4.36, 4.37). Most characteristic are the symmetrical folds of the king's tunic, as well as the reverse design with waved, “horizontal-bands,” which are clearly rooted in the latest Persian daric issues. Finally, a few words about the circulation as well as the finds of the Achaemenid gold and silver coins (see also Le Rider 2001: 165–205). In principle, a distinction must be made between darics and sigloi. As the Greeks themselves hardly struck any gold, the daric was almost free of competition on the coin market in its time. Indeed, electrum coins were still struck by mints in Asia Minor, primarily Cyzicus, but this currency was mainly used for the grain trade with areas around the Black Sea, and therefore had its own separate economic purpose. The daric, however, was desirable for anyone who wanted to accumulate wealth. So it stood equal in importance to the most important Greek silver coins, of which the tetradrachms of Athens, above all, had developed in the course of the fifth century to a kind of world trade currency. The payment of the Greek mercenaries in darics as well as the latter's use for various kinds of bribery (Plut. Art 20), further helped to enhance its prestige throughout the entire Greek world. The first serious competitor for the daric arose around the mid-fourth century, when the king of Macedonia, Philip II (359–336) brought his gold biga-stater onto the market. It was appropriately given the name dareikos Philippeios by the Greeks. The silver siglos was quite different. From the beginning, it was primarily used for needs in Asia Minor (Anatolia), and there the large, closed sigloi hoards, often containing several thousand pieces, are found. In international trade the small, unattractive siglos hardly had a chance against the superior Greek competitors, and even the Greek mercenaries serving in Persian service increasingly refused to accept (p. 70) it. Only a small number of sigloi was used beyond their direct field of circulation and then only in combination with Greek currency. However, the circulation achieved in this way was enormous and reached from Greece, the Black Sea, Egypt, and Mesopotamia (Read 1986; Vargyas 1999) into Bactria and India. The circulation and use of silver in Asia Minor at the end of the fifth century is best illustrated by the so-called Sinope hoard, which not only contained coins from various mints of the Greek mainland (mainly Athens), Thrace, Asia Minor (mainly Sinope and 83 sigloi), Cyprus, and Phoenicia but also assembled various kinds of Hacksilber-like cut coins, ingots, and fragments of jewelry and of silverware (Pfisterer 2000; Kraay and Moorey 1981). The authenticity of the hoard was questioned by F. de Callataÿ (2003: 267–272); however, his arguments are unfounded and cannot be supported (cf. Summerer 2005/06: 269–273). A silver treasure found in Babylon (Reade 1986) presents a similar picture. A striking example of the way sigloi are found outside Asia Minor is offered by the Asyut hoard (Kraay 1977; Price and Waggoner 1975). Found in Upper Egypt on the Nile in 1968, it was presumably buried around 475 B.C. and contained 873 Greek silver coins. Athens and Aegina, the two main trade competitors at this time, provide the largest quotas. The hoard also includes coins from southern Italy, Sicily, northern Greece, Asia Minor, Cyprus, and Cyrene, as well as 18 Achaemenid sigloi. The Asyut hoard is a classic illustration of international trade relations and emphasizes the importance of Egypt as an international place of trade. The coins, however, did not have a nominal value but were only traded as bullion by weight. In this context, we should also refer to an Aramaic text found in Upper Egypt (Elephantine) dating to the first half of the fifth century (Briant-Descat 1998; Wiesehöfer 2004: 300–301). The text is the record of an Achaemenid toll post and deals with taxes paid by Ionian and Phoenician trade ships; the payments of the Ionians were made in gold and silver and can therefore explain the large hoards of Greek silver coins that have been recorded in Egypt so far. Comparable examples come from the Malayer hoard, from the Iranian plateau (Meadows 2005: 209, no. 382), which dates to 440/430 B.C.), and from the hoard of Tchaman-i-Hazouri (near modern Kabul), of 380/360 B.C. (Schlumberger 1953). The latter hoard also contained locally produced silver coins, struck under Achaemenid rule by local authorities in Bactria (northern Afghanistan) as well as in the Kabul region and Gandhara (northwest Pakistan) from the beginning of the fourth century B.C. onward (Bopearachchi 2000; Cribb 2005, 2007: 335–336). Most characteristic for this region are the so-called punch-marked and bent-bar coins, which are stamped with various punches and marks of geometric and floral designs. More closely following the “western style” are other issues that show confronting bulls’ heads, a stag (Schlumberger 1953: no. 23), a double-headed Persian column capital (Meadows 2005: 208, no. 381; Schlumberger 1953: no. 18; fig. 4.13), and Athenian owl imitations from Bactria (Bopearchchi 2000: nos. 61–64; Bopearachchi and Piper 1998: 187–192; Nicolet-Pierre and Amandry

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The Coinage of the Persian Empire 1994).

Fig 4 13

To sum up, the evidence of the finds shows that siglos production started to recede at the beginning of the fourth century. One reason could be that precisely at (p. 71) this time other imperial coinages supervised by the satraps and other local governors started to be produced in various civic mints across Asia Minor. In addition, the local dynasts of Asia Minor and the Levant began in increasing number to strike coins themselves, and so partly replaced the royal archer coins in their areas (Carradice 1987b: 93). It was a characteristic feature of the Persian administration that it normally did not interfere in internal affairs of its subordinate peoples. In this way, the cultural, religious, and linguistic varieties within this huge empire were maintained, and the various local coinages that had already existed in Asia Minor before the Persian conquest continued thereafter. Moreover, many new local mints were opened under Persian rule. The Greek poleis, citystates, and local kings and dynasts in Asia Minor, Cyprus, and Phoenicia were all allowed to strike their own coinages, thereby forming an important part of their individual identities, and to circulate them without restriction within the borders of the empire. All peoples enjoyed the Great King's protection; it was he and his representatives, the satraps (Old Persian xšçapāvan = “protector of the kingdom”), who looked after their security, rights, and order. In return, all the king's subjects had to guarantee him their loyalty, pay tribute, and, in cases of emergency, serve in the Persian army. As we have seen, with the royal archer coins, the Achaemenids had introduced their own distinctive currency in Asia Minor, which, however, formed only a small part of the monetary supply and circulated side by side with local and imported Greek coins. In addition to darics and sigloi, the Persian authorities started to produce special issues of royal coinage from the end of the fifth century B.C. onward. These issues were produced in civic mints of Asia Minor in between the local series. Their appearance was adapted to Greek taste, combining Persian and local Greek elements in their iconography. They are thought to have been produced for special payments, linked to specific, extraordinary military circumstances (Meadows 2005: 187; for fractions see Mildenberg 2000a).

Fig 4 14

Fig 4 15

One of the earliest of these issues is a pure imitation of an Athenian tetradrachm: only the tiny head of the Great King above the owl's feet gives evidence that the coin was struck by the royal Persian administration (Weiser 1989, 2006: 84–85, no. 208). Two other royal issues of silver tetradrachms of uncertain mints in western Asia Minor have been attributed to the satrap Tissaphernes (figs. 4.14, 4.15; Harrison 1982: 107–133; Kraay 1976: 74, no. 206; 255, no. 949; Meadows 2005: 203, nos. 332–333; cf. also Borchhardt 1999: 60–63). It should be stated, however, that due to the lack of (p. 72) evidence, all attributions to a specific satrap must be considered as highly hypothetical. On the obverse we see a bearded head wearing the so-called Median tiara–a soft cap with nape guard and ear flaps, tied by a diadem band–which becomes a further distinguishing feature of Persian coinage in Asia Minor. (On the Median tiara see Borchhardt 1999; Calmeyer 1993; v. Gall 1974; Jacobs 1994; Shabazi 1992; Wiesehöfer 1994: 129–136; Zahle 1979.) This special kind of headgear is part of the so-called Median dress that

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The Coinage of the Persian Empire Shabazi (1992) also calls “cavalry costume.” Some scholars have argued that the “satrapal” head should be regarded as a true portrait of Tissaphernes, but this seems highly questionable (Borchhardt 1999: 53–54). More likely, it is the topos of the Persian satrap who ordered these issues in the name of the Great King (Cahn, 1989; Harrison 1982: 1–11, 59–96; Mildenberg 2000a). Meadows (2005: 201) suggests that these portraits may represent the Great King himself. As the reverse image either the Athenian owl or a lyre is depicted, accompanied by the abbreviated title ΒΑΣ or ΒΑΣΙΛ̣ foṛ ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ. In both cases, the legend classifies these coins without any doubt as royal, even if the satrap/governor—probably Tissaphernes—was responsible for their striking. This is further corroborated by another royal issue (fig. 4.16) with a “satrapal” head on the obverse and the image of the “kneeling-running” king on the reverse; again the inscription ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩ (Σ̤ refers to the royal authority; while behind the archer is depicted a galley, which suggests that this money served as special payment for the Persian fleet (Bodzek 2003: no. 3; cf. Harrison 1982: 97–107). This special usage might also have been the case with a rare gold issue corresponding in its weight to a daric and depicting the royal archer on the obverse and the prow of a ship on the reverse (fig. 4.17). However, the immediate commissioner of these issues as well as the mints responsible remains uncertain.

Fig 4 16

Fig 4 17

(p. 73) Around the middle of the fourth century a royal mint in western Asia Minor, probably located in Caria, started to produce a series of silver staters based on the so-called Chian-Rhodian standard, with the royal archer (type II) on the obverse, sometimes with the legend ΒΑ(ΣΙΛΕΩΣ̣ aside and on the reverse a Persian horseman in Median dress galloping to the right with a spear in his hand (fig. 4.18). These issues, most likely introduced by Artaxerxes III, were struck in huge quantities and were found mainly in Caria, so it was argued that they were struck under the auspices of the Hecatomnids (Meadows 2005: 200–201, no. 327; Mildenberg 1998: 281, pl. 61, nos. 84–87; Weisser 2006: 85, no. 51; cf. also Hurter 1998 on the “Pixodarus Hoard”; Konuk 2000). Other royal silver issues, probably initiated by Artaxerxes III, and based on the Chian-Rhodian standard, depict the royal archer on the obverse (type III) combined with a strange incuse reverse design, which has been interpreted as a map of the hinterland of Ephesus (Ionia) (Weisser 2007). Some of these issues also bear the name Pythagores in Greek script (fig. 4.19), probably the name of a local official. All these interpretations are still under discussion, and the mint remains uncertain (Mildenberg 1993: 71–72). At the same time, the Cilician mint at Mallus issued royal silver staters in the weight of a double siglos using the royal archer's design (fig. 4.20; Meadows 2005: 208, no. 375; Mildenberg 1993: 72, pl. 13, no. 114, 1998: pl. 61, no. 82; Weisser 2006: 84, nos. 46–47).

Fig 4 18

Fig 4 19

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The Coinage of the Persian Empire

Fig 4 20

(p. 74) Finally, Artaxerxes III introduced a new imperial coinage for Egypt (fig. 4.21), which had been reconquered by the Persians in 343. As coin type he chose the Athenian owls, an international currency at that time and very popular in Egypt. The coin was a gold stater of daric weight struck by the Pharaoh Tachus during the satrapal revolt in around 361 B.C. (Kraay 1976: 76, no. 217). Artaxerxes put his name and title in Demotic script (“Artaxerxes Pharaoh”) in place of the normal ΑΘΕ on the coins—a clear political message (Mildenberg 1993: 73– 74, no. 124, 1998: 281–282, nos. 88–89; Meadows 2005: 200–201, no. 329; Mørkholm 1974; for the legend see Shore 1974). To sum up, money supply and circulation within the Persian Empire reached an enormous level under Artaxerxes III; it indicates an extraordinary prosperity based on flourishing economy and trade in all parts of the empire (Mildenberg 1998; Starr 1975).

Fig 4 21

Fig 4 22

In addition to the royal coinage, another group of Persian coins refers by its inscriptions to satraps or other highranking Persian officials. Most of the names, mainly written in Greek and Aramaic, are known from Greek sources, but the political and economic background of these issues, as well as the mints where these coins were produced, remain uncertain in many cases (Alram 1986: 101–121; Harrison 1982: 163–206). In general, the satraps/governors did not have the right to strike their own coins, and even if they put their names on them, we can assume that it was the Great King who ordered their minting. One of the earliest silver issues with a satrap's name is that of Pharnabazus, satrap of Phrygia under Artaxerxes II. The coins were produced in the mint of Cyzicus (Mysia) and depict on the obverse the “satrapal head” surrounded by the Greek inscription ΦΑΡΝΑΒΑ; on the reverse is the prow of a ship with two dolphins on either side, and in the exergue a tuna fish—the badge of Cyzicus (fig. 4.22). This coin type was issued in different denominations (tetradrachms, drachms, and hemidrachms of Chian-Rhodian (p. 75) standard) and has been placed in the context of the Persian naval victory at Cnidus in 394 B.C. (Bodzek 2000; but see also Maffre 2004). From Tissaphernes, who was satrap in Sardis and military governor of Asia Minor (karanos) under Artaxerxes II, a rare silver issue is known that bears his name in Lycian script (zisaprñna) together with a horseman in Median dress; the reverse contains the head of Athena (Alram 1986: no. 317; Hurter 1979; Mildenberg 1993: 59, no. 24). This issue fits neatly in the Lycian dynasts’ coin production and was probably struck in Xanthus around 400–395 B.C. The question remains open whether these Lycian silver staters were struck by Tissaphernes himself or—more likely—by the ruler of Xanthus to honor the Persian governor. This might also be the case with a bronze issue struck in the mint of Astyra (Mysia) depicting a bareheaded and bearded male head together with the Greek inscription ΤΙΣΣΑ on the obverse and the cult statue of Artemis with the city's name on the reverse (fig. 4.23; Borchhardt 1999: 3–74, pl. 19.4 and elsewhere; Cahn 1985; Mildenberg 1993: 59, no. 25). Again, some scholars consider the bearded head a true portrait of Tissaphernes and consequently the first portrait of an actual human being on coins; but from a Persian perspective this seems very unlikely. There are numerous examples of the socalled satrapal coinage where legend and image have nothing to do with each other. Whoever is depicted on the

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The Coinage of the Persian Empire bronze coins of Astyra, Tissaphernes is perhaps the least likely candidate. Although he might have sponsored this issue as a generous gift to the city or the city might have issued it to honor him, it is hard to believe that at this time a Persian official agreed to be depicted bareheaded in purely Greek manner. In any case, these coins are civic issues, struck only for local use.

Fig 4 23

Fig 4 24

Fig 4 25

The same is also true of other issues in silver and bronze bearing the names of Persian governors like Autophradates (OATA), Orontas (OPONTA; fig. 4.24) and Spithridates (ΣΠΙΘΡΙ; Alram 1986: nos. 305–314; Harrison 1982: 195–189, 399–417). Again, we do not know for sure if they were commissioned by the satraps/governors as the representatives of the Great King or by civic institutions to honor their Achaemenid overlords. They are mainly smaller denominations and were produced by various local mints in western Asia Minor (Mildenberg 2000b). Exceptional is a gold issue most likely struck in Lampsacus (Mysia) with a “satrapal head” on the obverse and the forepart of a Pegasus on the reverse (fig. 4.25; Mildenberg 1993: 66; (p. 76) Troxell 1981). It was minted in the middle of the fourth century and tentatively attributed to Orontas (but see Troxell 1981), who was appointed satrap of Mysia by Artaxerxes II in the 360s and took part in a revolt against the Great King. By that time the gold staters of Lampsacus—struck in the weight of a Persian daric and of extraordinary artistic quality—had become an important currency within and outside the Persian Empire and supplemented the imperial daric in international payments (Kraay 1976: 251).

Fig 4 26

Fig 4 27

Fig 4 28

A completely different picture is presented by the coinage of the Persian governors in Cilicia. These silver staters based on the Persian standard (double sigloi) were produced from about 380 B.C. onward, mainly in Tarsus to finance the Egyptian expeditions and other campaigns of the Persian army in the eastern Mediterranean. The volume of these issues, produced on the instructions of the satraps/governors Tiribazus, Pharnabazus (fig. 4.27),

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The Coinage of the Persian Empire Tarkumuwa-Datamas, and Mazaeus, was enormous, and they played an important role in trade. These coins are mainly inscribed in Aramaic with the names of the satraps/governors (Casabonne 1996, 2000b; Davesne 1989; de Callataÿ 2000; Le Rider 1997, 2001: 207–237). Their imagery shows a fascinating mixture of Greek and Persian motifs. Most interesting are the issues of Tiribazus with the Greek god Zeus on the obverse and the Iranian symbol of a crowned figure emerging from a winged disc on the reverse, representing the god Ahuramazda or the Iranian farnah (god-given and kingly fortune; fig. 4.26; see also Wieshöfer 2003 for interpretation of the winged figure as the farnah of the Great King). Equally exceptional are two coin types chosen by Tarkumuwa-Datamas (Moysey 1986; for alternative readings of the name see Alram 1986; Bing 1998: 59 n. 55; Harrison 1982: 321–336; Lemaire 1989). Both show on the obverse the enthroned Baal of Tarsus, a common obverse type of the Tarsus mint; but one type has on its reverse an enthroned Persian in Median dress with bow and arrow beneath the winged disc (probably a symbol of the Iranian farnah; fig. 4.28). The second has a (p. 77) nude male figure with extended right arm facing exactly opposite another male wearing a Greek himation making a gesture of submission; the figures are set within a rectangular frame that is meant to depict a temple, and between them is an incense burner (fig. 4.29). If we use the Aramaic inscriptions to identify the two figures, the nude one is the god Ana (a native Anatolian deity) and the other is Tarkumuwa-Datamas, who obviously stands under the god's protection. If this interpretation is correct, then the issues of Tarkumuwa-Datamas must be considered as an open insurrection against the Great King. Tarkumuwa-Datamas presents himself as authorized by Ana and at the same time under the protection of the Iranian farnah. As Wiesehöfer (2003) has shown, this message can best be understood in the context of Tarkumuwa-Datamas's revolt against Artaxerxes II, which probably began in 369/68 and ended with the satrap's murder in 361 B.C (see also Bing 1998). During this revolt, Datamas also issued silver staters in Sinope, on the Black Sea coast (Paphlagonia), using the city's design, but with his name in Greek script (Datamas; fig. 4.30; Alram 1986: no 344; Meadows 2005: 2003 no. 367; Weisser 2006: 76 no. 15).

Fig 4 29

Fig 4 30

Fig 4 31

Tarkumuwa-Datamas was succeeded by Mazaeus as governor of Cilicia. He was engaged in the successful reconquest of Egypt and the suppression of a revolt in Phoenicia. Mazaeus's name (Aramaic mzdy) is found on Cilician and Sidonian silver coins issued under Artaxerxes III and Darius III (Alram 1986: nos. 350–369; Bing 1998; Harrison 1982: 175–178, 346–390; Meadows 2005: 202, nos. 358–366; Weisser 2006: 82–83, nos. 39–45). On one of his Tarsus issues, Mazaeus calls himself ruler over “Transeuphratene and Cilicia” (Aramaic mzdy zy ‘l ‘brnhr’ w hlk; fig. 4.31). (p. 78) Mazaeus fought in the battle of Gaugamela against Alexander and finally surrendered Babylon to the Macedonian king. He was one of the first Persian officials who were appointed to a high-ranking position by Alexander and became satrap of Babylonia, where he issued tetradrachms—now struck to the weight of the Attic standard, but still signed with his name (fig. 4.32; Le Rider 2003, 273–276; Nicolet-Pierre 1999; Price 1991: nos. 28–69). A source of extraordinary importance are the small silver coins (drachms, obols, hemiobols, quaterobols) struck by the governors of Judaea and Samaria (Mildenberg 1993: 60–61, nos. 27–34; Qedar 1999). These provinces were part of the satrapy “Beyond the River” (‘Abar Naharâ = Transeuphratene) and were ruled by governors, who

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The Coinage of the Persian Empire started to issue their own provincial money from around 375 B.C. onward. The coinage of Samaria shows a plethora of different designs that reflect influences from Cilician, Sidonian, and Persian (Bodzek 2007) as well as Athenian coin types. Many of these coins bear the Aramaic name šmryn, to be understood as either the name of the province or the city (Meshorer-Qedar 1999: 19–20). In addition, personal names have been added, most likely those of the respective governors who were responsible for the minting. Most prominent is Sanballat (Aramaic sn’ bl), who was appointed by Darius III as governor of Samaria (Jos. Ant 11.7.2 and 8.2; Meshorer-Qedar 1999: 26– 27 nos. 51–56). In rare cases, Greek legends were also used, like that of the governor Bagabatas, who also signed with the Aramaic initials (bt for bgbt) of his name (fig. 4.33; Meshorer-Qedar 1999: 20, 29, nos. 3–4, 6).

Fig 4 32

Fig 4 33

Sometimes we also find the names of the Cilician satraps, like Pharnabazus (in Greek) and Mazaeus (Aramaic mz[dy]), who functioned as overlords of the Samarian governors. Most prominent on Samarian coinage is the image of the Persian Great King, which appears in various forms. On some issues, the Great King is depicted enthroned with scepter and flower, as is Darius I (or Xerxes) on his famous Persepolis reliefs. However, sometimes the Greek inscription ΖΕΥΣ is added, which suggests (p. 79) that the figure is not meant to be the Great King but a god, in this case Yahweh of Samaria, who is equated with the Greek Zeus (Meshorer-Qedar 1999). Finally, we also have to mention the silver tetradrachms, following the Athenian model, issued with the names of the Egyptian satraps Sabakes (Aramaic swyk) and Mazakes (Aramaic mzdk). They continued the royal coinage of Artaxerxes III in Egypt and probably were struck in Memphis, the seat of the satrap (fig. 4.34; Alram 1986: nos. 371, 372, 376; Meadows 2005: 203–206, nos. 370–371. Cf. also Mildenberg 1993: 73–74, n. 123; Nicolet-Pierre 1979). In addition, both governors issued small silver fractions following the Phoenician model, as well as bronze coins with Cilician/Persian designs (Alram 1986: nos. 375, 377). Whereas Sabakes lost his life in the battle of Issus (Arrian 2.11.8), Mazakes surrendered Egypt to Alexander (Arrian 3.1.2) and was rewarded an administrative position in Babylonia. There he continued to strike imitations of Athenian “owl” tetradrachms and drachms with his name in Aramaic (fig. 4.35; Le Rider 2003: 284–290).

Fig 4 34

Fig 4 35

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The Coinage of the Persian Empire

Fig 4 36

Fig 4 37

In addition, and probably initiated by Alexander, a series of double darics with the image of the “kneeling-running” Great King (types III and IV) was probably issued in Babylonia (figs. 4.36, 4.37; Nicolet-Pierre 1999: 296–299). These coins of (p. 80) extraordinary high value were struck in considerable quantities and presented to Alexander as the legitimate successor of the Achaemenid kings. Another series of double darics was struck further east in Drangiana and Bactria after Alexander's death (Le Rider 2003: 279–284). With Alexander, a new chapter of monetary history began (Le Rider 2003). We thank him for the first world currency in history. The metrological basis formed the Attic weight standard, which for the three metals used at that time—gold, silver and copper—was precisely stipulated and was thenceforward used in all mints of the empire from Macedonia across Asia Minor to Mesopotamia, with a uniform picture program. The financial basis for the immense issue of the new Alexander coinage partly formed those precious metal supplies, which Alexander had taken from the treasuries of the Achaemenid kings (de Callataÿ 1989). Alexander, like his Achaemenid predecessors, saw no need to build up a mint network in Iran—this was done only by the Seleucids, who started to issue coined money in all parts of their empire: from the eastern shores of the Mediterranean and Mesopotamia to the Iranian heartland and Bactria in northern Afghanistan. I am especially grateful to Judith Lerner and Josef Wiesehöfer for their valuable suggestions and corrections. Fig. 4.1. Alyattes (c. 610–561), Trite (electrum) of Sardis, 3.65 g; Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Fig. 4.2. Kroisos (c. 561–546), gold stater of Sardis, 8.04 g, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Fig. 4.3. Darius I (522–486), silver siglos, type I, 5.34 g; British Museum. Fig. 4.4. Darius I (522–486), silver siglos, type II, 5.41 g; British Museum. Fig. 4.5. Darius I (522–486), silver siglos, type IIIa, 5.43 g; British Museum. Fig. 4.6. Gold daric, type IIIb (“early group”), c. 486–424 B.C., 8.34 g; Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Fig. 4.7. Gold daric, type IV (“early group”), c. 486–424 B.C., 8.30 g; British Museum. Fig. 4.8. Silver siglos, type IV (“early group”), c. 486–424 B.C., 5.42 g; British Museum. Fig. 4.9. Silver siglos, type IIIb (“middle group”), c. 424–359 B.C., 5.55 g; Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Fig. 4.10. Silver siglos, type IV (“middle group”), c. 424–359 B.C., 5.67 g; Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Fig. 4.11. Gold daric, type IIIb (“final group”), c. 359–333 B.C., 8.34 g; British Museum. Fig. 4.12. Silver siglos, type IV (“final group”), c. 359–333 B.C., 5.50 g; Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Fig. 4.13. Silver stater of uncertain mint (Kabul region), c. 400–360 B.C., 11.48 g; British Museum. Fig. 4.14. Silver tetradrachm of uncertain mint (Tissaphernes?), c. 420–395 B.C., 16.96 g; British Museum. (p. 81) Fig. 4.15. Silver stater of uncertain mint (Tissaphernes?), c. 420–395 B.C., 15.31 g; British Museum. Fig. 4.16. Silver stater of uncertain mint, 4th century B.C., 14,92 g; Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Fig. 4.17. Gold stater of uncertain mint, 4th century B.C., 8.25 g; Bibliothèque nationale de France. Fig. 4.18. Silver stater of uncertain mint (Caria ?), c. 340–334, 15.04 g; British Museum. Fig. 4.19. Silver stater of uncertain mint, middle of the 4th century B.C., 14.78 g; British Museum. Fig. 4.20. Silver stater of Mallus (Cilicia), middle of the 4th century B.C., 10.33 g; Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Fig. 4.21. Artaxerxes III (359–338), silver tetradrachm of Memphis (?), 343–338 B.C., 16.93 g; British Museum. Fig. 4.22. Silver tetradrachm of Cyzicus (Mysia), Pharnabazus, c. 410–390 B.C., 14.82 g; Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Fig. 4.23. Bronze coin of Astyra (Mysia), Tissaphernes, c. 400–395 B.C., 1.45 g; Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Fig. 4.24. Silver coin of uncertain mint (Mysia, Cisthene?), Orontas, middle of the 4th century B.C., 2.65 g; Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

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The Coinage of the Persian Empire Fig. 4.25. Gold stater of Lampsacus (?), middle of the 4th century B.C., 8.45 g; Bibliothèque nationale de France. Fig. 4.26. Silver stater of Issus (Cilicia), Tiribazos, c. 387–380 B.C., 10.53 g; British Museum. Fig. 4.27. Silver stater of Tarsus (Cilicia), Pharnabazus, c. 379–373 B.C., 10.90 g; British Museum. Fig. 4.28. Silver stater of Tarsus (Cilicia), Tarkumuwa-Datamas, c. 373–361 B.C., 10.49 g; Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Fig. 4.29. Silver stater of Tarsus (Cilicia), Tarkumuwa-Datamas, c. 373–361 B.C. 10.19 g; Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Fig. 4.30. Silver stater of Sinope (Paphlagonia), Datamas, c. 373–361 B.C., 5.89 g; British Museum. Fig. 4.31. Silver stater of Tarsus, Mazaios, c. 361–333 B.C., 10.88 g; Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Fig. 4.32. Silver tetradrachm of Babylon, Mazaios, 331–328 B.C., 16.75 g; Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Fig. 4.33. Silver obol of Samaria, Bagabatas, c. 340 B.C., 0.65 g; British Museum. Fig. 4.34. Silver tetradrachm of Memphis (?), Sabakes, c. 335–333 B.C., 16.23 g; British Museum. Fig. 4.35. Silver tetradrachm of uncertain mint (Babylonia), Mazakes, c. 331–320 B.C., 16.17 g; British Museum. Fig. 4.36. Double daric of Babylon (?), c. 331–311 B.C., 16.49 g; British Museum. Fig. 4.37. Double daric of Babylon (?), c. 331–311 B.C., 16.71 g; British Museum.

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The Coinage of the Persian Empire Antiqua 29: 125–167. ——— . (1997). “Eine Planänderung an den Apadana-Treppen und ihre Konsequenzen für die Datierung der Planungs- und Bebauungsphasen von Persepolis.” Archäologische Mitteilungen aus Iran und Turan 29: 281–302. Jean, O., A. M. Dinçol, and S. Durugönül, eds. (2001). La Cilicie: Espace et pouvoirs locaux (2e millénaire av J C –4e siècle ap J -C ) Varia Anatolica 13: 243–263. Jursa, M. (2004). “Gründzüge der Wirtschaftsformen Babyloniens im ersten Jahrtausend v. Chr.” In Rollinger and Ulf: 115–136. Kagan, J. H. (1994). “An Archaic Greek Coin Hoard from the Eastern Mediterranean and Early Cypriot Coinage.” NC 154: 17–52. Karwiese, S. (1980). “Aristoteles’ Ath. Pol. c. 10: Des Rätsels Lösung?” LNV 1: 23–41. ——— . (1987). “Zwischen Punze und Amboß.” LNV 3: 5–22. ——— . (1993). “Zur Metrologie der persischen Sigloi.” Res Orientales 5: 46–49. ——— . (1995). Die Münzprägung von Ephesos Vol. 1. Die Anfänge: Die ältesten Münzprägungen und der Beginn der Münzprägung überhaupt. Vienna. Klinkott, H. (2005). Der Satrap: Ein achaimenidischer Amtsträger und seine Handlungsspielräume Frankfurt. ——— . (2006). “Der Großkönig und seine Satrapen: Zur Verwaltung im Achämenidenreich.” In Historisches Museum der Pfalz Speyer: 57–67. Kluge, B., and B. Weisser, eds. (2000). XII Internationaler Numismatischer Kongress Berlin 1977 Akten, I. Berlin. Koch, H. (1990). Verwaltung und Wirtschaft im persischen Kernland zur Zeit der Achämeniden Beihefte zum Tübinger Atlas des Vorderen Orients, Reihe B. 89. Wiesbaden. Konuk, K. (2000). “Influences et éléments achéménides dans la monnayage de la Carie.” In Casabonne 2000a: 171–183. Kraay, C. M. (1976). Archaic and Classical Greek Coins London. ——— . (1977). “The Asyut Hoard: Some Comments on Chronology.” NC7 17: 189–198. Kraay, C. M., and P. R. S. Moorey. (1981). “A Black Sea Hoard of the Late Fifth Century.” NC 141: 1–19. (p. 85) Lemaire, A. (1991). “Remarques à propos du monnayage cilicien d’époque perse et de ses légendes araméennes.” REA 91: 141–156. Le Rider, G. (1972). “Tetradrachmes ‘au lion’ et imitations d’Athens en Babylonie.” Schweizer Münzblätter 85: 1–7. ——— . (1997). “Le monnayage perse en cilicie au IVe Siècle.” QTicNumAntClas, 26: 151–169. ——— . (1998). “Le début du monnayage achéménide: Continuation ou innovation? In Arsebük et al. 1998: 663– 673. ——— . (2001). La naissance de la monnaie: Pratiques monétaires de l’Orient ancient Paris. ——— . (2003). Alexandre le Grand: Monnaie, finances et politique Paris. Maffre, F. (2004). “Le monnayage de Pharnabaze frappé dans l’atelier de Cyzique.” NC 164: 1–32. Meadows, A. R. (2003). “The Apadana Foundation Deposit (IGCH 1789): Some Clarification.” NC 163: 342–344. ——— . (2005). “The Administration of the Achaemenid Empire.” In Curtis and Tallis: 181–209. Meshorer, Y., and S. Qedar. (1999). Samarian Coinage Numismatic Studies and Researches, IX. Jerusalem.

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The Coinage of the Persian Empire Metcalf, W. E., ed. (1991). Mnemata: Papers in Memory of Nancy M Waggoner New York. Mildenberg, L. (1993). “Über das Münzwesen im Reich der Achämeniden.” Archaeologische Mitteilungen aus Iran 26: 55–79. ——— . (1998). “Money Supply under Artaxerxes III Ochus.” In Ashton and Hurter: 277–286. ——— . (2000a). “On the So-called Satrapal Coinage.” In Casabonne 2000a: 9–20. ——— . (2000b). “Über das Kleingeld des 4. Jahrhunderts im Perserreich.” In Hurter and Arnold-Biucchi: 137–151. Miller, M. C. (1997). Athens and Persia in the Fifth Century BC: A Study in Cultural Receptivity Cambridge. Mørkholm, O. (1974). “A Coin of Artaxerxes III.” NC7 14: 1–4. ——— . (1991). Early Hellenistic Coinage: From the Accession of Alexander to the Peace of Apamea (336–188 B C ) Cambridge. Mørkholm, O., and N. Waggoner, eds. (1979). Greek Numismatics and Archaeology: Essays in Honor of Margaret Thompson Wetteren, Switzerland. Moysey, R. A. (1986). “The Silver Stater Issues of Pharnabazos and Datames from the Mint of Tarsus in Cilicia.” ANSMN 31: 7–61. Naster, P. (1965). Remarques charactéroscopiques et technologiques au sujet des créséides. In Congresso Internationale di Numismatica Atti, II. Roma: 25–36. Nicolet-Pierre, H. (1979). “Monnaies de deux derniers satrapes d’Egypt avant la conquete d’Alexandre.” In Mørkholm and Waggoner 1979: 221–230. ——— . (1992). “Xerxes et le trésor de l’Athos (IGCH 362).” RN 34: 7–22. ——— . (1996). “Or perse en Grèce: Deux trésors de dariques conservés à Athènes.” In Charaktèr, phierôma stè Mantô Oikonomidou Athens: 200–207. ——— . (1999). “Argent et or frappés entre 331 and 311 ou de Mazdai à Séleucos.” In Amandry and Hurter: 285– 305. Nicolet-Pierre, H., and M. Amandry. (1994). “Un nouveau trésor de monnaies d’argent pseudo-athéniennes venu d’Afghanistan (1990).” RN 36: 34–54. Nimchuck, C. L. (2000). “The Lion and Bull Coinage of Croesus.” Classical and Medieval Numismatic Society Journal 1: 5–44. Noe, S. P. (1956). Two Hoards of Persian Sigloi ANSNNM 136. New York. (p. 86) Pfisterer, M. (2000). Ein Silberschatz vom Schwarzen Meer: Beobachtungen zum Geldumlauf im Achaimenidenreich Studia Iranica. Cahier, 22. Paris. Price, M. J. (1984). “Croesus or Pseudo-Croesus? Hoard or Hoax? Problems Concerning the Sigloi and Double-Sigloi of the Croeseid Type.” In Houghton and Hurter: 211–221. ——— . (1991). “Circulation in Babylon.” In Metcalf: 63–72. Price, M. J., and N. M. Waggoner. (1975). Archaic Greek Coinage: The Asyut Hoard London. Ramage, A., and P. Craddock. (2000). King Croesus’ Gold: Excavations at Sardis and the History of Gold Refining London. Reade, J. (1986). “A Hoard of Silver Currency from Achaemenid Babylon.” Journal of Persian Studies 24: 79–89. Rengakos, A., and A. Tsakmakis. (2006). Brill's Companion to Thucydides. Leiden.

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The Coinage of the Persian Empire Robinson, E. S. G. (1948). “Greek Coins Acquired by the British Museum 1938–1948. I.” NC6 8: 43–59. ——— . (1958). “The Beginnings of Achaemenid Coinage.” NC6 18: 187–193. Rollinger, R. (2008). “The ‘Median’ Empire, the End of Urartu and Cyrus the Great's Campaign in 547 BC (Nabonidus Chronicle II 16).” Ancient West and East 7: 51–65. Rollinger, R., and C. Ulf, eds. (2004). Commerce and Monetary Systems in the Ancient World: Means of Transmission and Cultural Interaction Oriens et Occidens, 6. Stuttgart. Root, M. C. (1988). “Evidence from Persepolis for Dating of Persian and Archaic Greek Coinage.” NC 148: 1–12. ——— . (1989). “The Persian Archer at Persepolis: Aspects of Chronology, Style and Symbolism.” REA 91: 33–50. Schlumberger, D. (1953). “L’argent grec dans L’Empire Achéménide.” In Curiel and Schlumberger: 3–62. Shabazi, A. S. (1992). “Clothing—Clothing II. In the Median and Achaemenid Periods.” Encyclopaedia Iranica 5: 723–737. Shore, A. F. (1974). “The Demotic Inscription on a Coin of Artaxerxes.” NC  7 14: 5–8. Starr, C. G. (1975). “Greeks and Persians in the Fourth Century B.C.: A Study in Cultural Contacts before Alexander (Part I).” Iranica Antiqua 11: 39–99. Stepniowski, F. M., ed. (2003). The Orient and the Aegean: Papers Presented at the Warsaw Symposium, 9th April 1999 Warsaw. Stronach, D. (1989). “Early Achaemenid Coinage: Perspectives from the Homeland.” Iranica Antiqua 24: 255–279. Troxell, H. A. (1981). “Orontes, Satrap of Mysia.” SNR 60: 27–39. Urso, G. (2003). Moneta mercanti banchieri: I precedenti greci e romani dell’Euro Atti del convegno internazionale Cividale del Friuli, 26–28 settembre 2002. Pisa. Vargyas, P. (1999). “Kaspu Ginnu and the Monetary Reform of Darius I.” Zeitschrift für Assyrologie 89: 263–284. ——— . (2000). “Darius I and the Daric Reconsidered.” Iranica Antiqua 35: 33–46. v. Gall, H. (1974). “Zur Kopfbedeckung des persischen Ornats bei den Achämeniden.” Archaeologische Mitteilungen aus Iran 7: 145–161. Vickers, M. (1985). “Early Greek Coinage, a Reassessment.” NC 145: 1–44. von Steuben, H., ed. (1999). Antike Porträts: Zum Gedächtnis von Helga Heintze Möhnesse. Walburg, R. (1991). “Lydisch oder Persisch? Ein Goldobjekt aus der Frühzeit der Münzprägung.” SNR 70: 5–17. Weber, U., and J. Wiesehöfer. (1996). Das Reich der Achaimeniden: Eine Bibliographie Archaeologische Mitteilungen aus Ira. Ergänzungsband 15. Berlin. Weidauer, L. (1975). Probleme der frühen Elektronprägung Typos I. Fribourg. (p. 87) Weiser, W. (1989). “Die Eulen von Kyros dem Jüngeren: Zu den ersten Münzporträts lebender Menschen.” ZPE 76: 267–296. Weisser, B. (2006). “Herrscherbild und Münzporträt in Kleinasien.” In Historisches Museum der Pfalz Speyer: 71–85. ——— . (2007). “Funde aus Milet XXIII. Ein Hort in Milet mit Silbermünzen aus dem frühen 4. Jh. Chr.” Archäologischer Anzeiger 1 (2009): Wiesehöfer, J. (1993/2005). Das antike Persien von 550 v Chr bis 650 n Chr Zürich. ——— . (1994). Die “dunklen Jahrhunderte der Persis ” Zetemata Monographien zur klassischen

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The Coinage of the Persian Empire Altertumswissenschaft, 190. Munich. ——— . (1996). Ancient Persia: From 550 BC to 650 AD London and New York. ——— . (2003). “Tarkumuwa und das Farnah.” In Henkelman and Kuhrt: 174–185. ——— . (2004). “ ‘Persien der faszinierende Feind der Griechen’: Güteraustausch und Kulturtransfer inachaimenidischer Zeit.” In Rollinger and Ulf 2004: 295–310. ——— . (2006) “ ‘… Keeping the Two Sides Equal’: Thucydides, the Persians and the Peloponnesian War.” In Rengakos and Tsakmakis: 658–667. Wolters, R. (2003). “Zwischen Asien und Europa: Lydisches Elektron und die Anfänge der griechischen Silbermünzen.” In Urso: 9–38. Woytek, B. (2006). “Die Verwendung von Mehrfachstempeln in der Antiken Münzprägung und die ‘Elefantendenar’ Iulius Caesars (RRC 443/1).” SNR 85: 69–90. Zahle, J. (1982). “Persian Satraps and Lycian Dynasts: The Evidence of Diadems.” In Hackens and Weiller 1979: 101–112. Michael Alram M chael Alram s D rektor des Münzkab netts, Kunsth stor sches Museum, V enna.

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The Coinage of Athens, Sixth to First Century B.C.

Oxford Handbooks Online The Coinage of Athens, Sixth to First Century B.C. Peter G. Van Alfen The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Coinage Edited by William E Metcalf Pr nt Publ cat on Date: Feb 2012 Onl ne Publ cat on Date: Nov 2012

Subject: Class cal Stud es, Anc ent Greek H story, Mater al Culture Stud es DO : 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195305746.013.0006

Abstract and Keywords When the Athenians began to strike coins in the sixth century BC, they produced one of the earliest coinages in the Greek mainland, appearing within a generation or two of the first coins in Lydia. The trickle of silver coinage produced by the Athenians in the sixth century became, by the end of the fifth, a colossal flood, which was fed both by their indigenous “fountain of silver,” the mines at Laurion, and the flow of harbor revenues and imperial tribute. This deluge of Athenian silver effectively inundated economies in the Aegean and parts of the Near East, where the Athenians' primary coin type, the large denomination tetradrachm sporting their patron deity, Athena, on the obverse and her owl on the reverse, became one of the most influential, long-lasting, and widespread coinages in the ancient world. Keywords Athenians coinage Greek mainland Athenian silver coin

WHY the Athenians began to strike coins in the sixth century B.C. we do not know, but along with their sometime

rivals in Aegina and Corinth, they produced one of the earliest coinages in the Greek mainland, appearing within a generation or two of the first coins in Lydia. The trickle of silver coinage produced by the Athenians in the sixth century became by the end of the fifth a colossal flood, which was fed both by their indigenous “fountain of silver” (Aesch. Per. 238), the mines at Laurion, and the flow of harbor revenues and imperial tribute. This deluge of Athenian silver effectively inundated economies in the Aegean and parts of the Near East, where the Athenians’ primary coin type, the large denomination tetradrachm sporting their patron deity, Athena, on the obverse and her owl on the reverse, became one of the most influential, long-lasting, and widespread coinages in the ancient world. In one form or another, the “owl” coinage was minted virtually without interruption from around 515 B.C. until the Athenians at last gave up their silver civic coinage in the first century B.C. No other Greek polis could claim such extreme monetary endurance. The owls, and their contemporary imitations, are found in hoards far from Attica and the Aegean, from Yemen in the south to Afghanistan in the east, also attesting to the broad reach of Athenian economic action. Monetization began before the first coin was struck in Athens. The laws of Solon (Ruschenbusch 1966: F 26, 30, 32, 33, 36, 65, 68, 77, 79, 81, 92, 143a) suggest that by the early sixth century the Athenians were accustomed to using silver, likely in the form of miscellaneous pieces of cut silver (“Hacksilber”), for a variety of monetary payments and collections involving the state; such use possibly extended to (p. 89) the private sphere as well, paralleling practices in the Near East (Kroll 1998; 2001; 2008). Already the terms of account known in the classical period (“drachm,” “obol”) had been adopted, although the corresponding standard weights were possibly still in flux (Ath Pol 10.1–2; cf. Andoc. I.83). Once settled, the weight standard, which governed the subsequent denominations of the coinage, was pegged around a drachm of 4.32 g subdivided into six obols of 0.72 g each; this standard, called the Attic-Euboic by modern scholars, was maintained by the Athenians throughout their minting history—a rare feat, since many Greek poleis changed standards depending on the economic or political

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The Coinage of Athens, Sixth to First Century B.C. climate (Elsen 2002). Larger denomination coins appeared as multiples of the drachm (up to 10 drachms) while fractional coins were multiples or divisions of the obol (down to 1/8 obol).

Fig 5 1

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Fig 5 3

The production of Athenian coinage started around the time Peisistratus consolidated his tyranny in 546 B.C. (Kroll and Waggoner 1984). Why the Athenians (or Peisistratus) felt the need for coinage at this point and what function the coins were intended to serve remain open questions. Any number of reasons, or their combination, might equally provide answers: the need to pay mercenaries; the need to pay for public projects initiated by the tyrant; the growth of markets; civic pride, or its corollary, peer group pressure among contemporary tyrants. There can be little doubt, however, that the initiative for the coinage came from either Peisistratus himself or the collaborating ruling elites, since they alone would have had the resources and the political force to generate both the coins and their acceptance. A role for Athens's elites in the production of the earliest coins is further suggested by the coins themselves: while the reverse has a simple, unadorned incuse, the obverse of the coins has changing types. Fourteen in total are known, including an amphora, triskeles, astragal, scarab, horse, horse protome, horse hindquarters, owl, bull, head of bull, and wheel (fig. 5.1–5.3). An earlier generation of scholars saw in these changing types the heraldic devices of the private individuals responsible for their issue, and to this day the series is known as the Wappenmünzen (heraldic coins). Nevertheless, we know (p. 90) nothing of the organization of coin production at this time. Whatever tension, if any, the publication of these presumed personal devices may have caused with the consuming public was resolved by the adoption of purely civic types later in the development of Athenian coinage. From the number of known obverse dies (about 35; Kroll 1981: 22), it is clear that the output of Wappenmünzen over the two decades or so that they were in production was not tremendous, but it was nevertheless consistently maintained. Hoard finds (IGCH 2, 3, 5, 9, 10, 12) show that the coins generally did not travel far from Attica; only a comparative few traveled overseas (IGCH 1482, 1639, 1644, 1646, 1874). The largest denomination of the series was the didrachm (2 drachm) of 8.6 g, followed by single drachms and an abundance of smaller obols and hemiobols (half obols weighing 0.36 g). There is no evidence to date for sixth-century prices in Athens or elsewhere, so it is idle to speculate on the purchasing power of these coins. Even the smallest might have had more value than was useful in (nonelite) day-to-day retail trade. Nevertheless, the assortment of denominations represents a concern on the part of the Peisistratids to meet a range of possible expenses. Special, perhaps external, debts might have been met by a limited series of electrum coins—the first and only series in this metal that the Athenians were to produce—that share general features with the Wappenmünzen, namely the changing obverse types (an owl, bent human leg, facing bull's head, and wheel; see Seltman 1924: 80–85) and incuse reverses. The coins are known in only two denominations, one of about 1.32 g, the other of about 0.64 g, which appear closer to 1/12 and 1/24 staters on the Phocaic standard than any obvious denomination on the Athenian standard. The use of the Phocaic standard would align these coins with other electrum issues in Asia Minor so again could indicate an external rather than internal orientation for the coinage.

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The Coinage of Athens, Sixth to First Century B.C.

Fig 5 4

At some point around 525 B.C., Athenian coinage underwent significant changes. For the first time, perhaps in the entire Aegean basin, a reverse type was added to a coin; it was now here where the devices of the moneyers could be found. This innovation was to accommodate a static type on the obverse: the gorgon (fig. 5.4). In addition, a new denomination was introduced, the tetradrachm (4 drachms) weighing around 17.28 g, a comparatively large, ingot-like coin that could be used only in high-value transactions. This denomination would serve as the cornerstone of Athenian minting for the next several centuries. Together these changes may indicate that the Athenians were reorienting their monetary policy to focus more on economic activity beyond the borders of Attica than within (Kroll 1981: 15; Nicolet-Pierre 1983). The gorgon was not a private symbol but represented (p. 91) the Athenians en masse through their patron deity, Athena, who was attired with the gorgon's head as part of her aegis. Unlike the Wappenmünzen, the gorgoneia could potentially advertise their origins to those outside of Attica, at least to those who were well enough equipped to understand the symbolism, and so would circulate as internationally known entities rather than anonymous curiosities. Indeed, hoard evidence shows that the gorgoneia circulated beyond Attica in greater numbers than the Wappenmünzen (IGCH 1640, 1644, 1874), indicating that the coins found some success in outside markets. Any such success was by design: with their new tetradrachm, the Athenians created a value-added version of what was to become one of their primary exports, silver from the mines at Laurion (cf. Xen. Poroi III.2). Metallurgical analysis of gorgoneia and the preceding Wappenmünzen suggests that the Laurion mines were now the primary source of coining metal for the Athenians, who earlier had been procuring their silver from abroad, perhaps from Peisistratid possessions near Mount Pangaeum in the northern Aegean (Kroll 1981: 14; Nicolet-Pierre 1985). That the commodification of silver was an important function of the gorgon tetradrachms can arguably be seen as well in the drop in the number and range of smaller denominations that accompanied them. Apparently the Athenians (or Peisistratids) were not completely satisfied with the design of the gorgoneia. Within only a few years it was overhauled completely, dropping all reference, if there had been any, to individual magistrates and enhancing significantly the civic character of the coinage. The oblique reference to Athena, the gorgon, was replaced on the obverse by Athena herself, helmeted and in profile. Any question regarding the identity of the deity was answered by thematic continuation onto the reverse, where we find Athena's bird, the owl at rest. Lest there still be questions of the coin's origins, it was spelled out next to the bird: AQE(NAION). One is pressed to find another archaic coin that so completely drives home the point of civic origins; and evidently the point was so well taken that the Athenians saw little need to change the basic design until they ceased minting tetradrachms completely in the first century B.C. Because the beginning of the owl coinage can be dated by the hoard evidence to the general period of the oligarchy of 511/510 and the Cleisthenic democratic reforms in 508/507 B.C., there have been several attempts to link the coinage to the political expressions of a new government (e.g. Price and Waggoner 1975: 64–64) and to explain the longevity of the owl coinage as a political symbol of the later Athenians’ quest to preserve freedom from tyranny (e.g. Trevett 2001). However, there is as yet no conclusive evidence to lock in the date of the first owls, and the arguments presented by Kroll (1981: 20–30), expanding on the earlier work of Colin Kraay and others, strongly suggest a starting date under the tyrant Hippias no later than 515 B.C.; on his dating, the owl coinage was perhaps more a symbol of Peisistratid economic foresight than the political rule of the demos. While the Athenians’ subsequent devotion to the design of the “owls” might have had a political component insofar as its longevity ultimately bred a patriotic unwillingness to toy with tradition, the immobilization of the owl type was likely based on the economic rationale of finding and maintaining an attractive means of dispersing the one valuable (p. 92) commodity the Athenians had in abundance, their silver. This became all the more important when new, richer veins of silver were discovered at the Laurion mines at about the time the owls were introduced (Picard 2001). Charles Seltman's (1924) early work on Athenian coinage made great headway in sorting out the types of these early owls, but it was Kraay (1956) who demonstrated the error in Seltman's stylistic approach. Seltman's

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The Coinage of Athens, Sixth to First Century B.C. designations for the early owls has been retained, but the order now is that of Kraay: H, L, M, G, C, F, E, for the owls from around 515 to around 490 (fig. 5.5 and 5.6). Production of the archaic owls was characterized by steady, gradually increasing output, with limited numbers of smaller denominations, although the rough aspect of the owls from groups F and E toward the end of the period could indicate that the Athenians had stepped up production considerably on the eve of the Persian invasion to help fund their defense (Kroll and Waggoner 1984: 329).

Fig 5 5

Fig 5 6

Fig 5 7

Fig 5 8

Fig 5 9

Soon after the defeat of the Persians in 480/479, the design of the owls received minor changes. On the obverse, four upright olive leaves were added to Athena's helmet (later reduced to three); a crescent moon was added to the upper left field of the reverse. There is no consensus regarding the reason for the addition of the moon—it may simply have been added to fill out the space—but Athena's olive “wreath” likely commemorates victory over the Persians (Starr 1970: 11). Chester Starr's (1970) arrangement of the five main classes of owls that were produced over the two to three decades after 480 remains fundamental. His observations detailed the subtle variations and development in style that occurred through his Groups I–V (fig. 5.7), as well as the significant increase in the number of coins produced in his last Group V. Starr's dating of this last group to the 450s has been called into question by recent hoard finds and should be moved into the 460s (Kroll 1993: 6; Kagan 1987). As was the case with the archaic owls, the Athenians settled down to a steady, but not huge, production of owls (p. 93) during the initial years of the Delian League, in marked contrast to the years following the removal of the league treasury to Athens in 454 B.C. (Starr 1982). In the midst of this stream of owls, two unusual denominations appeared: one was the didrachm (fig. 5.8), a denomination not seen since the end of the Wappenmünzen, and at the other end of the spectrum, the other was the largest coin ever produced by the Athenians, the decadrachm (10 drachms), weighing around 43 g (fig. 5.9). Both were comparatively short-lived denominations, which makes the purpose for these

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The Coinage of Athens, Sixth to First Century B.C. coins all the more difficult to fathom. While the need for an intermediate denomination between the large tetradrachm and smaller drachm makes a certain sense, the transactional role of the decadrachm is less clear, except in meeting especially large debts. The medallion-like character of the large coin suggested to Babelon (Traité II, col. 770) a commemorative purpose, perhaps victory over the Persians at Salamis, although such theories are currently discounted. Fischer-Bossert's comprehensive study (2008) of the decadrachms indicates that this series was larger than previously thought, although not as large, in terms of dies used, as the didrachms (cf. Starr 1970: 22). Dating both series with any precision is notoriously difficult, but it seems that they were roughly contemporary and were issued over a period of time lasting a decade or longer.

Fig 5 10

Around the time the Athenians removed the Delian treasury to their acropolis, and concurrently demanded imperial tribute from their allies, the character of Athenian coinage underwent changes as well. The owls became still more stylistically conventionalized, reflecting the now colossal scale of production (fig. 5.10). Because this massive output continued until nearly the end of the Peloponnesian War, consisting of hundreds of millions of coins on a conservative estimate, no scholar has yet had the endurance to undertake a die study of the extant issues. Flament's (2007) attempt to provide a typology of this coinage is a step in the right direction, but only with an actual die study will we have anything firm to say (p. 94) about the rhythms of production and its relation to Athenian finances during this important span of political and economic history (van Alfen 2011a). What is apparent, however, is that most allied mints in the Aegean scaled back their own coin production, particularly in larger denominations, through the course of the fifth century (Figueira 1998: ch. 2). Whether this was due to the output of Athenian coinage simply overwhelming all other coinages in regional circulation or was a calculated move on the part of the Athenians to curtail allied minting for their own benefit, as may be indicated by the “Standards (or Coinage) Decree” (IG I3 1453), is a matter of serious dispute (Figueira 1998; Kallet 2001: 205–226). Significantly, however, only a handful of hoards containing Athenian coins of this period have been found in the Aegean outside Attica, or in the Black Sea region, from where the Athenians imported much of their grain (cf. Flament 2007: 173– 184). And while owls showed up in some numbers in the west during the archaic period, during the classical period owls are scarce in western hoards except for those that trailed the Athenian invasion of Sicily in 415 (cf. Flament 2007: 168; 219–231). Most later fifth-(and fourth-) century owls come to light in Levantine and Egyptian hoards (Nicolet-Pierre 2000; Flament 2007: 197–219; van Alfen 2011b). One can appreciate the magnitude of the eastern flow of Athenian coinage in the classical period from two large hoards of owls, the Tel el-Maskhouta hoard found in Egypt (IGCH 1649) and a recent discovery in South-East Anatolia (Buxton 2009); each find contained 7,000– 10,000 owls (roughly 4 to 6 talents of silver) and can be dated to around 400 B.C. Within Attica in the later fifth century, there was an expansion of small change denominations, no doubt facilitating the expansion of the use of coinage for a variety of purposes in and out of the marketplace (Schaps 2004). Many of their silver fractions were very tiny (e.g., the tetartemorion, c. 0.16 g; fig. 5.11), yet the Athenians stubbornly refused to adopt the larger token bronze fractional coinages that were now starting to appear elsewhere in the Greek world. Indeed, it was not until the time of Eubolus's financial reforms in the mid-fourth century that the Athenians finally bowed to the logic of token fractions—at least state-produced fractions (Kroll 1979). Textual evidence from the 420s (Arist. Peace 1198–1202; Eupolis Cities frag. 233) referring to the kollybon (the multiples dikollybon and trikollybon are noted in the scholia and elsewhere; cf. Tod 1945: 108–116), as well as finds of small bronze coin-like items from the Athenian agora, suggests that the Athenians were using private small change tokens, analogous to similar tokens from later centuries, that were offered by merchants to fill gaps in small change availability and make up supplies of official coinage (Robinson 1960: 7, Figueira 1998: 497, 504); Kroll (1993: 24), among others, has challenged this interpretation of the agora finds.

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The Coinage of Athens, Sixth to First Century B.C.

Fig 5 11

In the final corrosive years of the Peloponnesian War, the Athenians minted emergency coinages. With their silver reserves near exhaustion and their ability to work their mines impeded by the Spartan occupation (p. 95) of Dekeleia in 413 (Thuc. VII.27–28), the Athenians could no longer strike their owls in quantity and so resorted to two series of emergency coinages in 406/405: silver-plated, bronze-cored tetradrachms and drachms (fig. 5.12) and an equally unusual issue of gold staters and fractions (the smallest of which was worth 1 silver drachm; fig. 5.13), which were made from the cladding of the Acropolis's Nike statues (Ar. Frogs 725–726; Robinson 1960: 9–12; Kroll 1976, 1996). How these two coinages operated with each other and with the still circulating normal silver issues is unknown, but the fact that these three very different and basically incompatible coinages were in simultaneous use signals the degree of monetary chaos and desperation the Athenians faced in the final days of the war.

Fig 5 12

Fig 5 13

Fig 5 14

The repercussions of the situation in Athens may have stimulated an important monetary phenomenon: the imitation of owls in the Near East. Perhaps because the supply of bona fide owls from Athens was slowly being choked off while the demand for the coinage remained high, toward the end of the fifth century or at the beginning of the fourth, various entities, some perhaps private, many official, began issuing faithful copies of the owls (van Alfen 2011b). Often these owls bore subtle marks to indicate the coin's origins, whether place or political authority (fig. 5.14). Imitations were initially produced in Egypt and the southern Levant, but the practice spread to the South Arabian states and eventually, after the conquests of Alexander the Great, to Babylonia and Bactria, following important eastern trade routes. In most of these places, state-produced imitation owls preceded coinages with indigenous types, indicating both the importance of the owls in Aegean–Near Eastern trade and their role in the adoption of coinage, as opposed to Hacksilber, in local economies. As might be expected with so many highquality, yet clearly not Athenian, coins circulating alongside their prototypes, many imitations found their way to Athens, where in 375 B.C. the Athenians were compelled to institute legislation (SEG 26.72; Rhodes and Osborne 2003: no. 25; Ober 2008: ch. 6) regulating the use of the owls and their imitations in their marketplaces. The imitation phenomenon has only recently received concentrated attention; it will (p. 96) yet be a while before all known types are documented, die studies completed, and the socioeconomic reasoning behind the coinages worked out (Figueira 1998: ch. 20; Nicolet-Pierre 1979, 2003; van Alfen 2000, 2002, 2005, 2010; Gitler and Tal 2006; Fischer-Bossert 2010; Huth 2010).

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The Coinage of Athens, Sixth to First Century B.C.

Fig 5 15

Fig 5 16

How soon after the end of the Peloponnesian War the Athenians resumed the production of their silver coinage and at what scale remains one of the least understood areas of Athenian numismatics. Hoards from both Sicily (IGCH 2117; Nicolet-Pierre and Arnold-Biucchi 2000) and Egypt (IGCH 1663; Nicolet-Pierre 2004), as well as other finds in Attica (Kroll 2006), contain coins that may be examples of early fourth-century owls with subtle modernizations of the late fifth-century types (fig. 5.15). In any event, the Athenians in the first half of the fourth century do not appear to have minted coins on anywhere near the scale they did before 415 (Kroll 2011a). By the 350s, their relative poverty required strong corrective measures, beyond even those proposed by Xenophon in Poroi. Under Eubolus's leadership (355–342 B.C.) the Athenians instituted major fiscal reforms, which included the belated introduction of bronze token fractions (Kroll 1979), new mining leases at Laurion (Langdon 1991), and perhaps an extensive recall and recoining of all available silver in Attica (Kroll 2011b). Whatever the impetus may have been, the Athenians also embarked on another massive striking of owl coinage, this time with a wholly updated design, which now featured a pi-like element on Athena's helmet (fig. 5.16). As was the case with the later fifth-century owls, the production of pi-style owls occurred on such a vast scale that no scholar has yet ventured to undertake a die study of the series. Bingen's (1973) stylistic analysis, the only comprehensive study of the coinage to date, is a useful start but is perhaps misleading in its internal chronological implications. The concurrent bronze issues did not always share the Athena/owl types of the silver coins; in fact, some of the earliest Athenian bronze issues were related to the Eleusinian mysteries, (p. 97) with Triptolemos on the obverse and a piglet on a mystic staff on the reverse with the inscription ELEUSI (Kroll 1993: 30). Third- and second-century bronze issues introduced additional new iconographic subjects, including heads of Zeus and Artemis, deity statue types, Panathenaic amphorae, and cicadas (Kroll 1993: ch. 2; fig. 5.17).

Fig 5 17

Fig 5 18

Fig 5 19

Page 7 of 13

The Coinage of Athens, Sixth to First Century B.C.

Fig 5 20

Fig 5 21

Athenian silver coin production in the third century was punctuated by periods of inactivity during the occupations of Demetrius Poliocertes (294–286 B.C.) at the beginning of the century and of the Macedonians, led initially by Antigonus Gonatas (263/262–229), toward its end. The overall scale of production was seriously reduced, especially in larger denomination tetradrachms, during both occupations, perhaps less because of political injunctions than the fact that the coins of both generals found their way into circulation in Athens, precluding the need for indigenous coinage (Kroll 1993: 10–13; Oliver 2001). The Athenians continued to mint the pi-style owls until the end of the fourth century and perhaps until their capitulation to Demetrius in 294. Under the tyrant Lachares, and again in desperate straits as they had been a century before, the Athenians struck a series of emergency gold coins during Demetrius's siege by raiding the gold reserves on the Acropolis (fig. 5.18). Not long after the expulsion of Demetrius's garrison in 286, the Athenians resumed minting tetradrachms, but this time with yet another updated owl design, the style à quadridigité (Bingen 1973: 14–15; Nicolet-Pierre and Kroll 1990), so called again because of the revised helmet ornamentation (fig. 5.19). Likely struck from silver provided to the Athenians by Lysimachus, Ptolemy I (and II), and Antiparus as aid in the continuing struggle against Demetrius, the quadridigité types were struck, never in large quantities, until the 270s or 260s (Kroll 1993: 10). In their struggle against the Macedonians, the Athenians also minted a cooperative coinage of pentobols (p. 98) with the Ptolemies to fund their joint campaigns, and minted a second extraordinary series of tetrobols (fig. 5.20), which probably represented a soldier's daily wage (Kroll 1993: 11; 2003; fig. 5.21). When the Macedonians left in 229, the Athenians again minted owl tetradrachms; this new series displays yet another new helmet ornamentation, along with the addition of monograms on the reverse, the first time in Athenian history such administrative marks were added to coins, presaging the wealth of administrative data found on the later New Style coinage. Indeed, the gradual spreading and thinning of the flans in this series, as well as the introduction of a new perch for the owl, an amphora, and a surrounding wreath, was also a preview of the New Style coinage to come. This transitional coinage continued into the second century (Nicolet-Pierre 1982). The circulation of third-century owls appears more restricted than their classical period predecessors, with finds limited primarily to the Aegean but with significant hoards being found in central or northern Greece, where they appear to have inspired local imitations, if the rougher so-called heterogenous owls are, in fact, imitative (Nicolet-Pierre and Kroll 1990: 11–22).

Fig 5 22

It was in the second century that the Athenians recovered their minting vigor with the introduction of a type of owl so completely fresh in its presentation that numismatists refer to it as the New Style series (fig. 5.22); the ancients also celebrated the change in their nomenclature; the older types were “owl-bearing” (glaukophoroi), while the

Page 8 of 13

The Coinage of Athens, Sixth to First Century B.C. newer types were “wreath-bearing” (stephanephoroi), a reference to the new olive bough wreath on the reverse (Robert 1951: 105–135). It is because of the wealth of administrative data on the coins, found in the ancillary administrative inscriptions and symbols on the reverse, that the organization of the New Style (p. 99) coinage has been a manageable task, despite a scale of production comparable to earlier mass strikings. In her magisterial study of the series, Margaret Thompson (1961) determined that there were 111 or 112 sequential emissions, most of which were of a year's duration. Initially, each emission was signed by two officials, their names (or abbreviations thereof) appearing on the reverse, along with a special emission symbol. Gradually, the name of the month of the issue was added, abbreviated by a letter placed on the amphora, as was the name of a third magistrate, who in some cases served only for one month. On occasion, below the amphora, a two- or three-letter abbreviation also appears, which perhaps indicated the source of the bullion used for the coinage. While useful for organizing the coinage, the administrative data found on the coins still cannot answer many fundamental questions about the oversight and arrangement of minting operations. Although Habicht (1991) has demonstrated that the magistrates were selected from Athenian elites, we do not know their individual responsibilities, or how the administration of Athenian coinage in the Hellenistic period may have differed from that in the classical or archaic periods. We do know, however, that the Athenians, like many other minters in the post-Alexander world, adopted the tendency, mostly absent from archaic and classical coinages, of recording administrative data on coins, which was meant to be read and fully understood only by those within closed governmental circles.

Fig 5 23

Fig 5 24

Thompson's internal organization of the New Style coinage has received little criticism over the years, but her dates for the coinage (196/195–88/87 B.C.) have been seriously contested, with scholars initially divided among those supporting her “high” chronology, or modifications of it, and those supporting a “low” chronology with a starting date in the 160s (Lewis 1962; Mørkholm 1984). Most today accept the low chronology (cf. Habicht 1991). It is clear that it took a number of years, if not decades, for the Athenians to build momentum to reach the output levels of the time around the 130s, when up to 30 obverse dies per annum were being used in coin production, an indication of a truly significant scale of minting activity in Athens not seen since the later fourth century. The scale of production no doubt reflected the Athenians’ renewed political and economic impact in the Aegean, particularly after they acquired Delos in 167/166 B.C., as well as a growing regional demand for Athenian coinage. In late Hellenistic Greece, only the Athenians and the Thessalian League were producing any silver coinage of note, so demand for the New Style coinage remained constant, particularly from traders in Delos and governors (p. 100) in Roman Macedonia who used the coins to meet their military expenses (Kroll 1993: 14–15; de Callataÿ 1991– 1992); this universal role of Athenian coinage was further reinforced by the Delphic Amphictyony, which in the 120s required that all the Hellenes accept Athenian tetradrachms as currency (Lefevre 2002: no. 127). Hoard evidence leaves little doubt that Athenian tetradrachms were again circulating in large numbers beyond Attica; significant hoards have been found in Macedonia, Thrace, Asia Minor, Delos, and the Levant (cf. Flament 2007: 233–276).

Fig 5 25

Page 9 of 13

The Coinage of Athens, Sixth to First Century B.C. As was the case in the classical period, the enhanced role of Athenian coinage in regional economies inspired (official) imitations, particularly in the conflicts between Mithradates VI of Pontus and Rome in the 80s B.C. Mithradates adopted the Athenian types for a run of silver tetradrachms and gold staters around 87 B.C. (fig. 5.23); a year or so later, his adversary, the Roman consul Lucius Licinius Lucullus, had struck Athenian-type tetradrachms bearing two monograms ascribed to his brother, Marcus Licinius Lucullus, who was his treasurer (fig. 5.24). Furthermore, perhaps to aid Lucius Lucullus when he passed through Crete in 86, seven Cretan cities, Polyrrhenium, Cydonia, Gortyna, Lappa, Cnossus, Priansus, and Hierapytna, struck imitation tetradrachms with inscriptions or symbols indicating their origins (Le Rider 1968; fig. 5.25). The end of the Mithradatic wars, and the sack of Athens by Cornelius Sulla in 86, did not bring an immediate end to Athenian silver coinage. The now quasiRomanized silver continued to be struck until around 42 B.C., when in the aftermath of the Battle of Philippi the Athenians bowed to the competitive pressure of the Roman denarius and ceased silver coin production for good, by which time the flow of silver from Laurion appears to have finally dried up (Kroll 1993: 15). Fig. 5.1. Athens, 6th c. BC. AR didrachm. 8.16 g (ANS 1944.100.24095, E. T. Newell bequest). Fig. 5.2. Athens, 6th c. BC. AR didrachm. 8.62 g (ANS 1944.100.24093, E. T. Newell bequest). Fig. 5.3. Athens, 6th c. BC. AR obol. 0.58 g (ANS 0000.999.9879). Fig. 5.4. Athens, c. 525 BC. AR tetradrachm. 17.07 g, 7h (ANS 1944.100.24115, E. T. Newell bequest). Fig. 5.5. Athens, c. 515 BC. AR tetradrachm. Seltman group H. 16.97 g, 6h. (ANS 1957.172.1030, Hoyt Miller bequest). Fig. 5.6. Athens, c. 490 BC. AR tetradrachm. Seltman group E. 17.68 g, 5h. (ANS 1944.100.24140, E. T. Newell bequest). Fig. 5.7. Athens, c. 470 BC. AR tetradrachm. Starr group IV. 17.16 g, 9h (ANS 1923.999.95). Fig. 5.8. Athens, c. 460 BC. AR didrachm. 8.44 g, 5h (ANS 1944.100.24164, E. T. Newell bequest). Fig. 5.9. Athens, c. 460 BC. AR decadrachm. 42.41 g, 9h (ANS 1968.34.16, gift of B. Y. Berry). Fig. 5.10. Athens, late 5th c. BC. AR tetradrachm. 17.15 g, 9h (ANS 1997.9.196, John D. Leggett Jr. bequest). Fig. 5.11. Athens, 5th c. BC. AR tetartemorion. 0.16 g, 5h (ANS 1944.100. 24180, E. T. Newell bequest). Fig. 5.12. Athens, c. 406/405 BC. AR/AE (plated) drachm. 3.65 g, 9h (ANS 1966.232.1). Fig. 5.13. Athens, c. 407/406 BC. AV obol. 0.72 g, 9h (ANS 1944.100.24411, E. T. Newell bequest). Fig. 5.14. Palestine, late 5th/early 4th c. BC. AR double shekel? 16.52 g, 9h (ANS 1971.196.2). Fig. 5.15. Athens, early 4th c. BC. AR tetradrachm. 17.15 g, 9h (ANS 1959.137.1). Fig. 5.16. Athens, late 4th c. BC. AR tetradrachm. 17.21 g, 8h (ANS 1944.100.24405, E. T. Newell bequest). Fig. 5.17. Athens, c. 130–90 BC. AE dichalkon. 12 mm, 3.87 g, 12h (ANS 1944.100.26064, E. T. Newell bequest). Fig. 5.18. Athens, under Lachares, c. 295 BC. AV stater. 8.57 g, 8h (ANS 1967.152.274, Adra M. Newell bequest). Fig. 5.19. Athens, 3rd c. BC. AR tetradrachm. 17.19 g, 9h (ANS 1948.171.2, anonymous gift). Fig. 5.20. Athens, 3rd c. BC. AR tetrobol. 2.83 g, 9h (ANS 1944.100.24416, E.T. Newell bequest). Fig. 5.21. Athens, 3rd c. BC. AR pentobol. 3.48 g, 9h (ANS 1955.54.212, Jean B. Camman bequest). Fig. 5.22. Athens, c. 130 BC. AR tetradrachm. 16.80 g, 11h (ANS 1963.31.269). Fig. 5.23. Athens, under Mithradates VI, c. 87 BC. AV stater. 8.35 g, 12h (ANS 1967.152.278, Adra M. Newell bequest). Fig. 5.24. Athens, under Sulla (Marcus Licinius Lucullus), c. 86–84 BC. AR tetradrachm. 14.25 g, 12h (ANS 1944.100.24908, E. T. Newell bequest). Fig. 5.25. Crete, Hierpytna, 1st c. BC. AR tetradrachm. 16.26 g, 12h (ANS 1957.174.1).

Bibliography Bibliography Archibald, Z., J. Davies, and V. Gabrielsen, eds. (2005). Making, moving, and managing: The new world of ancient economies, 323–31 BC. Oxford. (p. 102) Ashton, R., and S. Hurter, eds. (1998). Studies in Greek numismatics in memory of Martin Jessop Price London.

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The Coinage of Athens, Sixth to First Century B.C. Babelon, E. (1901). Traité des monnaies grecques et romaines Vol. 1. Paris. Balmuth, M., ed. (2001). Hacksilber to coinage: New insights into the monetary history of the Near East and Greece. Numismatic Studies 24. New York. Bingen, J. (1973). “Le trésor monétaire Thorikos 1969.” Thorikos 6:7–59. Buxton, R. (2009). “The northern Syria 2007 hoard of Athenian owls: Behavioral aspects.” AJN 21: 1–27. Carradice, I., ed. (1987). Coinage and administration in the Athenian and Persian Empires The ninth Oxford symposium on coinage and monetary history BAR International Series 343. Oxford. de Callataÿ, F. (1991–1992). “Athenian new style tetradrachms in Macedonian hoards.” AJN 3–4:11–20. ——— , ed. (2011). Quantifying monetary supplies in Greco-Roman times Pragmateiai 19. Bari. Elsen, J. (2002). “La stabilité du système pondéral et monétaire attique (VIe–IIe s. avant notre ére).” RBN 148: 1– 32. Figueira, T. (1998). The power of money: Coinage and politics in the Athenian empire Philadelphia. Fischer-Bossert, W. (2008). The Athenian decadrachm ANSNM 168. New York. ——— . (2010). “Notes on the coinages of the Philistian cities.” In Huth and van Alfen: 133–196. Flament, C. (2007). Le monnayage en argent d’Athèns: De l’époque archaïque à l’époque hellénistique (c 550–c 40 av J -C ) Louvain-la-Neuve. Gitler, H., and O. Tal. (2006). The coinage of Philistia of the fifth and fourth centuries BC: A study of the earliest coins of Palestine. Milan. Habicht, C. (1991). “Zu den Münzmagistraten der Silberprägung des Neuen Stils.” Chiron 21: 1–23. Harris, W. V., ed. (2008). The monetary systems of the Greeks and Romans Oxford. Hurter, S., and C. Arnold-Biucchi, eds. (2000). Pour Denyse: Divertissements numismatiques Bern. Huth, M. (2010). “The Athenian imitations from Arabia.” In Huth and van Alfen: 227–256. Huth, M., and P.G. van Alfen, eds. (2010). Coinage of the caravan kingdoms: Studies in the monetization of ancient Arabia. Numismatic Studies 25. New York. Kagan, J. H. (1987). “The Decadrachm hoard: Chronology and consequences.” In Carradice: 21–28. Kallet, L. (2001). Money and the corrosion of power in Thucydides: The Sicilian expedition and its aftermath Berkeley. Kraay, C. (1956). “The archaic owls of Athens: Classification and chronology.” NC6 16: 43–68. Kroll, J. H. (1979). “A chronology of early Athenian bronze coinage, c. 350–250 BC.” In Mørkholm and Waggoner: 139–154. ——— . (1993). The Athenian agora Vol. 26. The Greek coins Princeton. ——— . (1996). “The Piraeus 1902 hoard of plated drachms and tetradrachms.” In XAPAKTHP: Aphieroma ste Mando Oikonomidou Athens: 139–146. ——— . (1998). “Silver in Solon's laws.” In Ashton and Hurter: 225–232. ——— . (2001). “Observations on monetary instruments in pre-coinage Greece.” In Balmuth: 77–91. ——— . (2003). “The evidence of Athenian coins.” In Palagia and Tracy: 206–212. Oxford.

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The Coinage of Athens, Sixth to First Century B.C. (p. 103) ——— . (2006). “Athenian tetradrachms recently discovered in the Athenian Agora.” RN 162: 57–64. ——— . (2008). “The monetary use of weighed bullion in Archaic Greece.” In Harris: 12–37. ——— . (2011a). “Athenian tetradrachm coinage of the first half of the fourth century B.C.” RBN 157: 3–26. ——— . (2011b). “The reminting of Athenian silver coinage, 353 B.C.” Hesperia 80: 229–259. Kroll, J. H., and N. M. Waggoner. (1984). “Dating the earliest coins of Athens, Corinth and Aegina.” AJA 88: 325– 340. Lalonde, G. V., M. K. Langdon, and M. B. Walbank, eds. (1991). The Athenian agora XIX Inscriptions: Horoi, poletai records, leases of public lands Princeton. Langdon, M. (1991). “Poletai records.” In Lalonde et al.: 76–132. Lefevre, F. (2002). Corpus des inscriptions de Delphes, IV Documents Amphictioniques Paris. Le Rider, G. (1968). “Un groupe de monnaies crétoises à type athéniens.” In Humanisme actif Mélanges Julien Cain Paris: 313–335. Lewis, D. M. (1962). “The chronology of the Athenian New Style coinage.” NC  7 2: 275–300. Meadows, A., and K. Shipton, eds. (2001). Money and its uses in the ancient Greek world Oxford. Mørkholm, O. (1984). “The chronology of the New Style coinage of Athens.” ANSMN 29: 29–42. Mørkholm, O., and N. M. Waggoner, eds. (1979). Greek numismatics and archaeology: Essays in honor of Margaret Thompson Wetteren, Switzerland. Nicolet-Pierre, H. (1979). “Les monnaies des deux derniers satrapes d’Égypte avant la conquête d’Alexandre.” In Mørkholm and Waggoner: 221–230. ——— . (1982). “De l’ancien au nouveau style athénien: Une continuité?” In Scheers 1982: 105–112. ——— . (1983). “Monnaies archaïques d’Athènes sous Pisistrate et les Pisistratides (c. 545–c. 510). I. Les tétradrachmes a la Gorgone.” RN 25:15–33. ——— . (1985). “Monnaies archaïques d’Athènes sous Pisistrate et les Pisistratides (c. 545–c. 510). II. Recherches sur la composition métallique des Wappenmünzen.” RN 27: 23–44. ——— . (2000). “Tétradrachmes athéniens en Transeuphratène.” Transeuphratène 20: 107–119. ——— . (2003). “Les imitations égyptiennes des tétradrachmes athéniens d’époque classique (Ve–IVe s. av. J.-C.).” Arkhaiologike ephemeris 142: 139–154. ——— . (2004). “Retour sur le trésor de Tel el-Athrib 1903 (IGCH 1663) conservé à Athènes.” Arkhaiologike ephemeris 139: 173–187. Nicolet-Pierre, H., and C. Arnold-Biucchi. (2000). “Le trésor de Lentini (Sicile) 1957 (IGCH 2117).” In Hurter and Arnold-Biucchi 2000: 165–171. Nicolet-Pierre, H., and J. Kroll. (1990). “Athenian tetradrachm coinage of the third century B.C.” AJN 2:1–35. Ober, J. (2008). Democracy and knowledge: Innovation and learning in classical Athens. Princeton. Oliver, G. (2001). “The politics of coinage: Athens and Antigonus Gonatas.” In Meadows and Shipton: 35–52. Palagia, O., and S. Tracy, eds. (2003). The Macedonians in Athens, 323–229 BC Oxford. Picard, O. (2001). “La découverte des gisements du Laurion et les débuts de la chouette.” RBN 147: 1–10. (p. 104) Price, M., and N. Waggoner. (1975). Archaic Greek coinage: The Asyut hoard London.

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The Coinage of Athens, Sixth to First Century B.C. Rhodes, P. J., and R. Osborne. (2003). Greek historical inscriptions 404–323 BC Oxford. Robert, L. (1951). Études de numismatique grecque Paris. Robinson, E. S. G. (1960). “Some problems in the later fifth century coinage of Athens.” ANSMN 9:1–15. Ruschenbusch, E. (1966). SOLONOS NOMOI Wiesbaden. Schaps, D. (2004). The invention of coinage and the monetization of ancient Greece. Ann Arbor. Scheers, S., ed. (1982). Studia Paulo Naster Oblata Louvain. Seltman, C. (1924). Athens, its history and coinage before the Persian invasion Cambridge. Starr, C. (1970). Athenian coinage 480–449 B C Oxford. ——— . (1982). “New specimens of Athenian coinage, 480–449 B.C.” NC 142: 129–132. Thompson, M. 1961. The New Style silver coinage of Athens. Numismatic Studies 10. New York. Tod, M. N. (1945). “Epigraphical notes on Greek coinage.” NC  6 5: 108–116. Trevett, J. (2001). “Coinage and democracy at Athens.” In Meadows and Shipton 2001: 23–34. van Alfen, P. G. (2000). “The ‘owls’ from the 1973 Iraq hoard.” AJN 12: 9–58. ——— . (2002). “The ‘owls’ from the 1989 Syria hoard, with a review of pre-Macedonian coinage in Egypt.” AJN 14: 1–58. ——— . (2005). “Ancient imitative and counterfeit coinage in context.” In Archibald et al.: 322–354. ——— . (2010). “Die studies of the earliest Qatabanian and Sabaean coinages.” In Huth and van Alfen: 257–302. ——— . (2011a). “Hatching owls: Athenian public finance and the regulation of coin production.” In de Callataÿ: 127–149. ——— . (2011b). “Mechanisms for the imitation of Athenian coinage: Dekeleia and mercenaries reconsidered.” RBN 157: 57–95. Peter G. Van Alfen Peter G. Van Alfen s Margaret Thompson Curator of Greek Co ns, Amer can Num smat c Soc ety, New York.

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Aegina, the Cyclades, and Crete

Oxford Handbooks Online Aegina, the Cyclades, and Crete Kenneth Sheedy The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Coinage Edited by William E Metcalf Pr nt Publ cat on Date: Feb 2012 Onl ne Publ cat on Date: Nov 2012

Subject: Class cal Stud es, Greek and Roman Archaeology, Anc ent Greek H story DO : 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195305746.013.0007

Abstract and Keywords During the fifth and sixth centuries BC, the massive issues of Aegina dominated coin circulation throughout the Cyclades and Crete. The Cycladic islands were quick to bring out their own coinages, clearly inspired by the example of Aegina. The Cretan poleis, however, did not open local mints until around 470 BC. After the Persian invasions, the fortunes of the Aeginetans declined, their involvement in Aegean trade was curtailed by Athenian interests, and the flow of Aeginetan staters dried up. The political life, and coinages, of states in the Cyclades and Crete evolved in very different directions, although coin circulation from the fourth century BC onward commonly featured silver from Rhodes and especially Athens. When the Romans completed their conquest of Greece in the first century BC, the Cyclades were included in the province of Achaea, while Crete was combined with Cyrenaica. Keywords Aegina Cyclades Crete coinages Persian invasion

AL HOUGH there is a certain geographic logic in considering Aegina, the Cyclades, and Crete together, the

numismatic histories of these islands were only connected during the sixth and fifth centuries BC. During these years the massive issues of Aegina dominated coin circulation throughout the Cyclades and Crete. The Cycladic islands were quick to bring out their own coinages, clearly inspired by the example of Aegina. The Cretan poleis, however, did not open local mints until around 470 BC. While the Cyclades and Crete are neighboring regions, their positions in networks of trade and communications did not offer the same opportunities (Horden and Purcell 2000). The Cyclades remained open to (and prospered from) the prevalent political and economic forces on either side of the Aegean (Reger 1994). In contrast, the Cretan cities were largely rural communities that enjoyed limited access to east-west oriented maritime highways (Alcock 1999). After the Persian invasions, the fortunes of the Aeginetans declined, their involvement in Aegean trade was curtailed by Athenian interests, and the flow of Aeginetan staters dried up. The political life, and coinages, of states in the Cyclades and Crete evolved in very different directions (compare Kraay 1976 with Mørkholm 1991), though coin circulation from the fourth century BC onward commonly featured silver from Rhodes and especially Athens. When the Romans completed their conquest of Greece in the first century BC, the Cyclades were included in the province of Achaea, while Crete was combined with Cyrenaica.

(p. 106) Aegina According to Ephorus (quoted by Strabo VIII, vi.16) and the Parian Chronicle, the first of the Greeks to mint silver were the inhabitants of the small island of Aegina in the Saronic Gulf. The surviving literary record, however, is problematic; Ephorus also claimed (Testimonia Numaria 28–30) that this coinage was struck on Aegina by Pheidon of Argos (seventh century BC) who lived well before coinage was invented (Brown 1950). The Greek cities of Asia Minor (notably Ephesus) were already minting electrum coins before the first silver issues of Aegina; it was the example of Lydian coinage, filtered through the experience of the eastern Greek states, that provided the idea and the techniques for coin manufacture on the Greek mainland and in the Aegean islands (Le Rider 2001: 41–100).

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Aegina, the Cyclades, and Crete Evidence that Aegina was the first Greek mint beyond Asia Minor has been seen in the use of an irregular incuse reverse pattern, thought to imitate earlier reverse patterns employed in Asia Minor (Brown 1950) and dated around 555–550 BC (fig. 6.1). It is not matched in the early dies from other mints, such as Athens and Corinth. The first known silver coinage was apparently created by Croesus of Lydia (c. 560–546 BC), as Herodotus suggests (I.94), and it has been concluded that the Aeginetans began minting shortly after the initial Lydian silver issues (Kroll and Waggoner 1984). This accomplishment would sit well with the reputation of these islanders as prominent traders in the Mediterranean. One of their key trade commodities was silver (perhaps got in good part from the Cycladic island of Siphnos) which they exchanged, for example, for Egyptian grain. If they had an early command of Greek silver, then their possession of the first mint outside Asia Minor seems understandable. The meaning of the inevitable Aeginetan obverse type, the turtle, remains uncertain. The turtle is associated with Aphrodite, who may have been worshiped at a temple overlooking the harbor of Aegina. Welter (1954) made the attractive (but unproven) suggestion that the archaic coins of Aegina depicted a turtle because the precoinage ingots of silver with which the Aeginetans traded were known as turtles (perhaps because of their shape). Kroll has noted that the word for “ingot” in Modern Greek is chelone (turtle), and that perhaps this usage goes back to earlier times (Kroll 2008).

Fig 6 1

Fig 6 2

Fig 6 3

The obverse type of the turtle (a general name for all testudines) undergoes a number of modifications. Between around 555/550 BC and around 470 BC, the carapace or shell of the creature on the coins typically has a central row of five “buttons” or stylized renderings of the shell's segments or scutes (fig. 6.1). From around 470 BC, there are two further lateral “buttons” (fig. 6.5). These are simplified and rather stylized depictions of a turtle, but the flippers and often heart-shaped shell suggest it is the loggerhead turtle (Caretta caretta) still found in the Aegean today (Duermit and Harding 2007). (p. 107) The loggerhead turtle has five central scutes. This marine turtle is replaced by a land tortoise (to follow the usual English names) around 445 BC; the squarer shell is divided into angular segments, and the flippers have become feet (fig. 6.6). It seems to be the common Greek tortoise (Testudo graeca).

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Aegina, the Cyclades, and Crete The archaic coins of Aegina typically have globular, dumpy, and sometimes misshapen flans (on their classification see Holloway 1971; Price and Waggoner 1975; Kroll and Waggoner 1984; Sheedy 2006). The first period of minting, around 555–530 BC, is characterized by experimentation in the design of the types, and by a series of limited issues (fig. 6.1, 6.2). The design of the turtle was not yet fixed: it might have a smooth shell with five or more buttons, or be divided into segments (fig. 6.2). The patterns within the reverse incuse also vary until they settle into a regular “Union Jack” (fig. 6.3). The level of coin production was low, with episodic minting confined to discrete batches of silver. The bulk of transactions involving Aeginetan silver in these years were still conducted with ingots. Aeginetan minting gains momentum around 530 or 525 BC, and then from around 515 BC the output becomes massive. The Aeginetans had evidently decided to convert the greater part of their state-held silver stocks (as well as silver in private hands?) into coin. The Aeginetans were the first of the Greeks to use coinage as means of facilitating the distribution and use of significant quantities of mineral wealth. Aeginetan coins circulated throughout the Peloponnese and central Greece, where they became a standard means of exchange (Nicolet-Pierre 1976). They are found in late sixth- and early fifth-century BC hoards in the Cyclades (IGCH 6 and 7) and on Crete (IGCH 1). Many states and whole regions (such as Crete) evidently preferred to use Aeginetan coins rather than mint local issues. Aeginetan coins circulated throughout the eastern Mediterranean, and are an important element in hoards found in Egypt and the Levant. The earliest dated hoard in which they are found, the Persepolis Foundation Deposit of around 514–511 BC (a single stater; IGCH 1789; Sheedy 2006 with bibliography), reflects the extent to which these coins now traveled.

Fig 6 4

Fig 6 5

A study of the typology of late archaic Aeginetan coin types is made difficult by the apparent simultaneous minting of turtle types with slightly different details, and by the fact that different reverse patterns might appear as the result of damage or simply wear to the punch die (Holloway 1960; Nicolet-Pierre 1976). A windmill pattern (five or four sunken triangles) became the common reverse pattern in the (p. 108) last decade of the sixth century BC (fig. 6.4); it may have emerged as a result of damage to the earlier Union Jack configuration, with engravers making a simpler pattern that would not be so easily distorted. A new variant appears around 490 BC, with a reverse divided by thicker walls into five segments consisting of two triangles and three irregular squares that form a pattern known as a “skew.” The Persian Wars (490–479 BC) severely interrupted Aegean trade. At the same time Athens, a traditional rival of the Aeginetans, emerged as the dominant political power and a ruthless trade competitor with the advantage of its own silver mines. The output of Aeginetan coinage, which had evidently been very heavy up until around 490, was greatly reduced after 479 BC. The following fifth-century BC issues are well illustrated by the contents of the Hollm (Albania) hoard (Gjongecaj and Nicolet-Pierre 1995). Shortly after the conclusion of the second Persian invasion,

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Aegina, the Cyclades, and Crete the coinage of Aegina was altered. The new style of coin is absent from the Asyut hoard (IGCH 1664; c. 475 BC) and is first noticed not in the Isthmia Deposit (IGCH 11, now placed at the end of the fifth century; Sheedy 2006) but in the Decadrachm Hoard (Carradice 1987; c. 465–460 BC), and its advent might then be dated around 470 BC. The introduction of a more evenly rounded, flatter, and broader flan and the standardization of the types is typical of early Classical coinages. The scutes of the turtle shell are now shown in a T pattern (fig. 6.5). The reverse incuse continues to carry a skew pattern but now with broader dividing bands (“large skew” type).

Fig 6 6

Fig 6 7

Economic recovery for Aegina and the Aegean states after the Persian Wars was slow. Hostility between Aegina and Athens continued; the island attempted to leave the Delian League in 458 but was captured by the Athenians in 457 BC (Figueira 1981). Athenian control lasted until 445 BC (Thirty Years Peace). The possibility that the mint was still active during this period has been debated (Gjongecaj and Nicolet-Pierre 1995). The final phase of the island's fifth-century BC coinage is often placed in the years between 445 BC and the Athenian expulsion of the Aeginetans in 431 BC (Thucy. II.27). These coins are distinguished by a new obverse type that can be identified as the common Greek tortoise (fig. 6.6). It is unlikely that a land creature was chosen to indicate the loss of their fortunes at sea (and the capture of the island by Athens in 457 BC). Perhaps it was introduced simply to separate the current issues of the mint from the huge quantity of worn (and largely below weight) turtle staters that remained in circulation throughout Greece but were perhaps now exchanged as bullion. This is suggested by the contrasting weight charts of the older marine (p. 109) turtle coins and the tortoise issues from the Hollm hoard (Gjongecaj and Nicolet-Pierre 1995). The Aeginetans returned to their island in 405 BC with the assistance of the Spartan admiral, Lysander. At the beginning of the fourth century BC, they resumed the minting of their previous types, possibly with the introduction of a more “orthogonal” reverse skew pattern, and occasionally with a single letter on the reverse. The continued circulation of large quantities of Aeginetan coins in the Peloponnese is attested by numerous hoards (for listings see Gjongecaj and Nicolet-Pierre 1995; Oeconomides 1992). In the second half of the fourth century, the minting of drachms and triobols became more common. During this period, the letters of the ethnic appear on the obverse or within the reverse segments (and sometimes continue from one side to the next). Magistrates’ initials also occur on the reverse, together with a dolphin (fig. 6.7). Bronze coinage begins in the fourth century and is continued until the second century BC. There is no firm evidence that Aegina minted again until the second century AD, when issues were produced under the Severan emperors (but see RPI, 305).

Cycladic Islands

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Aegina, the Cyclades, and Crete The Aegean Islands are today largely equated by historians with the Cyclades, a modern political division of Greece that currently includes some 25 inhabited islands and covers 2,572 square kilometers. In antiquity, the Cyclades, circa Delum in orbem sitae, unde et nomen traxere Cyclades (“lying around Delos in a circle from which they have drawn their name,” Pliny NH 4.65) were 12 to 15 island communities (the reported number varied) of Ionian ancestry that practiced common worship at the sanctuary of Apollo on Delos. The islands to the south, such as Thera and Melos, were Dorian (Strabo 10.5.2) and lay in the Cretan Sea. But the islands of the central and southern Aegean (Ionian and Dorian) shared a common fate politically (p. 110) (they were members, for example, of two Nesiotic Leagues), and their economies were governed by similar resources and shaped by a common environment. The Archaic Period (700–480 BC) was one of economic prosperity, cultural achievement, and political independence in the Cyclades. The common (but not exclusive) use of the Aeginetan weight standard (a stater of 12.2 g) among Aegean mints suggests an early Aeginetan dominance of external trade that influenced local systems of commercial weights. In the sixth century BC, at least seven Cycladic mints struck didrachm staters that resembled Aeginetan coins in having a well-raised, fairly simple obverse type and a rough incuse pattern on the reverse (Sheedy 2006). But other Aegean mints were different. Melos produced staters on the Milesian standard, Delos minted on the Attic-Euboic standard, and a group of western Cycladic islands (Kythnos, Seriphos, and at times Siphnos) produced issues weighing around 4 g that suggest a local attempt to find a drachm-like fraction that might be exchanged with coins on both the Aeginetan and Attic-Euboic standards. The island coinages of this period were the only Aegean issues ever to travel outside the region, for in the fifth century BC they are found in hoards in southern Asia Minor, the Levant, and Egypt (Sheedy 2006: 143–150). But with the exception of the sixthcentury staters of Naxos and the early fifth-century drachms of Paros, these were all relatively small issues. Hoards found in the Cyclades (IGCH 6 and 7) indicate that Aeginetan staters were prevalent. The local coins circulated side by side with the Aeginetan issues but were never plentiful enough to replace the imported staters or to commonly circulate outside of the island on which they were struck.

Fig 6 8

Fig 6 9

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Aegina, the Cyclades, and Crete Fig 6 10

The Cycladic islands were among the first of the Greeks to mint silver coins, perhaps as early as around 540 BC. As a group they were also distinguished by their general interest in producing coins during this early period. Some thirteen poleis (Karthaia, Ioulis, and Koresia—all on Keos, Kythnos, Seriphos, Siphnos, Melos, Thera, Anaphe, Tenos?, Delos, Naxos, Paros) on eleven islands are known to have struck coins in the archaic and early classical periods (Sheedy 2006). Perhaps the first in the Aegean to mint coins were the Siphnians (Sheedy 2006: 41–57). This fairly small island (73 square kilometers) possessed the only source of gold and silver in the Aegean, and along with Attica the only silver source outside of northern Greece. According to Herodotus (III.57), the Siphnians were the richest of the islanders until the last quarter of the sixth century BC. The size of their silver coinage (fig. 6.8) is small (16 known Aeginetan-weight didrachm staters struck from six obverse and six reverse dies). But it was minted well before most Greek states considered producing their own coinages. The presence of local silver mines must have suggested the production of coins, but it is also clear that the Siphnians did not operate a mint as a means of facilitating the export of the precious metal. Minting appears to stop around 525 BC, when the (p. 111) island was forced to pay a ransom of 100 talents to Samian pirates, and it was probably at this time that their mines started to fail. The largest and most wealthy island was Naxos (428 square kilometers), which together with Paros forms the natural geographic and trade center of the central Aegean (Nicolet-Pierre 1997; Sheedy 2006: 86–92). In the sixth century it produced a very large didrachm coinage (40 stater obverse dies are recorded) that was almost on the same scale as contemporary issues of Athens and Corinth. The first series, which depicted a kantharos with ivy wreath, was minted between 540/530 and 520/515 BC, when the tyrant Lygdamis was in power. The much larger second series, kantharos without wreath (fig. 6.9), was minted in the following years down to 500 or 490 BC. The attacks of the Persians in 500 BC and again in 490 BC brought an end to this brilliant era in the island's history. Paros emerged as the leading Cycladic island during the early fifth century BC (Sheedy 2006: 93–119). Silver would have reached Paros through trade, but it might also have come from Parian interests in mineral-rich Thasos and the coast of Thrace. After a small issue of Aeginetan-weight staters (fig. 6.10) with a goat obverse type, dated around 530–520/515 BC, the mint set about producing regular issues of “goat” drachms (6.1 g). This coinage perhaps served as a way of managing part of the myriad financial transactions generated by an ambitious building program during the late archaic period. Coin output increases dramatically in the early fifth century BC. This is in contrast to most mints in the region, which were producing less coinage than in the sixth century. Parian production was dramatically curtailed by the Persian invasion in 480 BC.

Fig 6 11

Fig 6 12

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Aegina, the Cyclades, and Crete

Fig 6 13

Fig 6 14

At the other end of the scale, three of the smallest poleis in the Cyclades, Karthaia, Ioulis, and Koresia on Keos, also produced early coinages (Papageorgiadou-Banis 1997; Sheedy 2006: 21–33). The mint of Karthaia may be numbered among the earliest in the Aegean, for its first issue of didrachm staters start in the decade 540/530 BC (fig. 6.11). These coinages are the closest to the Aeginetan “model.” This probably reflects the island's close links with Aegina because of its central position on routes from the Saronic Gulf to Euboea. Sometime in the decade 520– 510 BC, these three Keian mints agreed to add a common symbol to their independent types, a dolphin (fig. 6.12). Rather than a monetary union, it probably signifies an agreement that the (p. 112) coins of each mint would be accepted as legal currency (and not simply bullion) throughout the island. The well-known exception to the Aegean coinages derived from the Aeginetan model is Melos, though it is far from being the only exception (Sheedy 2006: 58–71). Dorian Melos produced staters and fractions on the Milesian weight standard of 14.6 g. There are a small group of “homeless” Aegean staters that were also struck on the Milesian standard (notably a stater in the BM depicting the head of a satyr), indicating that Melos was not alone. The archaic Melian coins (fig. 6.13) all seem to have been minted before around 515 BC. These small issues (only seven staters are known) carry the punning device of a mēlon or apple; they were struck on surprisingly rough flans, and have a variety of simple incuse patterns that owe nothing to those of Aegina. In contrast, Dorian Thera, which lies closest to Crete, produced a didrachm coinage modeled on that of Aegina (Sheedy 2006: 58–71). It was a fairly large output (second only to Naxos)—with some 65 examples known—but it also seems to have been produced in a short period, perhaps between 525/520 and 500 BC (fig. 6.14).

Fig 6 15

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Aegina, the Cyclades, and Crete

Fig 6 16

(p. 113) The coinage of Delos, depicting the kithara of Apollo (fig. 6.15), was minted on the Attic-Euboic standard with a stater of 8.6 g (Sheedy 2006: 76–85). The use of this standard, which is singular among the Aegean islands, has been attributed to the intervention of the Athenian tyrant Peisistratos. But there is no real evidence of Athenian domination at this time and it seems more likely that the weight standard was the result of the earlier importance of Euboean traders. The influence of this standard may also been seen in the archaic and early classical coinage of Kythnos. This mint's type, the forepart of a boar (fig. 6.16), is known from the Santorin hoard (IGCH 7; Sheedy 2006: 34–40) and from a classical hoard found on Kythnos itself (Kyrou and Artemis 1998). These coins nearly all weigh 4 g, and might then pass as tetrobols on the Aeginetan standard or as slightly light drachms on the AtticEuboic standard (4.3 g).

Fig 6 17

Fig 6 18

Cycladic minting activity in the fifth century after 479 BC was subdued, with two exceptions (both mints that had been closed for more than 40 years). Shortly after the conclusion of the Persian invasions, Siphnos issued a remarkable if small series of didrachm staters and fractions (Sheedy 2006: 48–50). The influence of Aegina has been replaced by that of Athens, and it is possible that the very accomplished dies with the head of Apollo for the obverse and an eagle in flight on the reverse were cut by Athenian engravers (fig. 6.17). Melos produced its own remarkable early classical coins, all Milesian-weight staters. These issues were more extensive, and minting activity continued from around 475 until 416 BC. Between around 475 and 440 BC, the Melian mint experimented with new types, including an oinochoe as the obverse type, before returning to an apple, and with reverse incuse cross patterns and a proper type of three dolphins. Sometime after 440 BC, the Melians began minting a new series with the apple obverse (fig. 6.18) but now with at least 30 different reverse types (triskeles, (p. 114) dolphins, etc.). In 416 BC, the island was captured by the Athenians and its male inhabitants put to death. It has been suggested that this last coin series was minted by the Melians during their attempt to withstand the siege, but it is more likely that the coins were struck over a much longer period (Kraay 1964; Sheedy 2006: 6–71). The fourth-century Cycladic issues were surveyed by Babelon, who unfortunately included many coins of the third

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Aegina, the Cyclades, and Crete century BC (Babelon 1914: col. 811–872). For this and the Hellenistic period we have modern studies of Amorgos (Liampi 2004), Ios (Sheedy 2010), Keos (Papageorgiadou-Banis 1997; Sheedy 1998), Kythnos (Kyrou and Artemis 1998; Sheedy 1996; Sheedy and Papageorgiadou-Banis 1998), Naxos (Nicolet-Pierre 1988, 1999), Syros (NicoletPierre and Amandry 1992), and Tenos (Étienne 1990). After the end of the Peloponnesian War, few of the Cycladic islands had the resources to produce more than sporadic issues of small silver coins. Instead they turned to bronze coinages, which appear from the mid-fourth century BC. The few hoards (Siphnos 1930, IGCH 91; c. 320– 300 BC; Newell 1934) suggest that coin circulation in the Aegean toward the end of the fourth century BC was dominated by Attic and Rhodian coins. The “Rhodian” standard had replaced the Aeginetan for the silver coinage of most Cycladic mints by the third century BC (the commonly used name “Rhodian” is here retained, but the heavier version, sometimes called the Chian standard, with a tetradrachm of 15.6 g, was used in the islands, in contrast to the lighter Hellenistic Rhodian standard, with a tetradrachm of 13.6 g; see Mørkholm 1991). During the fourth century BC, Naxos minted tetrobols (or Rhodian-weight drachms), obols, trihemiobols, and diobols on the Aeginetan standard with a new obverse type, the head of Dionysus, while the traditional kantharos was placed on the reverse (Nicolet-Pierre 1999). Paros produced smaller issues of drachms, hemidrachms, and diobols on the Rhodian standard. There were, however, exceptions to this pattern of limited issues of small silver coins, and they anticipate later coinages intended to enhance the fame of the minting island. The most notable was Ios, which called attention to the tomb of Homer on the little island through a very small series of Rhodian-weight didrachms minted around 350–320 BC, later replaced by bronze issues (Sheedy 2010). On the obverse is a fine head of Homer and his name; on the reverse is the ethnic within a wreath. This head might be compared with that of Zeus-Aristeas on rare silver Attic-weight didrachms from Ioulis and from Karthaia, the last silver issues from Keos (Papageorgiadou-Banis 1997: 27 and 38). Finally, from the failing output of its mines Siphnos minted Aeginetanweight staters and tetrobols, and at least one issue of gold tetrobols, the only known gold coin from a Cycladic mint (Dressel 1899: 216). The Hellenistic period sees a revival of minting, with some 26 Cycladic mints in operation (perhaps as many as 10 for the first time). Most of the coinages were in bronze, but there were also small issues of some largedenomination silver coinages. (p. 115) These were occasionally of the highest artistic standards and were designed to call attention to the reputation and claims of the minting polis. Tenos minted the only Attic-weight tetradrachms in the Cyclades with Alexander's types, a small issue at the end of the fourth century BC (Étienne 1990). In the third century BC, Tenos struck silver tetradrachms and didrachms on the Rhodian standard, showing Poseidon seated on a throne or standing, a reference to the local cult and shrine of Poseidon and Amphitrite. Bronze issues that continue into the first century BC employ the same or related types (Étienne 1990). The first Nesiotic League, established in 314 BC, had its headquarters on Tenos, and the coinage was probably designed to call attention to the island's new political importance and to the international significance of its sanctuary. The most spectacular of all Hellenistic Cycladic coins, however, were the silver Attic-weight tetradrachms of Syros (fig. 6.19) advertising the little-known local cult of Demeter and the Kabiroi (Nicolet-Pierre and Amandry 1992; Sheedy 2010). Minted in the mid-second century BC, this was the single example of a Cycladic “stephanephoros” coinage (in which the reverse type was enclosed within a wreath); the divine twins were shown on the reverse within a laurel wreath together with their names and that of Syros. Naxos reemerged as the most important mint in the region (Nicolet-Pierre 1999). The production of Naxian silver “kraterophoroi” seems to begin at the very end of the third century BC and to continue into the second century BC. These were Rhodian-weight didrachms and drachms depicting a bearded head of Dionysos and on the reverse a kantharos and thyrsos. Nicolet-Pierre (1999) identified three different series: the first carries the names of some 11 different magistrates; the second is confined to a few coins naming ΧΑΡΟΠΟΣ ΑΡΙΣΤΟΞΕΝΟΥ, perhaps the man known from a dedication on Delos (IG XI, 4, 1199) dated to the beginning of the second century BC; while the last series, 6 drachms in the name of ΑΡΙΣΤΕΑΣ, was revealed by a hoard, Naxos 1926 (IGCH 255). A more extensive bronze coinage (Nicolet-Pierre 2005) was minted from the fourth to the first centuries BC. The Naxos 1926 hoard, dated around 150 BC, contained silver coins of Athens and Rhodes and shows their continuing importance for coin circulation in the Aegean during the first half of the second century BC.

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Aegina, the Cyclades, and Crete

Fig 6 19

The Hellenistic mint of Paros may have been as active as that on Naxos and perhaps had a similar history of production. The critical hoard for chronology (for this and other island mints) is Karystos 1930 (IGCH 210), an unpublished find believed to (p. 116) have contained nine almost uncirculated coins from perhaps all of the four main Parian silver issues from this period. The hoard has been dated around 200 BC, though Nicolet Pierre (1999) has argued for a lower date of around 200–180 BC. The Parian issues, all of Chian weight, were probably produced in the following order: first, didrachms depicting a young female head (Artemis or Kore) on the obverse and a goat with the abbreviated names of at least six different magistrates (the best known being ΑΝΑΧΙΚ[ΡΑΤΕΣ]; second, tetradrachms with an obverse young head of Dionysos and a reverse depicting Demeter Thesmophoros seated on a cista mystica, minted with the name of either ΑΡΙΣΤΟΔΗΜ[ΟΣ] or ΣΙΛΗΝΟΣ; third, tetradrachms signed by ΠΕΙΣΙΒ[ΟΥΛΟΣ?] again showing the head of Dionysos and on the reverse a seated poet with lyre who must be Archilochos. The last series consisted of didrachms with the head of Demeter and the ethnic within a wreath on reverse, and drachms with Kore and a similar reverse but with the addition of the names of several magistrates. These coins were minted towards the end of the third century and at the beginning of the second century BC. Paros also minted an extensive bronze coinage. Other, smaller Cycladic mints mostly adhere to this general pattern of very limited silver issues in the third century BC (and a few from the early second century BC) and bronzes that might start in the fourth century BC but are mostly from the third and second centuries with some continuation into the first century BC. Among the mints for which recent research has provided more information are the three poleis and Koinon of Amorgos (Aigiale, Minoa, and Arkesine) that produced bronze coins, perhaps from the end of the third until the beginning of the second century BC (Liampi 2004). The Koinon and three poleis of Keos (Karthaia, Ioulis, Koressos) also minted bronze coins in the third and second centuries BC; they commonly employed an obverse type depicting the local herodeity Aristaeus (Papageorgiadou-Banis1997; Sheedy 1998). Key political or military events in the Aegean do not often find a reflection in local coinages. At the beginning of the second century BC, however, Tenos and Kythnos (fig. 6.20) added the Rhodian rose to their normal bronze reverse types. It seems likely that the Rhodians garrisoned both islands in an attempt to counter nearby Pergamene bases and maintain control over of the Cyclades (Sheedy 1996).

Fig 6 20

The Aegean islands were included in the Roman province of Achaea, created under Augustus in 27 BC (RPC I:244– 286; but see Étienne 1990: 127–134). Their provincial coinages, with types that typically illustrate local cults, consist of small, relatively sporadic issues of bronze. The later prominence of the mints at Melos, Syros, and Thera reflects the increased importance of these islands as harbors for Roman ships. Until AD 69 there were four, perhaps five, provincial mints: Keos, Melos, Myconos, Tenos, and Ios (?). The exact dating of these bronze coins is difficult, for only two issues of the 12 listed in RPC I and Supp carry a portrait of an emperor: RPC 1, Supp 1300, a unique silver coin of Keos, apparently depicts the head of Augustus (Papageorgiadou-Banis 1997: 107). (p. 117) The most active mint seems to have been Melos, which produced at least seven issues of large bronzes (RPC I, 1296: 30 mm), including five issues naming Pankles (Pankleos) apparently an official in the reign of Nero.

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Aegina, the Cyclades, and Crete While most Cycladic mints only periodically issued provincial issues, Syros was determined to produce at least one issue for each ruler. Two denominations of one issue of leaded bronze (RPC II:263–264) produced under Domitian depict on the reverse the facing heads of Domitian and Domitia (as the Kabeiroi?) together with the symbols of corn ear, bee, and star. Under Marcus Aurelius, Syros minted a large bronze coin (RPC IV Online, no. 4710; 21 mm) with the same reverse composition, but now the facing heads were identified as Faustina II and Marcus Aurelius as Caesar. The same reverse die was later combined with an obverse showing Antoninus Pius (RPC IV, 4704). Island minting activity revived and apparently reached its peak under the Antonine emperors, for some 42 issues are recorded in RPC IV Online. Most activity is concentrated in the reign of Marcus Aurelius (AD 147–180) with issues also struck in the names of his wife, Faustina II, his co-emperor, Lucius Verus and his wife, Lucilla. Andros, Ios, Melos, Minoa on Amorgos, Naxos, Paros, Pholegandros, Syros, Tenos, and Thera all produced coins in this period. The last phase of minting occurs under the Severan emperors. This is also the last period of coin production in Greece in general, but while there are a large number of Greek mints at this time, and considerable activity, the number of mints in the Aegean is reduced (Heuchert 2005: 32–40). Aigiale and Minoa on Amorgos, Andros, Naxos, Siphnos, and Syros are known from only one or two issues in this period, and these are often their last. Facing busts of Caracalla and Geta are depicted on the obverse of the last issue from Syros (SNG Cop. 765), which also shows Isis on the reverse. Perhaps the very last issue from a Cycladic mint is that from Siphnos (BMC Crete 12) minted under Gordian III (A.D. 238–244) showing the emperor on the obverse and Pallas Athena on the reverse. It is fitting that the very first mint in the Cyclades should also have been the last.

Crete While the defining of public fees and fines in monetary terms appears to have been well advanced in archaic Cretan societies, as indicated by the Law Code of Gortyna (IC, IV, 72; Willetts 1967), the island's poleis did not mint coins before around 470 BC (Stefanakis 1999). Instead, there was a reliance on imported coinage during the late archaic period, and the widespread use of other people's coins remained a feature of circulating currency in Crete. It has been suggested that the absence of native silver sources inhibited early minting (Le Rider 1966). The Cretan poleis were largely small, inward-looking communities during the sixth and fifth centuries BC (Viviers 1999). If the supply of silver was limited and often sporadic, then it could only have (p. 118) played a limited role as money, and it is likely that the Cretan communities then saw only an occasional need to produce their own silver coins. Hoard evidence shows a changing reliance on different foreign coinages—notably Aeginetan staters until around 330 BC, didrachms of Cyrene between around 330 BC and around 270 BC, Rhodian coins and later, Athenian New Style tetradrachms. The division of Crete into the “hundred cities” (Perlman 1992) restricted the power of any one state, and might have also promoted a common acceptance of imported currencies that were generally available and well known, unlike the local issues. Cretan mints characteristically resorted to overstriking imported coins. This ensured a supply of metal. It also removed the expense of producing flans and eliminated the problem of weight loss that could occur when coins were remelted. From the third century BC, they practiced extensive countermarking, which achieved the same result (Stefanakis and Traeger 2005). Cretan mints commonly reduced the weight of overstruck flans. Until around 330 BC, a great number of Cretan coins were produced from Aeginetan staters that originally weighed around 12.2 g, but the restruck coins are reduced by between 6% and 12% (Garraffo 1974). It has been suggested (Stefanakis 1999) that we can recognize a Cretan standard of around 11.2 g; this seems to have emerged from common practice rather than agreement, and was not strictly adhered to by all mints. By reducing the weight of the overstruck staters, the Cretan cities evidently prevented their “underweight” silver coins from leaving the island.

Fig 6 21

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Aegina, the Cyclades, and Crete

Fig 6 22

Prior to around 470 BC, the circulating coinage on Crete consisted largely of staters from Aegina; the earliest hoard on the island, the Matala Hoard (IGCH 1) from around 500 BC, contained some 70 Aeginetan didrachms (Holloway 1971; Price and Waggoner 1975). The earliest local issues were imitations of Aeginetan coins (fig. 6.21) minted by the Aeginetan colony of Kydonia (Chania) in western Crete (Robinson 1928; Stefanakis 1999). These are not exact copies of Aeginetan coins: the turtle type is slightly different (the shell of the turtle is divided into three rows of parallel segments), and a symbol, a crescent, is regularly added to the obverse and or reverse. Furthermore, the weight is reduced: the “pseudaeginetica” were nearly all hemidrachms, a coin Aegina itself rarely struck, weighing around 2.75 g. (not 3.13 g). The reduction of mint output at Aegina after the Persian Wars might have forced the Cretans to supplement the supply of coins, and thus begin minting (Stefanakis 1999), but if Cretan mints were simply reusing existing stocks, restriking old coins would not have solved the problem. Besides, it seems that there was still a great quantity of Aeginetan coins in circulation. Perhaps Kydonia wished to (p. 119) produce its own coins to facilitate payments better made with a smaller denomination than the Aeginetan stater. The city introduced coins with its own name and types around 330/320 BC but persisted with the minting of “pseudaeginetica” until around 280/270 BC. The standard account of the Cretan mints is Le Rider (1966), though a number of recently published hoards help to refine details of chronology and circulation (Touratsoglou 1995; Trifiró 2001). The three main cities during the historical period, Knossos, Gortyna, and Kydonia, were also its most important mints. It is regrettable that mint studies of these cities have yet to appear. Wroth's 1886 British Museum catalogue and his 1884 commentary remain fundamental surveys. From the mid-fifth century BC, the leading cities in the fertile central region of Crete began minting their own coins. The very first, Gortyna (fig. 6.22) and nearby Phaistos, seem to have entered into an agreement, for they strike coins with the same types: Europa seated on the bull's back (the type went to the left on coins of Phaistos) and on the reverse a lion's scalp. Boustrophedon coin inscriptions with TO ΠΑΙΜΑ (the minting) name the city in the nominative, sometimes written out in full. Raven (Le Rider 1966) discovered that Gortyna employed nearly twice as many dies as Phaistos (22, against 12 obverse dies) and was evidently the more important partner. These issues demonstrate features that remain typical of Cretan coinages. There is a pronounced interest in types depicting figures from the mythic past of each community. In style and execution, their subjects generally have an archaic appearance that belies their true date. Prior to the end of the fourth century BC, the inscriptions are distinctly Cretan in the use they make of archaic letter forms and wording. Finally, as noted, the Cretan mints are distinguished by an unparalleled reliance on imported coinages to provide flans for overstriking. At the start of the last quarter of the fifth century BC (if not a little earlier) two new mints appear in central Crete: Knossos and Lyttos. In his classic article “Cretan Coins,” written well before the excavations of Arthur Evans, Wroth (1884) cited the iconography of coins from Knossos as support for the notion that the Crete of Minos was a historical epoch. On the earliest issues we see the minotaur on the obverse and a stylized labyrinth (fig. 6.23), to which is later added a central square with the head of Ariadne on the reverse. After 360 BC, the head of Ariadne (?) takes over as the obverse type, and a seated man, who is identified as Minos on one die, occupies the reverse. On the coinage of Lyttos (fig. 6.24) we see an eagle on the obverse (a symbol of Zeus Cretagenes) and on the reverse the head of a sow (the nurse of Zeus on Mount Dikte) within an incuse square.

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Aegina, the Cyclades, and Crete

Fig 6 23

Fig 6 24

(p. 120) The spread of minting activity on Crete during the fourth century BC was slow until the last decades. Three minor mints appear prior to 350 BC: Sybrita and Axos in the western central region, and the first mint in the east of the island, Itanos. The coinage of Itanos, which may have begun as early as the fifth century BC, featured tritons and sea monsters in issues prior to 330 BC, and then regularly employed the types of Athena and a standing eagle (Traeger 2000–2001). After an initial issue depicting Hermes, Sybrita (c. 360 BC?) adopted the coin types of Gortyna for a small output, suggesting an alliance. In the mid-fourth century BC, Phaistos and Gortyna began using their own types. Phaistos depicted Hermes and the local protector of the island, the bronze giant Talos (fig. 6.25), but also continued to use the earlier obverse type of Europa on the bull until around 340 BC, when Hercules was introduced as an obverse type. The coins of Gortyna (fig. 6.26) depict a woman (Europa, Britomartis?) seated in a tree on the obverse and a bull with head reverted on the reverse. Hierapytna in the south produced its first silver issues around 330 BC (Stefanaki 2001). There is a noticeable increase in the size of stater flans (through hammering) between 380 and 340 BC and a significant improvement in style: some of the finest Cretan coins are minted in this period.

Fig 6 25

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Aegina, the Cyclades, and Crete

Fig 6 26

There is a visible increase in minting activity on Crete in the last decades of the fourth century BC. Mørkholm (1991: 88) has referred to it as “an explosion of silver coinage,” mostly on a reduced Aeginetan standard. In the years between around 330 (p. 121) and 280/270 BC, an estimated 28 Cretan mints were active, many striking coins for the first time (Le Rider 1966). After 330 BC a sizeable flow of coins from Cyrene reaches Crete; the evidence of hoards (Touratsoglou 1995) indicates that they dominated coin circulation on the island and became the preferred coin to overstrike at local mints, especially at Gortyna and Phaistos. Mørkholm (1991: 13) noted that when reduced in weight by 1–2 g they matched the Aeginetan standard traditionally popular on Crete. War was an important economic agent in Cretan life (Brulé 1978), and it has been argued that Cretan mercenaries serving in Cyrene brought back the coinage of their paymasters. Thibron, for example, recruited Cretan mercenaries in an unsuccessful bid to capture land in Cyrenaica around 322 BC. Trade with Cyrene may have also contributed to this inflow of silver. Archaic and peculiarly Cretan letter forms on the coins are finally abandoned. After 270 BC there is a noticeable decline in the minting of silver coinages (Le Rider 1966). The supply of silver, notably staters from Cyrene, had dried up. Many Cretan mints now close, though some (Gortyna, Kydonia) produced debased or plated silver coins before turning to bronze coinage (Stefanakis 2000a). The issue of bronze coins in Crete begins around 260 BC; the bronze types typically continue those of earlier silver issues. Perhaps the earliest is a bronze issue (a chalkous?) from Knossos showing the heads of deities on both sides (e.g. Apollo/Artemis, Zeus/Artemis; Jackson 1971b). An inscription from Gortyna (IC IV, 162) of the mid-third century BC forbids the use of the city's earlier silver obols, and demands acceptance of its new bronze issues (Jackson 1971a). A recent study of the bronze issues of Hieraptyna by Stefanaki (2001) illuminates the general topic of Cretan bronzes. Gortyna joined Knossos in an alliance prior to the Lyttian War in 220 BC and struck an impressive coinage consisting of gold staters of Attic weight (head of Zeus/bull standing), silver drachms and hemidrachms (reverse with Europa on bull) of reduced Aeginetan weight, and bronze coins in several denominations (Jackson 1971a: 46). Most Cretan mints, however, did not recommence striking silver coins until around 190 BC, when silver issues on a reduced standard were struck during a period of conflict between cities in central Crete (including Knossos) and Kydonia (the issues of Kydonia are represented in a 1922 hoard from Chania: Seager 1924).

Fig 6 27

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Aegina, the Cyclades, and Crete

Fig 6 28

At the end of the third and the beginning of the second centuries BC, Rhodian-type drachms weighing 1.91–2.50 g (a reduced Rhodian standard) were minted on Crete. These coins were probably struck at Gortyna by Rhodian generals (including Ainetor, Gorgos, and Straton) during their campaigns on the island against local cities that served as bases for pirates (Ashton 1987, 1988; Hackens 1970; Stefanakis and Stefanaki 2006). The circulation of these coins is mostly confined to east Crete, and they have been linked to the employment of mercenaries (Ashton 1987). Rhodes had been an important trading state from the beginning of the fourth century BC, and Rhodian coins were a significant part of the circulating currency in the Aegean (Apostolou 1995). New Style Attic coinage became the dominant foreign coinage in Crete during the second and first centuries BC. (p. 122) Tetradrachms on a reduced Attic standard but with local types were minted by Cretan states, such as Kydonia, Knossos, and Gortyna (fig. 6.27), toward the end of the second century BC. Of particular interest is a silver coin struck by Polyrrhenium shortly after 220 BC with the head of Apollo (sometimes thought to show the features of Philip V) and Athena or Diktynna (Wroth 1886: xvii). Kydonia, Arkades, Gortyna, and Hierapytna created stephanephoros types (probably echoing Attic fashion). The silver coins of Hierapytna seem to be connected to a prosperity derived in part from the trade in wine (Stefanaki 2001). At least seven Cretan cities (including Knossos, Kydonia, Gortyna [fig. 6.28], and Hieraptyna) minted imitations of New Style Athenian coins during the first century BC, perhaps around 87/86 BC (Le Rider 1968). These issues have been linked to silver offered to Cretan states either by Mithridates VI Eupator (Metenidis 1998) or by the Romans (Le Rider 1968: 313–335; Warren 1996: 297–307). Crete was conquered by the Roman general Metellus in 67 BC, and the island was combined with Cyrenaica to create a new Roman province. Local production continued, and imported Greek coins, especially those of Athens, rather than Roman denarii, also remained a feature of coin circulation during the first century BC (Buttrey 1987). The power of Rome was recognized in the adoption of new coin types (RPC I: 216–243). Gortyna, the capital of Roman Crete, issued tetradrachms of New Style weight and fabric but now with the obverse type of Roma helmeted. The Romans themselves opened mints on Crete and in Cyrenaica that from around 34 BC produced joint bronze coinages; it seems those coins with Latin types were intended for circulation in Crete. Among the generals who minted on Crete were P. Lepidius, L. Lollius, and Crassus (RPC I: 216–220). Kydas the Cretarch produced (43 BC?) a small issue of silver coins that imitate the cistophori of Asia Minor (RPC I: 222, 224 no. 926). The mints established by the Romans followed a Roman monetary system, to which most of the Cretan civic bronzes also conform. It seems (RPC I:229) that during (p. 123) the Roman period at least nine Cretan cities issued coins, but most ceased minting under Caligula. The main mint was Roman Cnossus (Colonia Iulia Nobilis) founded after 27 BC. Between the reigns of Tiberius and Nero, Cretan cities, such as Axos, Kydonia, and Eleutherna, struck silver issues of very limited size. The Koinon of the Cretans began minting coins in its own name under Claudius and became the main source of bronze issues under the Flavians (RPC II). Production continues without any apparent break until the reign of Antoninus Pius. For their assistance with the text I wish to thank Professor J. Melville Jones, Professor J. H. Kroll, Dr. Vasiliki Stefanaki, and Dr. Manolis Stefanakis. For kindly permitting me to use illustrations of coins, I wish to thank the Alpha Bank Collection (Dr. D. Tsangari), the American Numismatic Society (Dr. Peter Van Alfen), the Trustees of the British Museum, Prof. Nota Kourou (University of Athens), and the Australian Centre for Ancient Numismatic Studies. Fig. 6.1. Aegina, c. 555–550 B.C. Oxford.

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Aegina, the Cyclades, and Crete Fig. 6.2. Aegina, c. 550–530 B.C. ACANS 03A73. Fig. 6.3. Aegina, c. 520–515–500/490 B.C. Pitchfork Collection (Sydney). Fig. 6.4. Aegina, c. 510–490 B.C. ANS 1968.34.123. Fig. 6.5. Aegina, c. 470–457 B.C. Athens: Alpha Bank inv. 3939. Fig. 6.6. Aegina, c. 445–431 B.C. ANS 1941.153.637. Fig. 6.7. Aegina, c. 350–338 B.C. ANS 1944.100.36409. Fig. 6.8. Siphnos, c. 545–525 B.C. Athens, Alpha Bank inv. 3944. Fig. 6.9. Naxos, c. 525/515–490 B.C. ANS 1944.100.27904. Fig. 6.10. Paros, c. 530–520/515 B.C. ANS 1944.100.279. Fig. 6.11. Karthaea, c. 540–520–515 B.C. ANS 1941.143.625. Fig. 6.12. Koresia, c. 510–480 B.C. ANS 1957.172.1218. Fig. 6.13. Melos, c. 540–520/515 B.C. ANS 1977.147.1. Fig. 6.14. Thera, c. 525/520–500 B.C. Athens, Alpha Bank inv. 2155e. Fig. 6.15. Delos, c. 515/510–490/480 B.C. Tenos Museum. Fig. 6.16. Kythnos, c. 530/520–500 B.C. ANS 1944.100.45664. Fig. 6.17. Delos, c. 475–460 B.C. British Museum. Fig. 6.18. Melos, c. 440–416 B.C. ANS 1944.100.27879. Fig. 6.19. Syros, c. 150 B.C. Athens, Alpha Bank inv. 2067. Fig. 6.20. Kythnos, 2nd century B.C. ANS 1944.100.27861. Fig. 6.21. Kydonia, 5th century B.C. ANS 1944.100.40425. Fig. 6.22. Gortyna, c. 450 B.C. ANS 1944.100.40555. Fig. 6.23. Knossos, c. 425–360 B.C. ANS 1944.100.40343. Fig. 6.24. Lyttos, c. 320–270 B.C. Athens, Alpha Bank inv. 4122. Fig. 6.25. Phaistos, c. 300–280 B.C. Athens, Alpha Bank inv. 10132. Fig. 6.26. Gortyna, c. 360–322 B.C. Athens, Alpha Bank inv. 2069. Fig. 6.27. Kydonia, 2nd–1st century B.C. Athens, Alpha Bank inv. 10249. Fig. 6.28. Gortyna, 1st century B.C. ANS 1967.152.368.

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Aegina, the Cyclades, and Crete Liampi, K. (2004). “The Coinage of Amorgos: Aigiale, Arkesine, Minoa and the Koinon of the Amorgians.” RN 160: 63–113. McDonald, D. (1996). “Mercenaries and the Movement of Silver to Crete in the Late Fourth Century BC.” NomKhron 15: 41–47. Metenidis, N. (1998). “Artemis Ephesia: The Political Significance of the Metellus Coins.” In W. G. Cavanagh and M. Curtis, eds., Post-Minoan Crete: Proceedings of the Colloquium Organised by the British School at Athens and the Institute of Archaeology, University of London, November 1995, BSA Studies Series 2. London: 117–122. Mørkholm, O. (1991). Early Hellenistic Coinage from the Accession of Alexander to the Peace of Apamea (336– 188) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mørkholm, O., and N. M. Waggoner, eds. (1979). Greek Numismatics and Archaeology: Essays in Honor of Margaret Thompson. Wetteren, Switzerland: Cultura Press. Newell, E. T. (1934). A Hoard from Siphnos NNM 64. New York. Nicolet–Pierre, H. (1976). “Remarques sur le monnayage d’Égine au VIe et Ve siècle d’apres la trouvaille de Mégalopolis de 1936.” In Frappe et ateliers monétaires dans l’Antiquité et au Moyen Age. Belgrade: 5–12. ——— . (1979). “Types monétaires des îles.” In Mer Égée Grèce des Îles Exposition 26 avril–3 septembre 1979 Musée du Louvre Paris: Ministère de la culture et de la communication, Éditions de la Réunion des musées nationaux. ——— . (1988). “Remarques sur le monnayage de Naxos (Cyclades) à l’époque classique.” In Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Classical Archaeology, 1983. Athens: 159–162. ——— . (1997). “Naxos (Cyclades) archaïque: Monnaie et histoire. La frappe des ‘canthares,’ de la fin du VIe siècle à c. 470 av. J.-C.” QT 26: 63–121. ——— . (1999). “Les cratérophores de Naxos (Cyclades): Emissions monétaires d’argent à l’époque hellénistique.” RN 154: 95–119. ——— . (2000). “Metrologie des monnaies grecques. La Grèce centrale et l’Egée aux époques archaïque et classique (VIe–IVe s.).” AIIN 47: 11–76. ——— . (2005). “Naxos (Cyclades): Les émissions de monnaies de bronze du IVe au Ier siècle av. J.-C.” RN 161: 17–46. Nicolet-Pierre, H., and M. Amandry. (1992). “Les monnaies d’argent de Syros.” In Nilsson: 295–306. Nilsson, H., ed. (1992). Florilegium numismaticum Studia in honorem U Westermark edita Numismatiska meddelanden 38. Stockholm. Oeconomides, M. (1979). “The 1970 Myrina Hoard of Aeginetan Staters.” In Mørkholm and Waggoner: 231–239. (p. 126) ——— . (1992). “The IGCH 101 Hoard and the Circulation of the Tortoise in the Peloponnesus.” In Nilsson: 307–312. Papageorgiadou-Banis, Ch. (1997). The Coinage of Kea. ΜΕΛΕΤΗΜΑΤΑ 24. Athens: Research Centre for Greek and Roman Antiquity. National Hellenic Research Foundation. Paschalis, D. P. (1898). ΝΟΜΙΣΜΑΤΙΚΗ ΤΗΣ ΑRΧΑΙΑΣ ΑΝΔΡΙΑΣ. JIAN 1: 299–366. Reprinted in D. P. Paschalis, Η ΑΝΔΡΟS Athens: Estia Press, 1925. Perlman, P. (1992). “One-Hundred-Citied Crete and the ‘Cretan Politeia.’” Classical Philology 87: 193–205. Picard, O. (1990). “Le monnayage de Latô.” In Πεπραγμένα του ΣΤ Διεθνούς Κρητολογικού Συνεδρίου. Athens: 107–113.

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Aegina, the Cyclades, and Crete Price, M. J., and N. M. Waggoner. (1975). Archaic Silver Coinage: The Asyut Hoard London: Vecchi. Reger, G. (1994). Regionalism and Change in the Economy of Independent Delos, 314–167 B C. Berkeley: University of California Press. Robinson, E. S. G. (1928). “Pseudaeginetica.” NC, 5th ser., 8: 172–198. Seager, R. (1924). A Cretan Coin Hoard Numismatic Notes and Monographs 23. New York: American Numismatic Society. Sheedy, K. A. (1996). “The Defence of Kythnos and the Origins of the Second Nesiotic League.” Historia 45: 423– 449. ——— . (1998). “Keian Federations and Keian Coinage.” NC, 7th ser.,158: 249–257. ——— . (2006). The Archaic and Early Classical Coinages of the Cyclades SP 40. London: Royal Numismatic Society. ——— . (2010). “Ios and Syros: Studies in the Hellenistic Coinages of the Cyclades.” In S. Drougouet et al., eds., Kermatia Philias Timetikos tomos yia ton Ioanni Touratsoglou Athens: Athens Numismatic Museum, 263–269. Sheedy, K. A., and Ch. Papageorgiadou-Banis. (1998). “The Coinage of Kythnos.” In L. G. Mendoni and A. I. Mazarakis Ainian, eds., Kea–Kythnos: History and Archaeology National Hellenic Research Foundation. ΜΕΛΕΤΗΜΑΤΑ 27. Athens: Research Centre for Greek and Roman Antiquity: 649–655. Stefanaki, V. E. (2001). “Sur deux monnaies de bronze inédites d’Hiérapytna. Monnayage hiérapytnien et timbres amphorique à l’époque hellénistique.” Eulimene 2: 129–142. ——— . (2005). “Le monnayage d’Hiérapytna (Crète orientale) de la fin de l’époque classique à l’époque impériale.” Ph.D. diss., Université de Paris IV–Sorbonne. Stefanakis, M. I. (1997). “Studies in the Coinages of Western Crete with Particular Reference to Kydonia.” Ph.D. diss., University of London. ——— . (1999). “The Introduction of Coinage in Crete and the Beginning of Local Minting.” In Chaniotis: 247–268. ——— . (2000a). “Ptolemaic Coinage and Hellenistic Crete.” In Κρήτη και Αίγυπτος, Μελέτες. Herakleion: Ministry of Culture: 195–207. ——— . (2000b). “Kydon the Oikist or Zeus Kretagenes Kynotraphes? The Problem of Interpreting Cretan CoinTypes.” Eulimene 1: 63–73. ——— . (2002). “Η τέχνη και οι καλλιτέχνες των Κρητικών νομισμάτων.” Κρητική Εστία 9: 43–57. Stefanakis, M. I., and V. E. Stefanaki. (2006). “Ρόδος και Κρήτη: Νομισματικές συναλλαγές, επιρροές και αντιδράσεις στις αρχές του 2ου αι. π.Χ.” In Το νόμισμα στα Δωδεκάνησα και τη Μικρασιατική τους Περαία, Πρακτικά Συνεδρίου της Δ΄ Επιστημονικής Συνάντησης, Κως, 30 May–2 June 2003 Athens: 165–190. Stefanakis, M. I., and B. Traeger. (2005). “Counter-stamping Coins in Hellenistic Crete. A First Approach.” In C. Alfaro, C. Marcos, and P. Otero, eds., Actas XIII Congresso (p. 127) Internacional de Numismática Madrid 2003 Madrid: International Numismatic Commission: 383–394. Sugden, K. (2004). “Minoa on Amorgos: Some New Imperial Coins.” RN 160: 115–117. Touratsoglou, I. (1995). Disjecta Membra: Two New Hellenistic Hoards from Greece. Bibliotheca of the Hellenic Numismatic Society 3. Athens: Hellenic Numismatic Society. Traeger, B. (2000–2001). “ITANOS.” Κρητική Εστία 8: 23–47. Trifiró, M. D. (2001). “The Hoard Arkalochori-Astritsi 1936 (IGCH 154).” Eulimene 2: 143–154.

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Aegina, the Cyclades, and Crete Viviers, D. (1999). “Economy and Territorial Dynamics in Crete from the Archaic to the Hellenistic Period.” In Chaniotis: 221–233. Warren, J. A. W. (1996). “The Achaian League, Sparta, Lucullus: Some Hellenistic Coinages.” In Χαρακτήρ Αφιέρωμα στη Μάντω Οικονομίδου, Δημοσιεύματα του ΑΔ 57. Athens: Tameio Archaiologikon Poron kai Apallotrioseon: 297–307. Welter, G. (1954). “Aeginetica, XXV.” AA 1954: 28–30. Willetts, R. F. (1967). The Law Code of Gortyn Edited with an introduction, translation, and commentary by Ronald F. Willetts. Kadmos Supplement 1. Berlin: de Gruyter. Wroth, W. (1884). “Cretan Coins.” NC 4: 1–58. ——— . (1886). Catalogue of the Greek Coins of Crete and the Aegean Islands London: British Museum. Kenneth Sheedy Kenneth Sheedy s D rector of the Austral an Centre for Anc ent Num smat c Stud es, Macquar e Un vers ty, Sydney.

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The Coinage of Italy

Oxford Handbooks Online The Coinage of Italy N. K. Rutter The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Coinage Edited by William E Metcalf Pr nt Publ cat on Date: Feb 2012 Onl ne Publ cat on Date: Nov 2012

Subject: Class cal Stud es, Anc ent Roman H story, Mater al Culture Stud es DO : 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195305746.013.0008

Abstract and Keywords The first coinages of Italy were issued in the sixth century by a group of cities on the coast of the Ionian Sea: Metapontum, Sybaris, and Croton, with Caulonia. All four cities adopted the same weight standard, the “Achaean,” with the stater, or standard coin, weighing initially a little over 8 g and subdivided into thirds and sixths. The coins were struck with an obverse and a reverse die, but their appearance was unprecedented and not emulated elsewhere: on thin, broad flans, the obverse design appeared normally in relief, while on the reverse a similar version of the same design was struck in negative. Over time, the diameter of the flans gradually declined, while their weight was maintained by a corresponding increase in thickness. This was the last attempt at a convergence in coining in Italy before the Romans imposed their own form of convergence over Italy. Keywords coinage taly onian Sea Achaenan stater

GREEKS began to settle permanently on the coastline of southern Italy from the middle of the eighth century BC, and

the coinages of many of their cities from the mid-sixth century onward constitute a plentiful and informative source for their vigorous development and the clarity of their self-image. Discussions of the reasons for the introduction and early development of Greek coinage tend to treat it as a unitary phenomenon and to devote less attention to its sheer variety. Yet think of the different metals, weight standards, fabrics, and designs of early coinages in Asia Minor, or of the major differences (for example of fabric and weight standard) between the early coinages of communities as close geographically as Aegina, Corinth, and Athens. The same considerations of difference and variety apply in the early coinages of southern Italy, which experimented with some innovations not found elsewhere in the Greek world. In some aspects of coining technique, for example, or in the range of weight standards employed, they were unlike not only earlier coinages in the Aegean but even those of neighboring Sicily.

Fig 7 1

The first coinages of Italy were issued in the second half of the sixth century by a group of cities on the coast of the Ionian Sea founded principally by Achaeans from the Peloponnese: Metapontum, Sybaris, and Croton, with Caulonia following in the last quarter of the sixth century. All four cities adopted the same weight standard, the “Achaean,” with the stater, or standard coin, weighing initially a little over 8 g and subdivided into thirds and sixths. The coins were struck with an obverse and a reverse die, but their appearance was unprecedented and not emulated elsewhere: on thin, broad flans, the obverse design appeared normally in relief, while on the reverse a

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The Coinage of Italy closely similar version of the same design was struck in negative and in alignment with it (fig. 7.1). Over time, the diameter of the flans gradually declined, while their weight was maintained by a corresponding increase in thickness. This progression from broad to medium and finally to dumpy incuse is a useful chronological indicator. The incuse technique requires great skill at each stage in (p. 129) the making of the coin: the production of flans of regular shape and weight, the preparation of handsome dies, and finally their careful positioning for striking. The reasons for the adoption of such a sophisticated technique are still debated. Proposed explanations range over practicality (the coins would be easier to stack), the influence of an individual (specifically the philosopher Pythagoras, whose father was a gem engraver), or technique (the need to obliterate the designs of overstruck coins). Whatever the reason, there was as yet no set model for what a coin should look like. What is the significance (economic? political?) of the sharing by neighboring communities of this technique of making coins? Again, the question is difficult to answer. The technique may be the same, but individual cities adopted their own design: Metapontum an ear of barley; Sybaris a bull with its head turned back; Croton a tripod; Caulonia a figure of Apollo supporting a small running figure on his left arm. One of the effects of so unusual a fabric was to limit circulation of the coins to the area in which they were issued, but that is true of other archaic Greek coinages as well, and it is impossible to decide whether the limited circulation was the successful result of a deliberate policy or simply incidental. Of the flourishing cities just mentioned, it was Sybaris in particular that was remembered as a prosperous (too prosperous?) place controlling its own “empire” in southern Italy. Coinage reflects that tradition. Apart from the substantial coinage of Sybaris itself, two other incuse coinages share the Sybarite fabric, weight standard and bull design, but each has its own legend: in one case, AMI, in the other, obverse SIRINOS, reverse PYXOES. The first of these may refer to a people called the Aminaioi. The double legend of the second presumably refers to two towns dependent on Sybaris, at first sight perhaps Siris, on the Ionian coast, and Pyxus, on the Tyrrhenian. But it seems unlikely that towns so far apart could have cooperated in minting, and in any case Pyxus (later Buxentum) is said to have been founded only in 471/470, and so both communities referred to on the coins may have been closer together, on one coast or the other. A third issue, inscribed SO, has the incuse fabric and bull design, but not the weight standard, of Sybaris. It might refer to the Lucanian Sontini, but the denomination appears to be a Chalcidian drachm, suggesting a provenance in Calabria, closer to the Sicilian sphere. Finally, another small issue with several denominations is inscribed SER, which seems to refer to the Serdaioi, named as party to a treaty with the Sybarites and their allies on a bronze tablet discovered at Olympia (M-L 10). In this case, the weight standard and fabric of the coins are Achaean, but they are struck in double relief (obv. Dionysus; rev. vine tendril and bunch of grapes; fig. 7.2).

Fig 7 2

Fig 7 3

Fig 7 4

Among the guarantors of the treaty just mentioned were the people of Posidonia, on the Tyrrhenian coast, who introduced in about 530 their own incuse coinage with the design of Poseidon wielding a trident (fig. 7.3). But

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The Coinage of Italy though the technique (p. 130) of the coins derived from further south, their weight standard did not. The stater weighed around 7.5 g, and the fraction was a half, not thirds. This “Phocaean” standard was used by a group of refugees from Phocaea (in Asia Minor) who settled at Velia around 535. Their first coinage, of drachms and fractions, starting soon after their arrival, reflected their origins and for a time introduced further elements of difference into south Italian coinage. Apart from the new standard, the fabric of the coins was chunky, not thin and spread like the early incuse coins. Furthermore, the obverse design of the forepart of a lion tearing a stag's leg and the reverse incuse square divided into four sections hark back to the Aegean world whence the Phocaeans came (fig. 7.4). Thus, within the last 50 years of the sixth century, extensive coinages had been issued by several Greek cities on both the Ionian and Tyrrhenian coasts of southern Italy. Also within these years, coinage imitating that of the Greek cities, in particular Sybaris, had been issued by native communities. Although coinage at Rhegium, on the toe of Italy, started (c. 510) with an issue in the spread incuse fabric, it was struck on the Euboic-Chalcidian standard and thus belonged in the Sicilian sphere of weight standards and circulation. So far Campania was notably absent, and there was no coinage on the Adriatic coast, where Greeks had not yet settled. With regard to designs and their significance, there are similarities and differences among mints. Most, and in particular those issuing incuse coins, went for a bold assertion of religious identity, with the unchanging design carefully engraved, centered on its flan, and enclosed within an elaborate circular border. The significance of the designs chosen was broadly religious, but there was variety. Posidonia chose a sculptural portrayal of its patron deity; at Metapontum and Sybaris the ear of barley and the bull, respectively, referred indirectly to important local divinities, Demeter and the River Crathis. At Croton and Tarentum (where limited issues of incuse coins inaugurated minting at the end of the sixth century) the emphasis was different again, on aspects of the origins of each community: at Croton a tripod recalled the role of Apollo of Delphi in the story of the foundation of the city, while Tarentum (founded from Sparta) showed Hyacinthus (worshiped at Amyclae) and a dolphin-rider who could be Phalanthus, the historical founder (fig. 7.5).

Fig 7 5

Fig 7 6

(p. 131) Apart from its political impact, the destruction of Sybaris by Croton in 510 was a watershed in the numismatic development of southern Italy, and its consequences dictated the course of coinage in the whole area for much of the fifth century. It is convenient to look at the Ionian and Tyrrhenian coasts in turn, beginning with the fortunes of victors and vanquished after 510. For the Crotoniates, this was the period of their greatest power and territorial expansion. Until about 430, they struck an abundant coinage using the incuse technique, though the appearance of the coins gradually changed in the way described above, from broad to medium and finally to dumpy incuse. The same design, a tripod, was usually shown on both obverse and reverse of both medium and dumpy incuse coins. The Crotoniates were also heirs to the Sybarite “empire,” a status that is sometimes reflected in coinage. Already around 500 it is possible that a second Sybaris dependant on Croton is attested by an issue of staters with obverse tripod and KRO, reverse bull with head turned back and SY. Further issues with obverse tripod are associated either by their design or legend with Sybaris and Laus (on the Tyrrhenian coast, where some Sybarites took refuge), Pandosia (near the headwaters of the River Crathis), and Temesa (also on the Tyrrhenian coast). As for the vanquished Sybarites, some as just mentioned went to Laus, where in the last decade of the sixth century incuse coins were struck on the Achaean standard, the design based on the Sybarite bull (at Laus the bull

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The Coinage of Italy has a complete human head, the hair covered by a cap; fig. 7.6). The second Sybaris, referred to above, may have issued coins in its own right, but after its destruction around 475/470 in renewed conflict with Croton, Sybarites were again forced to flee, this time to Posidonia, where their presence influenced a new orientation in coinage in around 470 (see below). Sybarite influence (for example, an acorn symbol) can also be observed in this period in the coinage of Laus. Later still, a movement of population from Posidonia to Sybaris influenced the designs of coins attributed to a third Sybaris established between 453 and 448 (obv. Poseidon and SYBA, rev. bull, SYB). Some joint issues with Posidonia and Laus are also associated with the third Sybaris.

Fig 7 7

In 448, under renewed Crotoniate pressure, the Sybarites sought help outside Italy. The result was a fourth Sybaris whose coin designs combined old and new themes in a way that influenced coinage in southern Italy as a whole for many years to come: the obverses introduced a head of Athena wearing an Attic helmet; the reverses offered variations on the old Sybarite bull theme (fig. 7.7). There was further dissension, but after some of the old Sybarites (a tenacious breed) left to found a new (p. 132) home on the river Traeis, the colony, now reinforced from Athens, changed its name from Sybaris to Thurium. For two centuries from about 440, the mint of Thurium was one of the most productive and influential in southern Italy. Throughout, the basic designs on most of the silver coins were obverse head of Athena wearing an Attic helmet, usually decorated with a wreath and later with a sphinx, Scylla, or griffin, reverse bull at first walking, later often more animated (fig. 7.8). The obverse design in particular was widely imitated at mints on both coasts of Italy and long outlived any association with Athens it might have had at the beginning. From the start, the basic scheme was elaborated with letters, symbols, and sometimes names. On some early issues, it is tempting to interpret the initial letters of a name ΦΡΥ- or Φ- as the signature of an engraver, but it is not certain either that Φ- refers to the same person as ΦΡΥ- or that ΦΡΥ- was an engraver, let alone the same Phrygillus who worked at Syracuse in the last decade of the fifth century. In 433/432, Thurium collaborated with Tarentum in the foundation of Heraclea on a coastal site between the two cities. The first coins of Heraclea were plentiful diobols with designs showing Heracles and sometimes a head of Athena wearing a helmet in the manner of Thurium, but perhaps the most striking of the early issues is a stater with obverse head of Athena set against the background of an aegis, reverse Heracles seated on a rock draped with a lion's skin and holding a skyphos (drinking cup; fig. 7.9). Later in the fifth century, the staters and diobols at Heraclea settle down to a pattern of obverse head of Athena wearing an Attic helmet, reverse Heracles fighting the Nemean lion. At Croton, the “double-relief” coinage of the last 30 or so years of the fifth century was not particularly prolific. It did, however, introduce some striking innovations in designs. On the obverse of one issue of staters around 420, Heracles is seated on a rock and sacrificing at a flaming altar; he is labeled OIKISTAS, founder. The composition on the reverse is dominated by the usual tripod, but the link with Delphi is made explicit: at the left a child Apollo shoots an arrow at the snake Pytho at the right, his rival for control of the shrine (fig. 7.10). Both designs evoke stories and claims relating to the founding of the city.

Fig 7 8

Fig 7 9

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The Coinage of Italy

Fig 7 10

Fig 7 11

At Metapontum, meanwhile, incuse coinage developed along lines already familiar from Croton: medium and dumpy phases down to about 470 and 440, respectively. The double relief coinage that followed is full of interest, with varied (p. 133) reverse designs and a wide range of fractions. Apollo, Demeter, and Heracles feature on staters, an ox-head, a wheel, and crescents (the number indicating the denomination) on smaller denominations. Of particular interest is the reverse of a stater showing a naked male figure standing facing; he has the horns and ears of a bull and holds a phiale (plate) in his right hand, a reed in his left (fig. 7.11). An inscription, AETHLON ACHELOIO (“prize of Achelous”), identifies the figure as the river-god Achelous, the longest river in mainland Greece, marking the boundary between Acarnania and Aetolia. That is rather a long way from Metapontum, but once again the design goes back to the roots of the colony: Aetolus was a son of Endymion, ruler of Pisa in the northwest Peloponnese, from where some of the founders of Metapontum came. Caulonia experienced the same progression through the incuse phases as Croton and Metapontum, but over a much shorter time: double relief coinage started around 475. The obverse design of the staters continued to be the Apollo and running figure from the sixth-century incuse coinage, but in the course of the fifth century both the “messenger” and the stag disappeared. On the reverse, the stag was the regular design. Fractions were not common, and their designs do not broaden the repertoire very much. Overall, the coinage of Caulonia lacked continuity and does not match the richness and variety of the other mints of the Ionian coast. At Tarentum, the early limited issues of incuse coinage were followed in the early part of the fifth century by small issues of double relief coinage on which an obverse dolphin-rider was accompanied successively on the reverse by a hippocamp, a wheel, and a female head sometimes thought to be that of Satyra, mother of Taras. The fractional coinage accompanying these issues is rich and varied, a foretaste of the highly developed denominational system of later periods at Tarentum. Perhaps already by 480, a new design appeared, a seated male figure generally identified as Taras, though the iconography includes Dionysiac features, a wine cup, for example, or a panther skin draped over the seat (fig. 7.12). It is likely that the later phases of these coins with the seated figure were accompanied (c. 425) by coins with the design of a horseman, at first on the reverse but soon transferred to the obverse, where it remained for the next two centuries (fig. 7.13). The variety in the depiction of these horsemen is astonishing, whether they are in repose or vigorously active, and the coins present a tangible record of the skills of the famous “Tarentine cavalry.”

Fig 7 12

Fig 7 13

On the Tyrrhenian coast in the fifth century, existing mints continued and new mints opened. The role of Posidonia in events following the fall of Sybaris has been (p. 134) referred to above. Coinage there in the early years of the

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The Coinage of Italy fifth century seems to have been confined to fractions, but around 470 the minting of staters was revived, now in a dumpy, double relief fabric with obverse Poseidon wielding his trident, reverse bull; the weight standard was now Phocaean rather than Achaean (fig. 7.14). On smaller denominations, the reverse is occasionally a wheel or a trident. To this period belongs one of the very few gold coins minted in Italy in the fifth century, a triobol weighing 1.36 g, with the same designs as the staters and with POS on both obverse and reverse. In the penultimate decade of the century, two series of staters were issued, one with both obverse and reverse dies numbered with letters of the alphabet as far as theta, the other without letters but marked with a shell symbol on the reverse. At this time, Ionic letter forms began to predominate. At Velia, the issues of drachms with obverse forepart of a lion tearing its prey, with or without letters, reverse incuse square divided into quarters, continued down to around 465, when a short sequence of didrachms was issued, with obverse lion, reverse head of a nymph. The obverses are marked with the letters A or B, the beginning of an alphabetical sequence later continued as far as the letter tau on drachms with obverse head of a nymph, reverse owl usually perched on an olive twig. Around 440, a new obverse design was introduced, first on drachms, then on didrachms: a head of Athena wearing a crested Attic helmet similar to that on the coins of Thurium (fig. 7.15). The development of the design, in particular the decoration of the helmet, parallels that at Thurium: at first the helmet bowl was plain, but later it was decorated successively with a wreath, a scanning Scylla, and a griffin. The adoption of this design at mints on both the Ionian and Tyrrhenian coasts of Italy is an important element in a gradual abandonment of difference in favor of convergence in approaches to coining over the next two centuries.

Fig 7 14

Fig 7 15

Fig 7 16

Fig 7 17

(p. 135) At Terina, to the south of Velia, coinage began around 460 on the Achaean standard. A long series of imaginative variations on its chosen coin designs, obverse female head, reverse Nike (Victory), provides a precious source of information for a city without a history in the conventional sense. In one version of the reverse, Nike sits on a water jar turned on its side (fig. 7.16). The pictorial quality of this design is rare in southern Italy and has more in common with much of the die engraving in Sicily. The first coins in Campania were issued by Cumae around 475, possibly in connection with the battles between Greeks and Etruscans for control of the area. In 474, a Greek fleet led by Hieron of Syracuse defeated a combined force of Etruscans and Carthaginians off Cumae, an event that probably led to the foundation of Neapolis (“New City” = Naples) around 470. Each city chose designs for its coins that related to local cults or features: at Cumae

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The Coinage of Italy they included a nymph, Kyme, and a mussel shell, the product of the local lagoons; at Neapolis a man-faced bull represented Achelous, the father of the Sirens, one of whom, Parthenope, is shown most commonly on the obverse (fig. 7.17). From the beginning, the coinage of Syracuse was a major iconographic influence on the coinage of both Cumae and Neapolis. That is not surprising in the light of the events outlined above, but the influence continues through the fifth and later centuries. In the fifth century it can be paralleled at other mints on the Tyrrhenian coast of Italy, for example Velia and Terina, and in Sicily at Segesta. The consistency of this Syracusan influence on coinages in the Tyrrhenian region is noteworthy and can best be explained by military factors, in particular the supply and transportation of mercenary soldiers for service in Sicily and elsewhere.

Fig 7 18

Fig 7 19

In the last quarter of the fifth century, events occurred in Campania that changed the political and social fabric of the area forever and provided a foretaste of what was to happen over much of southern Italy in the fourth and third centuries. Tribesmen from the hill country of Samnium took control first of Capua and Cumae and later were admitted to Neapolis. Coinage reflects the complexities of the new situation. Neapolis became the focus of minting, but in addition the Neapolitan designs were adopted by several new series of coins, some of them bearing legends in Oscan script referring to communities that are otherwise unknown (for example, Hyrianoi/Hyrietes, Fisteliani; fig. 7.18). Complex die linking between these different series indicates, at the very least, close cooperation in minting, and quite (p. 136) possibly the concentration of minting activity at Neapolis itself. One final development of the fifth century needs to be mentioned: the introduction of coinage in bronze. Thurium and Rhegium appear to have been the first to issue such coins, from about 440, and in the last quarter of the century they were joined by Posidonia, Caulonia, Croton, Metapontum, and Velia. From the start in Italy, bronze coins were struck, and there was no initial phase of cast dumps or coins as at some Sicilian mints. Two further differences from Sicilian practice are that the designs on Italian bronze coinages for the most part reproduced those on the respective silver coins and did not show marks of value. Very occasionally a denomination is indicated, such as ΟΒΟΛΟΣ on some bronze coins of Metapontum in the late fifth/early fourth century (fig. 7.19). Bronze coinage may have been introduced to enhance the range of coinage for everyday use, or to substitute for the smallest silver coins. The fact that the designs on the early bronze coins are the same as those of the silver supports the latter view, as do certain features of the incidence of bronze coinage, which was uneven. Tarentum, for example, always issued a plentiful supply of small silver denominations and did not issue bronze until the third century. If silver was available, it would be struck, but Italy had few, if any, natural sources of silver, and the adoption of bronze may have been simply a response to need, like the overstriking that quite frequently converted substantial supplies of imported coins into local currency (for example, the overstriking of Sicilian coins on the Ionian coast of Italy, c. 460, or of Athenian coins at Rhegium/Messana, c. 440). The fourth and third centuries in Italy were a period of large-scale upheaval, and the consequences for developments in coinage were profound. Italian manpower was on the move, as native Italians pressed down on the coastal cities, often consolidating in federal arrangements like the Lucanians (from c. 400) and the Brettii (from mid-fourth century). For a time, the formation on the Ionian coast of a league of Greek cities, later backed by the forces of condottieri from mainland Greece, resisted the pressures. The Tyrrhenian cities gradually succumbed, though the mixed society of Campania developed its role as a major supplier of mercenaries. By the end of the fourth century, Rome was the emerging power broker in southern Italy.

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The Coinage of Italy

Fig 7 20

Fig 7 21

In the early part of the fourth century, the coinages of the cities on the Ionian coast were varied and abundant. At Tarentum and Metapontum, the pattern for the staters established in the late fifth century was maintained, though with considerable variations in each case. At Tarentum, the horseman was now regularly on the obverse, the dolphin-rider on the reverse. At Metapontum, the obverse heads of a deity are stylistically varied, and several are accompanied by appellations, such as Hygieia (Health), Homonoia (Concord), or Soteria (Safety), reflecting a concern for the physical and political well-being of the community. A signing die engraver is a rare phenomenon in Italy, but Aristoxenos cut some fine dies for Metapontum and Heraclea, too (fig. 7.20). At Thurium a prolific coinage, including distaters, around the middle of the century continued the fifth-century tradition of obverse helmeted (p. 137) head of Athena, reverse charging bull. Finally, at Croton, an eagle became one of the principal obverse designs. In the second half of the fourth century, the influence of various condottieri is reflected unevenly in coinage. The famous design on the reverse of a gold issue of Tarentum showing a young Taras supplicating his father Poseidon (fig. 7.21) need not refer to the historical appeal of the city to Archidamus of Sparta (340), though designs showing Leucippus (a local hero) at Metapontum and also the striking of distaters at Thurium may reflect the military pressures of the time (fig. 7.22). Alexander the Molossian, the cousin of Alexander the Great, was active in Italy between 334 and 330 and issued some of his own coins in gold, silver, and bronze. The gold was minted on the Attic standard, the silver on that current in Epirus, Alexander's homeland; both standards were convenient for any mercenary soldier of Greek origin. Some gold coins of Tarentum have the thunderbolt of the Molossian as a symbol. There is evidence, too, of cooperation in minting. The signatures ΚΑΛ, ΑΡΙ, ΟΝΑ, and ΦΙΛ are found on coins of Tarentum contemporary with Alexander's campaigns; the same signatures appear on coins of Metapontum and Thurium, and ΚΑΛ recurs at Heraclea. These are the signatures not of artists but of mint officials whose job may have been to coordinate financial resources at a federal level. Another sign of coordinated minting is the issue by Tarentum and Heraclea of numerous varieties of diobols with obverse head of Athena, reverse Heracles fighting a lion. In the absence of an ethnic, it is difficult to assign these coins to one or the other mint. In the third century, drachmae were issued both at Tarentum and at Heraclea with obverse head of Athena, reverse owl.

Fig 7 22

Fig 7 23

One important city that has not yet featured is Locri, which began to issue coins only at a date in the fourth century that is still uncertain. The first silver staters, with a fine head of Zeus on the obverse and on the reverse a seated figure of Eirene (Peace), may date to the period of Alexander the Molossian (fig. 7.23). Locri also (p. 138) struck pegasi (staters imitating those of Corinth with the winged horse Pegasus as one of the designs), the only city in southern Italy or in Sicily (apart from Syracuse) to strike them in any quantity.

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The Coinage of Italy

In the last quarter of the fourth century and the early third, coinage continued without great changes in the mints of the Ionian coast until the arrival of Pyrrhus, who campaigned in Italy and in Sicily between 282 and 276 and issued coins in his own name in southern Italy. Though minted probably at Locri, his silver coins bear designs associated with his native Epirus: on tetradrachms, Zeus and Dione (worshiped as Zeus's consort at Dodona), on didrachms, Achilles and Thetis, reminders of Pyrrhus's heroic ancestry. The influence of Pyrrhus can be detected also on local coinages, for example at Tarentum, in the head of Zeus on an issue of gold staters and associated denominations. Probably after Pyrrhus's victory over the Romans near Heraclea in 280, the weight of the standard coin (nomos) at Tarentum was reduced from around 7.9 g to around 6.6 g, a reduction that took place also at Croton, Heraclea, and Thurium. At Metapontum, coinage ceased about 280, just before any reduction in standard occurred. But silver coinage soon came to an end on the Ionian coast, except at Tarentum, where it continued perhaps until about 240. There was a brief revival of coinage on the Punic standard there, and also at Metapontum, during the Second Punic War (c. 212–209). The Greek cities of the Tyrrhenian coast were less successful at keeping out the native Italians. Velia was the only city with a major mint that did not succumb in the fourth century. The main denomination of the silver coinage was the didrachm, which continued down to around 280, and maintained the earlier designs with variations in the iconography: obverse head of nymph or of Athena, reverse lion, alone or pulling down a stag. At other cities, takeover by Italians was not necessarily disastrous for coinage. Posidonia was captured by the Lucanians before the end of the fifth century, but coinage continued until around 350, retaining its former designs and style; the name ΔΟΣΣΕΝΝΟΥ on one reverse is a rare instance of Lucanian influence. At Terina, the distinguished artistic tradition established for the coinage of the fifth century was maintained in the early fourth, and as at Posidonia, coinage continued after the city's capture by the Brettians in 356. In this later period down to around 300, the most common silver denomination was the drachma, and coinage in bronze continued until about 275.

Fig 7 24

Fig 7 25

In Campania, the intensive minting at the turn of the fifth and fourth centuries was followed by a lull when the only coinage, on a relatively small scale, was that of Neapolis itself. In the later fourth century and the early third, the production of silver coinage in Campania expanded enormously. On didrachms, the traditional designs (obv. head of Parthenope, rev. man-faced bull (Achelous) crowned by Victory) were accompanied by names, symbols, letters, or monograms indicating an elaborate system of control (fig. 7.24). The mixture of Greek and Oscan names (e.g. ΧΑΡΙΛΕΩΣ, ΓΝΑΙΟΣ) shows the (p. 139) participation of both elements of the population in the administration of the mint. Bronze coinage was introduced, in several denominations and with several designs, the most prominent being Apollo. One small issue, with obverse head of Apollo, reverse forepart of a man-faced bull, looks Neapolitan and could have been made there, around 320. But the name in the genitive plural above the bull indicates that this is the first issue of coins in the name of the Romans (fig. 7.25). Silver coinage at Neapolis ceased about 250; coining in bronze continued to about 225. During the First Punic War, the sharing of designs such as a cock and administrative letters such as ΙΣ are evidence for close links and indeed cooperation in minting between Neapolis and several other Campanian communities (e.g., Aesernia, Compulteria, Cales, Suessa Aurunca, Teanum Sidicinum). This was the last attempt at a convergence in coining in any part of southern Italy before the Romans imposed their own form of convergence over the whole of southern Italy.

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The Coinage of Italy Fig. 7.1. Sybaris incuse (HN3 1729) BM 1946.1.1.449 = SNGLloyd 449. Fig. 7.2. Serdaioi (HN3 1717) BMC Uncertain of Lucania or Bruttii, p. 395.1. Fig. 7.3. Posidonia (HN3 1107) BMC 3. Fig. 7.4. Velia (HN3 1259) SNG Oxford 1077. Fig. 7.5. Tarentum (HN3 824) BMC 33. Fig. 7.6. Laus (HN3 2270) BM 1946.1.1.287 = SNGLloyd 287. Fig. 7.7. Sybaris IV (HN3 1750) BMC 31. Fig. 7.8. Thurium (HN3 1772) BMC 14. Fig. 7.9. Heraclea (HN3 1362) BMC 15. Fig. 7.10. Croton (HN3 2140) BMC 86. Fig. 7.11. Metapontum (HN3 1491) de Luynes 466. Fig. 7.12. Tarentum (HN3 845) BM 1946.1.1.132 = SNGLloyd 132. Fig. 7.13. Tarentum (HN3 849) BM 1946.1.1.148 = SNGLloyd 148. Fig. 7.14. Posidonia (HN3 1114) BMC 23. Fig. 7.15. Velia (HN3 1270) SNG Oxford 1108. Fig. 7.16. Terina (HN3 2574) BM 1896.7.3.24. Fig. 7.17. Neapolis (HN3 546[2]) SNG Oxford 75. (p. 140) Fig. 7.18. Phistelia (HN3 611) SNG Oxford 165. Fig. 7.19. Metapontum (HN3 1640) BM 1955.6.2.2. Fig. 7.20. Metapontum (HN3 1520) BMC 72. Fig. 7.21. Tarentum (HN3 901) BM 1898.7.6.859. Fig. 7.22. Thurium (HN3 1848) BMC 37. Fig. 7.23. Locri (HN3 2310)BM 1946.1.1.640 = SNGLloyd 640. Fig. 7.24. Neapolis (HN3 586) BMC 122. Fig. 7.25. Rome/Neapolis (HN3 251) BM 1948.1.6.2.

Bibliography Bibliography The standard work on the Greek coinage of Italy is N. K. Rutter, principal ed., Historia Numorum: Italy, 3rd. ed. (London: British Museum Press, 2001). Accounts of the coinages can be found also in N. K. Rutter, The Greek Coinages of Southern Italy and Sicily (London: Spink, 1997). A number of conferences organized by the Centro Internazionale di Studi Numismatici in Naples have dealt with aspects of Greek coinage in southern Italy, in particular vol. 6: Le origini della monetazione di bronzo in Sicilia e in Magna Grecia, April 17–22, 1997 Sup. to vol. 25 of AIIN (Rome, 1979), and vol. 7: La monetazione di Neapolis nella Campania antica, April 20–24, 1980 (Naples, 1986). Studies of individual mints are listed below.

Brettii: F. Scheu, “The earliest coins of the Brettians,” NC 1955, pp. 101–112. ———  “Bronze coins of the Brettians,” NC 1961, pp. 51–66. ———  “Silver and gold coins of the Brettians,” NC 1962, pp. 43–63. H. Pfeiler, “Die Münzprägung der Brettier,” JNG 14 (1964), pp. 7–50.

Campania: N. K. Rutter, Campanian Coinages 475–385 (Edinburgh, 1979).

Caulonia:

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The Coinage of Italy S. P. Noe, The Coinage of Caulonia, Numismatic Studies 9 (New York, 1958). C. M. Kraay, “Caulonia and South Italian problems,” NC 1960, pp. 53–82.

Heraclea: F. Van Keuren, The Coinage of Heraclea Lucaniae (Rome, 1994).

Laus: H.-R. Sternberg, “Die Silberprägung von Laosc.510–440 v.Chr.,” in Actes du 8ème congrès international de numismatique, New York-Washington, September 1973 (Paris-Bâle, 1976), pp. 143–162.

Lucani: F. Scheu, “The coinage of the Lucanians,” NC 1964, pp. 65–74.

Metapontum: S. P. Noe, The Coinage of Metapontum, pts. 1 and 2 (ANSNNM 32 and 47 [New York, 1927 and 1932]), with additions and corrections by Ann Johnston (New York, 1984). A. E. M. Johnston, The Coinage of Metapontum, pt. 3, ANSNNM 164 (New York, 1990).

Posidonia: P. Ebner, La monetazione di Posidonia-Paestum (Salerno, 1964).

Sybaris: C. M. Kraay, “The coinage of Sybaris after 510,” NC 1958, pp. 13–37.

Tarentum: A. J. Evans, The “Horsemen” of Tarentum (London, 1889; reprinted from NC 1889, pp. 1–228. W. Fischer-Bossert, Chronologie der Didrachmenprägung von Tarent (Berlin, 1999).

Terina: R. Ross Holloway and G. K. Jenkins, Terina (Bellinzona, 1983).

Thurium: S. P. Noe, The Thurian Di-staters, ANSNNM 71 (New York, 1935).

Velia: R. T. Williams, The Silver Coinage of Velia (London, 1992). N. K. Rutter N. K. Rutter s Honorary Fellow and Professor Emer tus n Class cs, Un vers ty of Ed nburgh.

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The Coinage of Italy

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The Coinage of Sicily

Oxford Handbooks Online The Coinage of Sicily Wolfgang Fischer-Bossert The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Coinage Edited by William E Metcalf Pr nt Publ cat on Date: Feb 2012 Onl ne Publ cat on Date: Nov 2012

Subject: Class cal Stud es, Anc ent Roman H story, Mater al Culture Stud es DO : 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195305746.013.0009

Abstract and Keywords The numismatic history of Sicily reflects the vicissitudes of its political history in truly unique fashion. Cities were conquered and destroyed, populations displaced and resettled, tyrannies raised and toppled. Many of these political shifts have left traces in the history of Sicilian coinage. The native Sicilian conception of coinage led to a groundbreaking innovation: the creation of small denominations in bronze, whose value was based not on their material worth but solely on a fixed exchange rate in silver coins—in other words, on the confidence of the citizens that they could exchange their bronze coins for silver the next day. The numismatic history of Sicily developed organically and gradually in the fifth century, years that saw the production of the coins for which Sicily enjoys a fine reputation among art lovers. Names such as Kimon, Euainetos, Phrygillos, and Eukleidas appear in this lexicon of artists. Keywords numismatic history coinage Sicily silver bronze

S C LY was settled by Greek colonists from the second half of the eighth century onward. Already before that time

there had been irregular contact between the Greek motherland and the island, as Mycenaean finds show. Even if today it is described as precolonizzazione, this contact will have been limited to periodic trade and the establishment of isolated emporia. Around the end of the Bronze Age, Sicily had been settled by Iberian Sikanoi. At the end of the second millennium BC, they were driven into the western half of the island by the Sikeloi, an invading people from Italy. A third people, presumably originating in Liguria, the Elymoi, settled the northwestern part of the island at the same time. These peoples were the original inhabitants of Sicily encountered by the Greeks. Greek colonization of Sicily occurred in several waves. The Ionian Chalcidians had set out for Campania around the middle of the eighth century in search of Etrurian bronze deposits. They raised the first bases on the island Pithekussai (Ischia) and, not long after, at Kyme (Cumae); they thus knew the route from Messina very well. They soon began to settle the eastern coast of Sicily as well, not least to secure the promising trade route through the strait. The first foundation was the colony Naxos at the foot of Mount Etna, traditionally dated to 735 BC; the two cities that watched over the strait from either side, Rhegion (Reggio Calabria) and Zankle, later Messana (Messina), soon followed. In the meantime, Dorian settlers had also set out for Sicily. It is traditionally held that Syracuse was founded by the Corinthians in 734 BC, only a year after the foundation of Naxos. Megara Hyblaia, not far to the north, was founded by colonists from Megara, and early in the seventh century, the Rhodians founded the powerful city of Gela on the southern coast. Secondary settlements soon began to appear. The Naxians extended to the northern coast with the settlements of Mylai and Himera, to pursue interests in the Tyrrhenian Sea. The Dorian cities Syracuse and Gela expanded their territory (p. 143) with foundations on the southern coast, such as Akragas and Kamarina. A glance at the map at this point would reveal the island split in two: Ionian cities in the northeast and north, Dorian cities in the southeast and south. This territorial division would play an important role in Sicilian politics; indeed, during the Sicilian Expedition of Athens (415–413 BC), it led to the creation of two hostile

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The Coinage of Sicily “blocks.” The historiographical tradition, however, can often lead us astray. The colonists of a given city were by no means of such homogenous extraction as the poets and historians of the fifth and fourth centuries claim. Closer examination of competing foundation myths, the oldest ceramic finds, and the earliest epigraphic evidence ever more frequently confirms the suspicion that the first colonists were in fact composed of very diverse groups. Only after some time, through social pressure and also the assimilation of smaller segments of the population, did the politically dominant element of a place come to prevail in dialect and identity. The numismatic history of Sicily reflects the vicissitudes of its political history in truly unique fashion. Cities were conquered and destroyed, populations displaced and resettled, tyrannies raised and toppled. Many of these political shifts have left traces in the history of Sicilian coinage. Nevertheless, many an accepted view has proven erroneous, and many an assumed turning point deceptive. Cities generally were not utterly destroyed as the ancient historians describe; neither were population displacements rigorous, nor did politicians and tyrants have absolute discretionary power—as one might well imagine, given the bitter experiences of modern history. Thus, today much numismatic evidence must often be checked anew and sometimes completely reassessed. The Chalcidian cities Naxos, Himera, and Zankle and Dorian Selinus were the first to begin coining, only one or two decades after Aegina, Corinth, and Athens had begun to mint coins in the motherland (figs. 8.1–8.4). The earliest Sicilian coins cannot be precisely dated for lack of well-dated hoard finds, but they will scarcely have been minted before 540 BC. Before we turn to coin types, we must first cast a glance at weight standards. Here appear not only old connections to the mother cities but also the preferences of overseas trade. Thus Selinus in all probability modeled its coinage on the Corinthian stater, issuing a basic denomination of approximately 8.2 g (this was, however, divided into 2 drachms as at Athens, not into 3 as at Corinth). On the other hand, the Chalcidian colonies followed the standard of their mother city, Chalkis in Euboea. There the basic denomination was a stater of about 17.4 g; the heaviest fractions were thirds. (The same basic denomination was used in neighboring Attica, but there the stater was halved. Consequently, half of an Attic stater weighed the same as a Corinthian stater, c. 8.2 g. This relationship will be of importance later.) None of the Chalcidian colonies in Sicily minted a stater on the Euboean standard, but they did mint its third, which was called a Chalcidian drachm, and smaller fractions. There were apparently no fixed agreements; each of the three cities proceeded at its own discretion. Thus, the standard weight of a drachm in Himera was 5.80 g, in Zankle 5.55 g, and in Naxos 5.45 g.

Click to view larger Fig 8 1 8 10

Matters were different in Selinus, a fact that casts light on the structures of trade at the time. As mentioned, the

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The Coinage of Sicily basic denomination of Selinus appears to have been (p. 144) modeled on the Corinthian stater. The weights of the earliest coins of Selinus are highly erratic. Since Corinth dominated overseas trade with Sicily, its money appears to have inspired the issues of Selinus; the minting technique of the coins of Selinus moreover bears some resemblance to the Corinthian staters. We must take care, however, not to interpret this similarity as if both currencies were convertible on a 1:1 ratio. There is evidence that testifies to the contrary: The production of the coins (p. 145) of Selinus was initially very sloppy; their widely fluctuating weights could not have inspired confidence in foreigners. In fact, we almost never find any coins of Selinus outside the island, just as indeed all Sicilian currency was seldom brought overseas. Until the Attic standard was established throughout the island, Sicilian coins circulated primarily only in the territory of the issuing polis. Moreover, we have no reason to assume that the overseas trade of Corinth in the sixth century was conducted any differently than in the seventh century, namely in goods, not money. We find virtually no Corinthian money in Sicilian coin hoards of the sixth and fifth centuries, whereas Corinthian ceramics can be found all over Sicily (they would be supplanted by Attic imports over the course of the sixth century). In short, the Corinthian stater may have served as the model for the coinage of Selinus, but apparently without the motive of trade policy that is so hastily ascribed to it. The images on these earliest Sicilian coins are simple but subtle. A celery leaf (selinon) adorns the coins of Selinus, which serves as a type parlant or “canting badge” (fig. 8.2). The same allusive technique was used at Himera; there a rooster announcing the new day (hemera) symbolized the name of the city (fig. 8.1). The meaning of the symbols, however, is not confined to puns. Often a cultic or mythological significance that influenced the choice of the name of the city and produced the puns underlies them. On the coins of Zankle, a dolphin swims in a sickle-shaped frame (fig. 8.3). This probably is meant to evoke the shape of the harbor of Zankle (Gk. “sickle”). The metaphors may well be older than the coin types themselves. The city Naxos struck out in a different direction: It was one of the first Greek poleis to place the head of a deity on its coins (fig. 8.4). This was the beginning of a typological tradition that would ultimately lead to the creation of the ruler portrait, a custom that persists to this day. The choice of the deity—Dionysos—betrays old cultic connections of Naxos, not to its mother city, Chalkis on Euboea, but to the eponymous Cycladic island Naxos, which had contributed a portion of the colonists. The coins of Naxos were also avant-garde in their use of an independent reverse type. While the first coins of Zankle show the obverse type in negative (the so-called incuse type), a peculiarity that is encountered elsewhere only in southern Italy, as at Kroton and Sybaris, and the coins of Selinus and Himera display merely a quadratum incusum, that is, a depressed surface with a geometric design, the reverses on coins of Naxos show distinct images. Not only that, these reverse types correspond to those on the obverses: With the bearded head of Dionysus on the obverse a bunch of grapes is paired on the reverse, as symbol of the god. The Dorian cities on the southern and eastern coast of Sicily began to mint coinage later than their Ionian counterparts to the north. In the decade 520/510, both Akragas and Syracuse began to issue coinage. Akragas appears to have followed the example of Selinus, insofar as its earliest staters are on the Corinthian standard. At the same time, however, their coins also corresponded to the Athenian didrachm. In Syracuse, the relationship with Attic coinage, though indirect, is still more obvious. The oldest coins of Syracuse copy an anonymous northern Greek coinage, which was once attributed to Olynthos. The imitation is not confined only to the coin's type—a quadriga—but adopts its weight standard as well, which (p. 146) corresponds to that of the Euboean stater and Athenian tetradrachm. Smaller Syracusan denominations reveal that the coinage follows the Athenian ratio of 4 drachms per stater and 6 obols per drachm. Since the coin production of Syracuse swiftly surpassed that of the other cities—the dominance of Syracusan coinage became ever more oppressive after the tyrant of Gela, Gelon I, seized control of Syracuse in 485 BC and made it his residence—the Attic standard soon became dominant throughout the island. The choice of the Attic standard may be related to the importation of silver from northern Greece. In the late sixth century, alongside the mines on the island Siphnos, the mines of Pangaion in Thrace constituted the main source of silver for all Greek coinage. Although Spanish mines will also have contributed a share, most of the silver minted in Sicily during the sixth and fifth centuries came without doubt from the east. The small coinage of “Olynthos” gave impetus to a choice of coin type and weight standard that would have far-reaching consequences in numismatic history. Although a borrowed image, the quadriga on the coins of Syracuse is emblematic of the culture and self-image of the minting authorities of the city. Both the Gamoroi, the ruling class of large landholders, and later the tyrants considered and presented themselves as wealthy men of leisure with expensive predilections, horse-racing

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The Coinage of Sicily preeminent among them. The horse-teams of several Sicilians, among them tyrants such as Hieron I and Dionysios I, won victories at the Olympic Games. The prestigious image of the quadriga was supplemented by a mythical figure, the fountain nymph Arethusa. In contrast to all other contemporary coin series, the goddess's head was displayed as the reverse type. The Sicilian coins of the fifth and fourth centuries are distinguished by a technical curiosity found nowhere else: They show two bulges at the edge that lie across from one another at exactly 180 degrees (figs. 8.7, 8.8, 8.18, 8.20). The flans for these coins consisted of two cast half-dome-shaped parts that were connected to each other at the moment of striking. The bulges are the seam between the two parts that remained visible at the edge only. In just a few cases, the seam is also visible as a bow-shaped “cut” on the image.

Click to view larger Fig 8 11 8 20

A further peculiarity of Sicilian coinage is the concurrent circulation of obols and litrai. As mentioned, Syracuse adopted Attic denominations, whereby a drachm is divided into 6 obols. Political upheavals around 480 BC made this the standard for silver coinage on the whole island. The coinage system of the original inhabitants carried on an independent existence. It was not based on minted coinage, to say nothing of silver coins, but, as later in Rome, on the bronze pound, the litra (Lat. libra). The ratio of silver to bronze (1:120) permitted a simple way of converting coin: 1 Syracusan drachm corresponded to 5 pounds of bronze. This method of converting money by the pre-Greek inhabitants must have made a deep impression on Sicilian trade. Around 465 BC, a new silver denomination was added to the old, namely the litra, corresponding to a pound of bronze, that is, 1/5 drachm. Since obols did not vanish at a stroke, litrai and obols must initially have been used alongside one another. The conversion from litrai to obols was, in itself, not difficult: (p. 147) (p. 148) 1 obol was worth 10 onkiai (Lat. unciae), and 1 litra was worth 12 onkiai, so that the hexas, worth 2 onkiai (a sixth of a litra), could serve as a fractional denomination of both coins. There nonetheless existed a practical shortage of corresponding small money, because both the hexas and hemilitron (1/2 litra, i.e. 1/10 drachm) were issued only in small amounts. This gradually changed once the litra had supplanted the obol entirely. Around 430/420 BC, the tetras was added as another silver fraction (1/4 litra, i.e. 3 onkiai). Meanwhile, the native Sicilian conception of coinage led to a further truly groundbreaking innovation: the creation of small denominations in bronze, whose value was based not on their material worth but solely on a fixed

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The Coinage of Sicily exchange rate in silver coins—in other words, on the confidence of the citizens that they could exchange their bronze coins for silver the next day. Akragas led the way, producing cast bronzes around 450 BC, which resemble teeth rather than coins (fig. 8.11); the next issue—still cast, not struck—had the usual coin shape, and struck bronze coins quickly followed, not only in Akragas but also in Segesta and Himera. These bronze coins did not weigh what their nominal worth would dictate but were a purely fiduciary coinage. Sicily was not singlehandedly responsible for this monumental innovation, for other Greek colonies on the Black Sea also began to mint bronze coinage at the same time; but the example of Sicily attracted disproportionately greater interest, and after some hesitation—Syracuse minted its first bronze coins around 430/420—not only did the other Sicilian poleis adopt fiduciary bronze coinage, but little by little so did the Greek colonies in Italy and the poleis of the motherland. After these fundamental remarks, I will limit myself to specific points. The most prominent mints of the fifth century were as follows. Syracuse began minting around 520/510, on the Attic standard. The basic denomination is the tetradrachm. Typical coin types: quadriga on the obverse, head of the nymph Arethusa on the reverse. Around the end of the rule of the Deinomenids (Gelon I and his successors, Hieron I and Thrasybulos), that is, in the decade 470/460, two innovations appear: the introduction of the litrai, mentioned above, and the temporary minting of an unusually large denomination, the decadrachm (fig. 8.6). The early classical series of decadrachms (there are also two series of the classical age) was until 1966 associated with a tradition that describes a series of Syracusan coins worth 50 litrai, minted after the naval battle of Himera (480). Because of an anecdote connected to this report, these coins were called “Demareteia,” a term that persists in the literature, although the decadrachms are no longer associated with this tradition. Gela began minting around 500, on the Attic standard. The basic denomination is the tretradrachm. Typical coin types: a rider on horseback, from around 480 a quadriga (adopted from Syracuse) on the obverse, the river god of Gela in the form of a bull with a human face and long beard on the reverse (fig. 8.9). Akragas began minting around 510, on the Attic standard. The basic denomination is first the didrachm, later the tetradrachm. Typical coin types: an eagle on the (p. 149) obverse, a crab on the reverse (fig. 8.8). Shortly after the destruction of the city by the Carthaginians in 406, a series of decadrachms was issued. Kamarina began minting around 490, on the Attic standard. The basic denomination was initially the didrachm, from around 430/420 the tetradrachm. Typical coin types: on the late archaic didrachms, a helmet and shield on the obverse, a palm flanked by greaves on the reverse; on the tetradrachm, the quadriga adopted from Syracuse on the obverse and the head of Herakles in a lion-skin, initially bearded, later beardless, on the reverse (fig. 8.13, an anticipation of the obverse type of the tetradrachms of Alexander the Great). Katane began minting only after 466 because of political circumstances, on the Attic standard. The basic denomination is the tetradrachm. Typical coin types: Initially the river god Amenanos (in the form of a bull, just as at Gela) on the obverse, Nike on the reverse. Around 450 the coin types of both sides change: The quadriga, borrowed from Syracuse, appears on the obverse, the head of Apollo on the reverse (fig. 8.12). Leontinoi began minting in the early fifth century, on the Attic standard. The basic denomination is the tetradrachm. Typical types: As at Gela, Kamarina, and Katane, initially the Syracusan quadriga on the obverse and a lion head (as a type parlant) on the reverse, where it is soon replaced by the head of Apollo (fig. 8.7). After the fall of the Deinomenids, the head of Apollo is moved to the obverse, and the lion head appears again on the reverse. Naxos began minting 540/530, initially on the Chalcidian standard. The basic denomination in this early phase is the drachm (1/3 of a Euboean stater, fig. 8.4). There is a gap in coin production under the rule of the tyrants of Gela/Syracuse, 490–466. Thereafter production is resumed on the Attic standard; the basic denomination becomes the tetradrachm. Typical coin types: the head of Dionysos on the obverse, a bunch of grapes on the reverse, and after 466 a squatting satyr drinking wine. Messana began minting (under the name Zankle) around 540/530, initially on the Chalcidian standard. The basic denomination of this early phase is the drachm (as at Naxos). Typical coin types of this phase: dolphin in the sickle-shaped harbor on the obverse, an incuse depiction of the obverse type on the reverse (fig. 8.3, as at the mints of southern Italy), then a patterned quadratum incusum. There occurs a gap in the coinage, or rather a

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The Coinage of Sicily change of minting authorities, in 494: Immigrants from Samos occupy the city for five years, minting tetradrachms on the Attic standard with coin types derived from Samos: a lion-skin spread out on the obverse, the prow of a Samian galley on the reverse (fig. 8.5). In 489, the tyrant of Rhegion, Anaxilas, seized Zankle and renamed the city Messana. The basic denomination is now the tetradrachm, with coin types borrowed from Rhegion: a lion's head, facing, on the obverse and a calf's head on the reverse. After 480, the coin types were again changed: A team of two mules, which evoke an Olympic victory of Anaxilas, appear on the obverse and a leaping hare on the reverse. While (p. 150) Rhegion changed its coin types after the fall of the tyranny in 466, Messana retained its own. Himera began minting around 540/530, initially on the Chalcidian standard. The basic denomination of the early phase is the drachm (1/3 of the Euboean stater). Typical coin types: a rooster on the obverse, quadratum incusum on the reverse (fig. 8.1). The coinage was changed to the Attic standard in 483 in consequence of political events. The basic denomination is at first the didrachm, later the tetradrachm. Typical coin types: rooster on the obverse, crab adopted from Akragas on the reverse; from 460/50, the quadriga adopted from Syracuse on the obverse and the nymph Himera sacrificing at a shrine on the reverse. Selinus began minting around 540/30, on the Corinthian standard. The basic denomination is the stater, which is approximately equal to the Attic didrachm. A gradual transition to the Attic standard is concluded with the minting of tetradrachms in the mid-fifth century. Typical coin types: initially a selinon leaf on the obverse and a quadratum incusum on the reverse (fig. 8.2). The tetradrachm, in contrast, bears the quadriga adopted from Syracuse (though with Apollo and Artemis in the car as a local characteristic) on the obverse and a youthful river god (in human form) sacrificing in a shrine on the reverse. Segesta began minting around 470, on the Attic standard. The basic denomination is the didrachm. Typical coin types: a hunting dog on the obverse, the head of the nymph Aigeste on the reverse. Around the end of the fifth century, some few tetradrachms were minted; their obverses show the hero Aigestes as hunter; their reverses are as before (fig. 8.14). The small mints of Aitnai, Eryx, and Motye, which coined a few transitory series, also deserve mention. There are moreover unique, typologically irregular coins that are interpreted as issues of exiles. One such coin is a stater of Zankle that apparently was produced after the city was renamed Messana (fig. 8.10); another is a recently discovered tetradrachm of Syracuse. The numismatic history of Sicily developed organically and gradually in the fifth century, proceeding by distinct steps. With the last quarter of the century, one has the feeling of witnessing a dramatic acceleration and escalation of events. Most famously, these years saw the production of the coins for which Sicily enjoys such a fine reputation among art lovers. It is the age of the signing engravers. Names such as Kimon, Euainetos, Phrygillos, and Eukleidas appear in this lexicon of artists. Another fascinating aspect of this period lies in the influence that these engravers exerted on their colleagues. No longer are the crab of Akragas or the Syracusan quadriga adopted as fixed coin types by other poleis for political or financial reasons. Instead, it is individual coin dies and their artistic principles that are influential, and we know the names of the artists. At the end of the century, the political landscape of Sicily underwent fundamental change. The end of the Athenian expedition (415–413) had once again confirmed the preeminence of Syracuse, but the conflict between the Greeks and the Elymoi (p. 151) brought Carthage on the scene. Consequently, from 406 there began a decades-long struggle between the Carthaginians and their west-Sicilian allies on the one hand and Syracuse, where Dionysios I had risen to become tyrant, on the other. Numerous poleis, such as Gela, Akragas, and Katane, were devastated to such an extent that their coinage seems to have broken off abruptly. The extent of the destruction and displacement has, however, been considerably qualified in detail by the findings of recent excavations. A certain numismatic desert is nevertheless undeniable, where great diversity prevailed in earlier times. Both in Carthaginian western Sicily and in the eastern Sicilian empire of Dionysios, most autonomous silver coinage simply ceases. In the eparchy of Carthage, the issues of the generals take its place. They take the coinage of their enemy as a typological model, that is, the quadriga and Arethusa of Syracuse (fig. 8.18). The standard, still Attic, remained unchanged, and the basic denomination continued to be the tetradrachm. The situation in the east of the island developed differently. Shortly after Dionysios seized power, the tetradrachm series of Syracuse came to a temporary halt; production would be resumed under Agathokles. But that was not all: all previous silver denominations in use were replaced with bronze (fig. 8.17). The backbone of the coinage now consisted of

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The Coinage of Sicily formerly unusable large denominations: the two high classical series of decadrachms in silver, signed by Kimon and Euainetos (figs. 8.15, 8.16), and a typologically and chronologically elaborate emission of gold coins, some of which were also signed by Kimon and Euainetos. Since the old elites were largely either expelled or annihilated under Dionysios and the established population had possibly become poorer than before, we must assume that the ordinary citizen, who won his bread as a farmer or craftsman, hardly came into contact with these large denominations. He will have had to content himself with the bronze coins. The decadrachms and gold coins must have served to pay the Italic and Celtic mercenaries on whom Dionysios's power rested. The coinage policy of the tyrant was generally considered scandalous, as one may conclude from the economic writings of Aristotle (or his school) that report not only indirect confiscations. The tyranny of Dionysios I (reg. 405–367) and his son Dionysios II (reg. 367–357, 346–344) marks a formal watershed for the numismatic history of Sicily. Only with the intervention of the Corinthian Timoleon, who banished the Carthaginian threat and ended the rule of the tyrants in the Greek poleis (344–337) does a new chapter begin. Autonomous issues resume everywhere during this period, both in silver and in bronze. The staters of Corinth served as a model for the silver issues of Syracuse and other cities, which bear a Pegasus on the obverse and the head of Athena on the reverse (fig. 8.19). Corinthian money had already reached Sicily under the two Dionysioi; under Timoleon the stream of money suddenly swelled to new levels, presumably less due to subsidies than to the export of grain to the motherland. The bronze issues show great variety; in particular, many more mints by far are now active than in the fifth century (fig. 8.20). It is not possible to describe these coin series in detail here. (p. 152) This numismatic springtime was of short duration. At the end of the century, conditions similar to the beginning of the century emerge: A tyrant in Syracuse by the name of Agathokles (reg. 317–289) subjugated eastern Sicily and antagonized the Carthaginian eparchy in the west of the island. The coin types of both sides follow old models. The Carthaginians seamlessly continue their production of tetradrachms, though now with some innovations in types: The Syracusan quadriga vanishes, and the head of Arethusa, copied from the Syracusan decadrachms, now gives way to the Punic goddess Tanit; on the reverse there appears either a lion or horse as symbols of Africa, calling to mind the foundation myth of Carthage. A palm (Gk. phoinix) stands as a type parlant in the background (fig. 8.21). Also in Syracuse, Agathokles revived older types. The types of his first two series of tetradrachms copy the decadrachm of Dionysios I (fig. 8.23). The second series shows the influence of the Diadochoi, particularly Seleukos I: On the obverse the appears the head of Demeter, who served as an emblem of Sicily, and on the reverse the goddess Nike, who assembles a tropaion (fig. 8.24). Alongside the silver tetradrachms, Agathokles issued an elaborate coinage in gold, electrum, and bronze. Here, too, the images are new in many regards, even if frequently derived from foreign models. Worth mention is a short-lived series of gold staters that show a youthful, beardless head in elephant skin on the obverse and Athena Promachos on the reverse (fig. 8.22). The head is derived from coins of Ptolemy I, though its meaning is contested: a personification of Africa, which would allude to Agathokles's attempted invasion of the Carthaginian empire (310–307) or a portrait of Alexander the Great? Agathokles, in contrast to the Diadochoi, did not put his own portrait on his coins.

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The Coinage of Sicily

Click to view larger Fig 8 21 8 30

The third century gives essentially the same picture: The antagonism between the Carthaginians and the Greek dominance of Syracuse is reflected in the precious metal coinage, while smaller poleis make their appearance only in bronze issues. Tyrants and short-lived democracies succeed one another in Syracuse; many issues can thus be dated with considerable precision. Worth mentioning are the coins of Hiketas and Pyrrhos, king of Epirus, both of whom reprise older coins of Timoleon and Agathokles (fig. 8.25). Something new appears under Hieron II, who like the Diadochoi assumed the regal title (reg. 269–215): his coins bear his portrait head with diadem (fig. 8.26) or the veiled portrait of his wife Philistis (fig. 8.28). On the reverses, one often finds the familiar type of the quadriga or an armored rider with lowered lance. Coin production, especially in the larger denominations, intensifies during the First Punic War (261–246), as it does on the Carthaginian side (fig. 8.27). The latter keep the obverse type of the head of Persephone (or Tanit?—see above), derived from Arethusa, and the reverse type of the Carthaginian horse. During the Second Punic War, the young king Hieronymos assumes power for a year (215/214). His coins continue the tradition of his predecessors (fig. 8.29). Syracuse was conquered by the Romans in 212, and a year later the Roman denarius took the place of the Sicilian silver coinage. Local bronze coinage continued on a low level but lost ever more of its Greek character (fig. 8.30). (p. 153)

Key to Illustrations Fig. 8.1. Himera, silver drachm (c. 540–515). Numismatica Ars Classica (Zurich) “O,” May 13, 2004, 1492 (5.63 g). Fig. 8.2. Selinus, silver stater (c. 540–510 BC). Münzen & Medaillen AG Deutschland (Lörrach) 15, October 21, 2004, 926 (8.92 g). (p. 154) Fig. 8.3. Zankle, silver drachm (c. 540–493). Künker (Osnabrück) 104, September 27, 2005, 84 (4.92 g). Fig. 8.4. Naxos, silver drachm (c. 520–500). Leu (Zurich) 83, May 6, 2002, 74 (5.73 g). Fig. 8.5. Samians in Zankle, silver tetradrachm (491/490). Numismatica Ars Classica (Zurich) 27, May 12, 2004, 91 (16.81 g). Fig. 8.6. Syracuse, silver dekadrachm (“Demareteion,” c. 470–460). Berlin, Münzkabinett, Fox Collection (43.36 g). Fig. 8.7. Leontinoi, silver tetradrachm (c. 465). Gorny & Mosch (Munich) 159, October 8, 2007, 34 (17.31 g). Fig. 8.8. Akragas, silver tetradrachm (470–450). Lanz (Munich) 141, May 26, 2008, 69 (17.18 g).

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The Coinage of Sicily Fig. 8.9.  Gela, silver tetradrachm (c. 465/460). Numismatica Ars Classica (Zurich) 33, April 6, 2006, 68 (17.35 g). Fig. 8.10. Zankle, silver stater (c. 460). Brussels, Bibliothèque Nationale. Cabinet des Médailles, Lucien de Hirsch Collection 466 (17.05 g). Fig. 8.11. Akragas, bronze tetras (450–430). Lanz (Munich) 138, November 26, 2007, 83 (11.42 g). Fig. 8.12. Katane, silver tetradrachm signed by Euainetos (c. 410). Leu (Zurich) 81, May 16, 2001, 67 (16.89 g). Fig. 8.13.  Kamarina, silver tetradrachm signed by Exakestidas (c. 410–405). Classical Numismatic Group (Lancaster), Triton X, January 9, 2007, 73 (17.15 g). Fig. 8.14. Segesta, silver tetradrachm (c. 405–400). Numismatica Ars Classica (Zurich) 40, May 16, 2007, 236 (17.36 g). Fig. 8.15. Syracuse, silver dekadrachm signed by Kimon (c. 405–400). Numismatica Ars Classica (Zurich) 33, April 6, 2006, 96 (42.60). Fig. 8.16. Syracuse, silver dekadrachm signed by Euainetos (c. 400–380). Numismatica Ars Classica (Zurich) 25, June 25, 2003, 115 (42.81 g). Fig. 8.17. Syracuse, bronze drachm (405–367). Peus (Frankfurt) 380, November 3, 2004, 260 (29.37 g). Fig. 8.18. Carthaginians in Sicily, Panormos mint, silver tetradrachm (c. 400). Leu (Zurich) 86, May 5, 2003, 276 (17.15 g). Fig. 8.19. Syracuse, silver stater (344–c. 320). Künker (Osnabrück) 133, October 11, 2007, 7961 (8.43 g). Fig. 8.20. Campanian mercenaries, Entella mint, bronze onkia (343–339). Künker (Osnabrück) 133, October 11, 2007, 7138 (5.45 g). Fig. 8.21. Carthaginians in Sicily, silver tetradrachm (c. 320–310). Numismatica Ars Classica (Zurich) 27, May 12, 2004, 142 (17.00 g). Fig. 8.22. Syracuse, gold stater minted by Agathokles (c. 310). Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum. Münzkabinett Inv. 7234 (8.45 g). Fig. 8.23. Syracuse, silver tetradrachm minted by Agathokles, 1st series (317–310). Münzen & Medaillen AG Deutschland (Lörrach) 25, October 18, 2007, 2120 (16.60 g). Fig. 8.24. Syracuse, silver tetradrachm minted by Agathokles, 2nd series (310–304). Classical Numismatic Group (Lancaster), Triton XI, January 8, 2008, 69 (17.29 g). Fig. 8.25. Syracuse, bronze oktobol minted by Pyrrhos (278–276). Gorny & Mosch (Munich) 147, March 7, 2006, 1129 (5.50 g). Fig. 8.26. Syracuse, medium bronze, minted by Hieron II (275–216). Lanz 135, May 21, 2007, 82 (17.52 g). Fig. 8.27. Carthaginians in Sicily, 5 silver shekels (c. 264–260). Classical Numismatic Group (Lancaster) 67, September 22, 2004, 397 (37.54 g). Fig. 8.28. Syracuse, 16 silver litrai, minted by Hieron II for his consort Philistis (216/215). Lanz (Munich) 125, November 28, 2005, 118 (13.45 g). (p. 155) Fig. 8.29. Syracuse, silver didrachm, minted by Hieronymos (215/214). Gorny & Mosch (Munich) 155, March 5, 2007, 42 (8.49 g). Fig. 8.30. Tyndaris, bronze coin (after 214). Numismatica Ars Classica (Zurich) “O,” May 13, 2004, 1433 (4.18 g).

Bibliography Further Reading The standard reference today is still B. Head, Historia Numorum, 2nd ed. (London, 1911). A revised edition is in preparation. The first volume, devoted to the Italian peninsula, has already appeared: K. Rutter, ed., Historia Numorum Italy (London, 2001); the forthcoming second volume will treat Sicily. Both an authoritative introduction and detailed bibliography can be found in C. M. Kraay, Archaic and Classical Greek Coins (London, 1976). The following studies published after 1976 are useful.

Bibliography

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The Coinage of Sicily Amandry, M., and S. Hurter, eds. (1999). Travaux de numismatique grecque offerts à Georges Le Rider London. Arnold-Biucchi, C. (1990). The Randazzo Hoard 1980 and Sicilian Chronology in the Early Fifth Century B C New York. Arnold-Biucchi, C., L. Beer-Tobey, and N. M. Waggoner. (1988). “A Greek Archaic Silver Hoard from Selinus.” ANSMN 33: 1–35. Arnold-Biucchi, C., and A.-P. Weiss. (2007). “The River God Alpheios on the First Tetradrachm Issue of Gelon at Syracuse.” NAC 36 (2007): 59–74. Ashton, R., and S. Hurter, eds. (1998). Studies in Greek Numismatics in Memory of Martin Jessop Price London. Bechtold, B. (1999). La necropoli di Lilybaeum. Rome. Boehringer, C. (1979). “Zu Finanzpolitik und Münzprägung des Dionysios von Syrakus.” In Mørkholm and Waggoner: 9–32. ——— . (1989). “Himera im IV. Jahrhundert v. Chr.” In Le Rider et al.: 29–40. ——— . (1998). “Zur Münzgeschichte von Leontinoi in klassischer Zeit.” In Ashton and Hurter: 43–53. ——— . (1999). “Bronze, Silber, Gold. Überlegungen zu den Nominalen einiger sizilischer Goldmünzen.” RBN 145: 49–59. Bonacasa, N., L. Braccesi, and E. De Miro, eds. (2002). La Sicilia dei due Dionisi, Atti della settimana di studio, Agrigento 24–28 febbraio 1999 Rome. Burnett, A., U. Wartenberg, and R. Witschonke, eds. (1998). Coins of Macedonia and Rome Essays in Honour of Charles Hersh. London. Buttrey, T. V., K. T. Erim, T. D. Groves, and R. R. Holloway. (1989). The Coins. Morgantina Studies II. Princeton. Caccamo Caltabiano, M. (1993). La monetazione di Messana AMuGS 13. Berlin. Caccamo Caltabiano, M., B. Carroccio, and E. Oteri. (1997). Siracusa ellenistica Le monete “regali” di Ierone II, della sua famiglia e dei Siracusani. Messina. (p. 156) Cahn, H. A., L. Mildenberg, R. Russo, and H. Voegtli. (1998). Griechische Münzen aus Grossgriechenland und Sizilien, Katalog der Antikensammlung Basel und Sammlung Ludwig Basel. Carroccio, B. (2004). Dal basileus Agatocle a Roma: Le monetazioni siciliane d’etá ellenistica: Cronologia, iconografia, metrologia Messina. Crawford, M. (1998). “Selinus and the Quadrigatus.” In Burnett et al.: 119–123. Fischer-Bossert, W. (1998). “Nachahmungen und Umbildungen in der sizilischen Münzprägung.” RSN 77: 25–39. Frey-Kupper, S. (1999). “I ritrovamenti monetali.” In: Bechtold 1999: 394–456. Garraffo, S. (1984). Le riconiazioni in Magna Grecia e in Sicilia Catania. Gorini, G. (2002). La monetazione dionigiana in Adriatico. In Bonacasa et al.: 203–215. Holloway, R. R. (1989). Ripostigli del Museo Archeologico di Siracusa Rome. Houghton, A., S. Hurter, P. Erhart Mottahedeh, and J. A. Scott, eds. (1984). Festschrift für Leo Mildenberg Wetteren, Switzerland. Hurter, S. (2008). Die Didrachmenprägung von Segesta Zurich. Ierardi, M. (1995–1996). “The Tetradrachms of Agathocles of Syracuse: A Preliminary Study.” AJN 7–8: 1–73.

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The Coinage of Sicily Jenkins, G. K. (1997). Coins of Punic Sicily. Zurich. (Reprint of four articles in Schweizerische Numismatische Rundschau, 1971–1978). Knoepfler, D. (1992). “La chronologie du monnayage de Syracuse sous les Deinoménides: Nouvelles données et critères méconnus.” RSN 71: 5–40. Kraay, C. M. (1984). The Archaic Coinage of Himera. Naples. La monetazione dell’età dionigiana. (1993). Atti dell’VIII Convegno Internazionale di Studi Numismatici. Rome. Lee, I. (2000). “Entella: The Silver Coinage of the Campanian Mercenaries and the Site of the First Carthaginian Mint, 410–409 BC.” NC 160: 1–66. Lentini, M. C., and S. Garraffo. (1995). Il tesoretto di Naxos (1985) dall’isolato urbano C4, casa 1–2 Rome. Le origini della monetazione di bronzo in Sicilia e in Magna Graecia. (1979). Atti del VI Convegno Internazionale del Centro Internazionale di Studi Numismatici. Rome. Le Rider, G., K. Jenkins, N. Waggoner, and U. Westermark, eds. (1989). Kraay-Mørkholm Essays Louvain-la-Neuve. Manganaro, G. (1999). “Dall’obolo alla litra e il problema del ‘Damareteion.’ ” In Amandry and Hurter: 239–256. Mattingly, H. B. (1992). “The Damareteion Controversy: A New Approach.” Chiron 22: 1–12. Mildenberg, L. (1989). “Über Kimon und Euainetos im Funde von Naro.” In Le Rider et al.: 181–189. ——— . (1993). “Sikulo-punische Münzlegenden.” RSN 72: 5–21. Mørkholm, O., and N. M. Waggoner, eds. (1979). Greek Numismatics and Archaeology Essays in Honor of Margaret Thompson Wetteren, Switzerland. Rutter, N. K. (1993). “The Myth of the Damareteion.” Chiron 23: 171–188. ——— . (1997). Greek Coinages of Southern Italy and Sicily London. Walker, A. S. (1984). “Some Hoards from Sicily and a Carthaginian Issue of the Second Punic War.” In Houghton et al.: 269–288. Westermark, U. (1999). “Himera: The Coins of Akragantine Type.” In Amandry and Hurter: 409–434. Westermark, U., and G. K. Jenkins. (1980). The Coinage of Kamarina London. Wolfgang Fischer-Bossert Wolfgang F scher Bossert s an ndependent scholar spec al z ng n Greek co nage.

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Greece and the Balkans to 360 B.C.

Oxford Handbooks Online Greece and the Balkans to 360 B.C. Selene Psoma The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Coinage Edited by William E Metcalf Pr nt Publ cat on Date: Feb 2012 Onl ne Publ cat on Date: Nov 2012

Subject: Class cal Stud es, Anc ent Greek H story, Greek and Roman Archaeology DO : 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195305746.013.0010

Abstract and Keywords At the beginning of the fifth century, Argos issued some drachms and triobols; Aegae, a coastal city of Achaea, triobols; while Dyme, also in Achaea, began some years afterward. Kleonai struck small fractions depicting the Nemean lion from the 460s. In Arcadia, a number of cities such as Heraea, Kaphyai, Pheneos, Mantineia (bear), Psophis (Kerynian hind), and Thaliadai introduced a coinage in small denominations, mainly triobols, during the first decades of the fifth century BC, with types deriving from the legendary background of Arcadia. During the Pentekontaetia, a coinage in the name of the Arcadians was struck, most probably by the ambitious Tegea. Sicyon became the major Peloponnesian mint, thus providing the money for the “Attic” war. Thereafter, Phlious struck an abundant coinage in silver and bronze (bull/wheel). From the late fifth century, date small fractions of Arcadian cities, as well as of Epidauros and Hermione. Keywords Argos Aegae coinage triobols Pentekontaetia

N Thrace, the vast area between Axios and the Black Sea, coinage was introduced during the last decades of the sixth century B.C. The issuing authorities were colonies followed by local ethne. The Odrysian kings struck also coinages in silver and later in bronze, but their numismatic output was very limited (Peter 1997).

The expansion of the monetary habit in Thrace can be related to the availability of precious metals, wealth from rich agricultural production and the slave trade, contacts with Ionia, and inner political developments that we ignore here. Many of these coinages began before 514 and also served to pay the phoros to the Persians, as is revealed by their presence in hoards buried in Egypt and the Levant before 480 B.C. (Picard 2000a: 239–252). Large denominations were struck by ethne and rarely by cities (Abdera and Dikaia: figs. 9.1, 9.2), while the impressive number of fractions issued from the beginning by all civic mints points to the early development of urban centers and the use of coinage in a significant number of transactions (Kagan 2006).

Fig 9 1

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Greece and the Balkans to 360 B.C. Fig 9 2

Fig 9 3

Influence from Asia Minor can be traced in the monetary standards, the fractional system, and the iconography of the eastern parts of that area. Attic weight tetradrachms were issued in the late sixth century B.C. by Cherronesos depicting the lion of Miletus, the metropolis of Kardia, and Athena's head. The Milesian lion was adopted also in the fourth century for the half sigloi and the bronze coins issued by the same authority. Samothrace minted a silver coinage with a sphinx as obverse type at the beginning of the fifth century (Schönert-Geiss 1996), while Ainos's coinage began after 460 B.C.: Hermes's head and caduceus, which was later replaced by (p. 158) a goat (fig. 9.3). During the fourth century, silver was struck on a lower standard (15.55 g), accompanied by fractions with a facing head of Hermes and the god's xoanon on a throne (May 1950). Byzantion (Persic and Rhodian standard) and Istros (Aeginetan standard) began issuing silver coinages rather late; like Olbia (Aeginetan standard), they struck in the fifth century B.C. heavy bronze and iron coins. Apollonia Pontica and Mesembria (reduced Attic?) on the west coast of the Black Sea issued silver coinages from 480 onward (figs. 9.4, 9.5), as did Selymbria, a Megarian colony on the north shore of the Propontis, depicting a cock. Its neighbor Perinthus (Persic standard), a colony of Samos, initiated its coinage in the mid-fourth century. During the fourth century B.C., bronze coinages were struck by all these cities, as well as by cities of the Thracian Chersonnese and Cypsela (SG 1999).

Fig 9 4

Fig 9 5

Fig 9 6

The coinages issued west of the river Hebrus followed the “Thraco-Macedonian” standard, a terminus technicus used to denote variations of a presumed local standard (Raymond 1953). Abdera began its spectacular coinage with a griffin as its emblem around 525 B.C. (Chryssanthaki-Nagle 2007); it was also around that date that Dikaia's silver with the oldest representation on coinage of a Herakles head, was inaugurated. Large denominations were accompanied by a considerable number of smaller fractions on a lighter standard. After the Persian Wars, tetradrachms and smaller fractions continued to be coined in Abdera. Neighboring Maroneia, a Chian colony, began its coinage around 510 B.C. (fig. 9.6), but it was only after 430 that its (p. 159) silver coinage was struck (Psoma et al. 2008). During the Peloponnesian war, Abdera adopted a lighter standard and introduced a reverse type. In a spirit of increased antagonism apparent in the contemporary political history, Maroneia's silver coinage was issued parallel to that of Abdera, which adopted a lighter standard, in an effort to maintain a certain exchange rate between gold and silver (Chryssanthaki-Nagle 2007). The gold issues of both cities date from the reign of Philip II. As was the case in Abdera sometime later, the end of silver coinage of Maroneia around 330 probably relates to the importance of the output of royal Macedonian mints (Lorber 1990). Between Strymon and Nestos, the colonies of Thasos and its mother city, Paros, issued staters of around 10 g and

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Greece and the Balkans to 360 B.C. fractions on the duodecimal system (staters, hektai, and hemiekta) with the gorgoneion (Neapolis), the goat of Paros (Galepsos: fig. 9.7), types referring to local fauna (“Eion”) and the cow and cattle (Ennea Hodoi). Berge, the oldest mint in the area, depicted the dancing Satyros-Maenad couple from which Thasos's types derive (Psoma 2006: 63, fig. 9.8). Local ethne adopted the weight standard of the previously mentioned cities; they struck also triple staters with shared types (Orrescians, the Ichnaian Litas, the Bisalts, and the Edonians). For staters, two distinct types, one after the other, were adopted: man and horse and the centaur-maenad couple. That sharing of types of different issuing authorities adopting the same standard is another feature for which different explanations have been proposed (a monetary union?); it is to be found also in the late sixth- to early fifth-century Chalcidice (Picard 2000a: 246). Most of these coinages stopped either after the Persian Wars or before the late 460s. This was not the case with Thasos (Picard 1999: 334–346). From the fourth century B.C. on, the city stopped issuing coins of around 10 g and introduced a heavier stater of 14.2 g with new types (Dionysos head/Herakles: Picard 2000b: 303–306). Neapolis continued well into the fourth century B.C. with small silver fractions, and Berge issued silver “drachms” with Thasian types and the legend ΒΕΡΓΑΙΟΥ (νομίσματος vel δραχμή: Psoma 2006: 227). At the very beginning of the fourth century B.C., bronze coinage was introduced by all previously mentioned cities and also by Zone on the Samothracian Peraia, Oisyme and Phagres in the Peraia of Thasos. Around the mid-fourth century B.C., a silver and bronze coinage was issued by Orthagoreia, a short-lived foundation of Philip II of Macedonia (Gaebler 1935; Chryssanthaki-Nagle 2004: 49–62; Psoma et al. 2008).

Fig 9 7

Fig 9 8

Fig 9 9

Fig 9 10

The very early coinages of cities of the Chalcidic peninsula and Argilus were issued in a peculiar system in connection with Asia Minor, while Euboean influence became (p. 160) apparent afterward. Early on, from the late sixth century, Argilus issued a silver coinage depicting a Pegasus (Liampi 2006). Founded as an Athenian colony, Amphipolis struck some silver fractions before inaugurating its spectacular coinage in silver and gold around 370 B.C. (fig. 9.9). An ally of the powerful Chalcideans of Thrace, Amphipolis adopted the monetary habits of its allies: the Chalcideans’ standard for silver and the Attic weight for gold (Lorber 1990: 31–36). Amphipolitan coinage served the needs of the war against the Athenians, who tried in the 360s to recapture their ancient colony. The coinage ceased when Philip captured the city in 357 B.C. (Psoma 2001). Some of the so-called incerti were most probably issued by cities of the Chalcidic peninsula. As the whole area was incorporated into the Macedonian kingdom in the second half of the fourth century, coinages with ethnics bearing the types of the incerti were not issued, which makes their attribution very difficult. During the fifth century, Akanthos, Stageira, Sermylia, Torone, Poteidaia, Mende, Skione, Aphytis, Dikaia, and Aineia issued series of silver on the Euboean-Attic standard and an impressive number of fractions. Stageira's late archaic silver depicted a

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Greece and the Balkans to 360 B.C. boar. Akanthos retained its Tierkampf types until the 340s, while Mende depicted a donkey as well as types relating to Dionysos and wine production (fig. 9.10), as did Torone. The early issues of Sermylia on the Milesian standard, and afterward the Euboean-Attic, bear a hunter on horseback. Skione and Aineia adopted types deriving from their foundation legends, while Dikaia took over those of its mother city, Eretria. The impact of the Euboean-Attic standard was of such an importance in that area that it was also adopted by the Corinthian colony of Potidaea, as well as by Peparethus (Kraay 1976).

Fig 9 11

In the Chalcidic peninsula, things changed dramatically after the Poteidaiatika. The Chalcideans, who issued a small coinage in silver before 432 with Chalkis's types, inaugurated their federal coinage in the years immediately following the foundation of their league around 432 B.C. (fig. 9.11). The monetary standard adopted was that of Perdikkas II, their ally. Aineia followed them, as did the Bottiaeans and Akanthos some years later, when Brasidas liberated all the cities of the peninsula and there was an urgent need for money to support the war against Athens. Large denominations (staters) were struck by the Chalcideans and Akanthos during the fourth century B.C., while gold staters (p. 161) and fourths on the Attic standard were issued by the Chalcideans during the wars against Athens in the 360s and later against Philip II. Silver fractions were also put into circulation by Mende, Skione, Dikaia, Aineia, and the Bottiaeans during the fourth century (Psoma 2001). Almost all cities of the Chalcidic peninsula and Methone, on the Pierian coast, issued bronze coinages from the late fifth century B.C., mostly in three denominations, chalkoi, tetartemoria, and hemiobols. After the fall of Olynthus in 348, only Akanthos continued to strike its coinage for some time (Psoma 2001). Alexander I of Macedonia issued his earliest coinage with Athenian silver, which he obtained in exchange for Macedonian timber, which built the victorious Athenian fleet of Salamis (Badian 1994). After gaining the temporary control of the mints of Mount Pangaion in 463, he continued with triple staters (octadrachms; fig. 9.12) following the “Thasian” version of the “Thraco-Macedonian” standard, and staters on a local standard (Kagan 1987: 21–28; fig. 9.12). Iconography refers to royal hunts and to the legendary background of the royal family (goat). The number of small fractions, down to hemiobols, needs to be stressed. Alexander I and later Perdikkas II struck two series of tetrobols with different types: light tetrobols with horse and helmet and heavy tetrobols with hunter and lion, for army payments in Macedonia and abroad, respectively. They also struck fractions whose nominal value was lower than their metallic value, a feature shared with the Chalcideans of Thrace (Psoma 1999: 279–283). As the control of the mints of Mount Pangaion was lost in the late 450s, Perdikkas II and all other Macedonian kings before Philip II could not rely on timber exports to acquire silver (Psoma 2001). Under Perdikkas's successor, Archelaus, the introduction of bronze coinage was clearly facilitated by the “overvalued” issues of his predecessors. As these fiduciary coinages, bronze served in everyday life and mainly in military life and was issued in three denominations: chalkoi, tetartemoria, and hemiobols (Psoma 2001: 135–136). Bronzes for military purposes were also issued by Pydna, with types of Amyntas III and of Athenian inspiration afterward, as well as by Derdas of Elimeia and Philotas of Pelagonia, with their own types and legends (Liampi 1998: 5–10; Wartenberg 1998). Under Philip II, things changed dramatically. Philip adopted the monetary habits of the big power in the area, the Chalcidic League. His own types combined Macedonian tradition with the promotion of royal ideology while announcing the king's role in the affairs of southern Greece (Le Rider1996).

Fig 9 12

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Greece and the Balkans to 360 B.C.

Click to view larger Fig 9 13

West of Macedonia, things were different. Epirus was an isolated and backward area where different ethne lived kata komas during the classical period. Rare silver and bronze issues in the name of the Molossians were produced, depicting the local breed of hound and the thunderbolt of Zeus Dodonaios in the case of silver coins, the head of Athena and an eagle on thunderbolt (first series), and round shields with thunderbolts (episema) on both sides (second series). The weight standard, if not a reduced version of the Corinthian, and the types refer to the (p. 162) kingdom of Macedonia. A date under Alexander I of Epirus (342–331) can thus be proposed for these Molossian issues (Psoma and Tsangari 2003). Opposite Epirus, Corcyra, a powerful Corinthian colony, followed local tradition in iconography and weight standard, maintaining one between the Corinthian and the Aeginetan standard. Its stater of 11.6 g was divided in halves, quarters, and so on and depicted a cow and calf on the obverse and two stellate patterns on the reverse (fig. 9.13). After Apollonia and Dyrrhachium began their coinage of similar types (a monetary union?), the initials of their ethnics and symbols were added (Kraay 1976). During the last decades of the fifth century B.C., a number of cities of the Akarnanias struck a federal coinage in three denominations: drachms, triobols, and obols, on the Corinthian standard, depicting the river-god Acheloos and his daughter Kallirrhoe. The nominal value of the triobols was indicated by the letter T. Each city signed its issues with its initials (ΣΤΡΑ and Σ for Stratos, F for Anaktorion, FΟΙΝΙΑ for Oiniadai, ΚΟ for Koronta, ΤΟ for Torhybeion, Ε for Euripos or Echinos; Psoma 2007). South of the Haliakmon River, in Thessaly, as a large number of “turtles” of Aegina circulated and were hoarded for a long period, the Aeginetan standard was adopted by all Thessalian coinages issued afterward. The main denomination was the drachma, while staters (didrachms) were very rarely struck by a limited number of cities. Thessalian federal coinage was introduced about 460/450, following the alliance with Athens in 462/461 (Kagan 2004: 79–86). Drachms and fractions were issued with types relating to the taurokathapsia and initials of the different cities (by Larissa, Crannon, Skotoussa and Pherai in Pelasgiotis, by Pharcadon and Pelinna in Histiaiotis, and by the Perrhaebians). During the second half of the century, the federal coinage continued to be issued with reverse types referring to each city's legendary background (Larissa, Trikka, Pelinna, Pharcadon, Cierion, and the Perrhaebians: Papaevangelou 1998: 40–53). Skotoussa and Methylion issued also silver coinages with types inspired by the federal coinage. Both began during the second half of the fifth century, as did the mint of Pharsalos, which was active during the fourth century B.C. (Lavva 2001).

Fig 9 14

Larissa was by far the most productive mint in Thessaly. Its first silver coins, with a grazing horse and types in connection with Jason, date from the campaign of (p. 163) the Spartan king Leotychidas against the “Medizing” Thessalians. The profile head of the homonym Nymph was introduced before the end of the fifth century. It was later replaced by a three-quarters head (Martin 1985; fig. 9.14). In the fourth century B.C., the city of Pherai struck a spectacular coinage with the city's own types and ethnic (the personified spring Hypereia and Hekate enodia) under Jason (c. 380–370). Alexander, who succeeded Jason, introduced a coinage in a full range of denominations with his name and types: the local deity Hekate on the obverse and Alexander as a Thessalian rider on the reverse of staters.

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Greece and the Balkans to 360 B.C. Other cities also issued silver coinages from the end of the fifth century: Pelinna and later Crannon, Cierion, and Phalanna. From the beginning of the fourth century, bronze coinages were struck by a substantial number of cities. The arrival of Philip II does not seem to have had any impact on Thessalian coinage, especially that of Larissa (Martin 1985): Gomphoi at the entry of a pass through the Pindos's mountains was refounded as Philippopolis by the Macedonian king around 354 and produced its coinage in silver and bronze soon afterward (Panagopoulou 2004: 541–544). Throughout the fifth and until the last quarter of the fourth century B.C., Thessalian coinages had mainly local circulation, while only silver coins on the Aeginetan standard were buried in Thessalian hoards. It is worth stressing the rich legendary background of Thessaly, which is reflected in numismatic iconography, and the high artistic quality of Thessalian coinages that followed prototypes from Sicily and southern Italy (Moustaka 1983). The Aeginetan standard was also of importance in Boeotia. The first issues of Thebes, Tanagra, and Hyettos (or Haliartos) on the Aeginetan standard date from the late sixth century B.C. They were all issued with the cutout Boeotian shield. Akraiphia, Copai, Coroneia, Mykalessos, and Pharai followed them. Except for Thebes, they all signed their issues with the initials of their ethnic, while Tanagra added the initials ΒΟΙ. The common obverse type illustrated the national feeling described by Herodotus (5.79.2). Only Orchomenos issued its small fractions with different types (ear of grain) from the end of the sixth century B.C. Things changed after the battle of Koroneia and the expulsion of the Athenians (446): Thebes remained the only active mint. Types referring to Herakles and from around 425 to Dionysos, also of Boeotian origin, occur on the reverse (Kraay 1976: 109–114; Psoma and Tsangari 2003: 113).

Fig 9 15

A number of Boeotian cities reopened their mints, most probably after the Peace of Antalkidas, with the standard obverse type (Boeotian heroic shield). For the reverse, each city adopted its own type: Poseidon hurling thunderbolt (Haliartos), forepart of horse related to Leukippos (Tanagra), wreath (Orchomenos), thunderbolt and then amphora (Mykalessos), and also amphora (Thebes; fig. 9.15). A second group retained the civic types as mintmarks and adopted the Theban (p. 164) amphora as reverse type and the legend ΒΟΙΩ. The initials of boeotarchs were added to the reverse and a uniform coinage was continuously issued over a long period by Thebes. Its end must be placed in 335, when Alexander III destroyed Thebes (Hepworth 1998: 61–89). This coinage, with 48 issues, began most probably after the liberation of the Kadmeia and financed the Theban victory at Leuctra (371). During the fifth century, Boeotia seems to be a closed monetary zone reserved to local coinages that were very rarely buried outside Boeotia. In the fourth century, the situation changed, and Boeotian staters were frequently buried in Peloponnesian, Thessalian, and northern Greece (Chalcidike) hoards. Together with Sicyon from the last decades of the fifth century, Thebes was the most important mint of the Aeginetan standard during a period coinciding with her aristeia after Leuctra. From the early fifth century B.C., the city of Delphi struck small fractions on the Aeginetan standard depicting a tripod and an omphalos (?). Before the deposit of the Asyut hoard (IGCH 1644: c. 475 B.C.), tridrachms and didrachms depicting rhyta in form of ram's heads were struck (Kraay 1976: 121; fig. 9.16). The traditional explanation that these were Persian vessels, spoils from the battle of Plataea (cf. Hdt. 9.80) was rightly rejected by Price and Waggoner (1976: 52). Most of the known specimens come from Egypt. Thus, “the possibility that this represents a single payment made by Delphi to Egypt should be seriously considered” (52). The small silver fractions of Delphi were intended for local circulation, as is revealed by the mid-fifth-century B.C. hoard (IGCH 22) that included 252 trihemiobols and was excavated at Delphi. Local use of this coinage is reflected in contemporary inscriptions, sacred laws of the city of Delphi noting taxes and fines that had to be paid in coined money (IDelph I 1 l. 2; 2 ll. 5-6) to the city of Delphi. This coinage mostly served the needs of the sanctuary and most probably also of the fair, which was not so significant at that moment (Psoma 2008).

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Greece and the Balkans to 360 B.C.

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The early federal organization of the Phocidians is revealed also by their coinage (triobols and smaller fractions), issued, after the end of the Persian Wars, with their name and types on the Aeginetan standard. The model of federal coinage they proposed influenced federal coinages struck from the last decades of the fifth century B.C. onward (Chalcideans of Thrace, Opountian Locris, Arcadians, Achaeans, etc.). Their bronze coinage in two denominations (chalkoi and trichalka) (p. 165) dates from the fourth century B.C., as do bronzes of Lilaia, Tithorea, Elateia, Neon, and Pedieis as well (Psoma and Tsangari 2003). The Amphictyonic coinage in three denominations also on the Aeginetan standard depicted Demeter and Apollo, types referring to the two annual meetings of the Amphictyonic council (pylaiai): at the sanctuary of Demeter at Pylai/Malis, in autumn (oporine) and at Delphi in early spring (earine). This coinage has to be related to the important fair markets organized on the occasion of these meetings; it dates between 336 and 334 B.C. and were intended for local circulation (Psoma 2008; fig. 9.17; on their dates see Kinns 1983: 1–22.). Coinage on the Aeginetan standard of the Locrians of Opus began during the Third Sacred War, when the Locrians were opposed to the Phocidians (Psoma and Tsangari 2003: 117; fig. 9.18). As is revealed by hoards, that federal coinage continued for some time afterward.

Fig 9 19

The cities of Euboea were à l’avant-garde of many things during the Archaic period, such as the creation of the socalled Euboean standard. Staters that were first mentioned in Eretrian inscriptions from the second half of the sixth century B.C. were 17.2 g, the weight later observed in the Attic tetradrachm, and were issued by Eretria, Chalkis, and Carystus from the end of the sixth century onward. It was before that date that the incuse square on the reverse was replaced by a sepia in Eretria, a quadriga, and then a wheel in Chalkis and a cock in Carystus. In terms of style and technique, Chalcidean coinage runs parallel to the Athenian Wappenmünzen and the early owls. Although Eretria was partially destroyed by the Persians in 491, its coinage continued to be issued for some more decades. Specimens of all Euboean mints were included in the Asyut hoard, buried around 475 B.C. From the midfifth century onward, coinage was not minted by the Euboean cities (Kraay 1976: 88–94). Only later, either from the end of the fifth century B.C. or later in the fourth century, did the Euboean Confederacy issue a coinage with

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Greece and the Balkans to 360 B.C. federal types (head of Euboea/heifer), first on the Aeginetan standard (staters), then on the Attic (tetradrachms), and later on a reduced Attic-local standard (Picard 1979). Sporadic issues of Chalkis after the mid-fourth century on the local standard also occur (fig. 9.19). Histiaia inaugurated its silver coinage with Euboean types and sometime later adopted the well-known nymph on prow reverse type. During the fourth century a federal bronze coinage was also (p. 166) inaugurated, while all Euboean cities issued bronzes in the fourth century for local use (Psoma and Tsangari 2003). Coinage was introduced in Corinth during the third quarter of the sixth century with silver coming from three different places. The Corinthian stater of 8.6 g, with a flying Pegasus and the letter koppa, was divided to thirds and sixths and could be easily exchanged with Attic currency. The presence of few Corinthian specimens in hoards and overstrikes help to establish a chronology: the Union Jack on the reverse was replaced by a swastika in the 520s. Toward 515–510, an obverse type, according to the Athenian model, was introduced: a head of Athena wearing a Corinthian helmet. Corinthian influence in western Greece through its colonies is revealed also by their coinages: Pegasi were issued by Leucas about 480. The first issues of Ambracia shared reverse dies with Corinth, which points to their having been produced in Corinth around 480/479; Ambracia participated in contemporary military operations against the Persians. After that date, Corinthian issues became occasional (Kraay 1976: 78–85). Between 436 and 433 Epidamnus, a Corinthian colony shared with Corcyra, and Potidaea signed a single issue of Corinthian types coinage (Bellerophon and Pegasus in Potidaea), while Anaktorion, another Corinthian colony, began its coinage (fig. 9.21). These mints, together with Corinth, Leucas, and Ambracia, provided money for the war against Corcyra and the Athenians, which explains the Athenian sanctions on Potidaea (Kagan 1997). Continuous pressure by Athens on Corinth can be traced in the production of coinage that ceased about 430. This was not the case with Leucas and Ambracia (Kraay 1976). From the beginning of the fourth century B.C., Corinthian coinage was minted with an impressive number of dies. Symbols associated later with letters were used for the control of the production (Kraay 1976; fig. 9.20). It was around the mid-fourth century, when Corinth sent Timoleon and 700 mercenaries to Sicily, that Corinthian coinage spread to the west. Her allies, Leucas, Corcyra, Argos, Apollonia, Dyrrhachium, Anaktorion (fig. 9.21), and Thyrrheium, issued Corinthian staters to support Timoleon's efforts to reestablish democracy in Syracuse, impose peace on Carthage, and implant Greek population in a devastated Sicily (Kraay 1976). Corinth issued a significant number of fractions; these are rather rare in its colonies and totally absent from their production of Corinthian currency for Timoleon's campaigns. Bronze was introduced into Corinth in the early fourth century B.C., but, as in Athens, it was issued on a regular basis only after the mid-fourth century.

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Fig 9 21

The Peloponnese shows a number of peculiarities. Sparta and areas under its control, Laconia and Messenia, had no coinage. All other cities issued coinages on the Aeginetan standard, with some exceptions: Phlious and Kleonai (reduced (p. 167) Corinthian standard), Troizen and Megara (Attic standard), Zakynthos and the three cities of Cephallenia (reduced Aeginetan standard or Corcyrean?). The nominal values of small silver fractions dating from the late fifth century were often indicated by means of initials on the reverse, while in some cases, during the fourth century, the ethnic in the form of a monogram was the main reverse type (Epidaurus, Hermione, and Pellene). The silver coinage on the Aeginetan standard was issued by the Eleans: Fα(λιέων). The types refer to the cult of Zeus and the coinage began earlier than (Nicolet-Pierre 2002: 179) the so-called synoecism of Elis, for which dates around 471 B.C. have been arbitrarily proposed (Roy 2002). Another series with types referring to Hera was issued from the last decades of the fifth century B.C. to the end of the fourth century B.C. As there are no shared dies between the two series, it has been suggested that two separate mints functioned at Olympia (Walker 2006). The

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Greece and the Balkans to 360 B.C. early coinage of the Eleans was “consistently slightly underweight in comparison to other coinages on the Aeginetan standard,” which shows that it was designed for local circulation during the games and the related fairs, and also for visitors who “toured the sanctuary in the years separating the festivals.” The extensive countermarking of all denominations deserves mention. Hoard evidence points to wide circulation of that coinage in Elis, while some specimens, mainly fractions, are to be found in hoards containing currency on the Aeginetan standard. At the beginning of the fifth century, Argos issued some drachms and triobols (wolf/A); Aegae, a coastal city of Achaea, triobols; while Dyme, also in Achaea, began some years afterward. Kleonai struck small fractions depicting the Nemean lion from the 460s. In Arcadia, a number of cities as Heraea, Kaphyai, Pheneos, Mantineia (bear), Psophis (Kerynian hind), and Thaliadai introduced a coinage in small denominations, mainly triobols, during the first decades of the fifth century B.C., with types deriving from the legendary background of Arcadia. During the Pentekontaetia, a coinage in the name of the Arcadians (Zeus/Artemis; fig. 9.22) was struck, most probably by the ambitious Tegea (Psoma and Tsangari 2003). Sicyon (dove/Σ) became the major Peloponnesian mint (fig. 9.23), thus providing the money for the “Attic” war (Nicolet-Pierre 2002: 179; Warren 2005). After 430, Phlious struck an abundant coinage in silver and bronze (bull/wheel). From the late fifth century date small fractions of Arcadian cities, as well as of Epidauros and Hermione. Of similar date are also a fractional coinage and the earliest bronzes with a wolf's head/A from Argos.

Fig 9 22

Fig 9 23

Fig 9 24

(p. 168) Major changes took place after Leuctra. Messenia was liberated, and the city of Messene was founded in 369 B.C. Staters (Demeter[?] copying Euainetos's Arethousa/Zeus Ithomatas), fractions, and a bronze coinage were issued soon afterward (Grandjean 2003). The newly founded Arcadian and Achaean leagues issued rare staters depicting Zeus/Pan and Artemis/Zeus, respectively (Psoma and Tsangari 2003; Mackil and van Alfen 2006). After 360, Pheneos and Stymphalos introduced spectacular coinages with Demeter's head/Hermes carrying the infant Arkas and Artemis's head/Herakles, respectively (Nicolet-Pierre 2002: 182; fig. 9.24). Tegea issued a coinage with Athena's head and Kepheos. Staters, drachms, fractions, and a bronze coinage of Sicyon with Chimaera/dove date from the fourth century; Sicyonian silver became one of the main currencies on the Aeginetan standard (Warren 2000: 201–210). In Argos, the impressive Hera's head coinage was introduced also after Leuctra (371). From that period date also small silver fractions issued by a number of Peloponnesian cities. From the late fifth to early fourth century, bronze coinage was issued by many Peloponnesian mints, while smaller cities issued exclusively bronze (Walker 2006). Hoard evidence points to local circulation of most of the Peloponnesian coinages, with the exception of Corinth and Sicyon, for reasons explained above. Their rare presence in hoards buried in areas where the Aeginetan standard was in use (central Greece) is worth noting. Fig. 9.1. THRACE, Abdera, first half of 5th century B.C., AR, Stater (14.60 g). Griffin seated l., above, ΔΑΜ/Quadripartite incuse square. From Nomos AG 1, 6 May 2009, 32. Fig. 9.2. THRACE, Dikaia, early 5th century BC., AR, Distater (19.54 g). Bearded head of Heracles r., wearing lion skin/Quadripartite incuse square. From Numismatica Ars Classica 29, 11 May 2005, 166.

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Greece and the Balkans to 360 B.C. Fig. 9.3. THRACE, Ainos, c. 460 B.C., AR, Stater (15.28 g). Head of Hermes facing, wearing petasus/Goat standing r.; in r. field, wreath; the whole within incuse square. From Numismatica Ars Classica 51, 5 Mar. 2009, 606. Fig. 9.4. THRACE, Apollonia Pontica, c. 450 B.C., AR, Drachm (3.18 g). Head of Medusa facing/A, Anchor, crayfish. From Tkalec AG, 7 May 2009, 23. Fig. 9.5. THRACE, Mesembria, 4th c. B.C., AR, Diobol (1.26 g). Corinthian helmet/M - E - T - A in the four parts of a wheel. From Numismatik Lanz München 123, 30 May 2005, 106. Fig. 9.6. THRACE, Maroneia. Second half of 5th century B.C., AR, Stater (14.25 g). ΜΑΡΩΝ Free horse springing to left; above, crested helmet to left; to left, Σ/. ΕΠΙ ΠΟΣΙΔΗΙΟ Grape vine with four bunches of grapes and four leaves. Schönert-Geiss 145.2. From Nomos AG 10, 6 May 2009, 38. (p. 169) Fig. 9.7. THRACE, Galepsus, c. 485–470 B.C., AR, Hemiekton (0.92 g). Goat kneeling left, head reverted; pellet to left and above/Quadripartite incuse square. From Classical Numismatic Group, Triton IX, 10 Jan. 2006, 846. Fig. 9.8. ISLANDS OF THRACE, Thasos, post 475 B.C., AR, Stater (9.30 g). Satyr and nymph/Incuse punch. From Tkalec AG, 7 May 2009, 28. Fig. 9.9. MACEDON, Amphipolis, 370–357 B.C., AR, Drachm (3.42 g). Laureate head of Apollo three-quarters facing r./ΑΜΦΙΠΟΛΙΤΕΩΝ on raised square frame, race torch within, all in incuse square. From Stack's, 12 Jan. 2009 (Golden Horn Collection), 2150. Fig. 9.10. MACEDON, Mende, 410–390 B.C., AR, Stater (12.59 g). Head of young Dionysos l./ΜΕΝΔ-ΑΙΩN Ithyphallic donkey l. From Hess-Divo AG 314, 4 May 2009, 1066. Fig. 9.11. MACEDON, Chalcidic League, c. 432–348 B.C., AR, Stater (14.51 g). Laureate head of Apollo l./Χ-ΑΛ-ΚΙΔ-ΕΩΝ, lyre with seven strings. From Baldwin's Auctions Ltd 52, 25 Sept. 2007, 30. Fig. 9.12. KINGDOM OF MACEDON, Alexander I, 498–454 B.C., AR, Triple stater (Silver, 28.59 g), c. 492– 480/479. Horse standing r., its bridle held by a warrior, wearing a petasos and holding two transverse spears/Quadripartite incuse square. From Nomos AG 1, 6 May 2009, 48. Fig. 9.13. ISLANDS OF ILLYRIA, Corcyra, c. 300–229 B.C., AR, Drachm (4.77 g). Forepart of bull right/Grapes and ivy leaf at sides of two encased stars. From Ponterio & Associates 149, 24 Apr. 2009, 2039. Fig. 9.14. THESSALY, Larissa, c. 356–342 B.C., AR, Drachm (6.07 g). Head of nymph Larissa facing threequarters to left/Horse right, its head lowered. From Baldwin's Auctions Ltd. Auction 59–60: 5 May 2009, 747. Fig. 9.15. BOEOTIA, Thebes, 480–460 B.C., AR, Stater (12.04 g). Boethian shield/Θ, Incuse punch. From Tkalec AG, May 2009: 7 May 2009, 36. Fig. 9.16. CENTRAL GREECE, Delphi, before 475 B.C., AR, Tridrachm (18.55 g). Two rhyta side by side/Quadripartite incuse in form of ceiling coffers, each decorated with dolphin and spray of laurel leaves. From Leu Numismatik AG 81, 16 May 2001, 199. Fig. 9.17. CENTRAL GREECE, Delphi, Amphictyonic coinage, 336–334 B.C., AR, Stater (12.27 g). Head of Demeter veiled with crown of grain stalks/Apollo seated on omphalos in net. From Bank Leu 20, 25 Apr. 1978, 86. Fig. 9.18. LOKRIS, Lokris Opuntia, c. 369–338 B.C., AR, Stater (12.19 g). Wreathed head of Persephone of Euainetos type r./ΟΠΟΝΤΙΩΝ, Ajax advancing right. From Classical Numismatic Group, Triton V, 15 Jan. 2002, 1354. Fig. 9.19. ΕUΒΟΕΑ, Chalkis, c. 369–313 B.C., AR, Drachma (3.77 g). Head of Nymphe r./ΧΑΛ, Eagle with snake, caduceus below. From Gorny & Mosch Giessener Münzhandlung 176, 10 Mar. 2009, 1221. Fig. 9.20. CORINTHIA, Corinth, 345–307 B.C., AR, Stater (8.65 g). Pegasus flying to l., koppa below/Head of Athena in Corinthian helmet to l., dove l. in wreath behind. From UBS Gold & Numismatics 82, 20 Jan. 2009, 256. Fig. 9.21. ACARNANIA, Anaktorion, 470–450 B.C., AR, Stater (8.73 g). Pegasos r./Head of Athena with Corinthian helmet. From Münzen & Medaillen Deutschland GmbH 23, 18 Oct. 2007, 75. Fig. 9.22. ARCADIA, Arcadian League, 470s B.C., AR, Hemidrachm (2.99 g). Zeus Lykaios seated l. on throne holding long scepter in l. hand and eagle flying off his r./Head of Artemis, A-R (retrograde), all in incuse square. From Stack's, 22 Apr. 2009, 1105. (p. 170) Fig. 9.23. SICYONIA, Sicyon, c. 380–360 B.C., AR, Stater (12.11 g). ΣΕ Chimaera l., above, wreath/Dove flying l., below head, Ι; whole in laurel wreath. From New York Sale 20, 7 Jan. 2009, 168. Fig. 9.24. ARCADIA, Stymphalos, c. 350 B.C., AR, Stater (12.09 g). Laureate head of Artemis r./Herakles l. preparing to strike with his club. From LHS Numismatik AG 96. 8 May 2006, 1704.

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Greece and the Balkans to 360 B.C.

Bibliography Bibliography Ashton, R., and S. Hurter, eds. (1997). Studies in Greek Numismatics in Memory of Martin Jessop Price London. Badian, E. (1994). “Herodotus on Alexander I of Macedonia. A Study in Some Subtle Silences.” In S. Hornblower, ed., Greek Historiography. Oxford: 107–130. Balmuth, M. S., ed. (2001). Hacksilber to Coinage: New Insights into the Monetary History of the Near East and Greece A Collection of Eight Papers presented at the 99th Annual Meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America. Numismatic Studies 24. New York. Buraselis, K., and K. Zoumboulakis, eds. (2003). The Idea of European Community in History, Conference Proceedings Vol. 2. Aspects of Connecting Poleis and Ethne in Greek Antiquity Athens. Burnett, A., Ute Wartenberg, and R. Witschonke, eds. (1998). Coins of Macedonia and Rome: Essays in Honour of Charles Hersh London. Carradice, I., ed. (1987). Coinage and Administration in the Athenian and Persian Empires The Ninth Oxford Symposium for Coinage and Monetary History British Archaeological Reports 343. Oxford. Casabonne, O., ed. (2000). Mécanismes et innovations monétaires dans l’Anatolie achéménide Numismatique et histoire Actes de la table ronde internationale d’Istanbul, 22–23 mai 1997 Varia Anatolica 12. Paris. Chryssanthaki-Nagle, K. (2004). “Le monnayage d’Orthagoreia.” RN 160: 49–62. ———. (2007). L’histoire monétaire d’Abdère en Thrace (VIe s av J -C –IIe s ap J -C ) Meletemata 51. Athens. Gaebler, H. (1935). Die Antike Münzen Nordgriechenlands, III/2. Berlin. Grandjean, C. (2003). Les Messéniens: De 370/369 au 1er siècle de notre ère: Monnayages et histoire. Athens. Grandjean, Y., and Fr. Salviat, eds. (2000). Guide de Thasos Sites et Monuments 3 Athens. Hepworth, R. (1998). “The 4th Century Magistrate Coinage of the Boiotian Confederacy.” NomKhron 17: 61–89. Howgego, C. (1995). Ancient History from Coins London. Hurter, S. M., and C. Arnold-Biucchi, eds. (2000). Pour Denyse Divertissements numismatiques Bern. Kagan, J. H. (1987). “The Decadrachm Hoard: Chronology and Consequences.” In Carradice 1987: 21–28. ———. (1997). “Epidamnus or Ephyre (Elea): A note on the coinage of Corinth and her colonies at the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War.” In Ashton and Hurter: 163–173. ———. (2004). “The So-called Persian Weight Coins of Larissa.” Obolos 7: 79–86. (p. 171) ———. (2006). “Small Change and the Beginning of Coinage at Abdera.” In van Alfen 2006: 49–59. Kinns, P. (1983). “The Amphictyonic Coinage Reconsidered.” NC 143: 1–22. Kraay, C. M. (1976). Archaic and Classical Greek Coins. London. Kroll, J. H. (2001). “Observations on Monetary Instruments in Pre-coinage Greece.” In Balmuth: 77–91. Lavva, S. (2001). Die Münzprägung von Pharsalos. Saarbrücken. Le Rider, G. (1996). Finances et monnayage de Philippe II de Macédoine Un État de la question Meletemata 26. Athens.

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Greece and the Balkans to 360 B.C. Liampi, K. (1998). “The Coinage of King Derdas and the History of the Elimiote Dynasty.” In Burnett et al.: 5–10. ———. (2006). Argilos: A Historical and Numismatic Study. Athens: Εταιρεία Μελέτης Νομισματικής και Οικονομικής Ιστορίας. Lorber, C. C. (1990). Amphipolis: The Civic Coinage in Silver and Gold. Los Angeles. Martin, T. R. (1985). Sovereignty and Coinage in Classical Greece. Princeton. May, J. M. F. (1950). Ainos: Its History and Coinage, 474–341 B C. London. Moustaka, A. (1983). Kulte und Mythen auf Thessalischen Münzen. Würzburg. Nicolet-Pierre, H. (2002). Numismatique Grecque. Paris. Panagopoulou, K. (2004). “Νόμισμα και κυριαρχία στην Θεσσαλία. Η περίπτωση των Γόμφων/Φιλιπποπόλεως.” Obolos 7: 541–554. Papaeuangelou, Kl. (1998). “Θεσσαλικά τριημιωβόλια με ιππέα και οβολοί με άλογο. H ‘συνέχεια’ της θεσσαλικής νομισματικής ένωσης κατά το β’ μισό του 5ου αιώνα π.X.” Περίαπτο 1: 40–53. Peter, U. (1997). Die Münzen der thrakischen Dynasten (5 –3 Jahrhundert v Chr ) Hintergründe ihrer Prägung. Berlin. Picard, O. (1979). Chalcis et la Confédération eubéenne: Étude de numismatique et d’histoire, Ive–Ier siècle: Athens. ———. (1999). “Le commerce de l’argent dans la charte de Pistiros.” BCH 123: 334–346. ———. (2000a).“Monnayages en Thrace à l’époque achémenide.” In Casabonne: 239–252. Istanbul. ———. (2000b). “Le monnayage de Thasos aux époques grecque et romaine.” In Grandjean and Salviat: 303–306. Price, M. J., and N. Waggoner. (1976). Archaic Greek Silver Coinage: The Asyut Hoard London. Psoma, S. (1999). “Monnaies de poids réduit d’Alexandre I et de Perdiccas II de Macédoine.” ZPE 128: 273–282. ———. (2001). Olynthe et les Chalcidiens de Thrace Etudes de Numismatique et d’Histoire. Stuttgart. ———. (2006). “The ‘Lete’ Coinage Reconsidered.” In van Alfen: 61–85. ———. (2007).“Le monnayage fédéral acarnanien du Ve siècle.” Klio 89: 7–23. Psoma, S., D. Karadima, and D. Terzopoulou. (2008). The Excavations Coins from Maroneia and the Classical City at Molyvoti: A Contribution to the History of Aegean Thrace Meletemata 62. Athens. Psoma, S., and D. Tsangari. (2003). “Monnaie commune et États fédéraux. La circulation des monnayages frappés par les États fédéraux du monde grec.” In Buraselis and Zoumboulakis: 111–141. Raymond, D. (1953). Macedonian Regal Coinage to 413 B C ANSNNM 126. New York. Rebuffat, F. (1996). La monnaie dans l’Antiquité. Paris. (p. 172) Roy, J. (2002). “The Synoikism of Elis.” In Even More Studies in the Ancient Greek Polis: Papers of the Copenhagen Polis Centre 6 Historia Einzelschriften 162. Wiesbaden: 249–264. Schönert-Geiss, E. (1996). “Zur Münzprägung von Samothrake—Ein Überblick.” In Charakter 1996: 271–276. ———. (1999). Bibliographie zur antiken Numismatik Thrakiens und Mösiens Berlin. van Alfen, P., ed. (2006). Agoranomia: Studies in Money and Exchange Presented to J H Kroll New York. Walker, A. S. (2006). Coins of Peloponnesos: The BCD Collection. LHS Numismatics. Zürich.

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Greece and the Balkans to 360 B.C. Warren, J. A. W. (2000). “The Silver Coins of Sicyon in Leiden.” In Hurter and Arnold-Biucchi: 201–213. Wartenberg, U. (1998). “Philotas? A New Coinage from Macedonia.” In Burnett et al. 1998: 11–18. Selene Psoma Selene Psoma s a collaborat ve researcher at the Research Centre for Greek and Roman Ant qu ty, Nat onal Hellen c Research Foundat on, Athens.

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The Hellenistic World

Oxford Handbooks Online The Hellenistic World The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Coinage Edited by William E. Metcalf Pr nt Pub cat on Date: Feb 2012 Subject: C ass ca Stud es On ne Pub cat on Date: Nov 2012



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The Hellenistic World

(p. 174)

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Royal Hellenistic Coinages: From Alexander to Mithradates

Oxford Handbooks Online Royal Hellenistic Coinages: From Alexander to Mithradates François de Callataÿ The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Coinage Edited by William E Metcalf Pr nt Publ cat on Date: Feb 2012 Onl ne Publ cat on Date: Nov 2012

Subject: Class cal Stud es, Greek and Roman Archaeology, Mater al Culture Stud es DO : 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195305746.013.0011

Abstract and Keywords This article considers the Hellenistic royal coinages in the long term, including the essential developments preceding the death of Alexander. With metallic resources, Philip started first to issue a rich coinage in silver, mostly of heavy tetradrachms. With some 544 obverse dies attributed to the period around 356–328 BC, the pace of these strikings exceeded those of any preceding Macedonian king. But the true innovation for the Greek world was the gold coinage. The ability to control sources of precious metals proved to be decisive on the eve of the Hellenistic period. Philip II of Macedon succeeded in seizing the Pangean mines located in Macedon, while Alexander the Great captured the Persian treasuries accumulated by the Achaemenids in their palaces in what is now Iran. By domino effect, these two events, and the uses made of them, had dramatic consequences, shaping the world for centuries. Keywords Hellenistic coinage Alexander precious metals domino effect

FROM a political point of view, the Hellenistic world cannot fail to appear as one of gigantic turmoil. Invented in the

1830s by the German historian Gustav Droysen (1808–1884), the Hellenistic period conventionally starts in June 323 B.C., when Alexander died in Babylon, after a decade of an unprecedented military adventure, and ends with the defeat of Cleopatra, the last queen of Egypt, at the battle of Actium in 31 B.C. These three centuries are usually divided into two periods of approximately similar lengths: the balance of power between the Seleucids and the Ptolemies (c. 301–189 B.C.) and the rise of Roman power (c. 189–31 B.C.). This essay, which focuses on Asia Minor, considers the Hellenistic royal coinages in the long term, including the essential developments preceding the death of Alexander—the monetary policies of Philip II of Macedon and of Alexander himself—but amputated from the two major Hellenistic kingdoms, the Ptolemies and the Seleucids, which have been left for specialized discussion (see below). As is often the case with monetary matters, the ability to control sources of precious metals—gold and silver— proved to be decisive on the eve of the Hellenistic period. Philip II of Macedon succeeded in seizing the Pangean mines located in Macedon, while Alexander the Great captured the Persian treasuries accumulated by the Achaemenids in their palaces in what is now Iran. By domino effect, these two events—and the uses made of them —had dramatic consequences, shaping the (p. 176) world for centuries (wherever we draw the limit: Mediterranean, Eurasian) and even, as some have argued, for millennia.

Philip of Macedon and the Pangean Mines Philip II (382–336 B.C.), a most determined character, acceded to power in 360 B.C. and immediately embarked on an expansionist policy. In 356 B.C., he took the control of the Pangean district, rich in silver and gold. Diodorus

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Royal Hellenistic Coinages: From Alexander to Mithradates (16.8.6–7) says that after the refoundation of Crenides under the name Philippi, Philip enhanced the revenues of these gold mines, up to 1,000 talents a year. As a consequence, he issued a gold coinage and was able to recruit many mercenaries and corrupt many Greeks. Numismatic evidence confirms this statement. With these metallic resources, Philip started first to issue a rich coinage in silver, mostly of heavy tetradrachms (fig. 10.1). With some 544 obverse dies attributed to the period around 356–328 B.C. (an average of more than 20 per year), the pace of these strikings exceeded those of any preceding Macedonian king (see table 10.1 for a conspectus of yearly averages of obverse dies for tetradrachms used by different rulers or cities). But the true innovation for the Greek world—the one that promised to have a deep impact not only on its time—was the gold coinage (fig. 10.2). In 348/347 B.C. (Le Rider 1996: 72), or possibly even before, in 352 B.C. or even in 355 B.C., Philip II inaugurated an ample coinage of gold staters and its subdivisions. The numbers look quite impressive: for staters only, some 300 obverse dies were engraved and used in a short span of time (c. 348–328 B.C., the maximal chronology allowed by Le Rider). Other significant issues were struck posthumously, chiefly during the brief reign of Philip III Arrhidaeus (323–317 B.C.). Moreover, these staters immediately circulated outside Macedonia. In continental Greece as well as in the Balkans, they were predominant in the 320s B.C.

Fig 10 1

Fig 10 2

(p. 177)

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Royal Hellenistic Coinages: From Alexander to Mithradates

Table 10.1 Summary of yearly averages for issues of tetradrachms (in extrapolated number of obverse dies) Rulers or cities

Obverses

Years

Yearly average

Alexander the Great (c. 332–317 B.C.)

c. 1,800 ?

16

c. 113

Alexander the Great including posthumous  (c. 332–290 B.C.)

c. 3,000

42

c. 71

Lysimachus (c. 297–281 B.C.)

c. 450

16

c. 28

Laurel-wreath coinages (c. 155–140 B.C.)

c. 300

15

c. 20

Philip II (c. 356–328 B.C.)

c. 544

28

c. 19

Demetrius Poliorcetes (c. 306–287 B.C.)

c. 230

19

c. 12

“Cistophoroi” (c. 180–130 B.C.)

c. 520

50

c. 10

Athens (c. 180–45 B.C.)

c. 1,290

135

c. 10

Nicomedes III and IV (128/127–74/73 B.C.)

c. 450

54

c. 8.3

Mithradates Eupator (c. 97–66 B.C.)

c. 190

31

c. 6.1

Rhodus (c. 340–190 B.C.)*

c. 388

150

c. 2.6

Attalids (c. 263–185 B.C.)

c. 206

79

c. 2.6

Cappadocian kings (c. 130–78/77 B.C.)*

c. 95

52

c. 1.8

Phaselis (c. 250–130 B.C.)*

c. 96

120

c. 0.8

First Pontic kings (c. 220–150 B.C.)

c. 30

70

c. 0.4

Note: An asterisk means that these averages are not (or not only) for tetradrachms. Numbers have been adapted to the weight of Attic tetradrachms. These gold coins made such an impression in the Aegean world and beyond that people—and consequently ancient authors—started to call philippeioi any kind of heavy gold coins. This was a rare privilege for a king, only shared by Darius and his “darics.” In the comedies of Plautus (see Rudens, Trinummus, or Truculentus) or in the amounts of coins reported by Livy and Plutarch for some Roman triumphs (see Flamininus over Perseus in 194 B.C., Scipio Asiatiacus over Antiochus III in 189 B.C., Marcus Fulvius over the Aetolians in 187 B.C., etc.), it is pretty clear that the coins called philippeioi or philippei (or a variant) describe gold staters in the name of Alexander the Great —which by that time had been issued and were circulating in vastly larger numbers than the original staters of Philip. In addition, the coinages of Philip II, both in silver and gold, met with remarkable iconographic success among Celtic tribes. The silver types (head of Zeus/horseman) were copied all along the Danube, while the gold types (head of Apollo/biga with charioteer) became the main source of inspiration for the staters struck in the Gauls as late as Caesar's Gallic Wars (58–51 B.C.). The biga and its charioteer on the gold coins are clearly agonistic. Indeed, we are informed that Philip boasted on his coins of his victory at Olympia (Plutarch, Alex 4). It is likely that, as for other rulers located on the fringes of the

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Royal Hellenistic Coinages: From Alexander to Mithradates Greek world (in Sicily or in Cyrenaica), his aim in putting these types on his coinages was not only to commemorate his victories but also to advertise what these victories implied: as a participant in the games, he was accepted as a recognized member of the Greek koinè (community).

(p. 178) Alexander the Great and the Persian Treasuries In many ways, Alexander the Great (356–323 B.C.), son of Philip II, changed the face of the ancient world. But from a numismatic point of view, he was chiefly pragmatic, which—most of the time—means conservative. He did not strike his own currencies before advancing far into Asia, after the victory of Issus (autumn 333 B.C.). His silver coinage, possibly struck with the booty taken there from the Persians, shows, on the obverse, the head of a young Heracles covered with the lion-skin—a type already used by many preceding Macedonian kings—and on the reverse Zeus enthroned holding an eagle in his extended right arm (aetophoros = eagle-holder; fig. 10.3). This last type was without doubt invented in Cilicia: it is a clear imitation of the Baal of Tarsus figured on the staters of the last Persian satrap of Cilicia, Mazaios (Mazday in Persian) at the mint of Tarsus. The engravers, too, who produced dies for Mazaios remained at work under Alexander. This silver coinage soon became, for about a century and a half, the most accepted international currency of the Greek world, replacing in that role the Athenian owls. But Alexander himself can hardly be credited with this success. A typical case is provided by Mazaios/Mazday, who was wise enough to submit to him: not only did Alexander appoint him satrap of Babylonia (end of 331 B.C.), but he allowed Mazaios to start a new coinage with his name and “his” types (Baaltars/lion). Similarly, Alexander permitted the issue of gold darics, from now on with Greek letters, and even Athenian owls. To be sure, finances were crucial all the way along for Alexander. But, absorbed by his conquests, the throbbing question he constantly faced was how to obtain silver, not how to promote his monetary types. And gold and silver cash he rapidly found in unprecedented quantity. The booty he took, mainly in the great treasuries of Susa (c. 40,000/50,000 Attic talents) and Persepolis (c. 120,000), amounted to some 180,000 Attic talents (Diod. 17.80.3; Strabo 15.3.9). With an Attic talent weighing 2.6 kg of gold or 26 kg of silver, this booty represented the equivalent of 468 tons of gold or 4,680 tons of silver—more likely a combination of these two metals, for example 235 tons of gold (c. 90,000 talents) and 2,350 tons of silver (c. 90,000 talents).

Fig 10 3

Alexander's principal achievement was to put into circulation these gigantic masses of precious metal that were kept immobilized for generations, in part by the Achaemenid tributary system. In Cilicia first, then in Macedonia, Cyprus, and Phoenicia, he used the facilities of existing mints to issue his own coinages. Macedonian issues were massive, with 740 (p. 179) attested obverse dies for the main mint of Amphipolis in around 15 years (c. 332– 318/317 B.C.—a yearly average of c. 50). Elsewhere, mints were created in areas that had never really known coinage before: Damascus, Babylon, and Alexandria. Babylon quickly became the chief mint in the east, but for several years no minting activity was observed in Alexandria. As recent studies have emphasized, it took some decades to convert the huge mass of precious metals found in the Achaemenid palaces. This phenomenon was not pushed artificially. Certainly military circumstances played a major role. An attractive theory places a peak in the production in the years 325/324 and 324/323 B.C., with the

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Royal Hellenistic Coinages: From Alexander to Mithradates return to their homes of large bands of mercenaries. Soldiers would have been paid not in Babylon, where Alexander disbanded them, but in the harbors on their way back (in order to hurry up the return to their homelands). A slightly later chronology might alter this scenario, but not the idea that the bulk of the lifetime coinage of Alexander was struck late in his short reign. Even if Alexander coins struck during his lifetime largely superseded all contemporary issues, the bulk of these “Alexanders” was struck posthumously, to pay for the many wars that occurred in the decades following his death. From 332 B.C. to the end of the century, around 1,200 obverse dies were required to strike the gold staters in his name, 3,000 for the silver tetradrachms and 3,300 for the drachms. If we accept an average productivity of 20,000 coins per die (which means around 350 kg of monetized silver per obverse die), no less than 131,000 Attic talents were thereby monetized (80,000 + 40,000 + 11,000). It seems plausible that around 300 B.C., in terms of value, the “Alexanders” represented half (or more) of all the circulating Greek coinages. For a century at least, coins in the name of Alexander largely dominated the content of international hoards, as exemplified by the Meydancıkkale hoard, buried around 235 B.C. in Cilicia. Of a total content of 3,057 Attic silver coins, 2,554 were “Alexanders” (74%), most of them struck before 290 B.C.

The Diadochi: The First Generation of Hellenistic Kings After the death of Alexander, some of those who had been his closest friends, and often his best generals, desperately fought over the empire. It is not an exaggeration to write that between June 323 B.C. and the death of Antigonus Monophtalmus (the “One-Eyed”) at the battle of Ipsus in 301 B.C., the Aegean world and beyond was a restless battlefield for the ambitions of these “diadochs” (successors). Some disappeared quickly, such as Perdiccas, for a while the most legitimate of all, or Eumenes of Cardia. It turned out that in the end, the two most successful were Seleucus and Ptolemy, who both founded large kingdoms that survived them for two centuries (see below).

Fig 10 4

(p. 180) Over decades, the pace of royal monetary striking was virtually uninterrupted. Dozens of tons of gold, and hundreds of silver, were minted, mostly prolonging existing monetary types in the name of Philip (especially during the intermezzo of Philip III Arrhidaeus) and Alexander (from now on preceded by the title “Basileôs,” “of the king” (fig. 10.4). There can be little doubt that this peak is to be related to military expenditures. At the same time, a general increase of prices, as attested in Delos and Babylon, comes as no surprise. It is a rare circumstance when we may postulate an effective case for the quantitative theory of money in the classical world (the other example being the Egyptian treasuries taken by Augustus from Cleopatra). We should notice, however, that this peak did not last: prices came back to their original level around the beginning of the third century and remained remarkably stable until around 150 B.C. One probable reason for this may have been the rather quick and significant removal of the gold coins from circulation in Asia Minor and the Aegean world. (Although no quantity has been calculated, it is likely that large numbers of these gold coins moved north, to Thrace and further.) For a while, the diadochs were reluctant to place their own images on their coins. They generally preferred to pursue the strikes of “Alexanders,” by now the most familiar type to every soldier, adding the word “basileôs” (“of the king” [Alexander]). As a consequence, we do not have any coin with their own types for several rulers, including the major figure of Antigonus Monophtalmus (c. 382–301 B.C.). Ptolemy Sôter in Egypt was the most

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Royal Hellenistic Coinages: From Alexander to Mithradates innovative, introducing first the portrait of Alexander with an elephant headdress and the ram's horn of Zeus Ammon (c. 321 B.C.) and then his own portrait (c. 304 B.C.). Others had to follow his example. Demetrius Poliorcetes (337–283 B.C.), the son of Monophtalmus, who survived the battle of Ipsus in which his father was killed, decided soon afterward to replace the name of Alexander with his own (c. 300 B.C.). At the mint of Tyre, we can even observe the very moment of the change, since we have on record a reverse die whose legend “Alexandrou” has been modified into “Demetriou” (Newell 1927: 45). The head of Demetrius himself appeared slightly later on the obverse, but this really became systematic only after the retreat of Demetrius to continental Greece (292/291 B.C.; fig. 10.5).

Fig 10 5

Fig 10 6

Fig 10 7

With around 30 obverse dies for gold staters (fig. 10.6) and around 230 for silver tetradrachms, the monetary strikes of Demetrius (c. 306–287 B.C.) were plentiful. The yearly average for his (p. 181) tetradrachms (c. 12 dies) represents more than a half of what we got for Philip II and about 1/5 of what we may deduce for the biggest mint during the lifetime of Alexander (Amphipolis), which means about 1/10 of all his tetradrachms. After the battle of Ipsus, the dominions of Antigonus Monophtalmus were divided. Lysimachus (c. 360–281 B.C.), another diadoch and a past bodyguard of Alexander, received the greater part of Asia Minor. Lysimachus, even if he never put his portrait on his coin, provides another example of the kind of gradual typological changes that occurred during the diadochs’ reigns. Although his reign started in 306 B.C., it was not before Ipsus that he added

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Royal Hellenistic Coinages: From Alexander to Mithradates his badge, a minute lion's forepart, in the field of the reverse, and not before around 299/298 B.C. that he replaced the name “Alexandrou” with his own, “Lysimachou.” At last, in around 297/296 B.C., he invented a new coinage with a magnificent head of Alexander wearing the horns of Ammon on the obverse and a seated Athena Nikephoros (Victory-bearer) on the reverse. It promised a glorious destiny, part of which was to serve as the model, two millennia later, for the allegory of Britannia (fig. 10.7). Largely exported to the north, these types, identical for the gold staters and the silver tetradrachms, had quick success along the shores of the Black Sea: they were copied in different places by many dynasts or rulers and were still produced two centuries after the death of Lysimachus on the battlefield of Corupedium in 281 B.C. At least 400 obverse dies (450?) were engraved and used for his lifetime tetradrachms (c. 297–281), a huge mass indeed, considerably larger in terms of yearly production than what Philip II issued during his reign. It is likely that the royal issues put into circulation during the first two decades of the 3rd century B.C. are still to be considered as part of the conversion into coin of the precious metals taken, a long time ago now, from the Persian treasuries. There is no reason to qualify these issues with the modern concept of “replacement issues.” That does not preclude another reality: the quick recycling of recent coins as the “Alexanders” into more new coinages.

(p. 182) The Attalids, the Monetary Closed Economies, and Their Relations to Civic Mints Philetairus (c. 343–263 B.C.) long served Lysimachus as his treasurer, with the task of protecting his 9,000 talents (c. 230 tons of silver), kept on the acropolis of Sardis, but betrayed him some time before Corupedium. He managed to create a kingdom for himself in Asia Minor (although he never proclaimed himself king), arousing growing difficulties with the Seleucids. Several monetary issues may be attributed to him, reflecting his allegiances. He first struck coins of Lysimachus (c. 287–282 B.C.). Then (c. 281–279 B.C.) he put into circulation splendid tetradrachms (head of horned horse/elephant) in honor of and with the name of Seleucus I Nicator (c. 358–281 B.C.), who was assassinated shortly after Corupedium. For a while (c. 279–274 B.C.) he thought it wiser to strike “Alexanders” either with the legend “Alexandrou” or “Seleukou.” At last, he decided to issue coins with a magnificent portrait of Seleucus on the obverse and a seated Athena Nikephoros (the type created under Lysimachus) on the reverse, with his own name appearing for the first time, “Philetairou,” an astonishing mix that reveals from where he came as well as how confident he felt from then on (fig. 10.8). At the death of Philetairus in 263 B.C., his brother Eumenes I refused to give up the treasury claimed by the Seleucids, prompting an immediate war with Antiochus I Soter, who was defeated, rather unexpectedly, and lost his life in 261 B.C. The reign of Eumenes I (263–241 B.C.) proved to be very fruitful for the young kingdom of Pergamum. The city of Pergamum itself quickly became a leading cultural center for the Hellenistic world. From a numismatic point of view, Eumenes initiated a coinage of tetradrachms with the head of Philetairus, the founder, on the obverse and a seated Athena on the reverse, with the single word “Philetairou” (“[coin] of Philetairus”; fig. 10.9). It will be noticed that the highly realistic, fat, and unflattering portrait of Philetairus is typical of the thirdcentury rulers, who no longer needed to be legitimated by reference to Alexander. They could present themselves as they were or wished to be seen.

Fig 10 8

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Royal Hellenistic Coinages: From Alexander to Mithradates

Fig 10 9

Fig 10 10

These types would be struck as an immobilized type for a century, since Eumenes's successors adopted it without major changes. The long reigns of Eumenes I (263–241 B.C.), Attalus I (241–197 B.C.), and Eumenes II (197–160 B.C.) required the use of about 200 obverses, (p. 183) which means a yearly average slightly above two, a meager output compared with earlier ones. In 189 B.C., Antiochos III the Great, the powerful Seleucid king, was defeated by the Romans in Magnesia ad Sipylum (in Lydia, close to Ionia), with the assistance of the Attalid Eumenes II. As a reward, the territory of the Attalid Kingdom was enlarged by the Peace of Apamea in 188 B.C. Soon afterward, it seems (the date is still the matter of debate), Eumenes made the decision to close his kingdom to foreign currencies. He created and imposed what ancient sources call “cistophoroi” since these new coins represent a mystical cista on the obverse (and a bow-case between serpents on the reverse—fig. 10.10). These “cistophoroi” weighed only three-quarters of the Attic tetradrachm (c. 12.6 g in place of c. 16.8 g) but had to be changed and accepted by foreigners at the border for the same value. Production was huge and pursued by different mints, among which Pergamum, Ephesus, and Tralles were the most prolific. For around 180–130 B.C., some 520 obverse dies were engraved, meaning a yearly average of about 10—much more than for the royal Attalid tetradrachms of the third century. The introduction of such a “closed monetary economy” inside the kingdom of Pergamum was not a novelty for the Greek world. Very advantageous for the issuing power, it had a long history (see the Achaean cities of Magna Graecia and their incuse coinages during the second half of the sixth century or, closer in time and space, Egypt under Ptolemy I Soter from c. 300 B.C.). The introduction of the “cistophoroi” took its place in a general context that favored that type of hard decision. Approximately at the same time, Rhodes did the same with its “plinthophoroi,” as did Antiochus IV in Antioch around 173/172 B.C.

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Royal Hellenistic Coinages: From Alexander to Mithradates

Fig 10 11

(p. 184) The kingdom of Pergamum, or the Attalid Kingdom, as it was renamed when Attalus assumed the royal title shortly after his resounding victory over the Celts in 240 B.C. (Polyb. 18.41.7–8), was a highly urbanized area with a long tradition of civic mints, including the places—Lydia and Ionia—where coinage, stricto sensu, was born around 600 B.C. As the “cistophoroi” do bear the initials of several cities, the question arises of the autonomy of these cities. Was it a privilege or a burden for them to issue these silver coins? As advocated by Le Rider, it is likely that these strikes were negotiated by the king, not without advantages for the cities. So far, nothing has been said about the many civic issues that continued to be struck under Hellenistic times. Dozens of cities produced hundreds of coinages. However, in terms of value, these civic issues were far from approaching those of the Hellenistic rulers. With a yearly monetary production equivalent to around two and a half obverses for Attic tetradrachms in Rhodes (c. 340–190 B.C.) or around one for Phaselis (c. 250–130 B.C.), even the biggest cities could hardly compete with Hellenistic kings (with the sole exception of Athens: c. 10 for the period c. 185–45 B.C.). Indeed, many civic mints remained active, although sporadically, but as a rule they concentrated their activities producing small silver or bronze coins. Rare were the cities that continued the striking of civic tetradrachms (we naturally leave aside here the abundant issues of “Alexanders,” which were mainly struck to finance the so-called three Macedonian wars). However, in the years around 155–140 B.C., several cities located in Asia Minor under Attalid rule issued spectacular tetradrachms with a laurel wreath on the reverse (Cyme, Magnesia, Myrina [fig. 10.11], Heraclea, Smyrna, Lebedus, and Aegae). Struck in large quantities (c. 300 obverses in 15 years, a more prolific production at the time than the “cistophoroi” themselves), these tetradrachms have been massively found in the east (Cilicia and Syria), as in the very large hoard of Kırıkhan (Cilicia, 1972). We may debate about their original goal (commercial or military), but it is beyond question that they were allowed or promoted by Attalus II (158–138 B.C.), especially since the volume of coins issued by each of these cities does not fit with their supposed economic or political importance. A tempting scenario assumes that the Attalid kings, like others before them, managed to have at their disposal two main currencies, one for their kingdom and another one for abroad.

(p. 185) The Last Hellenistic Kings (Bithynia, Cappadocia, Pontus) With the victory of the Roman legions on the Asian battlefield of Magnesia (189 B.C.) and the defeat of Antiochus III the Great, the most powerful Hellenistic king of the time, a new order was confirmed. It was already clear for any ruler that Rome was the leading military force of the Mediterranean world, but from now on, the political landscape in the east was more and more immobilized, with very few attempts to confront Rome directly. The last rulers to take the risk were the Seleucid Antiochus IV (who was driven to seize Alexandria in 168 B.C., although his army was already victorious in Egypt) and the Macedonian Perseus (who was defeated at Pydna in 168 B.C.). Taking advantage of this general context and along with the Attalid power, several lesser kingdoms expanded in Asia Minor during the second part of the Hellenistic period. Three of them struck abundant coinages at some points of their history: Bithynia, Cappadocia, and Pontus. These well-studied coinages exemplify differences and similarities we might expect for royal issues. Bithynia, a more monetized area, allowed its kings, generally named Prusias or Nicomedes, to issue not only long and rather continuous series of silver tetradrachms but also bronze coins. Close to the Seleucid “empire,” Cappadocian kings struck military issues, mostly silver drachms, a remarkable peculiarity they shared with the Parthians. Pontus—and nearby Paphlagonia, whose kings played a minor role and only struck some rare bronze issues—long remained a poorly monetized area, with kings, usually named Mithradates and Pharnaces, striking casual issues of valuable coins in order to match military expenditures. That royal coins were above all struck for the troops is best illustrated by the coinages of Mithradates Eupator, the last great figure of the Hellenistic world, who fought repeatedly against the Romans and whose coins are

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Royal Hellenistic Coinages: From Alexander to Mithradates exceptionally well dated.

Fig 10 12

Fig 10 13

Fig 10 14

It has to be noticed that both royal Bithynian and Cappadocian coinages started with some minor series of bronze coins, whose purpose is debatable but cannot have been used to finance vast enterprises. For Bithynia, we do have a few tetradrachms for Nicomedes I (c. 280–250 B.C.). The first large issues have to be attributed to Prusias I (c. 230–182 B.C.), with his portrait slightly idealized (fig. 10.12). (p. 186) A die study for the tetradrachms of Prusias I and II (c. 230–149 B.C.) is much awaited, but it is clear that their issues were abundant. We do have numbers for Nicomedes III and IV: about 450 obverses were used between 128/127 and 74/73 B.C., that is, about eight per year (fig. 10.13). Moreover, as these tetradrachms are dated annually by a local era from 148/147 B.C., we may follow the rhythm of their production, which remained fairly stable up till 94 B.C. (with a number of observed obverses varying between 5 and 10). The peak reached for the years 93/92–89/88 B.C. has to be related to the trouble of these years, namely the activities of the usurper Socrates Chrestus, who was installed on the Bithynian throne and supported by Mithradates Eupator.

Fig 10 15

Tetradrachms were rarely issued by the Ariarathes, the Cappadocian kings, who always favored the use of drachms. E contrario, the sole issues of tetradrachms may be related with usurpers, as Orophernes or Ariarathes IX (a son of Mithradates—fig. 10.14), or with military action undertaken abroad, such as the campaign of Ariarathes V against Aristonicus in the late 130s. The Cappadocian royal coins are only dated by regnal years. Despite some uncertainties about the sequence, we do have an uninterrupted corpus of die studies from Ariarathes VI to the middle of the reign of Ariobarzanes (c. 130–78/77 B.C.). In some 52 years, no less than 375 obverses were used for

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Royal Hellenistic Coinages: From Alexander to Mithradates these drachms. The royal coinage was not only less abundant in Cappadocia by four or five times than in Bithynia (yearly average of 1.8 to compare with 8.3); it was also more uneven. The perfect example is provided by Ariobarzanes I Philoromaios (“friend of the Romans”). Often expelled from the throne by Mithradates or his supporters and often reinstalled by the Romans, his mint must have been mounted on wheels. Indeed, his many drachms were mainly issued when (p. 187) Roman troops wintered in his kingdom, for Murena in 83/81 B.C. and for Pompey the Great in 67/65 B.C., after his victory over the pirates (fig. 10.15). The royal Pontic coinage issued before Mithradates Eupator looks scanty: 4 staters, 63 tetradrachms (23 obverses), and 18 drachms, a meager total amount indeed for more than half a century (c. 220–150 B.C.). Even more: no more than one single tetradrachm may be attributed for the second last of the 2nd century B.C. Beside their rarity, these coins have been highly praised for their portraits, since—not without some “brutality”—they range among the most accomplished forms of fine realism reached during Hellenistic times (fig. 10.16).

Fig 10 16

Fig 10 17

Mithradates Eupator (c. 132–63 B.C.) was the last Hellenistic ruler to oppose Rome. He fought for nearly 40 years and—quoting the words of Racine in the preface to his eponymous tragedy—his sole defeats made nearly all the glory of three among the most reputed captains of the Roman Republic (Sulla, Lucullus, and Pompey). From a numismatic point of view, too, Eupator is a fascinating character. Most of his coins are dated by years and months, an exceptional fact that allows a minute study of their rhythm. With around 190 obverses for his tetradrachms (fig. 10.17), he not only coined substantially more than his predecessors but eventually reached peaks with 8 obverses in two months (May–June 89 B.C.) or 30 obverses in one year at the same mint (in 75 and 74 B.C.). These peaks (and other minor ones) are quite systematically connected with wars but do not coincide with them: what we do observe is an increase of production immediately before (89 B.C. and 75–74 B.C.) or after (the end of 85 B.C.) the wars. Conversely, we have few or no coins to attribute to some important events reported by ancient authors, like the (p. 188) building of a fleet during the winter of 90/89 B.C. or the so-called second Mithradatic war (83–81 B.C.). Several hoards indicate that Pontic troops and mercenaries were paid not only with royal Pontic coins but also with late posthumous “Lysimachi” struck in Byzantium, royal Bithynian tetradrachms, even Athenian tetradrachms. Moreover, Eupator issued vast quantities of bronze coins, allegedly struck with the same types by a

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Royal Hellenistic Coinages: From Alexander to Mithradates dozen Pontic cities but surely promoted by himself, in order, among other purposes, to pay garrisons around the Black Sea. Modern analyses have revealed that some of these bronzes are in fact brass coins, so Eupator may possibly be regarded as the first to make use of this new alloy. As a general rule, the following asymmetrical proposition emerges from the Mithradatic coinages (and those struck at that time): gold and silver royal coins were struck first to pay troops, but troops were not fully paid by these coins. Further, a privileged use of these coins by mercenaries can be detected. Fig. 10.1. Du Chastel 197. Royal Collection of Coins and Medals, Brussels. Fig. 10.2. Du Chastel 196. Royal Collection of Coins and Medals, Brussels. Fig. 10.3. De Hirsch 1081. Royal Collection of Coins and Medals, Brussels. Fig. 10.4. De Hirsch 1082. Royal Collection of Coins and Medals, Brussels. Fig. 10.5. Du Chastel 207. Royal Collection of Coins and Medals, Brussels. Fig. 10.6. Du Chastel 205. Royal Collection of Coins and Medals, Brussels. Fig. 10.7. Du Chastel 187. Royal Collection of Coins and Medals, Brussels. Fig. 10.8. De Hirsch 1459. Royal Collection of Coins and Medals, Brussels. Fig. 10.9. Du Chastel 251. Royal Collection of Coins and Medals, Brussels. Fig. 10.10. De Hirsch 1578. Royal Collection of Coins and Medals, Brussels. Fig. 10.11. Du Chastel 255. Royal Collection of Coins and Medals, Brussels. Fig. 10.12. De Hirsch 1436. Royal Collection of Coins and Medals, Brussels. Fig. 10.13. De Hirsch 1440. Royal Collection of Coins and Medals, Brussels. Fig. 10.14. De Hirsch 1627. Royal Collection of Coins and Medals, Brussels. Fig. 10.15. Brussels acq. 1911. Royal Collection of Coins and Medals, Brussels. Fig. 10.16. De Hirsch 1412. Royal Collection of Coins and Medals, Brussels. Fig. 10.17. Du Chastel 244. Royal Collection of Coins and Medals, Brussels.

Bibliography Bibliography Andreau, J., P. Briant, and R. Descat, eds. (2000). La guerre dans les économies antiques Saint-Bertrand-deComminges. Archibald, Z. H., J. K. Davies, and V. Gabrielsen, eds. (2005). Making, Moving and Managing: The New World of Ancient Economies, 323–31 B C Oxford. (p. 189) Arnold-Biucchi, C. (1998). “The Pergamene Mint under Lysimachos.” In Ashton and Hurter 1998: 5–15. Ashton, R., and S. Hurter, eds. (1998). Studies in Greek Numismatics in Memory of Martin Jessop Price London. Bauslaugh, R. (1990). “Cistophoric Countermarks and the Monetary System of Eumenes.” NC 150: 39–65. Bilde, P., et al., eds. (1996). Aspects of Hellenistic Kingship. Aarhus. Burnett, A. M., and M. H. Crawford, eds. (1987). The Coinage of the Roman World in the Late Republic BAR International Series 326. Oxford. Callataÿ, F. de. (1989). “Les trésors achéménides et les monnayages d’Alexandre: Espèces immobilisées et espèces circulantes?” REA 91: 259–274. ——— . (1997a). L’histoire des guerres mithridatiques vues par les monnaies Louvain-la-Neuve. ——— . (1997b). Recueil quantitatif des émissions monétaires hellénistique Wetteren, Switzerland. ——— . (2000). “Guerres et monnayages à l’époque hellénistique. Essai de mise en perspective suivi d’une annexe sur le monnayage de Mithridate VI Eupator.” In Andreau et al.: 337–364.

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Royal Hellenistic Coinages: From Alexander to Mithradates ——— . (2005). “A Quantitative Survey of Hellenistic Coinages: Recent Achievements.” Archibald et al.: 73–91. ——— . (2006). “Réflexions quantitatives sur l’or et l’argent non monnayés à l’époque hellénistique (pompes, triomphes, réquisitions, fortune des temples, orfèvrerie et masses métalliques disponibles).” In Descat: 37–84. Callataÿ, F. de, G. Depeyrot, and L. Villaronga. (1993). L’argent monnayé d’Alexandre le Grand à Auguste Brussels. Davesne, A., and G. Le Rider. (1980). Le trésor de Meydancikkale (Cilicie trachée, 1980) Paris. Descat R., ed. (2006). Approches de l’économie antique Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges. Duyrat, F. (2005). “Le trésor de Damanhour (IGCH 1664) et l’évolution de la circulation monétaire en Egypte hellénistique.” In Duyrat and Picard: 17–51. Duyrat, F., and O. Picard, eds. (2005). L’exception égyptienne Production et échanges monétaires en Egypte hellénistique et romaine. Cairo. Fleischer, R. (1996). “Hellenistic Royal Iconography on Coins.” In P. Bilde et al.: 28–40. Green, P. Alexander to Actium: The Historical Evolution of the Hellenistic Age Berkeley. Kinns, P. (1987). “Asia Minor.” In Burnett and Crawford: 105–119. Kraay, C. M., and N. M. Davis. (1973). The Hellenistic Kingdoms Portrait Coins and History London. Le Rider, G. (1977). Le monnayage d’argent et d’or de Philippe II frappé en Macédoine de 359 à 294. Paris. ——— . (1989). “La politique monétaire du royaume de Pergame après 188.” Journal des Savants 1989: 163–189. ——— . (1992). “Les tétradrachmes attalides au portrait de Philétaire.” In Nilsson: 233–245. ———, G. (1996). Monnayage et finances de Philippe II: Un état de la question Paris. ———, G. (2003). Alexandre le Grand Monnaies, finances et politique Paris. Le Rider, G., and F. de Callataÿ. (2006). Les Séleucides et les Ptolémées L’héritage monétaire et financier d’Alexandre le Grand Paris. Metcalf, W. E. (1994). “A Late Second Century Hoard of Posthumous Alexanders.” SNR 73: 19–53. Mørkholm, O. (1991). Early Hellenistic Coinage from the Accession of Alexander to the Peace of Apamea (336– 188 B C ) Cambridge. Newell, E.T. (1927). The Coinages of Demetrios Poliorcetes London. (p. 190) Nilsson, H., ed. (1992). Florilegium Numismaticum Studia in Honorem U Westermark Edita Stockholm. Price, M. (1991). The Coinage in the Name of Alexander the Great and Philip Arrhidaeus A British Museum Catalogue Zurich. Smith, R. R. R. (1988). Hellenistic Royal Portraits Oxford. Westermark, U. (1960). Das Bildnis des Philetairos von Pergamon Corpus der Münzprägung. Stockholm. François de Callataÿ Franço s De Callataÿ s Head of Curator al Departments, B bl othèque Royale de Belg que, Brussels.

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The Hellenistic World: The Cities of Mainland Greece and Asia Minor

Oxford Handbooks Online The Hellenistic World: The Cities of Mainland Greece and Asia Minor Richard Ashton The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Coinage Edited by William E Metcalf Pr nt Publ cat on Date: Feb 2012 Onl ne Publ cat on Date: Nov 2012

Subject: Class cal Stud es, Anc ent Greek H story, Mater al Culture Stud es DO : 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195305746.013.0012

Abstract and Keywords A feature of mainland Greece from the fourth to first centuries BC was the production of silver, bronze, and gold coinage in the names of federations, with uniform types and weight standards. In Asia Minor, the only close parallel is with the coinage of the Lycian League struck in the second and first centuries BC. Some of the older weight standards of the Greek cities survived into the Hellenistic period. The coinage of Aegina ended in the fourth century, but a reduced version of its standard, based on a stater of about 11 g, was still used in central Greece and the Peloponnese during the third and early part of the second century. A more unexpected survival into the Hellenistic period in western Asia Minor was the Persian standard, based originally on a siglos of about 5.6 g. It was adopted by several mints in the northwest at the time of Alexander's conquest or shortly thereafter. Keywords mainland Greece coinage Hellenistic Asia Minor Peloponnes

AF ER the death of Alexander the Great, the rich variety of autonomous city coinages in precious metal that had

characterized the preceding two centuries gradually shrank as international exchanges became dominated by the mainly Attic weight coinages struck in the name of the dead ruler and his successors. Only Athens and Rhodes seem to have struck autonomous silver coinage continuously down to the first century B.C., though many other states maintained a more sporadic, if often significant, civic output, and the production of civic bronze coinage increased dramatically. The mints of the old city-states were often used by the Hellenistic monarchs, particularly the Seleucids in Asia Minor (Houghton and Lorber 2002: II:133–156), to strike their royal coinages, but the latter cannot be regarded as reflecting the relative wealth of those city-states.

Fig 11 1

Fig 11 2

A feature of mainland Greece from the fourth to first centuries B.C. was the production from time to time of silver, bronze, and occasionally gold, coinage in the names of federations formed by the Acarnanians, Achaeans (Warren 2007, with bib.), Aetolians (Tsangari 2007), Boeotians, Epirotes (Franke 1961), Euboeans (Picard 1979), and Thessalians (Klose 1998), with uniform types and weight standards (figs. 11.1, 11.2); in Asia Minor the only close parallel is with the coinage of the Lycian League struck in the second and first centuries B.C. The Spartans,

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The Hellenistic World: The Cities of Mainland Greece and Asia Minor true to their conservative traditions, had long resisted the production of coinage, but in the 260s at last issued Alexander tetradrachms in the name of King Areus on the Attic standard and anonymous obols on the Aeginetan standard, followed by tetradrachms and bronze struck by Cleomenes III in the 220s, and silver and bronze of Nabis a generation later (p. 192) (Grunauer von Hoerschelmann 1978: 1–34). Until the first century B.C. Sparta's output seems small in comparison with that of other Peloponnesian states, such as Argos or Messene (Walker 2006: 181– 191, 213–228, 265–281; Grandjean 2003). As in the pre-Alexander period (Martin 1985: esp. 219), in Hellenistic times political subjection to an imperial power or its absence did not affect the ability of Hellenistic cities to strike coinage as they thought fit, until the second century B.C., when Seleucid monarchs began to impose controls, a change that may be attributable to the influence of Rome (Meadows 2001: esp. 62). Note also that the posthumous Alexander-type gold and silver coinages struck by a wide range of cities from mainland Greece to the Levant were often as much an indication of their wealth and influence as their civic-type coinages (fig. 11.3). They range in date from immediately after the death of Philip Arrhidaeus in 317 until the 150s and, in the case of Black Sea mints, even down to the first century B.C. Some of the latter also imitated the gold and silver coinages of Lysimachus from shortly after the ruler's death in 281 until early in the first century. These coins may have been used to pay danegeld to the Celtic or Thracian tribes that threatened the issuing cities, while some may have been struck in connection with recruitment of mercenaries for Mithradates VI (de Callataÿ 1997: 84–150).

Fig 11 3

Fig 11 4

Although die studies of these posthumous coinages are few in number, it is clear that in a significant number of cases ranging from the late fourth to the early second centuries, their scale exceeded that of the contemporary or near-contemporary civic coinages: this was certainly the case at, for example, several mints in the Peloponnese (Price 1991: 155–166); some mints in western Asia Minor such as Alexandria Troas, Assus, Temnus, Mytilene, Magnesia on the Maeander, and Chios (Price 1991: 234–236, 240–246, 264–274, 299–306); and the mints of Phaselis, Aspendus, and Perge in the late third/early second century: the Alexanders of the latter, along with the contemporary Attic-weight autonomous tetradrachms preferred by neighboring Side (fig. 11.4), circulated in huge numbers in Seleucid territory, where they were frequently countermarked. Le Rider (2001: esp. 53, 56) has suggested that the (p. 193) reason why the Attic-weight coinages of western Asia Minor in the early part of the second century took the form of Alexanders (broadly down to 160 B.C., or a little later in some cases) and then adopted a wreathed autonomous format (broadly after 160 B.C.—see below) was that coins in these formats may have enjoyed a more favorable exchange rate than other foreign coins in Syria against Seleucid coinage. The common format and weight standard of these coinages facilitated their use for external payments, and Alexanders from a wide variety of mints are often found together in single hoards, such as the great Meydancıkkale and Mektepini hoards of, respectively, around 230 and around 195 (Le Rider and Davesne 1989; Olcay and Seyrig 1965; Meadows 2009: 66–68). They seem often to have been produced to cater for specific events or international crises, such as those of Megalopolis struck just before the destruction of the city by Cleomenes in 223/222 (Troxell 1971: 59) or those of Rhodes struck around 225 and around 210–195 at the time of the great earthquake and then the wars against Philip V and Antiochus III (Price 1991: 317–319; Ashton 2004b) or the large emissions of Phaselis, Aspendos, and Perge and the small emissions of Termessus Major (fig. 11.3) and Sagalassus of the later third

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The Hellenistic World: The Cities of Mainland Greece and Asia Minor century, which were perhaps produced to finance Seleucid military activities in the area (Meadows 2009; Macintyre 2006; Price 1991: 367–368). But in other cases, no such motive can be discerned, and the coinages, which sometimes seem to spread over a long period, may have been struck for more routine purposes, such as the Alexander tetradrachms with double axe symbol of the second half of the third century attributed variously to Miletus, Mylasa, and Caunus (Price 1991, no. 2074; Ashton 2004a: 42 n. 32) and those of Magnesia on the Maeander and Chios mentioned above. It is worth adding that the biggest civic mint of all, that of Athens, felt no need to issue an Alexander-type coinage, for the Attic standard of her autonomous coinage became increasingly dominant after Alexander's conquests, and the prestige and international acceptability of her tetradrachms, with their familiar Athena/owl types, despite their changing style, continued abundantly into the third, second, and first centuries (Nicolet-Pierre and Kroll 1990; Thompson 1961; Bresson 2006).

Fig 11 6

Nevertheless, some of the older weight standards of the Greek cities survived into the Hellenistic period. The coinage of Aegina ended in the fourth century, but a reduced version of its standard, based on a stater of about 11 g, was still used in central Greece and the Peloponnese during the third and early part of the second century, and was mentioned in accounting documents at Delphi in the early second (p. 194) century. The old Chian standard, based on a tetradrachm of 15.3 g, which had been widespread in western Asia Minor before the coming of Alexander, was still retained on a rather anomalous series of Coan tetradrachms that continued as late as the middle of the third century (Requier 1996; fig. 11.5). A reduced version of this standard, based on a didrachm of 6.8 g, had been introduced in the late 340s B.C. on Rhodes, where it remained in use until the 190s B.C. (fig. 11.6). A few neighboring states sporadically struck coinage on this reduced standard, but it seems to have become increasingly anachronistic and presumably lasted so long only because of Rhodes's economic power, and because the island may have enforced a currency zone in its neighborhood within which only Rhodian coin was accepted (Bresson 1993: 162–164). But even here in around 225 B.C. a reduced drachm of 2.8 g was introduced side by side with full Rhodian-weight didrachms and tetradrachms of 6.8 and 13.6 g, and was probably intended to pass on occasion as an Attic tetrobol, not least because Rhodes introduced her Attic-weight Alexander tetradrachms at the same time (Ashton 2001a: 88, 93, 2004b). The Rhodian plinthophoric standard, based on a drachm of about 3.05 g (fig. 11.7), was probably introduced in the mid-late 190s B.C., and may have been intended to harmonize with the Attalid cistophoric standard (Ashton 2001a: 94; Meadows 2009: 66–68), for which see below. Finally, in the first century, the island's last major silver series seems to have been struck on the Attic standard (Ashton with Weiss 1997; fig. 11.8).

Fig 11 5

Fig 11 7

Fig 11 8

(p. 195) A more unexpected survival into the Hellenistic period in western Asia Minor was the Persian standard, based originally on a siglos of about 5.6 g. It was adopted by several mints in the northwest at the time of Alexander's conquest or shortly thereafter: Byzantium, Calchedon, and Cius (fig. 11.9), and perhaps at this time

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The Hellenistic World: The Cities of Mainland Greece and Asia Minor also Perinthus, the Thracian Chersonesus, and Parium. A little later, it was adopted by several mints in Lysimachus's domain in around 300 B.C.: Alexandria Troas, Abydus, Mytilene on Lesbos, and perhaps also Scepsis (Le Rider 1963; Meadows 2004: 52–57, with bib.) In Aeolis and Ionia, the Persian standard was adopted at Ephesus in around 320–310 and again (under Lysimachus's domination) in the 280s, at Chios and Cyme in the 250s, at Miletus around 260 and into the later second century, and at Magnesia around 210–200 (Kinns 1998, 2003, 2006a). In Caria it reappears at Iasus (fig. 11.10), Cnidus, Calymnus, and Cos in the second half of the third century and perhaps later (Ashton 2007: 55–58; Höghammar 2007). In southern Asia Minor the standard appears in the first half of the third century at Phaselis (Heipp-Tamer 1993: 55–56—a “mixed” weight standard), Aspendus, and Selge. In the case of Ionia and Cyme, Kinns has noted that whereas the siglos unit would have been tariffed as an Attic octobol for exchange with Alexanders and royal issues, “it was nevertheless an unambiguous marker of a separate coinage, destined purely for the local, rather than international, market, and subject to a different set of rules. No city will have derived much financial benefit from the minting of Alexanders, even when clearly marked with the civic badge, whereas the provision of local silver (and of course bronze), whose use could be made obligatory for certain purposes, was a source of profit” (2006a: 37).

Fig 11 9

Fig 11 10

Fig 11 11

Fig 11 12

A similar phenomenon whereby civic coinage was struck on a non-Attic standard in parallel with Attic-weight Alexanders or Lysimachi can be observed at several mints, including for example Byzantium and Calchedon, which operated a joint monetary policy from around 260 to at least the 220s, striking simultaneously Attic weight Lysimachi for external use and coins on a lighter “Phoenician” standard for (p. 196) internal, and countermarking for profit Attic weight coin from outside (Marinescu 2000). On a still larger scale, the Pergamene kingdom in the second century struck lightweight “cistophoric” tetradrachms for internal use and heavier Attic weight tetradrachms for external (see below). The establishment of such closed monetary areas, within which only reduced-weight local silver coins could be used for certain purposes and were perhaps in some cases

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The Hellenistic World: The Cities of Mainland Greece and Asia Minor exchangeable at par with Attic-weight coins, may have been inspired by the example of the Ptolemies of Egypt in the late fourth/early third century (Mørkholm 1991: 64–66), although, except in the earliest years of the dynasty, the Ptolemies did not strike Attic-weight coinage for external use, perhaps because their economic power was too great to need it. Nevertheless, important mints like Miletus and Ephesus in the second century saw fit to issue some of their main civic coinages on the Attic standard (Kinns 1998, 1999; figs. 11.11, 11.12); the Attic-weight drachms of Ephesus were closely imitated at Aradus (Kinns 1999: esp. 82). If most Alexander type coinages are to be regarded as part of the overall output of individual city-states and a reflection of their wealth, the same is not true of some important second- and first-century coinages of cities within the kingdom of Pergamum and the Roman province of Asia, which succeeded it. Thus, the cistophoric coinage (so called from the depiction of a cista, or sacred wicker chest, on the obverse of the tetradrachms), which was introduced by the Attalid king at some time between the late 190s and the 160s (the question is still not resolved) and based on a tetradrachm of only 12.6 g, was apparently farmed out to different mints within the kingdom. Abbreviated ethnics or monograms appear on the various issues, but the uniformity of the coinage, both in appearance and weight, shows clearly that it was centrally organized, and die links and magistrates’ marks shared among coins of different “mints” suggest strongly that all the coinage was produced at Pergamum itself, at least while the kingdom lasted, except for those issues marked with the abbreviated ethnics of Ephesus and Tralles (the latter seems to have been given the task of producing most of the didrachms and drachms that accompanied the dominant tetradrachm denomination). It is certain that the silver needed to produce this extremely abundant coinage was supplied by the central authority, though it remains unclear why it was divided into different “mints”: perhaps most of the mint marks denoted the intended recipients of the batches of coin rather than the subauthority in whose name they were struck (Kleiner and Noe 1977: esp. 120–121; Kleiner 1980: 48–52; for start date, partsummary of current debate in Le Rider 2001: 37–38 n. 2; fig. 11.13).

Fig 11 13

(p. 197) Attic-weight civic coins were produced by Pergamun in the first half of the second century, but they are very rare and seem almost commemorative in nature (Mattingly 1993: no. 467). In order to have at its disposal a stock of Attic-weight coinage for use in international transactions, or transactions in areas added to the Pergamene kingdom after 188 and used to Attic weight currency, in addition to the royal coinage issued in the name of Philetaerus, the kingdom resorted to various ploys. In the 180s, perhaps shortly after the introduction of the cistophoric coinage, the same “mints” applied to Attic-weight Alexander and Sidetan tetradrachms countermarks with the type of a bow-in-case (the reverse type of the cistophoric tetradrachms) and mint initials (fig. 11.14). In this way, the kingdom could make payments in internationally acceptable but recognizably part-Pergamene coinage, without needing to go to the trouble and expense of minting its own Attic weight coinage alongside the cistophoroi, whether or not the countermarked Attic weight coins comprised the indemnity paid to Eumenes II by Antiochus III under the terms of the Peace of Apamea (Bauslaugh 1990: 59, 62–64). The countermarks may also have allowed the Attic weight coins to circulate within the kingdom at face value, the state having made a profit by levying a charge for the countermarking.

Fig 11 14

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The Hellenistic World: The Cities of Mainland Greece and Asia Minor

Fig 11 15

Fig 11 16

Similarly, at some point between about 155 and the mid/late 140s B.C., several cities on or near the coast of western Asia Minor and within the Pergamene kingdom struck an apparently coordinated series of Attic-weight tetradrachms (with some drachms) distinguished by broad flans and a wreath surrounding the reverse type, obverse and reverse types being local to each mint: the mints are Myrina (97 recorded obverse dies), Cyme (78) and Aegae (4) in Aeolis, Magnesia (36), Smyrna (9), Heraclea-by-Latmus (about 30), Lebedus (8), and Colophon (1) in Ionia (Sacks 1985; Oakley 1982; Westermark 1989b; Jones 1979; Kinns 1987: 106–107; (p. 198) Lavva 1993; Amandry 1989; Le Rider 2001: 45–46, with bib.; Meadows and Houghton 2010: 179–186; figs. 11.15–11.17). Although some of these cities were probably big enough to be able to find sufficient silver from their own resources to strike their share of the coinage, it is less easy to imagine that smaller cities like Myrina, Heraclea-by-Latmus, and Lebedus were wealthy enough to supply the silver needed to strike their disproportionately large share. Virtually all specimens with known provenances were found in hoards from former Seleucid territory in southcentral/southeastern Turkey and Syria, and it seems clear that they were not intended for domestic use in western Asia Minor. The most plausible explanation is that they were struck at the behest of, and with silver supplied by, the Attalid administration. Many may have represented the subsidy paid by Attalus III to Alexander Balas during and after his rebellion against Demetrius I of Syria around 153–145 B.C. (Kinns 1987: 107; a conclusion reached independently by Hoover and Macdonald 1999–2000; contra Le Rider 2001: esp. 58–59, suggesting that even the extremely large emissions of Myrina and Kyme were produced from local resources for the purpose of those cities’ trade with Syria).

Fig 11 17

Fig 11 18

The practice of striking broad-flan Attic weight tetradrachms with reverse types enclosed in a wreath was not, however, new. It had been adopted at Athens, whose “New Style” tetradrachms, beginning in around 164 B.C. and continuing until the 40s B.C., enclosed the traditional owl on the reverse within a laurel wreath, and were known to the ancients as stephanephoroi (“wreath-bearers”; Thompson 1961; for start date, Habicht 1991 with references; fig. 11.18). These rivaled in abundance the copious output of the fifth- and fourth-century Athenian mint and were probably, (p. 199) at least in part, intended to service the huge increase in trade facilitated by the creation of

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The Hellenistic World: The Cities of Mainland Greece and Asia Minor Delos as a free port under Athenian control in 166 B.C. They circulated widely throughout all of mainland, particularly northern, Greece and the Aegean, where, especially in the late second/early first centuries B.C., they regained the status of an international, or at least a regional, currency that Athenian coinage had enjoyed in earlier centuries. They filled, no doubt, the gap left by the cessation of Macedonian regal coinage after the end of the kingdom in 168 B.C. and the cessation of city Alexanders; they were perhaps struck in part from silver produced by melting down the old regal and city Alexander issues (de Callataÿ 1991–1992; Prokopov and de Callataÿ 1998: 235–236; Aydemır and Price 1996; Crawford 1985: 127–128). Other early followers of this fashion for enclosing reverse types in a wreath include Pergamum on its rare portrait tetradrachms of Eumenes II, Mytilene, Chalcis, and Eretria, all in the 160s; Cyzicus, before 155; and Tenedos, by 151 (Mattingly 1993, nos. 178 and 468; Picard 1979: 93–94; Meadows and Houghton 2010: 179–186, with bib.). There is no good reason to suppose that it represented any form of concerted policy among the mints concerned, such as a commercial union set up after the establishment of Delos as a free port in 166, or a formal means of displaying loyalty to Rome after the overthrow of the Macedonian kingdom in 168 by abandoning the production of Macedonian-type Alexander tetradrachms (which did indeed cease in the 160s and 150s). Rather, the addition of the wreath seems to have been a simple vogue, though, as we have seen, it may have caused the coins bearing it to receive more favorable treatment in Syria, where most of them are found (Le Rider 2001: 48–49 with bib., 56). Indeed, Philip V and Perseus had already introduced tetradrachms with the reverse type enclosed in an oak wreath, a practice continued on the post-168 coinages of the Macedonian merides produced under Roman control (fig. 11.19). The fashion for broad-flan Attic weight tetradrachms, sometimes with the wreath surrounding the reverse type, continued at Parium, Abydus, Alexandria Troas, Ilium, and Tenedos in the later second and early first centuries (de Callataÿ 1996a; 1997: 151–159; 1998; Meadows 1998; fig. 11.20). The hammering evident on the edges of many of their obverses may often be signs not of overstriking but of attempts to smooth down the spurs of silver that their reverse dies would often have forced up on the edges of the coins: de Callataÿ 2000.

Fig 11 19

Fig 11 20

(p. 200) Among mints in southwest Asia Minor, an analogous vogue (there is no evidence for any serious attempt at coordination) developed for putting reverse types in a shallow square incuse, an artificial throwback to the archaic and classical periods when a deep square incuse, caused by the high relief of the reverse dies used then, was normal. Rhodes seems to have inaugurated this “plinthophoric” style (see Robert 1951 for the origin of the term) in the mid-late 190s B.C., when it introduced a new light drachm of 3.05 g. It was probably followed by Cos not long afterwards (though this date is still debated by specialists) and, after 167 B.C., by Caunus (Ashton 1999), Ceramus, Bargylia (bronze only), Stratonicea (Meadows 2002), Telmessus (bronze only), Aphrodisias (bronze only; MacDonald 1992: 68–69), Boubon (bronze only), Cibyra (bronze only), and the Lycian League (Troxell 1982). The vogue continued until the first century B.C. in the case of Rhodes, Stratonicea, and the Lycian League (Jenkins 1989; Meadows 2002, 2008), and perhaps some of the others, too. (figs. 11.7, 11.21, 11.22).

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The Hellenistic World: The Cities of Mainland Greece and Asia Minor Fig 11 21

Fig 11 22

Despite the economic power of the Pergamene kingdom and the ubiquity within it of cistophoric coins, their weight standard was only rarely adopted by mints in the region for their civic coinages, presumably because it was not accepted on a par with Attic coin outside the kingdom. Byzantium struck in about 175 B.C. an isolated issue of civic type didrachms probably on this standard (one example extant: Schönert-Geiss 1970, no. 1251), while later in the century Alabanda, Stratonicea and perhaps one or two other cities in Caria, and Cibyra in northern Lycia, struck civic silver on the cistophoric standard (Meadows 2002: 98–101; Ashton forthcoming); in the period 88–85 B.C., Magnesia on the Maeander struck an isolated issue of didrachms on this standard (Kinns 2006b). But that seems about all. However, with the establishment of the province of Asia in 129 B.C., the Roman authorities quickly perceived the usefulness of the widely (p. 201) recognizable cistophoric coinage and encouraged its production for their own purposes. Whereas the ubiquity of locally produced posthumous Alexanders and of regal silver coinage seems to have caused a decline in the number of mints striking autonomous coinage in precious metal in Hellenistic Greece and Asia Minor, the same is not true of bronze coinage. In the 80 years or so after its introduction to the region in the late fifth century, the bulk of the mints that struck bronze did so only in a single small denomination, though there were exceptions (for example the three-denomination system adopted early on in Macedonia: Westermark 1989a: 304–314). Alexander the Great introduced a sophisticated system of royal bronze coinage in several denominations that was struck at a wide variety of mints throughout his empire both in his lifetime and in the following decades. It seems to have become the principal medium of small change during this period, but its example may well have encouraged mints in the third century to embark on their own multidenominational civic bronze coinages. Whatever the reason, the variety and exuberance of emissions is astonishing, particularly in the first century B.C., when the precious metal output of most civic mints declined or ceased altogether. It seems that in the mid-late Hellenistic period, even the smallest transactions in the remotest areas could be undertaken by means of coinage, whether civic or regal. In Lycia, for example, in the fourth century no more than a half dozen different bronze issues are known; between the third and first centuries over a score of mints striking bronze are known, both autonomous and in the name of the Lycian League; they include the tiny city of Kitanaura in the remote mountains of eastern Lycia, which struck a brief issue of bronze coins, some overstruck on bronzes of Phaselis, and none known before the 1990s (Nollé 1996: more recent hoard evidence suggests a first- rather than a late second-century date).

Fig 11 23

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The Hellenistic World: The Cities of Mainland Greece and Asia Minor

Fig 11 24

Fig 11 25

Fig 11 26

To take just a few more examples, at Athens a five-denomination bronze system operated from the third to the first century; multidenominational systems were in use at Sikyon and elsewhere in the Peloponnese, especially in the first century (Kroll 1993: 38–39; Warren 1998, with bib.); at Alexandria Troas and Pergamun in the third to second centuries and Smyrna in the second to first centuries, bronze series comprising up to four denominations occur (Meadows 2004: 53–57; Westermark 1991: 147–153; Milne 1923, 1927, 1928). At Phrygian Apamea in the first half of the first century B.C., (p. 202) an extensive four-denomination system of base metal coinage was introduced, apparently based on the old Seleucid system, with an obol struck in orichalcum (brass), accompanied by probable tetrachalka, dichalka, and (very rare) chalkoi, all in bronze (BMC Phrygia: xxxiii–xxxv; figs. 11.23–11.26). Most, if not all, issues were contemporary with the city's extensive output of late cistophori, and unlike most bronze coinages, they circulated widely in central Asia Minor beyond the territorial limits of their mint; they were imitated at, for example, Acmoneia and Eusebeia. The importance attached to bronze coinage in individual Greek cities is illustrated by a famous decree from Sestos on the Thracian Chersonnese of the 120s B.C., which explicitly mentions the profit to be derived from issuing a fiduciary coinage, and coinage's usefulness in advertising the city's identity and expressing its civic pride (OGIS 339, 44–45). In the late second and early first centuries, the usefulness of bronze as a means of effecting larger transactions, perhaps at a time when silver was scarce, was recognized in the Black Sea area, where various mints within the realm of Mithradates VI struck a coordinated orichalcum and bronze coinage (perhaps the first ever use of orichalcum for coinage), which included several denominations, the largest of which, perhaps tariffed as a diobol, weighed up to about 20 g (de Callataÿ 2007: esp. 276, 282; the precise chronology is still a matter for discussion). These coinages circulated among the Pontic troops who occupied much of central Greece and western Asia Minor during the first Mithradatic War in 89–85 B.C.; their denominations were imitated, and the coins themselves were sometimes overstruck or demonetized locally after Mithradates's defeat, for example at Athens, Magnesia on the Maeander, with no fewer than five denominations (diobol, obol, trihemiobol, ¾ obol and ½ obol), Smyrna, Erythrae, Cos, Rhodes (Kroll 1993: 69–71; Kinns 2006b: esp. 44; Ashton 2001b: esp. 65 with bib.) Whereas coins of the city-states in the archaic and classical periods only rarely carry the names of officials, this feature becomes common in the post-Alexander world, when sometimes two or even three individuals sign an issue with the name in full or in monogram; the names are often of considerable onomastic interest (e.g. Masson 1986 for the copious names on the coinage of Cyme in Aeolis) and sometimes can be identified with individuals recorded on inscriptions (e.g. at Magnesia on the Maeander: Kinns 1989: 141–143). The exact function of these “magistrates” or “moneyers” is seldom known, but very occasionally they are explicitly designated, for example, archontes at

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The Hellenistic World: The Cities of Mainland Greece and Asia Minor Iasos (Ashton 2007: 71–72), eglogistai at Phrygian Apamea exetastai at Erythrae (SNG Fitzwilliam 4490), prytaneis at Pergamum and Smyrna, and tamiai on Rhodes (Leschhorn and Franke 2002: 101, 252, 290).

Fig 11 27

Fig 11 28

Fig 11 29

(p. 203) Although Rome had taken a close interest in mainland Greece and Asia Minor since the third century, it seems to have had little influence on the appearance of local coinage even after the formation of the merides of Macedonia in 167 B.C. and the provinces of Macedonia-Achaea in 148–146 and Asia in 129, but there can be no doubt that the Romans controlled the output of the Greek-style coinage produced in those provinces. The wellknown and isolated gold coinage produced by Flamininus to commemorate the freedom of the Greeks achieved by the defeat of Philip V at Cynoscephalae is purely Greek in appearance, though it bears the Roman general's portrait and a legend in Latin, and was probably struck at a mint in central Greece, perhaps in 196 (Mørkholm 1991: 136– 137). In Macedonia, Attic-weight tetradrachms of the merides, produced under Roman control after 168 B.C., have a purely Greek appearance, which persisted even after Roman officials started signing Macedonian tetradrachms in Latin in the early first century rather than in Greek, as they had done in the preceding century (Bauslaugh 2000; de Callataÿ 1996b; fig. 11.27). Apollonia and Dyrrhachium in Illyria continued production of a very large and apparently coordinated coinage in drachms with traditional types of cow suckling calf/square floral design until well into the first century; these are found in huge quantities throughout northwestern Greece and up to and beyond the Danube, and were undoubtedly used by the Roman authorities in Epirus and Macedonia instead of denarii to facilitate military or trading, especially slave-trading, activities (Crawford 1985: 224–225; fig. 11.28; by contrast, the silver coinages of Corcyra and Leucas seem to have had mainly local circulation). Likewise, tetradrachms of Thasos (c. 168–148 B.C.), tetradrachms of Thasian type (c. 148–98/80 B.C.), and tetradrachms of Maroneia and of Maronitan type of about the same period were struck under Roman supervision for trade with Thracians mostly north of the Rhodope mountains (p. 204) (Prokopov and de Callataÿ 1998: 234–236; Prokopov 2006: esp. 53–58; Schönert-Geiss 1987: 64–75; fig. 11.29). Thessalian League drachms also continued in abundance until the midfirst century, while the isolated second coinage of the Ainianes in Thessaly was probably struck in the early first century for Roman purposes, though it is purely Greek in appearance (de Callataÿ 2004). South of Thessaly relatively little silver coinage was struck in the years after 146 B.C. except for the New Style tetradrachms of Athens, which clearly formed the official coinage of the Roman province of Macedonia-Achaea. The revival of Achaean League coinage in the 90s B.C., long after the demise of the league in 146, was almost certainly at Roman behest (Thompson 1961; Warren 1999 with bib.). Denarii did not seem to circulate in northern or southern Greece in significant quantity until the first part of the first century, and were then probably connected in the main with Roman military activities (Crawford 1985: 128; Touratsoglou 1987: 54; Price 1987: 98–99). In the province of Asia cistophoroi remained the principal currency, with particularly heavy output at Ephesus, Apamea, and Tralles; in the 50s and 40s B.C. they were often signed by the proconsul in Latin, but in all other respects retained the same appearance and weight standard (Stumpf 1991: 17–55; Kleiner 1979; fig. 11.30). Similarly, the first coins, in bronze, of the new province of Bithynia and Pontus, formed in 63 B.C., bore the names of

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The Hellenistic World: The Cities of Mainland Greece and Asia Minor the Roman governor but in appearance are purely Greek. Likewise, the Roman authorities in Antioch from the early 50s B.C. until the reign of Augustus produced silver tetradrachms in the name of the Seleucid king Philip I, who had died in 83 B.C. (RPC I:606–607 and nos. 4124–4134, 4136–4149). In Asia Minor, Amyntas, king of Galatia and Pisidia around 39–25 B.C. and client of the Romans, struck tetradrachms with the types of those issued by Side in the preceding century, both in his own name and, it seems, in the name of the most common magistrate (ΚΛΕΥΧ) found on those earlier coins, which presumably still circulated in southern Asia Minor (Meadows 2006).

Fig 11 30

Fig 11 31

The coinage of other cities in and around the new province continued unchanged, with only occasional evidence of Roman influence. Although it seems that the Lycian League struck coins on the quinarius standard as early as the 80s B.C., and Aphrodisias seems to have based its second-/first-century drachms on the denarius (Meadows 2008 with bib.; fig. 11.22; Macdonald 1992: 17, 59–67; fig. 11.31), by and large Roman influence on coinage in Asia Minor seems to have been very limited until the period of the Civil Wars (Kinns 1987: 112). After Actium (31 B.C.), minting of precious metal ceased in virtually all Greek mints, and with rare exceptions (p. 205) business was conducted in aurei and denarii, or in Roman-controlled local coinages that were based either on the denarius, such as those issued by the Lycian League and the mint of Cappadocia, or on the cistophoric standard. Greek cities in the eastern Roman Empire continued to produce a huge variety of bronze coins until the second half of the third century A.D. (the so-called Roman provincial or Greek imperial coinages), but in most cases their denominational structures, and sometimes their appearance, were essentially Roman. Imitative coinages burgeoned in the Hellenistic period. From the third century onward, the posthumous Alexander, Philip III, and Lysimachus coinages issued by individual cities, the civic issues of Thasos and (much more rarely) Maroneia, and post-168 silver of the province of Macedonia were imitated by tribesmen in Thrace and the Danube area, but despite their fine silver and good weight, they were usually of poor artistic quality and were presumably intended to circulate primarily among the tribesmen themselves (Göbl 1973; Lukanc 1996; fig. 11.32).

Fig 11 32

Fig 11 33

Page 11 of 17

The Hellenistic World: The Cities of Mainland Greece and Asia Minor Fig 11 34

Lightweight Rhodian drachms (which could pass as Attic tetrobols) seem to have become a standard daily wage for mercenaries in the late third and early second century (Bresson 1996), and during the Third Macedonian War imitations were struck by a variety of mints to pay the military expenses of one side or the other: for example, Samothrace striking for Perseus, Eretria and Chalcis for the Romans. Other mints in Asia Minor, for example Mylasa, struck pseudo-Rhodian drachms for domestic use in the first half of the second century. (Ashton 2001a: 108, bib. in n. 112; fig. 11.33). Lightweight tetrobols were issued in the name of Histiaia on Euboia in similarly large quantities at the time of the Third Macedonian War, and imitations may well have been struck on the mainland of Thessaly opposite in order to pay Perseus's troops (Crawford 1985: 345; fig. 11.34). Fig. 11.1. Stater of Thessalian Confederacy, late 3rd–early 2nd century B.C. Coin Galleries, March 2009, 50. Fig. 11.2. Hemidrachm of the Aetolian League, first half of 2nd century B.C. Unknown. Fig. 11.3. Posthumous tetradrachm of Alexander III, Termessus, c. 220 B.C. Author's collection. Fig. 11.4. Tetradrachm of Side, c. 200 B.C. Oxford. Fig. 11.5. Cos, tetradrachm with signature of Nikagoras. c. 285–258 B.C. Glasgow (Hunter II p. 431, 2). Fig. 11.6. Rhodes, c. 300–275 B.C. Author's collection. Fig. 11.7. Rhodes, plinthophoric drachm, after 195 B.C. Author's collection. Fig. 11.8. Rhodes, drachm, mid-1st century B.C. Author's collection. Fig. 11.9. Cius, Persic hemidrachm, after 323 B.C. Author's collection. Fig. 11.10. Iasus, Persic drachm, second half of 2nd century B.C. Oxford. Fig. 11.11. Ephesus, first half of 2nd century B.C. Glasgow (Hunter II p. 329, 15). Fig. 11.12. Miletus, tetradrachm, c. 170–160 B.C. Unknown. Fig. 11.13. Pergamum, cistophorus, first half of 2nd century B.C. Oxford, SNG Ashmolean V.ix, 911. Fig. 11.14. Cistophoric countermark of Tralles on tetradrachm of Side, early 2nd century B.C. Oxford. Fig. 11.15. Wreathed tetradrachm of Kyme, c. 150 B.C. Oxford, SNG Ashmolean V.ix, 1415. Fig. 11.16. Wreathed tetradrachm of Myrina, c. 150 B.C. Oxford. SNG Ashmolean V.ix, 1461. Fig. 11.17. Wreathed tetradrachm of Smyrna, c. 150 B.C. Glasgow (Hunter II p. 359, 1). Fig. 11.18. “New Style” tetradrachm of Athens, late 2nd century B.C. CNG 81, May 20, 2009, 472. Fig. 11.19. Tetradrachm of First District of Macedon, after 167 B.C. A. Tkalec AG, May 2010, 26. Fig. 11.20. Tetradrachm of Abydus, early first century B.C. Oxford, SNG Ashmolean V.ix, 1003. Fig. 11.21. Hemidrachm of Stratonicea, late 2nd century B.C. Oxford. Fig. 11.22. Drachm of Lycian League, Masicytes, early first century B.C. Oxford. Fig. 11.23. Bronze of Apameia, first half of 1st century B.C. Author's collection. Fig. 11.24. Bronze of Apameia, first half of 1st century B.C. Author's collection. Fig. 11.25. Bronze of Apameia, first half of 1st century B.C. Oxford. Fig. 11.26. Bronze of Apameia, first half of 1st century B.C. Author's collection. Fig. 11.27. Macedonian tetradrachm signed by Aesillas as quaestor, early first century BC. Gorny & Mosch 180, October 12, 2009, 119. Fig. 11.28. Drachm of Apollonia, 2nd century B.C. Münzen und Medaillen Deutschland 30, May 28, 2009, 265. Fig. 11.29. Tetradrachm of Maroneia, mid-second century B.C. Gorny & Mosch 176, March 10, 2009, 1114. Fig. 11.30. Cistophorus of Pergamum signed by the proconsul C. Pulcher, 55–53 B.C. In trade. Fig. 11.31. Drachm of Plarasa-Aphrodisias, 1st century B.C. Oxford. Fig. 11.32. Imitation of tetradrachm of Thasos, first century B.C. Münzen und Medaillen Deutschland 30, May 28, 2009, 1229. Fig. 11.33. Mylasa, pseudo-Rhodian drachm, c. 170 B.C. Author's collection. Fig. 11.34. Thessaly?, imitation of tetrobol of Histiaia, c. 170 B.C. Unknown.

Bibliography Bibliography Amandry, M. (1989). “Les tétradrachmes à la couronne de feuillage frappés à Lébédos (Ionie).” In Le Rider et al.:

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The Hellenistic World: The Cities of Mainland Greece and Asia Minor 1–7. Ashton, R., ed. (1996). Studies in Ancient Coinage from Turkey RNS Special Publication 29. London. ——— . (1999). “The Hellenistic hemidrachms of Kaunos.” RBN 145: 141–154. ——— . (2001a). “The coinage of Rhodes 408–c. 190.” In Meadows and Shipton: 79–115. ——— . (2001b). “Rhodian bronze coinage and the siege of Mithradates VI.” NC 161: 53–66. ——— . (2004a). “Kaunos, not Miletos or Mylasa.” NC 164: 33–46. ——— . (2004b). “Redating the earliest Alexander tetradrachms of Rhodes.” In Ashton and Kinns 2004: 93–102. ——— . (2007). “The pre-imperial coinage of Iasos.” NC 167: 47–78. ——— . (Forthcoming). “The use of the cistophoric weight standard outside the Pergamene kingdom.” Ashton, R., and S. Hurter, eds. (1998). Studies in Greek Numismatics in Memory of Martin Jessop Price. London. Ashton, R., and P. Kinns. (2003). “Opuscula Anatolica II.” NC 163: 1–47. ——— . (2004). “Opuscula Anatolica III.” NC 164: 71–107. Ashton, R., and A. Meadows. (2008). “The Letoon deposit.” NC 168: 111–134. Ashton, R., with P. Weiss. (1997). “The post-plinthophoric silver drachms of Rhodes.” NC 157: 1–40. Ashton, R., et al. (1998) “Some Greek coins in the British Museum.” NC 158: 37–51. Aydemır, P., and M. Price. (1996). “The Çandarlı hoard of New Style Athenian silver.” In Ashton 1996: 3–4. Bauslaugh, R. (1990). “Cistophoric countermarks and the monetary system of Eumenes II.” NC 150: 39–65. ——— . (2000). Silver Coinage with the Types of Aesillas the Quaestor. ANS Numismatic Studies 22. New York. Bresson, A. (1993). “La circulation monétaire rhodienne jusqu’en 166.” DHA 19/1: 119–169. ——— . (1996). “Drachmes rhodiennes et imitations: Une politique économique de Rhodes?” REA 98: 65–77. ——— . (2006). “The Athenian mint in the second century BC and the Amphictionic decree.” Annali 52: 45–85. Bresson, A., and R. Descat, eds. (2001). Les cités d’Asie Mineure occidentale au IIe siècle a C Bordeaux. Bresson, A., A. Ivantchik, and J.-L. Ferrary, eds. (2007). Une koinè pontique Cités grecques, sociétés indigènes et empires mondiaux sur le littoral nord de la mer noire (VIIe s a C –IIIe s p C ). Bordeaux. Burnett, A. M., and M. H. Crawford, eds. (1987). The Coinage of the Roman World in the Late Republic. BAR International Series 326. Oxford. Crawford, M. H. (1985). Coinage and Money under the Roman Republic London. de Callataÿ, F. (1991–1992). “Athenian New Style tetradrachms in Macedonian hoards.” AJN 3–4: 11–20. ——— . (1996a). “Abydos sur Aesillas.” In Charaktir: Aphieroma sti Manto Oikonomidou Athens, 81–91. ——— . (1996b). “Les monnaies au nom d’Aesillas.” In Doty and Hackens: 113–151. (p. 208) ——— . (1997). L’histoire des guerres mithridatiques vue par les monnaies. Numismatica Lovaniensia 18. Louvain-la-Neuve. ——— . (1998). “Les monnaies hellénistiques en argent de Ténédos.” In Ashton and Hurter: 99–114. ——— . (2000). “La dimension des coins monétaires de tétradrachmes hellénistiques d’après l’étude des monnaies

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The Hellenistic World: The Cities of Mainland Greece and Asia Minor décentrées.” In Kluge and Weisser: 244–251. ——— . (2004). “Le monnayage d’argent au type d’Athéna Parthénos émis par les Ainianes.” Obolos 7: 125–156. ——— . (2007). “La révision de la chronologie des bronzes de Mithridate Eupator et ses conséquences sur la datation des monnayages et des sites du Bosphore Cimmérien.” In Bresson, Ivantchik, and Ferrary: 271–308. Doty, R., and T. Hackens, eds. (1996). Italiam Fato Profugi Numismatic Studies Dedicated to Vladimir and Elvira Clain-Stefanelli. Numismatica Lovaniensia 12. Louvain-la-Neuve. Ehrensvärd, U., et al., eds. (1989). Festskrift till Lars O Lagerqvist Numismatiska Meddelanden 37. Stockholm. Franke, P. R. (1961). Die Antiken Münzen von Epirus. Wiesbaden. Göbl, R. (1973). Ostkeltischer Typenatlas. Braunschweig. Grandjean, C. (2003). Les Messéniens de 370/369 au 1er siècle de notre ère Monnayages et histoire BCH supp. 44. Paris. Grunauer von Hoerschelmann, S. (1978). Die Münzprägung der Lakedaimonier Antike Münzen und Geschnittene Steine 7. Berlin. Habicht, C. (1991). “Zu den Münzmagistraten der Silberprägung des Neuen Stils.” Chiron 21: 1–23. Heipp-Tamer, C. (1993). Die Münzprägung der Lykischen Stadt Phaselis in Griechischer Zeit Saarbrücken. Höghammar, K. (2007). “A group of Koan issues from c. 200 B.C.” NC 167: 79–92. Hoover, O., and D. Macdonald (1999–2000). “Syrian imitations of New Style Athenian tetradrachms struck over Myrina.” Berytos 44: 109–117. Hoover, O., A. Meadows, and U. Wartenberg, eds. (2010). Coin Hoards X. New York. Houghton, A., and C. Lorber (2002). Seleucid Coins, a Comprehensive Catalogue Pt. 1. Seuleucus I through Antiochus III. London. Jenkins, G. K. (1989). “Rhodian plinthophoroi—a sketch.” In Le Rider et al.: 101–119. Jones, N. F. (1979). “The autonomous wreathed tetradrachms of Magnesia-on-Maeander.” ANSMN 24: 63–109. Kinns, P. (1987). “Asia Minor” in Burnett and Crawford: 105–119. ——— . (1989). “Two studies in the silver coinage of Magnesia on the Maeander.” In Le Rider et al.: 137–148. ——— . (1998). “CH 8, 474: Milesian silver coinage in the second century B.C.” In Ashton and Hurter: 175–195. ——— . (1999). “The Attic weight drachms of Ephesus: A preliminary study in the light of recent hoards.” NC 159: 47–97. ——— . (2003). “Milesian notes.” In Ashton and Kinns: 4–26. ——— . (2006a). “A new third century B.C. didrachm of Chios in Ionia.” NC 166: 31–39. ——— . (2006b). “A new didrachm of Magnesia on the Maeander.” NC 166: 41–47. Kleiner, F. (1979). “The late cistophori of Apameia.” In Mørkholm and Waggoner: 119–130. ——— . (1980). “Further reflections on the early cistophoric coinage.” ANSMN 25 (1980): 45–52. Kleiner, F., and S. P. Noe. (1977). The Early Cistophoric Coinage. Numismatic Studies 14. New York. (p. 209) Klose, D. A. O. (1998). “Zur Chronologie der thessalischen Koinonprägung im 2. und 1. Jh. v. Chr.: Ein weiterer Schatzfund aus Südthessalien.” In Peter: 333–350.

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The Hellenistic World: The Cities of Mainland Greece and Asia Minor Kluge, B., and B. Weisser, eds. (2000). XII. Internationaler Numismatischer Kongress Berlin 1997, AktenProceedings-Actes Berlin. Kroll, J. H. (1993). The Athenian Agora Vol. 26. The Greek Coins Princeton. Lavva, S. (1993). “Zur Silberprägung von Herakleia am Latmos.” Chiron 23: 391–414. Le Rider, G. (1963). Deux trésors de monnaies grecques de la Propontide (IVe siècle avant J C ) Paris. ——— . (2001). “Sur un aspect du comportement monétaire des villes libres d’Asie Mineure occidentale au IIe siècle.” In Bresson and Descat: 37–59. Le Rider, G., and A. Davesne. (1989). Gülnar II: Le trésor de Meydancıkkale Paris. Le Rider, G., et al., eds. (1989). Kraay-Mørkholm Essays, Numismatic Studies in Memory of C M Kraay and O Mørkholm. Louvain-la-Neuve. Leschhorn, W., and P. R. Franke. (2002). Lexikon der Aufschriften auf griechischen Münzen Vol. 1. Vienna Lukanc, I. (1996). Les imitations des monnaies d’Alexandre et de Thasos. Wetteren. MacDonald, D. (1992). The Coinage of Aphrodisias RNS Special Publication 23. London. Marinescu, C. (2000). “The posthumous Lysimachi coinage and the dual monetary system at Byzantium and Chalcedon in the third century B.C.” In Kluge and Weisser: 333–337. Martin, T. R. (1985). Sovereignty and Coinage in Classical Greece Princeton. Masson, O. (1986). “Quelques noms de magistrats monétaires grecs: V. Les monétaires de Kymé d’Eolide.” RN6 28: 51–64. Mattingly, H. (1993). “The Ma’Aret En-Nu’man hoard, 1980.” In Price, Burnett, and Bland: 69–86. McIntyre, A. P. (2006). “The Alexander tetradrachms of Termessos Major.” NC 166: 27–30. Meadows, A. R. (1998). “Parion.” In Ashton et al. 1998: 41–46. ——— . (2001). “Money, freedom and empire in the Hellenistic world.” In Meadows and Shipton: 53–63. ——— . (2002). “Stratonikeia in Caria: The Hellenistic city and its coinage.” NC 162: 79–134. ——— . (2004). “The earliest coinage of Alexandria Troas.” NC 164: 47–70. ——— . (2006). “Amyntas, Side, and the Pamphylian Plain.” In van Alfen: 151–176. ——— . (2008). “Section 1. Lycian League quinarii.” In Ashton and Meadows: 113–116. ——— . (2009). “The eras of Pamphylia and the Seleucid invasions of Asia Minor.” AJN 21: 51–88. Meadows, A., and A. Houghton (2010). “The Gaziantep hoard, 1994 (CH 9.527; 10.308).” In Hoover, Meadows, and Wartenberg: 177–223. Meadows A., and K. Shipton, eds. (2001). Money and Its Uses in the Ancient Greek World Oxford. Milne, J. G. (1923). “The autonomous coinage of Smyrna. Section I.” NC5 3: 1–30. ——— . (1927). “The autonomous coinage of Smyrna. Section II.” NC5 7: 1–107. ——— . (1928). “The autonomous coinage of Smyrna. Section III.” NC5 8: 131–171. Mørkholm, O. (1991). Early Hellenistic Coinage from the Accession of Alexander to the Peace of Apamea (336– 188 B C ). Edited by P. Grierson and U. Westermark. Cambridge.

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The Hellenistic World: The Cities of Mainland Greece and Asia Minor Mørkholm, O., and N. Waggoner, eds. (1979). Greek Numismatics and Archaeology Essays in Honor of Margaret Thompson. Wetteren. Nicolet-Pierre, H., and J. H. Kroll. (1990). “Athenian tetradrachm coinage of the third century BC.” AJN, 2nd ser., 2: 1–35. (p. 210) Nollé, J. (1996). “Kitanaura. Münzen und Geschichte einer kleinen Stadt in den ostlykischen Bergen.” JNG 46: 7–29. Oakley, J. H. (1982). “The autonomous wreathed tetradrachms of Kyme, Aeolis.” ANSMN 27: 1–37. Olcay, N., and H. Seyrig. (1965). Le trésor de Mektepini en Phrygie Trésors monétaires séleucides [I]. Paris. Peter, U., ed. (1998). Stephanos Nomismatikos, Edith Schönert-Geiss zum 65 Geburtsdag. Berlin. Picard, O. (1979). Chalcis et la Confédération Eubéenne Etude de numismatique et d’histoire (IVe–Ier siècle) BEFAR 234. Paris. Prokopov, I. (2006). Die Silberprägung der Insel Thasos und die Tetradrachmen des “thasischen Typs” vom 2 –1 Jahrhundert v Chr Berlin. Prokopov, I., and F. de Callataÿ. (1998). “A late Hellenistic hoard from South-West Bulgaria (area of Gotse Deltchev).” NC 158: 228–236. Price, M. (1987). “Southern Greece.” In Burnett and Crawford: 95–103. Price, M., A. Burnett, and R. Bland, eds. (1993). Essays in Honour of Robert Carson and Kenneth Jenkins London. Price, M. J. (1991). The Coinage in the Name of Alexander the Great and Philip Arrhidaeus Zurich. Requier, P. (1996). “Les premiers tétradrachmes hellénistiques de Cos.” SNR 75: 53–76. Robert, L. (1951). Etudes de numismatique grecque Paris. Sacks, K. S. (1985). “The wreathed coins of Aeolian Myrina.” ANSMN 30: 1–43. Schönert-Geiss, E. (1970). Die Münzprägung von Byzantion Vol. 1. Autonome Zeit Schriften zur Geschichte und Kultur der Antike 2. Amsterdam. ——— . (1987). Die Münzprägung von Maroneia Schriften zur Geschichte und Kultur der Antike 26. Berlin. Stumpf, G. R. (1991). Numismatische Studien zur Chronologie der römischen Statthalter in Kleinasien, 122 v Chr –163 n Chr. Saarbrücken. Thompson, M. (1961). The New Style Silver Coinage of Athens Numismatic Studies 10. New York. Touratsoglou, I. (1987). “Macedonia.” In Burnett and Crawford: 53–78. Troxell, H. A. (1971). “The Peloponnesian Alexanders.” ANSMN 17: 41–94. ——— . (1982). The Coinage of the Lycian League ANSNNM 162. New York. Tsangari, D. I. (2007). Corpus des monnaies d’or, d’argent et de bronze de la conféderation étolienne. Athens. van Alfen, P., ed. (2006). Agoranomia: Studies in Money and Exchange Presented to John H Kroll New York. Walker, A. (2006). LHS Numismatics, Auction 96 Coins of the Peloponnesos BCD Collection. Zurich. Warren, J. (1998). “Updating (and downdating) the autonomous bronze coinage of Sikyon.” In Ashton and Hurter: 347–361. ——— . (1999). “The Achaean League silver coinage controversy resolved: A summary.” NC 159: 99–109.

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The Hellenistic World: The Cities of Mainland Greece and Asia Minor ——— . (2007). The Bronze Coinage of the Achaian Koinon: The Currency of a Federal Ideal. Royal Numismatic Society Special Publication 42. London. Westermark, U. (1989a). “Remarks on the regal Macedonian coinage c. 413–359 B.C.” In Le Rider et al. 1989: 301– 315. ——— . (1989b). “En tetradrachm från Aigai i Aiolis.” In Ehrensvärd et al.: 471–475. ——— . (1991). “Bronze coins of Pergamon.” NAC 1991: 147–159. Richard Ashton R chard Ashton s the ed tor of the Royal Num smat c Soc ety's Spec al Publ cat ons and co ed tor of The Numismatic Chronicle

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The Coinage of the Ptolemies

Oxford Handbooks Online The Coinage of the Ptolemies Catharine C. Lorber The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Coinage Edited by William E Metcalf Pr nt Publ cat on Date: Feb 2012 Onl ne Publ cat on Date: Nov 2012

Subject: Class cal Stud es, Greek and Roman Archaeology, Mater al Culture Stud es, Egyptology DO : 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195305746.013.0013

Abstract and Keywords The coinage of the Ptolemies stands apart from other royal Hellenistic currencies in interesting respects, including the prominence of gold and bronze coins vis-à-vis silver and the role of coin types in promoting royal cult. The Ptolemies have also been credited with a policy of controlling monetary supply to maintain price stability in the chôra (countryside). The reforms of Ptolemies by definition expanded the monetary supply. While the immediate purpose of the first weight reduction was to finance particular royal objectives, ultimately the reforms served to support the growth of the court, the administration, and Greek-style capitalism. The vast library of surviving papyri and ostraka includes many financial documents that shed light on an evolving and unusually complex currency system, and on its role in the Egyptian economy. Keywords Ptolemies Hellenistic currencies coin monetary supply economy

HE coinage of the Ptolemies stands apart from other royal Hellenistic currencies in interesting respects, including

the prominence of gold and bronze coins vis-à-vis silver and the role of coin types in promoting royal cult. The vast library of surviving papyri and ostraka includes many financial documents that shed light on an evolving and unusually complex currency system and on its role in the Egyptian economy. We have a comprehensive record of the Lagid coinage in Svoronos (1904–1908). In the century that has passed since its publication, new varieties have been discovered, some of Svoronos's regnal and mint attributions have been revised, and fresh interpretations have been advanced. Definitive answers are nevertheless elusive, and even recent literature must be approached in a critical spirit. Thus Svoronos's work remains the essential standard reference.

Ptolemy I Soter

Page 1 of 18

The Coinage of the Ptolemies Fig 12 1

Fig 12 2

Fig 12 3

Ptolemy, son of Lagos, was the first of the Diadochoi to alter and then abandon Alexander's coinage. Gold staters and silver tetradrachms of Alexander type (fig. 12.1), both imported and local, comprised the earliest currency of Hellenistic Egypt. The first local issues can be dated to the 320s, and several scholars have suggested a date around 323, perhaps implying that their mint was opened on Ptolemy's orders (Zervos 1974: 292–300; Le Rider 2003: 255–258; Lorber 2005b). O. H. Zervos made a close study of this coinage and traced the stepwise adoption of new designs (p. 212) (Zervos 1967; 1974; Lorber 2005b for revised chronology). Around 319 a second series of tetradrachms appeared (fig. 12.2), parallel to the first and eventually replacing it. It featured a new obverse design, the head of the deified Alexander, furnished with the horn of Ammon and wearing an elephant headdress— attributes that identified him as the son of Zeus-Ammon and a great conqueror. This coin type emphasized Ptolemy's succession from Alexander and probably also alluded to his possession of Alexander's mortal remains, acquired in 321 when Ptolemy diverted the late king's funeral cortège at Damascus (Diod. 18.26–18.28.4). Around 312 Alexander's portrait was refined. The mitra of Dionysus appeared prominently around his forehead, and scales were added to the lower part of the elephant headdress to define the aegis of Zeus. The first production of tiny bronze coins may also belong to this year (Lorber 2005b: 63). A new reverse type was introduced the following year, an archaistic figure of Athena in a fighting pose. The redesigned tetradrachms (fig. 12.3) were supplemented by silver fractions with the same types. These many changes apparently signal the transfer of Ptolemy's court (and mint) from Memphis to Alexandria about 312 (Lorber 2005b: 61–62).1 The remarkable legend ΑΛΕΞΑΝΔΡΕΙΟΝ ΠΤΟΛΕΜΑΙΟΥ appeared on a part of the tetradrachm issue of 311, and ΑΛΕΞΑΝΔΡΕΙΟΝ on part of a slightly later emission. While some have seen here an allusion to the Alexandria mint, these inscriptions actually refer to an “Alexander coin” and were probably aimed at some category of recipients who required reassurance about the new designs. In 306, after driving Ptolemy from Cyprus, Antigonus the One-Eyed and his son Demetrius assumed the royal title. Ptolemy was acclaimed king by his troops in the same year, according to the Greek sources, but Egyptian documents fix his coronation between 7 November 305 and 1 February 304 (Diod. 20.73.3–20.76.6; Marmor Parium (FGH 239 F B 23); Samuel 1962: 4–11). The destruction of the Ptolemaic fleet in the battle of Salamis and the ongoing war against the Antigonids precipitated a fiscal crisis in Egypt. Ptolemy's solution was a metrological

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The Coinage of the Ptolemies reform: existing tetradrachms of Attic (p. 213) weight were pulled from circulation, trimmed by 1.5 g, and recoined to a norm of 15.70 g, while retaining the Alexander/Athena types of the previous coinage (Emmons 1954). The urgent need to recoin the entire stock of currency required the temporary operation of three satellite workshops to supplement the efforts of the Alexandria mint (Lorber 2005b: 58–60, reinterpreting Zervos 1976). This weight reduction put Egypt out of step with the rest of the Greek world, where the tetradrachm on the Attic weight standard (c. 17.20 g) had become the major international currency. Ptolemy's metrological reform also involved a ban on the importation of Attic weight currency into Egypt (Jenkins 1960; 1967: 59–60; Callataÿ 2005). Foreign merchants who came to buy Egyptian grain and other products were compelled to exchange their Attic weight tetradrachms for the new Egyptian coins, presumably at par; and in the exchange Ptolemy's government gained 1.5 g silver (2 obols) on each tetradrachm (Le Rider 1997–1998: 789–792). In addition to this immediate source of profit, the creation of an epichoric monetary zone was a necessary condition for future innovations, including manipulation of the gold-tosilver ratio and an enhanced economic role for bronze coinage (Le Rider 1986: 39–48). After several years of recoining tetradrachms, production of gold currency resumed (c. 298?). The new gold staters (fig. 12.4) were the first precious metal coins issued in the name of King Ptolemy, the first in any metal to bear his portrait, and probably the first coins to portray any of Alexander's successors. Ptolemy appeared on the obverse wearing the royal diadem, positioned below his hairline like the mitra, with the aegis of Alexander tied around his neck. The reverse type was an elegiac image of the deified Alexander driving a quadriga of elephants— a scene that would be reprised in the Grand Procession of Ptolemy Philadelphus, where a gigantic golden statue of Alexander appeared in a chariot drawn by live elephants (Callixenus of Rhodes frag. 2, 226 = Athen. 5, 202a = FGH627 F 2). These staters were struck on the Phoenician standard, with a weight of 7.13 g, indicating that the gold-to-silver ratio had risen from the commonly accepted rate of 1:10 to 1:11 (Jenkins 1967: 61–62). Similar staters were struck in Cyrenaica.

Fig 12 4

Fig 12 5

Fig 12 6

Within a few years Ptolemy reformed his coinage for the final time.2 Henceforth all coinage was struck in his name, and all precious metal coins received new types: on the obverse Ptolemy's portrait as it had appeared on his gold staters, and on the reverse his personal emblem, an eagle perched on a thunderbolt. The weight of the tetradrachm was reduced again, to 14.27 g, so that it conformed to the Phoenician standard. This new reduction required another intensive recoining of the entire stock of tetradrachms (Callataÿ 2005: 119–125). The resulting coins (fig. 12.5) set the (p. 214) pattern for the standard Ptolemaic tetradrachm to the end of the dynasty. At the same time the gold stater was replaced by a new denomination, the trichryson or triple stater, the largest gold piece yet struck in the Greek world, worth 60 silver drachms and implying a gold-to-silver ratio of 1:12 (Jenkins 1967: 62; Le Rider 1998). The other denominations of this system were a small gold coin equivalent to 1/10 of the trichryson, occasional silver octadrachms, and heavy tetradrachms weighing c. 15 g, which almost certainly represent staters of 25 obols, that is, tetradrachms with an epallagé (exchange commission) of one obol built in so that they could be exchanged directly for gold. The same reform greatly increased the importance of the bronze

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The Coinage of the Ptolemies coinage, which was now expanded to include several larger denominations. The diobol, featuring a laureate head of Zeus, was produced in particular abundance, continuing into the early reign of Ptolemy II (Davesne 1998b: 54– 55; fig. 12.6). Around the time of this reform Tyre, Sidon, and mints on Cyprus began to strike coinage on the Alexandrian model. Recent thinking has emphasized the profits inherent in Ptolemy's currency reforms, both in the exchange of foreign currency and in the expanded production of fiduciary bronze coinage (Le Rider 1986: 39–48, 1997–1998: 789– 780; Callataÿ 2005: 129). The reduction in the weight of the tetradrachm discouraged the export of Lagid silver coinage from the kingdom, helping the Crown to conserve its supply of silver. The Ptolemies have also been credited with a policy of controlling monetary supply to maintain price stability in the chôra (countryside) (Le Rider 1997–1998: 791–792). However the reforms of Ptolemy I by definition expanded the monetary supply. While the immediate purpose of the first weight reduction was to finance particular royal objectives (the rebuilding of the Ptolemaic fleet after the disastrous battle of Salamis, the relief of Rhodes), ultimately the reforms served to support the growth of the court, the administration, and Greek-style capitalism (Bingen 2007: 206–239).

Ptolemy II Philadelphus

Fig 12 7

The second Ptolemy initially retained his father's currency system. About 275 he began to mark his coinage with a Gallic shield. Presumably it celebrated his suppression of a dangerous revolt of Galatian mercenaries in Egypt, an event given cosmic (p. 215) significance in court propaganda (Callim. Hymn. IV.185–187 and Schol. to 175–187; Laubscher 1987; Voegtli 1973; Ritter 1975). Ptolemy and his sister-wife Arsinoe II were deified as the Theoi Adelphoi (Sibling Gods) by 272/1. Ptolemy subsequently initiated the production of spectacular new coinages that associated the developing royal cult with the kingly ideal of tryphé, the display of wealth, opulence, and extravagance (Hölbl 2001: 92; Tondriau 1948). The trichryson was retired in favor of an even larger gold coin, the mnaieion or 1-mina piece, worth 100 silver drachms (P. Cair. Zen. 59022). Mnaieia and half mnaieia, together with a few quarters and eighths, were issued in the name of the Theoi Adelphoi and paired their jugate portraits with those of their parents, Ptolemy I and Berenice I, the Soteres (Saviors) (fig. 12.7). After Arsinoe's death in c. 270, she received a separate cult as Thea Philadelphus (Brother-Loving Goddess), and her widower inaugurated a new silver coinage in her memory. On decadrachms issued in the name of Arsinoe Philadelphus (fig. 12.8), the late queen was portrayed with divine attributes, a lotus scepter and a ram's horn curled around her ear (Troxell 1983). The latter is apparently the horn of Ammon, for Arsinoe was addressed as “daughter of Amun” in all the Egyptian temples (Quaegebeur 1978: 258). The reverse of the decadrachms advertised Arsinoe's cult emblem, a double cornucopiae (dikeras) bound with a royal diadem, filled with foods representing piety and fertility and evoking Hera and Isis. The double cornucopiae, like the cornuacopiae of successive Ptolemies, is the central symbol of the royal tryphé (Ager 2005: 23–27; Parente 2002: 268–269).

Click to view larger Fig 12 8

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The Coinage of the Ptolemies

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In 261/0 Ptolemy Philadelphus redesigned his precious metal coinage to focus its propaganda message more tightly on the cults of Ptolemy Soter and Arsinoe Philadelphus. A second series of gold mnaieia for Arsinoe was produced alongside her decadrachms and replicated their types (Troxell 1983). An idealizing portrait of (p. 216) Ptolemy I improved his former ungainly image on the tetradrachms, which now named him Ptolemy Soter rather than Ptolemy the King (Hazzard 2000: 3–19). Important series of Ptolemy Soter tetradrachms, with some mnaieia of Arsinoe Philadelphus, emanated from the three Cypriote mints (Salamis, Citium, and Paphos) and from five Syro-Phoenician mints (Sidon, Tyre, and newly opened mints at Ptolemais-Ake, Ioppe, and Gaza). The Syro-Phoenician issues are inscribed with the king's regnal years, a practice that allows us rare precision in dating Philadelphus's currency reform. The reform of 261/0 also entailed a major overhaul of the bronze currency. The reform introduced the image of Zeus-Ammon to the bronze coinage and added new denominations, the largest weighing c. 72 g (Lorber 2005: 137–138).3 A change in production practice resulted in a distinctive fabric with central cavities that was to remain characteristic of Ptolemaic bronze coinage through the second century or even later (Guey 1966; Guey and Picon 1968). Papyri dated shortly after this reform refer to the bronze drachm, which must be the common piece of c. 72 g (Burkhalter and Picard 2005: 55–59; Lorber 2000: 73–80; fig. 12.9). This interpretation implies a 50% increase in the weight standard of the bronze coinage and a 1:20 ratio in the values of coined silver and bronze (Lorber 2005a: 138). The expanded bronze currency once again increased the monetary supply in Egypt to a significant degree, especially in the chôra, though the countryside remained far from fully monetized (von Reden 2007: 79– 295). Parallel bronze coinages in Syro-Phoenicia were less abundant, while on Cyprus the authorities seem to have countermarked old bronze coins with a trident instead of issuing the new denominations (Davesne 1987). Cyrenaica, for a time an independent kingdom under Philadelphus's half-brother Magas, had a separate currency system. Its reformed bronze coinage, introduced sometime after Ptolemy and Magas reconciled, featured Ptolemy Soter/Libya types (Buttrey 1997: 37–45). Outside the core provinces of Cyprus, Syria and Phoenicia, and Cyrenaica, there were only scattered monetary issues. The most interesting development was the production of silver coins bearing the portrait of Ptolemy II, struck in Cilicia after he occupied the province at the beginning of the Second Syrian War (Davesne 1999: 129–131). This episode seems to have established the principle that the portrait of the reigning Ptolemy might appear on silver coinage only in spear-won territory.

(p. 217) Ptolemy III Euergetes At the outset of his reign Ptolemy III revived the production of Ptolemy Soter tetradrachms at Alexandria, marking them only with a cornucopiae. The mnaieia and half mnaieia of the Theoi Adelphoi and the mnaieia and silver decadrachms of Arsinoe Philadelphus continued in production. The Arsinoes, at least, ended c. 241, when the precious metal coinage of the Syro-Phoenician mints also ceased, reflecting the end of the Third Syrian War (Troxell 1983). (There was an isolated, one-year revival of the Syro-Phoenician coinage in 225/4, apparently in response to a threat of invasion by Seleucus III (Mørkholm 1980). Especially lavish presentation pieces were struck during or after the Third Syrian War: a gold double mnaieion for Arsinoe Philadelphus and an exceptionally large silver coin for Berenice II, each associating the queen's cornucopiae with the caps of the Dioscuri, savior gods with special significance for the military (Troxell 1983: 64; Kyrieleis 2004: 114). The silver piece for Berenice (fig. 12.10) was roughly equivalent to 15 Lagid or 12 Attic drachms (Naville 1951: 105 n. 1; Vagi 1997; Bagnall 1999: 198 n. 3). It introduced a series of gold decadrachms for Berenice, accompanied by unusual fractions in gold and silver. This can be understood as an Attic weight coinage employing a decimal system of division, but it could also function in the Lagid context at a ratio of 5 Attic to

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The Coinage of the Ptolemies 6 Lagid drachms (Olivier: 120–123; Newell 1927). Attempts have been made to connect this enigmatic coinage with the Third Syrian War or with the Syrian possessions gained in that war (Hazzard 1995a: 5–6; Olivier: 121–122). However the known provenances for this coinage are predominantly Egyptian. Ptolemy III emphasized production of an exceptionally large bronze coin, an octobol of c. 96 g (Lorber 2000: 73– 80, 2005a: 139; Faucher and Lorber 2010: 36 with n. 4; fig. 12.11). Part of his bronze coinage was control-linked to the Attic weight precious metal coinage of Berenice II.

Click to view larger Fig 12 10

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Fig 12 12

Outside Egypt, the most notable development was the production of Ptolemaic coinage by various cities of coastal Asia Minor and Thrace, most of them newly acquired in the Third Syrian War (Svoronos 1902). As spear-won (or at least new) (p. 218) possessions, they struck coins (mainly tetradrachms) bearing the portrait of Ptolemy III, sometimes depicted with the lion-skin of his ancestor Heracles around his neck (fig. 12.12) and occasionally accorded the epithet Soter (Savior). A series of small bronzes with the portrait of Ptolemy III, laureate and wearing a chlamys-like aegis, circulated in the Peloponnesus to subsidize his allies there (Hackens 1968; Chryssanthaki 2005: 168–169).

Ptolemy IV Philopator

Fig 12 13

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The Coinage of the Ptolemies

Fig 12 14

The defining event of the reign of Ptolemy IV was his victory over Antiochus III at Raphia in June 217, which enabled him to recover the province of Syria and Phoenicia, lost to the Seleucid two years earlier. The victory was financed by a major outpouring of precious metal coinage at Alexandria, marked by the letters ΔΙ. The principal gold issue comprised mnaieia and fractions honoring Ptolemy III (fig. 12.13). The deceased sovereign was portrayed radiate, wearing the aegis like a chlamys, and holding a trident ornamented with a lotus bud. This intriguing set of attributes has inspired various interpretations, including assimilation of the king to Sarapis (Huss 1976) or to Aion Plutonios, a god of wealth, fertility, and rebirth (Alföldi 1977: 6–12). Above all, the type recalled the cult statue of the deified Alexander, which also featured a chlamys-like aegis, implying a comparison between Alexander's conquest of the Orient and the (p. 219) successes of Ptolemy III in the Third Syrian War (Lorber 2011: 312–314, 318). The major silver coinage of the reign was the huge issue of Alexandrian tetradrachms bearing the jugate busts of Sarapis and Isis (fig. 12.14). Ptolemy IV worshiped these gods as the Theoi Soteres (Savior Gods) and probably credited them with a battlefield intervention giving him the victory over Antiochus III at Raphia (Bricault 1999). Philopator's triumphal progress through Syria and Phoenicia after the battle of Raphia probably initiated the production of precious metal coinages by the cities of Ptolemais, Tyre, and Sidon, all marked with the letters ΣΩ. The mnaieia show either Ptolemy III, with his triple divine attributes, or the reigning king, wearing the Macedonian military chlamys and usually advertising his cult name, Philopator. (The epiklesis was in use from early in the reign of Ptolemy IV, before his formal deification) The tetradrachms depict Ptolemy IV (fig. 12.15), Ptolemy I, or Sarapis and Isis.

Fig 12 15

In 211/0 the king organized a separate and eponymous cult for his mother, Berenice II, with an annual priestess bearing the title Athlophoros (Prizebearer), referring to the late queen's victories in the Panhellenic games. Around the same time he struck a posthumous coinage in her honor, comprising gold mnaieia, silver (p. 220) decadrachms, and tetradrachms, all conforming to the normal Ptolemaic weight standard. After the Fourth Syrian War the Egyptian countryside suffered severe inflation in the prices of basic commodities. Bronze currency apparently ceased to be interchangeable with silver and eventually—perhaps first in the reign of Ptolemy V—the term “bronze drachm” acquired a new meaning, referring to a very small unit employed in a decimal system of reckoning (Reekmans 1951; Hazzard 1995a: 82–87; Maresch 1996: 1–95; Cadell and Le Rider 1997; Cavagna 2010: 169–229; Faucher and Lorber 2010: 49–50). The hoard record indicates that a great deal of earlier bronze coinage was demonetized toward the end of Philopator's reign (Lorber 2000). Selected coins were countermarked with a cornucopiae to authorize their continued circulation. These were soon supplemented by a new bronze coinage whose largest denomination featured a double eagle reverse, a design revived from the bronze drachm of Ptolemy II and destined to dominate Egyptian bronze typology for the next century and a half (Huston and Lorber 2001). Another of Philopator's unusual initiatives was the introduction of a tetradrachm coinage in the name of Ptolemy Soter, dated according to an era. This era coinage would be produced intermittently during the reigns of Ptolemy V and VI. Both the mint and the era have been a matter of controversy (Mørkholm 1976; Hazzard 1975; 2000: 27– 28). The evidence seems to point to an era beginning in 262/1, and at least part of the coinage may have been a military currency minted on Cyprus (Lorber 2007b).

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The Coinage of the Ptolemies Often attributed to Ptolemy IV are common small bronze coins of Cyprus bearing a female bust on the obverse and a double or single cornucopiae on the reverse (or very rarely a bird). The obverse type appears to represent Aphrodite, not Arsinoe III, and the varied iconography, style, and fabric suggest a long period of issue, perhaps throughout the second century and into the first.

Ptolemy V Epiphanes The circumstances surrounding the accession of the young Ptolemy V were highly irregular. The kingdom's leading ministers concealed the death of Ptolemy Philopator for several months and ordered the murder of the queen. The interregnum created by this court conspiracy may be the context of an enigmatic issue of small anepigraphic bronzes with Apollo/falcon and Apollo/thunderbolt types that were minted but never placed in circulation (Picard 1999). Their Horus imagery would be suitable for a crisis of succession and is consistent with the later identification of Ptolemy V with this god. When first published, these bronzes were dated to the second century, but there is reason to believe that they belong near the end of the third century. The obvious weakness of Egypt under a child-king invited a new assault on Syria and Phoenicia by Antiochus III. The early coinage of Ptolemy V was struck in (p. 221) the theatre of war, some but not all of it signed by Phoenician cities. Initially it featured dynastic types honoring the king's parents, Ptolemy IV and Arsinoe III, but the portrait of Ptolemy V soon came to dominate the iconographic program (Mørkholm 1979, 1983a). Toward the end of the war the young king was endowed with divine attributes—a radiate crown, a spear, a diadem adorned with grain (figs. 12.16, 12.17), and the epiklesis Epiphanes. The last was announced on a special issue of Tyre that included a revival of the Theoi Adelphoi mnaieia and large bronzes with a club reverse (Lorber 2006). During the final campaign of 197, fought in Asia Minor, the Cilician city of Soli produced its only known Ptolemaic coinage, striking tetradrachms of the Sarapis and Isis type (Lorber and Kovacs 1997). After the formal end of hostilities in 193, Cyprus began to fill the void left by the loss of Syria and Phoenicia (Mørkholm and Kromann 1984). Minting of the era coinage resumed. Salamis and Citium commenced regular production of tetradrachms of the standard Ptolemaic type, identified by mintmarks, dated by the king's regnal year, and often adorned with subsidiary symbols of religious significance. To these were added occasional gold mnaieia for Arsinoe Philadelphus, sometimes portrayed with the features of the new queen, Cleopatra I. Paphos produced a similar coinage, except that the tetradrachms lacked mintmarks and dates. The distinctive Cypriote silver fractional currency was probably introduced at this time as well: didrachms and drachms with a bust of Dionysus (fig. 12.18), hemidrachms and diobols with the portrait of the reigning king (Hazzard 1998: 29–36).

Fig 12 16

Fig 12 17

Fig 12 18

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The Coinage of the Ptolemies

Fig 12 19

Fig 12 20

In comparison, the precious metal coinage of Alexandria seems rather limited. A small group of mnaieia revived the Theoi Adelphoi and Arsinoe Philadelphus types in a new style, while others honored the memory of Arsinoe III. The main silver series comprised unmarked tetradrachms of the standard Ptolemy I type, together with rare octadrachms and drachms. After the conclusion of the Fifth Syrian War Ptolemy V inaugurated the intermittent series of second-century (p. 222) mnaieia in the name of Arsinoe Philadelphus, marked with a letter K on the obverse, whose production continued through the next reign and perhaps even longer (fig. 12.19). Alexandria also produced a succession of bronze series, on a generally falling weight standard (Huston and Lorber 2001: 24–29; Lorber 2005a: 141–142; Faucher and Lorber 2010: 37–43). The image of Zeus-Ammon had long dominated Ptolemaic bronze coinage, but now the obverse types were diversified and new subjects introduced, including Heracles, the personification of Alexandria in an elephant headdress, and most notably a female head with corkscrew curls, wreathed with grain, representing a syncretism of Demeter and Isis (Lorber 2005a: 143–144; Faucher 2006; fig. 12.20). In this period financial documents begin to give figures in terms of minas and talents of bronze rather than numbers of bronze drachms (Burkhalter and Picard 2005: 59–61).

Ptolemy VI Philometor

Fig 12 21

Fig 12 22

Ptolemy VI marked a part of his Alexandrian coinage with a ΠΑ monogram. Included were two exceptional emissions, a gold mnaeion announcing the regency of Cleopatra I, showing the queen on the obverse and her young son on the reverse (Smith 1988: pl. 75, 15–16; fig. 12.21), and a somewhat later tetradrachm portraying the king as a young adult, wearing the aegis like a chlamys (Kiang 1962; fig. 12.22). The monogram also appeared on a bronze coinage whose largest denomination had (p. 223) Zeus-Ammon/double eagle types and weighed c. 23 g. The first series of these bronzes bore Cleopatra's name on the obverse while the second names Ptolemy only as

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The Coinage of the Ptolemies issuing authority (Lorber 2005a: 144; Faucher and Lorber 2010: 43–47, series 7a, 7b). Three imitative coins in the name of King Antiochus are known, without the monogram; these were struck in the context of the Sixth Syrian War, when Antiochus IV of Syria twice occupied Egypt (Lorber 2007a). The major silver emission of the reign, at least partly complete before the invasion of Antiochus IV, comprised a very large coinage of unmarked tetradrachms and didrachms of the standard Ptolemy/eagle types, distinguishable from the similar issue of Ptolemy V because the eagle was now depicted with its legs fully covered with feathers (Amandry 1990). Unmarked Zeus-Ammon/double eagle bronzes of c. 23 g (fig. 12.23) followed those marked with the ΠΑ monogram (Faucher and Lorber 2010: 43–47, series 7c). They were struck in huge quantities and must have remained the standard unit of the bronze currency system for many decades.

Fig 12 23

(p. 224) In the twenty-seventh regnal year of Ptolemy VI (155/4 B.C.) the Alexandria mint began to date its tetradrachms, a practice that would continue to the end of the dynasty. In addition these coins bear the letters ΠΑ in the right field. The same letters appear in the same position on tetradrachms of Paphos, where they serve as a mintmark (their function at Alexandria is uncertain but perhaps identical to that of the ΠΑ monogram of earlier coinage; Mørkholm 1975: 8). Nevertheless the tetradrachms of Alexandria and Paphos can be distinguished by their portrait style (Mørkholm 1975). In 146/5 Alexandria produced a small issue of tetradrachms with a double date, year 36 and year 1 (Svoronos 1904–1908: no. 1509). This double date has been interpreted as evidence for the elevation of Philometor's son to a short-lived coregency, but the second date may instead mark a new set of regnal years for Ptolemy Philometor following his occupation of Coele Syria (Mørkholm 1975: 9; Chauveau 1990, 1991). The three mints of Cyprus—Salamis, Citium, and Paphos—struck dated tetradrachms and occasional mnaieia beginning in the second year of Ptolemy VI. When he established a coregency with his siblings in 170, the Cypriote mints began a new regnal count, and a new mint at Amathus was briefly active (Mørkholm and Kromann 1984: 162). In 163, with the expulsion of Philometor's younger brother, Ptolemy Euergetes II, the Cypriote mints reverted to the original regnal count of Ptolemy VI. The relation of Cypriote bronze coinage to that of Egypt is somewhat unclear. The types are invariably Ammon/eagle, and the denominations seem to follow the pattern of Ptolemy III, with the largest coin weighing c. 96 g. However the denomination of c. 24 g, which corresponds to the principal bronze coin of Egypt, is specially marked by a scepter held under the eagle's wing. A quantity of this coinage was taken as booty in the second campaign of the Sixth Syrian War, when Cyprus surrendered to the Seleucid fleet. It was carried back to Syria and there countermarked with the Seleucid anchor (Lorber 2001: 46–50). The era coinage was suspended during the coregency of Ptolemy VI and his siblings. After its revival in 163 it consisted of only didrachms, now naming Ptolemy the King rather than Ptolemy Soter. Production levels increased in 147 and an exceptional issue of era tetradrachms was struck, both of which helped to finance Ptolemaic invasion of Coele Syria, where most examples of this coinage are found (Lorber 2007b). The era coinage ended permanently with Philometor's death in 145. Another memorial of Ptolemy's occupation of Coele Syria is a unique tetradrachm struck at Ptolemais (Ake), bearing his mature portrait on the obverse. Its legend titles him King Ptolemy Theos Philometor (Blasius 2006). Financial documents from this reign (the earliest dated 161/0) indicate that in Egypt the silver tetradrachm had become a commodity whose price could fluctuate dramatically, perhaps reflecting its weight and condition: for example, in Memphis a tetradrachm exchanged for 1,100 bronze drachms in 161/0, and for 2,130 bronze drachms in 159 (Burkhalter and Picard 2005; Hazzard 1990, 1995a: 84–87; Maresch 1996: 21–95). Such exchanges continued down to the reign of Cleopatra the Great, with most prices falling in the range 1,800–2,000 drachms.

(p. 225) Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II

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The Coinage of the Ptolemies From 163 to 145 Ptolemy Euergetes II reigned as king in Cyrenaica. He replaced the traditional Soter/Libya bronzes with a new bronze coinage featuring Zeus-Ammon/eagle types, bearing his cult epithet on the reverse (Buttrey 1997: 45–46). This coinage was further remarkable in that it introduced large bronze denominations to Cyrenaica. These were struck on the weight standard of the reformed coinage of Ptolemy II, long obsolete in Egypt, with a drachm of c. 72 g featuring a cornucopiae or double cornucopiae the proper plural reverse type (fig. 12.24).

Click to view larger Fig 12 24

Fig 12 25

The reign of Ptolemy VIII as sole king in Egypt (145–116 B.C.) was extremely turbulent, but the many upheavals did not perturb the now systematic coinage. Alexandria and the Cypriote silver mints continued to produce dated tetradrachms, reverting to a regnal count based on the king's first elevation in 170. Exceptionally, Paphos struck portrait coins for the reigning king, a tetradrachm (fig. 12.25) in year 32 (139/8) and a didrachm in year 33 (138/7) —dates that do not correlate with any known historical event. On both he is shown radiate and wearing a chlamyslike aegis, echoing the imagery of the first Ptolemy Euergetes. In addition Paphos issued Ammon/eagle bronzes with the king's regnal dates from 145/4 to 130/29. Curiously, these dated bronzes came to an end in or immediately (p. 226) after the eventful year when Ptolemy was driven from Alexandria, took refuge on Cyprus, and counterattacked in Egypt, ultimately compelling his rebellious sister, Cleopatra II, to flee to Syria.

Cleopatra III, Ptolemy IX Soter II, Ptolemy X Alexander, and Ptolemy Apion A quite exceptional bronze coinage, dated to regnal years 3 and 4, seems to belong to the joint reign of Cleopatra III and Ptolemy IX Soter II, according to the evidence of a shipwreck (Faucher and Shahin 2006). This is one of the few chronological fixed points for bronze coins of the late Ptolemaic period. Financial documents from Kerkeosiris from the years 114–112 B.C. may imply the existence of a bronze coin with the face value of 5 drachms, and perhaps others denominated at 10, 20, 40, and 120 drachms (Verhoogt 2005: 13, 213–216). The dated tetradrachms of Alexandria attest to some of the many changes of regime during this tumultuous time (Mørkholm 1975: 11–15). The regnal dates of Ptolemy Soter gave way to a set of double dates during the joint reign of Cleopatra III and Ptolemy X Alexander (107/6–102/1), followed by single regnal dates of Ptolemy Alexander after the queen's death. A reversion to the regnal dates of Ptolemy Soter signaled his return from Cyprus in 89/8, but he struck only one further tetradrachm issue, in 82/1. The tetradrachms of the Cypriote mints reflect the opposite side of this dynastic drama (Mørkholm 1983b). In 114/3 the regnal dates of Ptolemy Soter were replaced by a new regnal count marking the revolt of Ptolemy Alexander. Although Cleopatra repudiated Ptolemy Soter in 107/6 and our historical sources report that he took up residence on Cyprus, it was not until 105/4 that the tetradrachms began to display his regnal dates. His Cypriote tetradrachm coinage is very scanty. In contrast, the bronze coinage of Cyprus during these years is both abundant and varied, comprising successive issues with a double or single eagle reverse, marked by subsidiary symbols and/or control letters. A variety with a cornucopiae in the left field provides another rare chronological anchor: it is found in numbers in Israel, apparently introduced in 103/2 during the invasion of Ptolemy Soter (Gitler and Stein 1994–1999).

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The Coinage of the Ptolemies Ptolemy Soter was recognized in Cyrenaica until c. 104 and may have resided there during his disputes with his mother, until his removal to Cyprus in 105/4. He struck bronzes of relatively small module, with his cult epithet abbreviated in the fields, and types including Ammon/cornucopiae, Ammon/Isis headdress, Ammon/eagle, Tyche/caps of Dioscuri, and the traditional Ptolemy/Libya pairing (Buttrey 1997: 46–47). The small bronzes of his successor, Apion, continue several types of Soter II but without his epithets (Buttrey 1997: 47).

Berenice III Philadelphus, Ptolemy XII Neos Dionysus, Berenice IV, and Ptolemy of Cyprus During his first reign in Egypt Ptolemy XII produced Alexandrian tetradrachms following the established model, dated from his first through twenty-third regnal years. A good proportion of the tetradrachms dated year 1 are likely to belong to the reign of Berenice III, but there are no precise criteria for distinguishing them (Mørkholm 1975: 15). During Ptolemy's absence in Rome, his daughter Berenice IV and a Cleopatra Tryphaena were recognized as joint sovereigns; their coinage, if any, must be concealed among the tetradrachms dated years 1–3 (Mørkholm 1975: 16 n. 31; Pestman 1967: 78). On his return to Alexandria in 55 B.C., Ptolemy XII reformed the coinage, replacing the rather crude portrait of Ptolemy Soter II with an idealizing image and adding a palm branch under the wing of the eagle and an Isiac headdress in the reverse field (Mørkholm 1975: 16–17; fig. 12.26). The next year he supplemented his tetradrachms with an issue of drachms bearing his own portrait (Svoronos 1904–1908: no. 1837). In the following year, 53/2, he drastically debased the coinage, reducing its silver content to only 1/3; this inferior alloy remained in use until the end of the dynasty (Hazzard 1990). The production of cast bronze coins was a recurrent phenomenon in Egypt. The majority of the cast double eagles belong to the first half of the first century, when even metal blanks were used in exchange (Le Rider 1969). Fully one third of the bronzes found in the French excavations at Alexandria were cast, suggesting they were not the products of counterfeiters but of local officials (Picard 2005: 83–84).

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Fig 12 27

Among late Cypriote bronzes the issues of Ptolemy of Cyprus are not clearly distinguishable, but they probably include Ammon/eagle varieties marked with a large cornucopiae or a large aphlaston in the field (Nicolaou 1990: nos. 400–418).

(p. 228) Cleopatra VII Thea Neotera Cleopatra's Alexandrian silver coinage continued in the pattern set during her father's second reign, though in her twelfth regnal year she introduced a new portrait of Ptolemy Soter with a more flowing coiffure (Mørkholm 1975: 17). She struck tetradrachms in most years and drachms with her own portrait in 47/6 and 42/1. In addition there is a brief, anomalous series of tetradrachms of the later style with a new series of dates, which may reflect the elevation of Caesarion as coregent or the enlargement of the kingdom by Mark Antony (Mørkholm 1975: 18–19). Cleopatra reformed the Egyptian bronze currency, providing an adequate supply of struck coins for perhaps the first time in half a century. Her best known Alexandrian bronzes comprise two sizable denominations with her portrait on the obverse and marks of value on the reverse (fig. 12.27), designating these coins as equivalent to 80

Page 12 of 18

The Coinage of the Ptolemies and 40 of the small bronze “drachms of account” according to the system of reckoning introduced around the turn of the second century. The weights of these coins imply that the “drachm of account” was now a unit of 0.2 g. Also attributable to Cleopatra are small Ammon/eagle bronzes marked B—A or K—Λ; these must represent the smallest unit of the currency system, the bronze pentadrachm described by Hero of Alexandria in connection with dispensing machines for holy water (Maresch 1996: 96–97; Picard 2005: 85, 2008). Because Augustus adopted Cleopatra's system of denominated bronzes but later gradually reintroduced the traditional Greek divisional system of chalkoi and obols, there is reason to suspect that Cleopatra's bronzes could also have functioned in the traditional system. The 1:8 ratio between the pentadrachms and the 40-drachm pieces suggests they could have been chalkoi and obols, respectively, making the 80-drachm piece a diobol; intriguingly, the 40- and 80-drachm coins have the same weights and diameters as the bronze obols and diobols of Ptolemy II, perhaps implying that the traditional divisional system had survived unchanged beneath the overlay of the new decimal system (Faucher 2006; Maresch 1996: 68, 110–111). Cleopatra's best known Cypriote coin is a large bronze portraying Isis suckling Horus, symbolizing the joint rule of Cleopatra and Caesarion and probably issued from c. 39 (van ’t Dack 1988). It is marked on the reverse with a Cyprus monogram. Very likely other Cypriote bronzes with this monogram and/or an Isis headdress in the field also belong to Cleopatra's reign.

Fig 12 28

(p. 229) The territorial gifts of Mark Antony in winter of 37/6 inspired a new dating system in Syria and Phoenicia as well as new coinages in the region honoring Cleopatra and/or Antony. Tetradrachms portraying the pair (fig. 12.28) have been attributed to Antioch but were perhaps struck at one or more Phoenician mints (Burnett, Amandry, and Ripollès 1992: 601–602). Bronzes of civic type were issued at Orthosia, Tripolis, Berytus, Ptolemais (Ake), Dora, Chalcis, and Damascus. Similar quasi-municipal bronzes with the portrait of Cleopatra were minted at Patras in Achaea, shortly before the battle of Actium. Cyrenaica was reunited with the Ptolemaic kingdom in 34, though the Donations of Alexandria. On the occasion of Antony's third consulship, in 31, Cyrene struck an emission of bronze asses and semisses with inscriptions naming Cleopatra and Antony. Fig. 12.1. Silver tetradrachm, Memphis, under Ptolemy as satrap, c. 323–319 B.C. (Numismatic Fine Arts photo archive) Fig. 12.2. Silver tetradrachm, Memphis, under Ptolemy as satrap, c. 319–313 B.C. (Numismatic Fine Arts photo archive) Fig. 12.3. Silver tetradrachm, Alexandria, under Ptolemy as satrap, c. 311 B.C. (Numismatic Fine Arts photo archive) Fig. 12.4. Gold stater, Alexandria, under Ptolemy I, c. 298 B.C. (Numismatic Fine Arts photo archive) Fig. 12.5. Silver tetradrachm, Alexandria, under Ptolemy I, after c. 294 B.C. (Numismatic Fine Arts photo archive) Fig. 12.6. Bronze diobol, Alexandria, under Ptolemy II, after c. 275 B.C. (Stephen M. Huston collection) Fig. 12.7. Gold mnaieion, Alexandria, under Ptolemy II, after 272 B.C. (Numismatic Fine Arts photo archive) Fig. 12.8. Silver decadrachm in name of Arsinoe Philadelphus, Alexandria, c. 260–250 B.C. (Courtesy of Leu Numismatik) (p. 230) Fig. 12.9. Bronze drachm, Alexandria, under Ptolemy II, after 262 B.C. (Courtesy of Gemini LLC) Fig. 12.10. Silver 15 drachms/dodecadrachm in name of Berenice II, Alexandria. (Courtesy of Gemini LLC) Fig. 12.11. Bronze octobol, Alexandria, under Ptolemy III. (Courtesy of Harlan J. Berk) Fig. 12.12. Silver tetradrachm with portrait of Ptolemy III, Asia Minor. (Numismatic Fine Arts photo archive) Fig. 12.13. Gold mnaieion portraying Ptolemy III, Alexandria, under Ptolemy IV. (Formerly Larry Bonner collection) Fig. 12.14. Silver tetradrachm, Alexandria, under Ptolemy IV. (Numismatic Fine Arts photo archive)

Page 13 of 18

The Coinage of the Ptolemies Fig. 12.15. Silver tetradrachm portraying Ptolemy IV, Tyre. (Numismatic Fine Arts photo archive) Fig. 12.16. Gold mnaieion portraying Ptolemy V. (Numismatic Fine Arts photo archive) Fig. 12.17. Silver tetradrachm portraying Ptolemy V. (Numismatic Fine Arts photo archive) Fig. 12.18. Silver didrachm, Cypriot, second century B.C. (Formerly Larry Bonner collection) Fig. 12.19. Gold mnaieion in name of Arsinoe Philadelphus, Alexandria, second century B.C. (Numismatic Fine Arts photo archive) Fig. 12.20. Bronze with Isis-Demeter obverse type, Alexandria, under Ptolemy V. (Courtesy of Gemini LLC) Fig. 12.21. Gold mnaieion portraying Cleopatra I and Ptolemy VI, Alexandria, 180–176 B.C. (British Museum) Fig. 12.22. Silver tetradrachm with portrait of Ptolemy VI, Alexandria. (American Numismatic Society) Fig. 12.23. Bronze 28 mm, Alexandria, second century B.C. (Courtesy of Harlan J. Berk) Fig. 12.24. Bronze drachm, Cyrene, under Ptolemy VIII. (Courtesy of Gemini LLC) Fig. 12.25. Silver tetradrachm with portrait of Ptolemy VIII, Paphos, 139/8 B.C. (Courtesy of Frank L. Kovacs) Fig. 12.26. Silver tetradrachm, Alexandria, under Ptolemy XII, 55/4 B.C. (Courtesy of Harlan J. Berk) Fig. 12.27. Bronze 80 drachms, Alexandria, under Cleopatra VII. (Courtesy of Classical Numismatic Group) Fig. 12.28. Silver tetradrachm portraying Cleopatra VII and Mark Antony, Syria or Phoenicia, after 37 B.C. (Numismatic Fine Arts photo archive)

Bibliography Bibliography Ager, S. L. (2005). “Familiarity breeds: Incest and the Ptolemaic dynasty.” JHS 125: 1–34. Alföldi, A. (1977). “From the Aion Plutonios of the Ptolemies to the Saeculum Frugiferum of the Roman emperors.” In Kinzl: 1–30. Amandry, M. (1990). “Deux trésors hellénistiques découvertes récemment à Claros et Tanis.” REG 103: xxi–xxii. Amandry, M., and S. Hurter, eds. (1999). Travaux de numismatique offerts à Georges Le Rider London. (p. 231) Bagnall, R. S. (1999). Review of Cadell and Le Rider 1997. SNR 78: 197–203. Blasius, A. (2006). “Die ägyptisierende Münzprägung Antiochos’ IV. Epiphanes im Kontext des 6. Syrischen Krieges.” Lecture presented at conference “Ikono-Texte—Duale Mediensituationen” (Zweite “Kleine MommsenTagung”), 17–19 February 2006, Justus-Liebig-Universität, Institut für Altertumwissenschaften. Available at www.uni-giessen.de/altertum (see Dokumentationen—Institut für Altertumwissenschaften). Bingen, J. (2007). Hellenistic Egypt: Monarchy, Society, Economy, Culture Berkeley. Bricault, L. (1999). “Sarapis et Isis, Sauveurs de Ptolémée IV à Raphia.” CE 74 (148): 334–343. Burkhalter, F., and O. Picard. (2005). “Le vocabulaire financier dans les papyrus et l’évolution des monnayages lagides en bronze.” In Duyrat and Picard: 53–80. Burnett, A., M. Amandry, and P. P. Ripollès. (1992). Roman Provincial Coinage Vol. 1. From the Death of Caesar to the Death of Vitellius (44 BC–AD 69) London. Buttrey, T. V. (1997). “Part I: The Coins.” In White: 1–66. Cadell, H., and G. Le Rider. (1997). Prix du blé et numéraire dans l’Égypte lagide de 305 à 173 Papyrologica Bruxellensia 30. Brussels. Callataÿ, F. de. (2005). “L’instauration par Ptolémée Ier Sôter d’une économie monétaire fermée.” In Duyrat and Picard: 117–134. Cavagna, A. (2010). La crisi dello stato tolemaico tra inflazione e svalutazione del denaro Milan.

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The Coinage of the Ptolemies Chauveau, M. (1990). “Un été 145.” BIFAO 90: 135–173. ——— . (1991). “Postscriptum.” BIFAO 91: 139–134. Chryssanthaki, K. (2005). “Les monnaies lagides en Égée.” In Duyrat and Picard: 159–175. Davesne, A. (1987). “Une contremarque au trident sur certains monnaies de Ptolémée II Philadelphe.” BSFN 42(2): 145–149. ——— . (1998). “Réflexions sur la valeur des bronzes des premiers Ptolémées.” RN 154: 49–60. ——— . (1999). “La deuxième guerre de Syrie (c. 261–255 av. J.-C.) et les témoignages numismatiques.” In Amandry and Hurter: 123–134. Duyrat, F., and O. Picard, eds. (2005). L’exception égyptienne? Production et échanges monétaires en Égypte hellénistique et romain Études alexandrines 10. Cairo. Emmons, B. (1954). “Overstruck coinage of Ptolemy I.” ANSMN 6: 69–84. Faucher, T. (2006). “L’atelier monétaire d’Alexandria.” Ph.D. diss., Sorbonne. Faucher, T., and C. Lorber. (2010). “Bronze coinage of Ptolemaic Egypt in the second century B.C.” AJN 22: 35–84. Faucher, T., and M. Shahin. (2006). “Le trésor de Gézéïr (lac Mariout, Alexandrie).” RN 162: 135–157. Gitler, H., and A. Kushnir-Stein. (1994–1999). “The chronology of a late Ptolemaic bronze coin-type from Cyprus.” INJ 13: 46–53. Guey, J. (1966). “Un rapport de M. Picon sur les grands bronzes lagides à la cavité centrale.” BSFN 1966: 104. Guey, J., and M. Picon. (1968). “Quelques remarques sur la fabrication des grands bronzes lagides à cavités centrales.” BSFN 1966: 240–241. Hackens, T. (1968). “À propos de la circulation monétaire dans le Péloponnèse au IIIe siècle av. J.-C.” In Antidorum W Peremans Sexagenario ab Alumnis Oblatum, Studia Hellenistica 16 [Louvain]: 69–95. Hazzard, R. A. (1975). “The Tyre hoard of 1955: IGCH 1591.” Cornucopiae 3: 57–63. ——— . (1990). “The composition of Ptolemaic silver.” JSSEA 20: 89–107. ——— . (1995a). Ptolemaic Coins: An Introduction for Collectors Toronto. ——— . (1995b). “Theos Epiphanes: Crisis and response.” HTR 88(4): 415–436. (p. 232) ——— . (1998). “A review of the Cyprus hoard, 1982.” NC 158: 25–36. ——— . (2000). Imagination of a Monarchy: Studies in Ptolemaic Propaganda Phoenix Supplementary Vol. 37. Toronto. Hölbl, G. (2001). A History of the Ptolemaic Empire Translated by T. Saavedra. London. Huss, W. (1976). “Ptolemaios III. als Sarapis?” JNG 26: 31–36. Huston, S. M., and C. C. Lorber. (2001). “A hoard of Ptolemaic bronze coins in commerce, October 1992 (CH 8, 413).” NC 161: 11–40. Jenkins, G. K. (1960). “An early Ptolemaic hoard from Phacous.” ANSMN 9: 17–37. ——— . (1967). “The monetary systems in the early Hellenistic time with special regard to the economic policy of the Ptolemaic kings.” In Kindler: 53–74. Kiang, D. (1962). “An unpublished coin portrait of Ptolemy VI Philometor.” ANSMN 10: 69–76.

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The Coinage of the Ptolemies Kindler, A., ed. (1967). The Patterns of Monetary Development in Phoenicia and Palestine in Antiquity, Proceedings, International Numismatic Convention, Jerusalem, 27–31 December 1963 Tel Aviv. Kinzl, K. H., ed. (1997). Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean in Ancient History and Prehistory: Studies Presented to Fritz Schachermeyr on the Occasion of his Eightieth Birthday. Berlin. Kyrieleis, H. (2004). “Ägyptische Bildelemente auf Siegelabdrücken aus Nea Paphos (Zypern).” Städel-Jahrbuch 19: 109–116. Laubscher, H. P. (1987). “Ein ptolemäisches Gallierdenkmal.” AntKun 30(2): 131–154. Le Rider, G. (1969). “Monnaies trouvées à Mirgissa.” RN: 28–35. ——— . (1986). “Les alexandres d’argent en Asie Mineure et dans l’orient séleucide au III siècle avant J.-C. Remarques sur le système monétaire des Séleucides et des Ptolémées.” JS: 3–51. ——— . (1997–1998). “Histoire économique et monétaire de l’Orient hellénistique.” In Annuaire du Collège de France, 1997–1998, Résumé des cours et travaux: 793–809. ——— . (1998). “Sur un passage du papyrus de Zénon 59021.” In J.-Y. Empereur, ed., Commerce et artisanat dans l’Alexandrie hellénistique et romaine: Actes du colloque d’Athènes, 11–12 décembre 1988. BCH supp. 33 (Athens): 403–407. ——— . (2003). Alexandre le Grand Monnaie, finances et politique Paris. Lorber, C. C. (2000). “Large Ptolemaic bronzes in third-century Egyptian hoards.” AJN 12: 67–92. ——— (2001). “The lotus of Aphrodite on Ptolemaic bronzes.” SNR 80: 39–52. ——— . (2005a). “Development of Ptolemaic bronze coinage in Egypt.” In Duyrat and Picard: 135–157. ——— . (2005b). “A revised chronology for the coinage of Ptolemy I.” NC 165: 45–64. ——— . (2006). “The last Ptolemaic bronze emission of Tyre.” INR 1: 15–20. ——— . (2007a). “The Egyptian bronze coinage of Antiochus IV.” RBN 153: 31–44. ——— . (2007b). “The Ptolemaic era coinage revisited.” NC 167: 105–117. Lorber, C.C. (2011). “Theos Aigiochos: The aegis in Ptolemaic portraits of divine rulers.” In P. Iossif, A. Chankowski, and C. Lorber, eds., More Than Men, Less Than Gods: Studies on Royal Cult and Emperor Worship Proceedings of the International Conference organized by the Belgian School at Athens, 1–2 November 2007, Studia Hellenistica 51. Leuven: 293–356. Lorber, C. C., and F. L. Kovacs. (1997). “A Ptolemaic mint at Soli: A tale of two magistrates.” SM 47(187): 92–95. Maehler, H., and V. M. Strocka, eds. (1978). Das ptolemäische Ägypten Aketen des internationalen Symposions 27–29 September 1976 in Berlin Mainz am Rhein. (p. 233) Maresch, K. (1996). Bronze und Silber: Papyrologische Beiträge zur Geschichte der Währung im ptolemäischen und römischen Ägypten bis zum 2 Jahrhunderts n Chr , Papyrologica Coloniensia XXV Opladen. Mørkholm, O. (1975). “Ptolemaic coins and chronology: The dated silver coinage of Alexandria.” ANSMN 20: 7–24. ——— . (1976). “The Ptolemaic ‘coins of an uncertain era.’” NNÅ 1975–1976: 23–58. ——— . (1979). “The portrait coinage of Ptolemy V: The main series.” In Mørkholm and Waggoner: 203–214. ——— . (1980). “A group of Ptolemaic coins from Phoenicia and Palestine.” INJ 4: 4–7. ——— . (1983a). “The Ptolemaic coinage in Phoenicia and the fifth war with Syria.” In E. Van’t Dack et al.: 241–251.

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The Coinage of the Ptolemies ——— . (1983b). “The last Ptolemaic silver coinage in Cyprus.” Chiron 13: 69–79. Mørkholm, O., and A. Kromann. (1984). “The Ptolemaic silver coinage on Cyprus, 192/1–164/3 B.C.” Chiron 14: 149–173. Mørkholm, O., and N. M. Waggoner, eds. (1979). Greek Numismatics and Archaeology: Essays in Honor of Margaret Thompson Wetteren, Switzerland. Naville, L. (1951). Les monnaies d’or de la Cyrénaïque Geneva. Newell, E. T. (1927). Two recent Egyptian hoards Numismatic Notes and Monographs 33. New York. Nicolaou, I. (1990). Paphos II: The Coins from the House of Dionysos Nicosia. Olivier, J. (2006). “Le monnayage d’or lagide.” Master's thesis, Université d’Orleans. Parente, A. R. (2002). “Ritrattistica e sombologia sulle monete di Arsinoe II.” NAC 31: 259–278. Pestmann, P. W. (1967). Chronologie égyptienne d’après les texts démotiques (332 av J -C –453 ap J -C ) Papyrologica Lugduno-Batava 15. Leiden. Picard, O. (1999). “Un monnayage alexandrin énigmatique: Le trésor d’Alexandrie 1996.” In Amandry and Hurter: 313–321. ——— . (2005). “L’apport des monnaies des fouilles d’Alexandrie.” In Duyrat and Picard: 81–90. ——— . (2008). “À la recherche du pentadrachme d’Héron d’Alexandrie.” In D. Gerin, A. Geissen, and M. Amandry, eds., Ægyptiaca serta in Soheir Bakhoum memoriam: Mélanges de numismatique, d’iconographie et d’histoire, Collezioni numismatiche 7 (Milan): 39–43. Quaegebeur, J. (1978). “Reines ptolémaïques et traditions égyptiennes.” In Maehler and Strocka: 245–262. Reekmans, T. (1951). “The Ptolemaic copper inflation.” In Van’t Dack and Reekmans, eds., Ptolemaica, Studia Hellenistica 7 (Louvain): 61–118. Ritter, H. W. (1975). “Zum Schild auf den Münzen des Philadelphos.” SM 97: 2–3. Samuel, A. E. (1962). Ptolemaic Chronology Münchener Beiträge zur Papyrusforschung und Antike Rechtsgeschichte 43. Munich. Smith, R. R. R. (1988). Hellenistic Royal Portraits Oxford. Svoronos, J. N. (1902). “Ptolemaïs-Lebedos, Éphèse, Aenos et Abdère sous les Ptolémées.” JIAN 5: 61–70. ——— . (1904–1908). Ta Nomismata tou Kratous ton Ptolemaion/Die Münzen der Ptolemäer Athens. Tondriau, J. (1948). “Le tryphè: Philosophie royale ptolemaïque.” REA 50: 49–54. Troxell, H. A. (1983). “Arsinoe's non-era.” ANSMN 28: 35–70. Vagi, D. L. (1997). “The Ptolemaic pentekaidekadrachm.” SAN 20(1): 5–10. Van’t Dack, E. (1988). “Notices Cypriotes.” In Ptolemaica Selecta: Études sur l’armée et l’administrations lagides, Studia Hellenistica 29 (Lovanii): 175–184. (p. 234) Van’t Dack, E., et al., eds. (1983). Egypt and the Hellenistic World Proceedings of the International Colloquium, Leuven 24–26 May 1982, Studia Hellenistica 27 (Lovanii): 241–251. Verhoogt, A. (2005). Regaling Ptolemaic Officials: A Dramatic Reading of Official Accounts from the Menches Papers Leiden. Voegtli, H. (1973). “Der Schild des Philadelphos.” SM 23: 86–89.

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The Coinage of the Ptolemies Von Reden, S. (2007). Money in Ptolemaic Egypt from the Macedonian Conquest to the End of the Third Century BC Cambridge. White, D., ed. (1997). The Extramural Sanctuary of Demeter and Persephone at Cyrene, Libya Final Reports Vol. 6. University Museum Monographs 97. Philadelphia. Zervos, O. H. (1967). “The early tetradrachms of Ptolemy I.” ANSMN 13: 1–16. ——— . (1974). “The Alexander Mint of Egypt.” Ph.D. diss., New York University. ——— . (1976). “The Delta hoard of Ptolemaic ‘Alexanders,’ 1896.” ANSMN 21: 37–58.

Notes: (1.) The Satrap Stele of 311 places the transfer of the capital before a Syrian campaign. Although Ptolemy first occupied Syria and Phoenicia in 320, it is more likely that the inscription refers to the recent campaign of 312/311. (2.) This reform, which involved a new weight reduction, should be dated c. 295/294. It must be earlier than the surrender of Tyre, whose first Ptolemaic tetradrachm conformed to the types and weight of the reformed currency. (3.) A larger denomination weighing c. 96 g was struck only once under Ptolemy II (Svoronos 1904–1908: no. 462) and must have functioned as an octobol. Catharine C. Lorber Cathar ne C. Lorber s an ndependent scholar spec al z ng n Hellen st c co nage.

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The Seleucids

Oxford Handbooks Online The Seleucids Arthur Houghton The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Coinage Edited by William E Metcalf Pr nt Publ cat on Date: Feb 2012 Onl ne Publ cat on Date: Nov 2012

Subject: Class cal Stud es, Anc ent Greek H story DO : 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195305746.013.0014

Abstract and Keywords Early Seleucid monetary policy evolved unevenly as the Seleucid state, where the use of coined money was a relatively recent introduction, focused its efforts on military requirements, city building, and public works. From its earliest years, Seleucid monetary authorities in both eastern and western regions of the kingdom maintained an open financial system in which all currencies were the same. The system allowed the Seleucid state to use standard tetradrachms of any origin for internal payments, including tax revenue payments or payments by Seleucid authorities for military purposes. In time, as Seleucid territorial expansion slowed and state administrative behavior became more regularized, a greater degree of systematization and regularity in monetary decision making came into effect. The second century witnessed a number of changes in Seleucid mint administration, such as the use and placement of symbols and controls, and the expansion and later extinction of dated coinage in northern Syria. Keywords Seleucid monetary policy currencies systematization dated coinage

EARLY Seleucid monetary policy evolved unevenly as the Seleucid state, originally centered in non-Greek lands

where the use of coined money was a relatively recent introduction, focused its efforts on military requirements, city building, and public works. In time, as Seleucid territorial expansion slowed and state administrative behavior became more regularized, a greater degree of systematization and regularity in monetary decision-making came into effect. Nevertheless, an overview of Seleucid monetary policy and production shows a continuing interest in experimentation and change, region to region and even city to city. The state's early responses to questions of whether to issue coins, where, in what volume, with what denominations, and with what message content were addressed variably from the beginning. As the overall pattern of production and circulation strongly suggests, however, the Seleucid kingdom was only partly monetized over the course of its existence.

Seleucid Mints and Money Production

Gold and Silver

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The Seleucids

Fig 13 1

Fig 13 2

Fig 13 3

The earliest cities to strike the first Seleucid coins were in the east, where Seleucus I (312–281) had established himself in 311 B.C. after gaining Ptolemy's support for his return to Babylonia. Babylon, which had struck extensively for Alexander and Antigonus after Alexander's death, was Seleucus's earliest and most voluminous mint, issuing gold and silver coinage of differing types and standards, including (p. 236) Alexander's imperial Attic weight money (fig. 13.1) and Persic standard gold and silver (fig. 13.2) that circulated regionally (SC1: 50–51; SC2: 701–714). The more distant eastern mints of Susa and Ecbatana followed suit, albeit in less volume. Apart from these three large facilities and two others at Ai Khanoum (or Bactra), and Alexandria Area, the early coinages of other eastern areas were relatively insignificant. The mint of Seleucia on the Tigris, which had replaced Babylon as the locus of the Seleucid court at the end of the fourth century, as well as Susa and Ecbatana, energetically produced Seleucid silver money until the collapse of Seleucid authority in the late second century. Of the two mints, Seleucia was both the most active and the longest

Page 2 of 16

The Seleucids lasting, striking tetradrachms, occasional drachms, and bronze coinage through the second century until the city's seizure in 141 by the Parthian ruler Mithradates I, then briefly under Antiochus VII (138–129) during his reoccupation of the city in 130–129 (fig. 13.3). Susa produced tetradrachms until its capture by the native dynast Kamnaskires I in 145, and a small coinage for Demetrius II (Second Reign, 129–125) when he temporarily recovered the city, while Ecbatana issued tetradrachms (and under Demetrius I many drachms) for Alexander I (152–145) before the city fell to Mithradates in 148 or 147. Elsewhere in the east, Nisibis, which had been a highly active silver mint during the early reign of Antiochus III and another large mint in the same area that operated somewhat later (Uncertain Mint 68: SC1: 429–432) shut down after his death. Seleucus IV opened several transient silver mints in Media and Mesopotamia, as well as one at Antioch in Persis that struck tetradrachms through the reign of Antiochus IV (SC2 nos. 1526–1528). An important silver mint (first identified by Mørkholm 1970) was opened by Antiochus IV at an uncertain location on the Persian Gulf and continued in operation through the first reign of Demetrius II (146–138; SC2: 110–111). (p. 237) In the west, territorial acquisitions in the last years of the fourth and early third centuries extended Seleucid sovereignty over regions with much longer traditions of coinage—Cilicia, western Asia Minor, and Syria, where large volumes of silver currency issued from non-Seleucid mints circulated broadly. Throughout the third century, lifetime and posthumous Alexanders, along with Lysimachi and Attalid tetradrachms, appear to have been sufficient to the needs of the Seleucid state and commerce, and there was little incentive for the Seleucid financial authorities to augment the supply of new silver money. Le Rider (1986) provides the extensive hoard evidence for the broad circulation of mixed “international” silver currencies in the period. The most important mint facilities at Laodicea ad Mare, followed by Sardes and Antioch, issued tetradrachms episodically in low volumes, while an array of occasional mints sprang up, striking what appear to have been smallvolume issues of prestige or emissions of amity between the king and a subject city. Important changes occurred after the middle of the third century. Gold stater production for regular use—never very large in any circumstance—appears to have ended around 240 B.C., or perhaps a little later, under Seleucus II (246–226). The view that circulating gold ended early in Seleucus's reign under Seleucus II is based on the very low rate of recovery of staters of any later period. Certain Seleucid rulers, including Seleucus III in the 3rd century B.C., are not known to have issued gold coinage at all.

Fig 13 4

Page 3 of 16

The Seleucids

Fig 13 5

Fig 13 6

Gold produced from then on by later rulers, including a number of spectacular octodrachm issues, seems to have been struck only for honorific and emergency purposes (figs. 13.4, 13.5). At the same time, Seleucid silver production began to increase gradually. Antioch, which theretofore had struck tetradrachms in very (p. 238) limited volume, generally using an average of less than two obverse dies per year, significantly expanded production during the early and mid-second century, employing 5 to 10 dies per year under Antiochus IV (175–164 B.C.) and, with some exceptions (production was not always stable from year to year), between 10 and 20 under Demetrius I (162–150 B.C.) through the second reign of Demetrius II (at Antioch, 129–8 B.C.; Le Rider 1999; Hoover and Iossif forthcoming). In addition to tetradrachms, the Antioch mint began to strike increasing numbers of drachms, and from the reign of Antiochus IV also issued occasional fractions. Tetradrachm emissions from Seleucia on the Calycadnus, Soli and Tarsus in Cilicia, Damascus (under Antiochus III and Seleucus IV), Ptolemaïs (Ake), and a number of smaller mints added to the region's money supply. At midcentury, under Alexander I (152–145 B.C.) the Phoenician cities of Berytus, Sidon, Tyre, and Ptolemaïs (Ake) began to issue silver with eagle reverses on the lightweight standard of around 14-plus grams (fig. 13.6). Tyre produced by far the largest volume of silver coin, including tetradrachms, didrachms, and some drachms, through the second reign of Demetrius II, until 125, when the city was granted autonomous status (see Iossif forthcoming). Despite the advantage the new coinage represented to the region's financial authorities by being keyed to the Ptolemaic system that ensured consistency with silver money then circulating in Phoenicia and Coele Syria, it was unusable elsewhere in the kingdom, where Attic-standard silver appeared exclusively. Only after 125, when Tyre was granted autonomy and began to produce its own silver coinage, did southern mints such as Sidon and Ptolemaïs (Ake) recommence the issuance of Attic standard tetradrachms that could be used in other areas of the Seleucid state (SC2: 2329–2330, Sidon; 2335–2336, Ptolemaïs). Perhaps in response to territorial changes in the east, the Damascus mint reopened in 137, striking silver in volume for Antiochus VII and later much bronze, continuing as an important Seleucid mint until the city's seizure by Aretas III sometime after 84 B.C.

Bronze

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The Seleucids

Fig 13 7

Fig 13 8

From very modest beginnings, the supply of bronze coinage in the Seleucid kingdom grew as the role of bronze became broadly and increasingly important to the economies of the Hellenistic states. A significant expansion of bronze production occurred in the early third century in the western Seleucid territories. Two western mints in particular, Sardes and Antioch on the Orontes, produced bronze coins in particular abundance, and in time, bronze production was expanded among the major eastern mints as well. Across the kingdom, various lesser mints issued bronze exclusively, on a small scale and for a limited period, and were probably called into being by special local circumstances. Occasional bronze coinages with military types (p. 239) (horses, elephants) seem to indicate production by or for the Seleucid army (fig. 13.7), and late in the century, under Antiochus III (223–187), bronze production was undertaken by the army for use during the king's campaigns in Coele Syria during the Fifth Syrian War (SC1: 409–418; fig. 13.8). By the end of the third century, the production of Seleucid bronze coinage in Asia Minor had virtually ceased. Antioch, however, began to produce an increasingly large volume of bronze money for Antiochus III, including small denomination coins that in time evolved into a regional currency. In time, the Antioch mint became the principal supplier of bronze money to Syria and other areas of the Seleucid north, issuing large quantities of coin under Seleucus IV, Antiochus IV, and their successors through the second century and into the first, ceasing production around 93 B.C. under Antiochus XI before establishing an entirely civic coinage of its own. Elsewhere in the west, Ptolemaïs (Ake) and Damascus became major suppliers of bronze to Coele Syria and southern Phoenicia, respectively, albeit in different periods (Ptolemaïs from Antiochus III through the joint reign of Cleopatra and Antiochus VIII, 125–121 B.C.; Damascus beginning with Antiochus VII but especially under Demetrius III and Antiochus XII, 97/96–84/83 B.C.). In Phoenicia, the Tyre mint produced bronze coins for regional use under Antiochus III and his immediate successors and began under Demetrius I to issue larger volumes of bronze money, continuing to do so until 125; Byblus, Berytus, and Sidon became moderately active bronze facilities, albeit for shorter periods. In the east, Seleucia on the Tigris, Susa, and Ecbatana were all active bronze mints until the collapse of Seleucid authority. Of these, Seleucia was the most prolific, issuing bronzes in varied denominations and types into the brief reign of Antiochus VII.

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The Seleucids (p. 240) Unlike silver money, which was, from the end of the third century, continuously replaced throughout the areas of Seleucid rule, bronze coins could remain in use for very long periods, often more than a hundred years after they were struck (as Bijovsky 2001–2002 has shown). Bronze coins of often widely varying weight and size, civic issues as well as Seleucid, circulated at the same time, and while it is not entirely clear how they were valued against each other, it seems probable that their value was determined on the basis of approximate size, as well as type where type-differentiated currencies remained in circulation.

Tetradrachm Circulation and the Two-Tiered Monetary System From its earliest years, Seleucid monetary authorities in both eastern and western regions of the kingdom maintained an open financial system in which all currencies on the same Attic standard could circulate freely, both internally and across its frontiers. The system allowed the Seleucid state to use standard tetradrachms of any origin for internal payments, including tax revenue payments or payments by Seleucid authorities for military purposes (personnel pay, victualing, transport, etc.). It also permitted simplicity of exchange across state boundaries for official or commercial purposes. Even after the loss of Seleucid possessions in Asia Minor to Rome in 189 B.C., the system was generally continued in the northern and eastern areas of Seleucid authority— principally Cilicia, Mesopotamia, and Babylonia. With the exception of Phoenicia, where, as has been noted, Seleucid coins were struck on the lighter Ptolemaic standard, the open Attic system was maintained long into the second century until it collapsed in the century's last quarter (see below). Precious high-value silver money had certain limitations. For local, everyday use, low-value, often overvalued bronze coins remained the currency of choice. The result was the continuation of a two-tier system of coinages of vastly disproportionate values. Where it circulated in quantity, overvalued bronze may have helped bridge the gap between the two tiers, but irregular bronze production must have left large areas of the Seleucid state without an intermediate currency or means to convert silver coin to daily use.

Later Seleucid Money and Messages

Fig 13 9

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The Seleucids Fig 13 10

Fig 13 11

Fig 13 12

Fig 13 13

Fig 13 14

Early Seleucid money carried visual messages intended to support the primacy and power of the Seleucid dynasty or the specific mythology of the reigning monarch. Coin types alluded to the mythological origins and associations

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The Seleucids of the (p. 241) Seleucids (Heracles, Zeus, Apollo, or Athena; fig. 13.9); their victories (Nike, trophies; fig. 13.10) and military might (elephants and, more exceptionally, arms; fig. 13.11); their occasional associations with Alexander the Great (relatively rare portraits of the ruler, at times in elephant headdress as Alexander, conqueror of the east; fig. 13.12); their divinity (Seleucus I as Dionysus; Antiochus III as Apollo or with horns; fig. 13.13); and their relations with communities (civic badges; fig. 13.14; Hoover 2004). Antiochus IV expanded the repertoire of messages carried on coins. To his own portrait, he added a radiate crown at Antioch and other cities and made images of Zeus a major feature of his silver and bronze (the radiate portrait, suggesting an assimilation with Helios or some local celestial divinities, reappeared on coins of (p. 242) later rulers, through Antiochus XII; fig. 13.15). (For the Helios motif see Iossif and Lorber 2009b.) In addition to the usual, “of King Antiochus,” he added epithets attesting to his divine authority: “Theos” (“God”) on silver of Ecbatana; “Theos Epiphanes” (“God Manifest”) on silver and bronze of Antioch and bronzes of certain other mints; and “Theos Epiphanes Nicephorus” (the latter: “Bringer” or “Bearer of Victory”) on tetradrachms of Antioch and Ptolemaïs. All Antiochus's successors continued the practice of adding epithets to their coins at one mint or another, generally in the west: the eastern mints, Susa and Ecbatana in particular, tended to retain the traditional simple royal inscriptions that had prevailed kingdom-wide through the reign of Seleucus IV (although Ecbatana, like many other mints, added “Soter”—“Savior”—to the silver coins of Demetrius I). Likewise, epithets are generally absent from the Phoenician weight silver and bronze coinages of the Phoenician cities. An exceptional stater of Antiochus VII calls the ruler “Megas”—“great”—which appears on several inscriptions that refer to the king but on no other Seleucid issue (SC2: 2134). Several late Seleucid coinages were strenuous in their attempts to proclaim the ruler's virtues, as for example, “Mother-Loving Benefactor, Nobly Victorious” (fig. 13.16) or “Illustrious (or Dionysus Manifest), Father-Loving, of the Noble Victory” (Damascene bronzes of Antiochus XII; Demetrius III: SC2: 2447; Antiochus XII: SC2, 2482).

Fig 13 15

Fig 13 16

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The Seleucids

Fig 13 17

Fig 13 18

Certain motifs that were prevalent on early Seleucid coinages dwindled or disappeared from later ones, while others appeared in new forms. Elephants or elephant heads that prominently appeared on coins of early Seleucid rulers and that may represent the Seleucid army became increasingly rare in the later period, although images of trophies and, quite unusually, arms, were placed on bronze coins into the middle of the second century. Images of Nike and Zeus Nicephorus, attesting to the victorious nature of the ruler and reflecting the military campaigns of the period, abound. Seleucid usurpers, too, placed their personal types on their coins—Timarchus displayed the Dioscuri on his tetradrachm reverses (fig. 13.17), while Tryphon put his own military symbol, a Macedonian helmet, on both silver and bronze of Antioch (fig. 13.18). (p. 243)

IV. Seleucid Mint Administration in the Later Period The second century witnessed a number of changes in Seleucid mint administration. Some, such as the use and placement of symbols and controls, were evolutionary; others, such as the expansion and later extinction of dated coinage in northern Syria, were episodic. While central control over mint activities during certain reigns and in certain regions is evident, cities were often allowed considerable leeway in establishing their own coinage types, symbols, controls, dates, and conventions. Profound differences between the western and eastern coinages of the Seleucid kingdom persisted throughout.

Mint Symbols, Mintmarks, and Controls

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The Seleucids

Fig 13 19

Fig 13 20

Later Seleucid mints remained substantially disparate in their use of symbols. The large mints of Antioch and Seleucia on the Tigris, for example, continued to follow their earlier practice of applying symbols to their silver only rarely, while Ecbatana continued to display a horse or horse's head on much of its bronze and silver coinage through the reign of Demetrius I. The mints of Cilicia more or less regularly added symbols to represent mint cities on their coins or—as at Seleucia on the Calycadnus, Soli (fig. 13.19), and Mallus (fig. 13.20)—established reverse types that clearly identified the issuing mint. The relatively brief silver coinages of Seleucid Phoenicia, for their part, are distinguished by the appearance of symbols beneath their reverse eagle's feet, sometimes also under its wing or in the left field (as at Tyre) to represent their (p. 244) issuing locations. Abbreviated ethnics were applied irregularly, except in Phoenicia and parts of Coele Syria, where they appear on virtually all Seleucid silver from Alexander I to Antiochus VII, as well as on much bronze coinage of the issuing cities. The application of letters and monograms of the same general type that appeared on Seleucid coinage of the third century continued to the end of the dynasty. Most of these likely represented individuals with mint functions, and it is possible to recognize through such marks patterns of mint association, much as is the case with certain coinages of earlier periods. Examples of association can be found between Damascus and Ptolemaïs (Ake) under Seleucus IV, between Antioch and Ptolemaïs under Antiochus IV, and among various north Syrian mints of Antiochus VII that appear to have been under the supervision of a single person at Antioch. That controls do not always represent individuals is suggested by certain enduring marks with exceptionally long lifetimes that may represent a family or institution. Tyrian monograms with an exceptionally long life in both the royal and the autonomous period may also have represented families or institutions, or perhaps groups (guilds?) of local elites.

Dates Page 10 of 16

The Seleucids The practice of affixing dates on coins, prevalent in Ptolemaic Phoenicia and Coele Syria, was adopted by Antiochus III on his seizure of these territories in 198, when the mint of Tyre began issuing bronzes showing the Seleucid year. The convention rapidly spread to almost all the mints of Phoenicia and southern Coele Syria and in time was taken up in the Syrian north, including at the mint of Antioch, which began in 155/154 to strike dated tetradrachms for Demetrius I (fig. 13.21), continuing this practice, with (p. 245) drachm emissions as well, under Alexander I, Demetrius II, and Antiochus VI, until 143/142. Of the usurpers of the Seleucid throne, only Tryphon affixed dates on coins according to his regnal years. Although the Seleucid capital struck no later dated silver coins, it continued to issue dated bronzes into the early second reign of Antiochus IX, until 110/109. There is no discernible reason why Antioch should have discontinued dated silver after only 12 years while continuing to affix dates to its bronze coinage for the next three decades, but Seleucid coinage is filled with examples of such experiments and reversals. Ever different from their western counterparts, mints of the Seleucid east struck no regular dated coinage at all until the very end of Seleucid rule, when Seleucia on the Tigris produced a few dated bronzes for Antiochus VII.

Quasi-municipal Coinages In a departure from the practice of issuing royal bronzes with principally dynastic types, the Antioch mint began in 169/168 to strike bronze coinage for Antiochus IV with the king's radiate portrait and the name of the city on the reverse. Eighteen other cities followed with their own quasi-municipal bronzes, some with local reverses but many showing a Zeus reverse for at least one denomination (fig. 13.22). The quasi-municipal coinages of the Syrian north, Cilicia, and northern Mesopotamia were discontinued after Antiochus IV's reign but experienced a brief revival under Alexander I, when Seleucia in Pieria, Apamea, Laodicea, and Cyrrhus struck quasi-municipal bronzes in single years, perhaps as a rotating privilege or the result of a visit by the king. Ever a region with its own traditions, Phoenicia's four major mints—Byblus, Berytus, Sidon, and Tyre—struck bronzes in four denominations, each of which employed reverse types of purely local significance (fig. 13.23).

Fig 13 21

Fig 13 22

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The Seleucids

Fig 13 23

(p. 246) The degree to which the quasi-municipal coinages of Antiochus IV and Alexander I were inspired by royal design or local civic interests remains in question. Whatever the case, their circulation patterns, to the extent they are known, indicate that with the exception of such Tyrian bronzes, such coins did not travel far from their issuing cities. It has been suggested (Mørkholm 1966) that the sudden appearance of such coins under Antiochus IV was due to a desire by the king to revive civic life in his kingdom, but if such was the case, the policy was highly selective and was applied only to cities in the west and Mesopotamia. A brief issuance of quasi-municipal coins under Alexander I may have been an early form of adventus coinage, struck to honor the king and the city on the occasion of a royal visit. These coins were struck only in single years and seem to follow a northerly progression.

Marks of Value Under Antiochus IV, three mints—Nisibis, Seleucia on the Tigris, and, probably, Samaria in Coele Syria—affixed obverse marks to their bronze coins (AX, BX, or ΔX; fig. 13.24). Value marks (BX and ΔX only) appeared again on a late set of bronze coins of Timarchus struck at his capital, Ecbatana; on a single issue of Demetrius I of Seleucia on the Tigris (AX); and on a single bronze issue of Alexander I, also struck at Ecbatana (ΔX). Scholarship is united that the marks represent abbreviations for chalkous, dichalkon, and tetrachalkon, but there is no consensus on the reasons for their appearance, although revaluations of bronze may have been the primary purpose.

Attempts at Standardization Throughout the third and into the second centuries, many cities of the Seleucid kingdom had issued bronze currencies for local use that often differed in size, weight, and perhaps value from those of other localities. Against this tradition, the Seleucid state made occasional attempts to establish coinages for broad regional use, or bronze denominations that were approximately similar, city to city, evidently with the purpose of creating a unified state- or region-wide currency system. Most such attempts lasted only briefly, were not followed consistently, and were not picked up or reflected in coin production in other areas such as the east. If their purpose was to establish a currency system that could be broadly used throughout the kingdom, they were not applied consistently and seem not to have been particularly successful.

Fig 13 24

There is no clear pattern with regard to the number of bronze denominations a mint might issue. Antioch, for

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The Seleucids example, struck no less than four, or perhaps five, denominations under Seleucus IV, reducing these to two under Antiochus IV (p. 247) (three if one includes the quasi-municipal issues), increasing these to four under Demetrius I, and continuing with a variety of emissions to the reign of Antiochus XI, under whom but one denomination was struck. With the exception of the quasi-municipal coinage inaugurated under Antiochus IV, Ptolemaïs (Ake) held to a single denomination from the reign of Antiochus III through that of Demetrius I, increased this to three denominations under Alexander I and later Antiochus VI, and issued two denominations under Antiochus VII and during the joint reign of Cleopatra Thea and Antiochus VIII, when the mint's bronze coinage appears to have been calibrated to its counterpart at Antioch. The same varying pattern of denominational issuances appears at other mints, including those in the east.

Changes in Mint Operations From an early point in its history the Seleucid state, while concentrating major coinage production at a limited number of major mints, had nevertheless allowed many mint facilities to operate, often intermittently, as the kingdom expanded. Following the tumultuous reign of Antiochus III, however, several factors combined to enlarge the number of mints operating in some areas while reducing it in others. In the west and north, formerly active mint cities north of the Taurus Mountains, now no longer under Seleucid authority, stopped producing Seleucid money entirely. In the Syrian interior, Damascus issued tetradrachms for Seleucus IV, as it had for Antiochus III, before closing and transferring operations to Ptolemaïs (Ake), which dramatically, if only briefly, expanded its silver coinage under Antiochus IV. In Phoenicia, new silver mints were opened at Berytus, Sidon, and Tyre under Alexander I, with Sidon and Tyre continuing to issue tetradrachms and some smaller silver into the reigns of Antiochus VII (Sidon) and the second reign of Demetrius II (Tyre). Very possibly to help finance his expeditions against the Parthians, Antiochus VII inaugurated new emissions at a number of still-unidentified facilities in northern Syria (SC2: 372–375); he also reopened the mint at Damascus in the second year of his reign (S.E. 175 = 138/137 B.C.), which continued to function into the reign of Antiochus XII, finally closing in 84/83 B.C. In the east, small mints in northern Media, including one established by Antiochus III perhaps at Rhagae, were opened to issue tetradrachms and drachms that circulated broadly across the Iranian plateau, but these closed after only a few decades of operation as the Seleucids were forced to cede territory to the Parthians. Similarly, a number of mints in southern Babylonia (one perhaps at Charax) and on or near the Persian Gulf issued silver for Antiochus IV, but most of these ceased production after only a few years of operation. From the third decade of the second century, the story is much the same: occasional expansion of mint production, much of it probably related to an occasional need for official payments, against the background of a general retrenchment of the Seleucid state against the territorial pressures it faced from the Romans in the north and Parthians in the east, as well as from fragmentation from within. As the first century began, the (p. 248) Seleucid kingdom had been reduced territorially to a few major cities in Cilicia and northern and central Syria. Under Seleucus VI, six mints issued silver coinage (Seleucia on the Calycadnus, Elaeusa [Sebaste], Tarsus, Antioch, and two other still-unidentified facilities), five under Demetrius III. Of these, only Antioch and Damascus issued silver money in any volume, and by the end of the dynasty the kingdom had collapsed to only one mint, Antioch, which produced a limited number of tetradrachms for Antiochus XIII (64 B.C.) before Seleucid authority was extinguished.

New Foreign Currencies By the last decade of the third century, spread-flan Alexander tetradrachms from Asia Minor, including in particular issues struck in Pamphylia, began to replace the lifetime and early posthumous Alexander tetradrachms that had until then made up the largest proportion of coins circulating in the Seleucid kingdom. Within a few decades the Pamphylian tetradrachms, along with issues of Side, flooded the currency markets of Syria and Cilicia, and would remain an important component of currencies circulation in the Seleucid west until the last third of the second century, when they disappeared. Such non-Seleucid money may have been meant for state purposes, but it seems more likely that it was principally intended as payments for mercantile exports or services. Certain coins of Side and Alexanders of Pamphylian manufacture with anchor countermarks entered circulation in the 170s; their appearance may have been related to the financing of Antiochus IV's invasion of Egypt in 175, although episodes of anchor countermarking may also have occurred under Demetrius I (162–150 B.C.)

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The Seleucids About 160 B.C., Athens's New Style tetradrachms began to circulate in Seleucid Syria, and shortly after the midpoint of the century, tetradrachms of Myrina and Cyme, with wreathed reverses followed by similarly wreathed coins of other Asia Minor cities, began to enter Seleucid currency markers. The reason for the appearance of such wreathed coins in Seleucid Syria only is not entirely clear, but may have been related to the interest of the Attalids in supporting the military campaigns of Alexander I against Demetrius I, which began around 152 B.C.

The Deterioration and Debasement of Seleucid Money From the beginning of the Seleucid dynasty until 173/172, the weight of Attic standard tetradrachms issued at Antioch and other western mints had remained constant at a median of about 17.0 g. In that year, the weight of tetradrachms struck at (p. 249) Antioch and Ptolemaïs (Ake) was allowed to fall to a value of between 16.6 and 16.7 g, almost certainly to reduce the silver requirement of 15,000 talents imposed by the Romans in the Treaty of Apamea (189) and to help finance the military spending needs of Antiochus IV. The Antioch mint held to the new standard for more than three decades, but a second reduction seems to have taken place when Alexander II was put on the Seleucid throne by Ptolemy VIII in 128, or perhaps slightly later. This time, however, the Attic standard did not stabilize, and within a few years—beginning, apparently, during the first adult reign of Antiochus VIII (at Antioch, 124–121 B.C.)—commenced a decline, marked by episodic weight reductions, that extended into and past the middle of the first century. By the time of the last Seleucid ruler, Antiochus XIII (64 B.C.), the modal weight of Antioch's coins was in the range of 15.30–15.39 g, far below that of the previous century. The coinages of Seleucid Phoenicia, too, suffered a reduction of their own Phoenician standard. Measured over the relatively short period of their issue (c. 151–125 B.C.), the tetradrachms of Tyre show a small but statistically significant decline of weight, from a median of 14.10 g under Alexander I to 13.95 g during the second reign of Demetrius II. In addition to the reduction of weight, there appears to have been a significant drop in the purity of Seleucid silver coins issued at Antioch, and probably also at other mints. The evidence from a variety of sources, while still very limited, indicates that the decline began about 120 B.C., or a bit earlier, and continued, although it appears to have been somewhat inconsistent, especially in the first century. Available data suggest that by 60 B.C., the silver content of Antioch's tetradrachms had declined to about 60%. The reasons underlying the decline in weight and the debasement of Seleucid silver are not hard to understand. As Seleucid rulers found themselves increasingly pressed for funds to finance military and other requirements of the court, they began to look to money circulating in their own territories as a way to add to their treasuries. The kingdom's financial authorities may have thought that small weight adjustments would be paralleled by correlative adjustments in the money of other states that then circulated into Syria. Such seems to have occurred in the case of the first weight reduction of Antiochus IV. But the second major reduction of around 128, combined with the ongoing reduction of silver fineness, appears to have had profound, and eventually catastrophic, consequences. The most important of these was that the Seleucid monetary system slowly closed. As newly struck lower value coins were produced, earlier Seleucid and foreign coins of higher intrinsic worth—including all Alexanders, Athens's New Style issues, and wreathed-reverse tetradrachms—disappeared entirely from the Seleucid money stream, melted for bullion and other purposes, or recoined (as occurred several times, massively under Philip I, c. 95/94–c.76/75 B.C.). In the place of circulating tetradrachms that had been only partly Seleucid, silver money circulating in Seleucid territory became increasingly, and finally overwhelmingly, made up of Seleucid coins of recent issue. By the last decades of the second century, north Syrian tetradrachms produced on the reduced Attic standard circulated almost exclusively (p. 250) within the confines of the Seleucid kingdom; the Kessab Hoard of around 110 B.C. (IGCH 1568) is the last recorded appearance of “foreign” money in a hoard of overwhelmingly Seleucid content. Whatever economic benefits had accrued to the state and the Seleucid financial class from the open monetary system that had been allowed to prevail over the previous two centuries were now lost. Late second- and early first-century hoards from the area show little mixing of currencies and indicate that the financial systems of the several states in the region operated independently. Each state appears to have believed that it could achieve commercial or financial advantage by promoting and using its own money within a closed economic system that allowed free currency exchange with only a relatively small number of partners, while making exchanges with states whose currencies were based on other weight standards much more difficult. For its

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The Seleucids part, the Seleucid kingdom, which at the end of the second century consisted of only a handful of cities in Cilicia and the Syrian north, adhered to the declining standard of Antioch without reference to other currency systems of the area. The ultimate effect was to reduce the usefulness of Seleucid money for payments outside the kingdom and to help accelerate the decline of Seleucid financial power, weakened already by the incessant wars that plagued the later kingdom. Special thanks are due Oliver Hoover for reading this essay in draft and providing helpful comments and relevant die data on Antioch. Fig. 13.1. Seleucus I, Babylon, tetradrachm: SC1 87.4b (AH photo file). Fig. 13.2. Seleucus I, Babylon, lion stater: SC1 88.8b (AH photo file). Fig. 13.3. Antiochus VII, Seleucia on the Tigris, tetradrachm: Paris. Fig. 13.4. Antiochus III, Antioch, octodrachm: 74. Fig. 13.5. Cleopatra Thea and Antiochus VIII, Ptolemaïs-Ake, octadrachm: CSE2, 716. Fig. 13.6. Alexander I, Berytus, tetradrachm: CSE 706. Fig. 13.7. Seleucus I, Pergamum, tetradrachm: CSE 633. Fig. 13.8. Antiochus III, Uncertain Mint 60, AE: CSE 889. Fig. 13.9. Antiochus VII, Seleucia on the Calycadnus, tetradrachm: CSE 530. Fig. 13.10. Seleucus I, Susa, tetradrachm: CSE 1025. Fig. 13.11. Antiochus III, Seleucia on the Tigris, tetradrachm: New York, ANS. Fig. 13.12. Alexander II, Antioch, AE: Jerusalem, SNGSpaer 2308. (p. 251) Fig. 13.13. Seleucus II, Seleucia on the Tigris, AE: CSE2, 253. Fig. 13.14. Antiochus II, Ecbatana, tetradrachm: CSE2, 161. Fig. 13.15. Antiochus IV, Antioch, AE: CSE 130. Fig. 13.16. Demetrius III, Seleucia in Pieria, AE: CSE2, 797. Fig. 13.17. Timarchus, Seleucia on the Tigris, tetradrachm: CSE 990. Fig. 13.18. Tryphon, Antioch, tetradrachm: CSE2, 563. Fig. 13.19. Alexander I, Soli, tetradrachm: Paris. Fig. 13.20. Antiochus VI, Mallus, tetradrachm: CSE2, 550. Fig. 13.21. Demetrius I, Antioch, tetradrachm: CSE 152. Fig. 13.22. Antiochus IV, Nisibis, AE: Jerusalem, SNGSpaer 1156. Fig. 13.23. Antiochus IV, Berytus, AE: CSE 694. Fig. 13.24. Antiochus IV, Seleucia on the Tigris, AE: CSE 982.

Bibliography Bibliography Bijovsky, G. (2001–2002). “The Currency of the Fifth Century C.E. in Palestine—Some Reflections in Light of the Numismatic Evidence.” INJ 14: 199–204. Hoover, O. (2004). “Ceci n’est pas l’autonomie: The Coinages of Seleucid Phoenicia as Royal and Civic Power Discourse.” Topoi, supp., 6: 486–507. Iossif, P. (Forthcoming). The Seleucid Coinage of Sidon and Tyre. Iossif, P., and C. Lorber (2009a). “Celestial Imagery in the Eastern Coinage of Antiochus IV.” Mesopotamia 44: 129– 146. ——— . (2009b). “The Cult of Helios in the Seleucid East.” Topoi 16: 19–42. Le Rider, G. (1986). “Les alexandres d’argent en Asie Mineure et dans l’orient séleucide au IIIe siècle av. J.-C. c. 275–c. 225: Remarques sur le système monétaire des Séleucides et des Ptolemées.” JS, Jan.-Sept., 3–58. ——— . (1999). Antioche de Syrie sous les Séleucides: corpus des monnaies d’or et d’argent I De Séleucos I à Antiochus IV c 300–161 Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres n. s. 19. Paris.

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The Seleucids Mørkholm, O. (1966). Antiochus IV of Syria Copenhagen. ——— . (1970). “The Seleucid Mint of Antiochia on the Persian Gulf.” ANSMN 16: 31–44. Arthur Houghton Arthur Houghton s an ndependent scholar and student of Seleuc d co nage.

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Greek Coinages of Palestine

Oxford Handbooks Online Greek Coinages of Palestine Oren Tal The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Coinage Edited by William E Metcalf Pr nt Publ cat on Date: Feb 2012 Onl ne Publ cat on Date: Nov 2012

Subject: Class cal Stud es, Greek and Roman Archaeology, Mater al Culture Stud es DO : 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195305746.013.0015

Abstract and Keywords The earliest phase of the monetary phenomenon in Palestine (late sixth to early fifth centuries BC) is witnessed by the presence of Greek Archaic silver coins and later, in the mid-fifth century BC, by proper Athenian issues and their imitations. Philistian coinage is one if the most variable artistic numismatic evidence known from Palestine (and beyond). However, the most striking influence on the Philistian coinage is notably Athenian. The people of Philistia observed these foreign motifs, and frequently adopted and adapted them to local use. Jerusalem struck small silver coins bearing the abbreviated geographical name of the province yhd but sometimes bearing the legends of personal names and titles in Persian (and early Hellenistic) times. Finally, there were the Samarian coins, which did not bear inscriptions and are defined as Samarian on the basis of circulation, fabric, metrology, and especially iconography. Keywords Palestine monetary silver coins Philistia Samarian Jerusalem

Under the Achaemenids (538–332 B.C.)

The Coinage of Philistia The earliest phase of the monetary phenomenon in Palestine (late sixth to early fifth centuries B.C.) is witnessed by the presence of Greek Archaic silver coins and later in the mid-fifth century B.C. by proper Athenian issues and their imitations. The coinage of Philistia (the so-called Philisto-Arabian coins), namely the “municipal” issues of the cities of Ashdod (fig. 14.1), Ashkelon (Ascalon; fig. 14.2), and Gaza (fig. 14.3), emerged in the second half of the fifth century and continued to be minted in the fourth century B.C. up to the end of the Achaemenid rule over Palestine (Gitler and Tal 2006a). In fact, the coinage of Philistia represents the most significant phase in the early monetary development of Palestine, as the region of Philistia is the first to witness the transition from a bullion to a coin economy. It is thus in Persian-period Philistia where the development of the metal economy of Palestine from Hacksilber to coins (Archaic and Athenian) and a proper local monetary economy began. Philistia's early coinage was probably confined to the “large” silver (and some silver-plated) šql denomination weighing 14.32 g on average (customarily referred to as a “tetradrachm”). By the fourth century B.C., a proper monetary economy is evident in the Philistian coinage for each coin type is normally produced in three different denominations: the rbʿ šql or simply rbʿ (with an average weight of 3.58 g [1/4 of Philistian šql]), customarily referred to as a “drachm,” (p. 253) the mʿh (which comes to 0.60 g on average [1/24 of Philistian šql]), customarily referred to as an “obol,” and the half mʿh (which comes to 0.30 g in average [1/48 of Philistian šql]), customarily referred to as “hemiobol” (Tal 2007: 21–22). To date some 350 Philistian coin types are known, that is, coins bearing different motifs regardless of their denomination. The coins’ motifs reflect contemporary fashions, foreign influences, and broad local imagery. Philistian coins show the name of the minting authorities, that is, Ashdod (šdd—with ʾ as a pictograph of a bull's

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Greek Coinages of Palestine head, or in abbreviated forms ʾd, ʾš, and šd) written in Aramaic; Ashkelon (ʾn or ʾ alone) written in Phoenician; and Gaza (ʿzh, or in abbreviated forms ʿz, zʿ, or ʿ alone, and m (denoting Marnas—Gaza's primary deity) all are normally written in lapidary Aramaic, but most depictions of the letter ʿ (as a full circle) are actually Phoenician script. There are also coins with isolated or two-three (Aramaic) letters whose meaning is uncertain, but one should bear in mind that most of the Philistian coins do not carry inscriptions or dates. They are defined as Philistian on the basis of circulation, fabric, metrology, and especially iconography. The iconography of the Philistian coinage was influenced by western (Greek, eastern Greek, and southern Anatolian), eastern (Phoenician and Achaemenid in the broad sense of the term), and Egyptian sources. In fact, Philistian coinage is one if the most variable artistic numismatic evidence known from Palestine (and beyond). However, the most striking influence on the Philistian coinage is notably Athenian. The people of Philistia observed these foreign motifs and frequently adopted and adapted them to local use.

The Coinage of Judah (Jerusalem)

Fig 14 1

Fig 14 2

Fig 14 3

Fig 14 4

At present around 20 Persian-period yhd coin types (as reference for coins of the same type but not of the same denomination) have been documented (fig. 14.4). The abbreviated toponym yhd was used to identify both province (medinta) of (p. 254) Judah and the city Jerusalem as its capital (birta). The total number of coin types is in any case relatively small when compared to the contemporary coinages of Samaria and Philistia. Jerusalem struck small silver coins bearing the abbreviated geographical name of the province yhd (and less frequently in full yhwd) but sometimes bearing the legends of personal names and titles ywh·nn hkwhn, yhwdh, yh·zqyh hph·h, yh·zqyh, in Persian (and early Hellenistic) times. Most of these coins (with the exception of the renowned British Museum yhd/w “drachm” [Meshorer 2001, no. 1; see however in this respect Gitler and Tal 2006a: 70, 230] and three yhd coins of 2.72 g, 2.70 g, and 2.22 g), have two weight groupings, with average weights of 0.48 g and 0.26 g. The coins of these groupings are erroneously yet customarily referred to as “obols” and “hemiobols,” rather than the grh, that is, 1/24 of Judahite šql of 11.4 g, and half grh, that is, 1/48 Judahite šql (see in this respect Ronen 2003–2006; Tal 2007: 19–20). There are also smaller fractions. Stylistically, the coins can be identified as Athenian-styled issues, where normally a depiction of the head of Athena appears on the obverse and the owl and olive spray, together with the paleo-Hebrew (or Aramaic) legend yhd (or yhwd) on the reverse (see Meshorer 2001, nos. 2–14; 20–23), or Judahite-styled issues, where more varied divinities, humans, animals, and floral motif depictions are found (see Meshorer 2001, nos. 15–19; 24–28). These coins have been extensively studied ever since they were first defined as Jewish coins by Sukenik (1934). The most relevant subsequent publications are those by Spaer (1977), Mildenberg (1979, 1994, 1996), Rappaport (1981), Barag (1993), Machinist (1994), Goldman (2000), Ronen (1998), Meshorer (2001), Gerson (2001), and Fontanille (2008). The yhd coins’ chronology is debated; the Persian period coinage of Judah is the subject of numerous studies. There is a consensus that minting began in Judah sometime in the fourth century B.C., but also a debate over the chronological development

Page 2 of 18

Greek Coinages of Palestine of the coins, that is, with regard to the date of each type for the undated coins, and those bearing personal names and titles can hardly be attributed to known historical figures (see discussion in Gitler and Lorber 2008: 61–65). It seems that the beginning of Judahite coin minting should better be understood against the Achaemenid imperial policy and the reorganization of the southern frontier of the Fifth Persian Satrapy once domination over Egypt came to an end, in around 400–343 B.C. At this time Judah's administrative importance increased as it became a new “border province” of the Achaemenid empire (see in this respect Fantalkin and Tal 2006: 180–181).

The Coinage of Samaria

Fig 14 5

Fig 14 6

In 1982, Yaʿakov Meshorer included four Samarian coins in supplement I of his monograph Ancient Jewish Coinage I. In the contexts of their 1991 publication, Meshorer and Shraga Qedar were able to gather 106 different types (1991; see also Machinist 1994). This publication actually involves 334 coins, which were part of (p. 255) the “Samaria hoard” (CH 9.413—“Samaria, before 1990”), and integrated into a general conspectus of the coinage of Samaria, including some of the coins from the “Nablus Hoard” (IGCH 1504). Of the 334 small denominations of the Samaria hoard, 182 coins were attributed to Samaria itself and 66 are Athenian-style imitations. They later published twice as many types as had appeared in their previous study, a corpus of 224 Samarian coins (Meshorer and Qedar 1999; fig. 14.5). As opposed to Philistian coin type terminology, Meshorer and Qedar termed “types” coins of the same type but of a different denomination. Since 1999 about 60 new coins have appeared on the antiquities market (Gitler and Tal 2006b; Ronen 2007 and others yet unpublished at the Israel Museum collection) and in excavations (Mount Gerizim: Magen 2007: 210–211, fig. 29; Gan S´oreq: D. T. Ariel, personal communication). To date, some 200 “types” are known. Samaria struck silver (and some silver-plated) coins erroneously yet customarily referred to as “drachms,” “obols,” “hemiobols,” and smaller fractions, rather than the rbʿ šqln (or simply rbʿ, average weight 3.63 g), mʿn, that is, 1/24 of Samarian šql (average weight 0.61 g), and half mʿn, that is, 1/48 of Samarian šql (average weight 0.31 g). There are also smaller fractions (Tal 2007: 20). The most common denominations in the Samarian coinage are the mʿn and half mʿn. Like Philistian coins (above), Samarian coins have a great variety of types, yet most of them were struck on mʿn and half mʿn; the rbʿ šqln are much less frequent. The earliest coin type is subjectively dated to around 372 B.C., and minting continued, albeit intermittently, until the Macedonian conquest (Meshorer and Qedar 1999: 71). Several Samarian coins show the geographical name of the province, that is, šmryn in full or abbreviated as šmry, šmrn, šmr, šm, šn, or just as š, written in Aramaic. Samarian coins show also a variety of private names; these probably refer to Samarian governors and possibly prefects (both are written in Aramaic) named in the contemporaneous historical and epigraphic sources (see e.g. Eshel 2007). The personal names of Achaemenid satraps may also be assumed, and these are normally written in Greek (when they appear without additional names in Aramaic). It should be noted that most of the Samarian coins do not bear inscriptions. They are defined as Samarian on the basis of circulation, fabric, metrology, and especially iconography. The main artistic influence of the Samarian coinage is categorically Achaemenid (or Phoenician that had its roots in Achaemenid art), and it can be safely deduced that more than half of the known Samarian coin types show Achaemenid motifs and artistic influences. Other (p. 256) scholars have discussed the Samarian coinage from different perspectives (the most important of these works are Lemaire and Joannes 1994; Deutsch and Heltzer 1997; Bodzek 1999, 2000a, 2000b; Chaya 2000–2002; and general studies by Machinist 1994; Mildenberg 1996; and Gerson 2001).

The Coinage of Edom

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Greek Coinages of Palestine A so far unknown group of peculiar Athenian-styled Palestinian coins was recently identified as Edomite coinage (Gitler, Tal, and van Alfen 2007). These coins—mainly rbʿ šqln (“drachms” of 4.0 g on average [1/4 of Edomite šql]; fig. 14.6) and also mʿn (“obols” of 0.74 g on average)—were struck from worn obverse dies (i.e., dies damaged by prolonged use), which were then recut and repolished. As a result, the coins’ obverse in many cases is simply dome shaped, with no traces of Athena's head or helmet being recognizable, whereas the reverse normally shows the owl, olive spray (and crescent) and legend ΑΘΕ in fair condition. The distribution of these coins suggests that they circulated in the boundaries of what we define as Edom in the later part of the Persian period (fourth century B.C.) and might well have been the silver money mentioned in several Edomite ostraca (Tal 2007: 17–19).

Under Alexander the Great and the Diadochi (332–301 B.C.)

The Coinage of Acco

Fig 14 7

The numismatic evidence from Acco in the Ptolemaic period is based on the assumption that it was a politically significant urban entity in Palestine. According to Newell, minting began immediately after the conquest of Palestine by Alexander the Great and was almost continuous during the time of his successors (1916: 39–68; Price 1991: 405–407). Newell divided these coins into seven series, from 332 to 304 B.C., although Price dated the beginning of Alexandrian minting to 330 B.C. (1991: 408). Typically, they bear images of Greek deities; on the obverse is Heracles or (p. 257) Athena, and the reverse shows a seated Zeus holding an eagle in his right hand and in his left a scepter or Nike (fig. 14.7). The inscription usually appears on the right, vertically, and reads ΑΛΕΞΑΝΔΡΟΥ, and on the left, the letters ʿayin and kaph in Phoenician script, and a local date, which began apparently in 346/345 B.C. (Newell 1916: 55–60; and especially Price 1991: 405–407). According to Newell and Price, the coins bear two sets of dates, one local and the other regnal. The latter denotes the years of Antigonus's reign in Phoenicia, after which minting stopped in Acco (Newell 1916: 62–53; Price 1991: 407). According to Lemaire, Acco did not mint coins at all during this period. Rather these coins are to be attributed to Tyre and the Phoenician letters ʿayin and kaph should be seen as abbreviating the ruler, ʿAzimilik (Lemaire 1991: 133–136). He based his assumption on bronze coins in which the Greek letters ΤΥ appear alongside the Phoenician letters. However, Price discounted Lemaire's objections and argued that this was coincidental, since Greek letters could represent a name (Price 1991: 407).

The Coinage of Judah (Jerusalem)

Fig 14 8

Fig 14 9

Mildenberg (1979) was of the opinion that yh zqyh -type coins (without the Achaemenid title ph h) should date to

Page 4 of 18

Greek Coinages of Palestine the “Macedonian period” (332–301 B.C.; fig. 14.8). Several studies were dedicated to these coin types (e.g. BarKochva and Kindler 1996; Rahmani 1971 for a hoard of such coins; Spaer 1977). After the Greco-Macedonian conquest, the weight standard of the provincial coinage of Judah changed, when the grh and half grh were replaced by fractions of the obol on the Attic weight standard, with a modal weight of 0.19 g for the quarter obol (Ronen 2003–2006). Based on metrology, it was suggested that the coins bearing the personal name yḥzqyh hpḥh should be attributed to the period of the Diadochi (after 312 B.C.) because of the use of an Attic weight standard (Ronen 1998: 125; for the types see Meshorer 2001, nos. 22–23; Fontanille and Lorber 2008 for a subtype). Gitler and Lorber, however, dated Meshorer (2001), nos. 14, 20–23, 25a, and 27–28 to the “Macedonian period” based on assumed Attic weight standards or other stylistic and epigraphic considerations (2008, table 1; fig. 14.9). Another “titled” coin, the ywḥnn hkwhn, is customarily attributed to the Late Achaemenid period (Barag 1986– 1987; Ronen 1998: 125; Fried 2003; for the type see Meshorer 2001, nos, 14, 20), but based on its actual weight, 0.16 g, it too used an Attic weight standard and probably belongs to this period, as may also be deduced from artistic similarities to the above (Gitler and Lorber 2008: 69, table 1). (p. 258)

Under the Ptolemies (301–200/198 B.C.)

Ptolemaic Coins of Judah (Jerusalem)

Fig 14 10

Fig 14 11

The fact that Jerusalem was virtually the only mint of the Ptolemaic kingdom to strike silver fractions while the Lagids were promoting the use of bronze coinage with a similar range of values is of special interest. The first specimens of Ptolemaic yhd coinage were reported by Jeselsohn (1974). These coins, struck under Ptolemaic rule, reflect continuity with those issued in the Persian period, while showing links also with contemporaneous Ptolemaic coins (figs. 14.10–14.11). The principal motifs appearing on these coins—the portrait of the Ptolemaic ruler and the eagle—are accompanied by one of the legends yhd, yhdh, and yhwdh (the latter two are purely Hellenistic— Ptolemaic—pronunciations of the name of the (p. 259) region, while the former two seem to be abbreviation of the latter). Attempts have been made to classify and date these series, and to establish their relation to the earlier coinage of the Judahite mint (Gitler and Lorber 2006). These issues show the clear influence of Ptolemaic iconography (Meshorer 2001, nos. 29–35; Gitler and Lorber 2006: group 5) and apparently date to the period around 301–261/260 B.C. (Gitler and Lorber 2006; Barag 1994–1999; Gerson 2000–2002). Regular precious metal production ceased at the other Syro-Phoenician mints in the sixth year of Ptolemy III. Accordingly, 241/240 B.C. may be the actual date at which the Jerusalem mint finally closed.

Other Royal Ptolemaic Coinages Acco-Ptolemaїs, Iopé, and Gaza

Page 5 of 18

Greek Coinages of Palestine

Fig 14 12

Fig 14 13

Fig 14 14

Fig 14 15

Fig 14 16

Acco-Ptolemaїs, Iopé, and Gaza minted gold, silver, and bronze “monogrammed” royal coins under Ptolemy II and III (figs. 14.12–14.16). Ptolemy II's dated series (261–247 B.C.) was probably related to these cities “foundation”/“refoundation” (p. 260) (see Tal 2011) in his twenty-fifth year, that is, 261/260 B.C. (see Svoronos 1904–1908, nos. 765–793, pl. 25: 2–23 [Acco-Ptolemaїs]; nos. 795–820, pl. 23: 1–20 [Iopé]; nos. 822–838, pl. 24: 1–17 [Gaza]; for the latter see Hoover 2007a: 63–70). It should be noted that Mørkholm (1980) reattributed Svoronos's nos. 794 (Iopé) and 821 (Gaza) to Ptolemy III, whereas Davesne (in Davesne and Le Rider 1989: 213 [nos. 5081–5085], 283), suggested a Cypriot mint for Svoronos's no. 794, based on observed die links. Interestingly, we may assume that in the same year, minting in Judah/Jerusalem ceased for political reasons (see above). Minting was resumed under Ptolemy III (see Svoronos 1904–1908, nos. 1034–1038, 1058–1060, pl. 32: 12– 19 [Acco-Ptolemaїs]; nos. 1039–1044, 1055–1057, pls. 31: 22–28, passim, 32: 20–25 [Iopé]; nos. 1035, 1055–1057, pls. 31: 22–28, passim, 32: 26 [Gaza]). It seems that minting activity in Iopé and Gaza ceased under Ptolemy IV and was significantly reduced in Acco-Ptolemaїs, as only one gold coin type is known (Svoronos 1904–1908, no. 1187, pl. 43: 12). The similarity of the monogram of Ptolemaїs to that of Iopé makes it difficult to accept Svoronos's suggestion that minting by the city was resumed in the fifth year of Ptolemy V (Svoronos 1904–1908, no. 1291, pl. 44: 5; see also Mørkholm 1981: 5); and it is possible the city of Acco-Ptolemaїs never minted coins under this king. In any case, Iopé resumed minting coin in the fifth and sixth year of Ptolemy V and probably in connection with the Fifth Syrian War (Svoronos 1904–1908, no. 1291, pl. 44: 5; Mørkholm 1981: 5–6).

Dora and Ascalon

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Greek Coinages of Palestine

Fig 14 17

Fig 14 18

Minting in these two cities was sporadic under the Ptolemies and confined to individual rulers; Dora struck sliver tetradrachms under Ptolemy V (fig. 14.17), like Ptolemaїs/Iopé (Svoronos 1904–1908, no. 1262, pl. 41: 23; and see Mørkholm 1981: 6); Ascalon struck sliver tetradrachms in the third and fourth years of Ptolemy IV (Svoronos 1904– 1908, no. 1188, pl. 36: 16; Seyrig 1950a: 5–6, no. 105; fig. 14.18). The political status of both cities in their respected time of minting was probably connected to their involvement in the Fourth and Fifth Syrian Wars, respectively, whether as a pocket of resistance or a base for Ptolemaic mercenaries who were paid in these coins. (p. 261) Table 14.1 Ptolemaic coinages of Palestine Ruler

Reign (B.C.)

Mint

Dating System

Material/Standard

Ptolemy I (Soter)

305–285

Jerusalem

Undated

Silver/Attic

Ptolemy II (Philadelphus)

285– 247/246

Acco-Ptolemaїs, Iopé (Jaffa), Gaza, Jerusalem

Regnal

Gold, silver, bronze/PtolemaicPhoenician

Ptolemy III (Euergetes)

247/246– 221/220

Acco-Ptolemaїs, Iopé (Jaffa), Gaza

Regnal

Gold, silver, bronze/PtolemaicPhoenician

Ptolemy IV (Philopator)

221/220– 204/203

Acco-Ptolemaїs, Ascalon (Ashkelon)

Regnal

Gold, silver/PtolemaicPhoenician

Ptolemy V (Epiphanes)

204/203– (180)

Acco-Ptolemaїs (?), Dora (Dor), Iopé (Jaffa)

Regnal

Silver/Ptolemaic-Phoenician

Under the Seleucids (200/198–104/103 B.C.)

Royal Mints Acco-Ptolemaїs

Page 7 of 18

Greek Coinages of Palestine

Fig 14 19

Fig 14 20

Fig 14 21

Fig 14 22

The beginning of the minting of coins during the Seleucid period has been summarized by Brett (1945), and its end, from the time of Demetrius II, by Newell (1939). Kadman subsequently devoted a monograph to Ptolemaїs's coins (Kadman 1961). A reassessment of its issues under Seleucid rule was the subject of a Ph.D. dissertation (Voulgaridis 2000: 8–265). Ptolemaїs began to mint coins apparently during the reign of Antiochus III in 198 B.C. (Houghton and Lorber 2002: 416–417, no. 1096). These coins are attributed to Ptolemaїs mainly because of the large number at sites in Palestine and the idea that politically Ptolemaїs was the most important city of Hellenistic Palestine. Minting resumed during the reign of Seleucus IV (Le Rider 1992; Houghton 1983, no. 771; SNG Israel I, nos. 928–929; Houghton, Lorber, and Hoover 2008: 23–24, nos. 1331–1332; fig. 14.19). It is possible that Ptolemaїs continued to strike coins similar to these during the reign of the young son of Seleucus IV, Antiochus (Houghton 1983, nos. 772–775; SNG Israel I: 136), but some scholars attribute these coins to his uncle, Antiochus IV, to 169/168 B.C. (Mørkholm 1966: 125–130; (p. 262) Spaer 1976), because of similar motifs (Houghton 1983, nos. 776–777; SNG Israel I, nos. 1100–1101; Houghton, Lorber, and Hoover 2008: 90–91, nos. 1472–1475; fig. 14.20). It seems, however, that the issues of Antiochus the Son are distinguishable from those of Antiochus IV by their control monograms. Ptolemaїs apparently also struck silver coins after 169/168 B.C. (Houghton 1983, nos. 778–784; SNG Israel I, nos. 1150–1155; Houghton, Lorber, and Hoover 2008: 89, no. 1476). During the time of Antiochus IV, bronze coins of various types were also struck (sometimes serrated) in various denominations (SNG Israel I, nos. 1102–1107; Houghton, Lorber, and Hoover 2008: 90–91, no. 1477–1478). Minting occurred also during the reign of Antiochus V (SNG Israel I, nos. 1252–1253; Houghton, Lorber, and Hoover 2008: 136–137, nos. 1581–1583). Minting in Ptolemaїs during the time of Demetrius I is not sufficiently clear. Brett published a tetradrachm from that time that he attributed to the city mint (1945, no. 18) and Bijovsky (1999; see also Houghton, Lorber, and Hoover 2008: 181) agreed with other scholars in positing that the bronze coins bearing a portrait on the obverse and a standing goddess holding a scepter or torch on the reverse are from his reign and not from that of Demetrius II, and thus she ruled out any issue from the city during the first period of the reign of Demetrius II (such as SNG Israel I, nos. 1734–1737). During the time of Alexander I, Ptolemaїs struck silver tetradrachms (Houghton 1983, nos. 796–797; SNG Israel I, no. 1553; Houghton, Lorber, and Hoover 2008: 244, no. 1842), as was the case under Antiochus VI (Houghton 1983, nos. 798–799; Houghton, Lorber, and Hoover 2008: 331, no.

Page 8 of 18

Greek Coinages of Palestine 2022). During the reign of Tryphon, Ptolemaїs struck silver tetradrachms with his portrait on the obverse and an eagle standing on a thunderbolt on the reverse, with the inscription ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΤΡΥΦΩΝΟΣ ΑΥΤΟΚΡΑΤΟΡΟΣ next to the monogram of the city and the regnal year (Houghton 1983, no. 800; SNG Israel I, nos. 1841–1842; Houghton, Lorber, and Hoover 2008: 346, no. 2046; fig. 14.21). Doubts have been raised with regard to bronze coins attributed to the beginning of the reign of Demetrius II (145–138 B.C.; see above), but silver tetradrachms and didrachms were struck during his second period (130–125 B.C.; Houghton 1983, nos. 801–802; SNG Israel I, no. 2264–2265; Houghton, Lorber, and Hoover 2008: 432–433, nos. 2201–2202). Ptolemaїs continued to strike coins during the joint rule of Cleopatra Thea and her son Antiochus VIII (Houghton 1983, nos. 803–809; SNG Israel I, nos. 2471–2482; Houghton, Lorber, and Hoover 2008: 467, 478–480, nos. 2258, 2271–2272, 2274; fig. 14.22). Minting continued under Antiochus VIII's sole rule (Houghton 1983, nos. 812–813; SNG Israel I, nos. 2580–2586, (p. 263) 2590–2595 [Attic]; nos. 2587–2589, 2596 [Phoenician]; Houghton, Lorber, and Hoover 2008: 514–516, nos. 2335 [Attic]; 2337–2338 [Phoenician]) and under Antiochus IX (Houghton 1983, no. 814; SNG Israel I, nos. 2745–2748, 2750 [Attic]; no. 2749 [Phoenician]; see however Houghton, Lorber, and Hoover 2008: 544–545).

Demetrias-by-the-Sea The mint of Demetrias-by-the-Sea was first identified by Seyrig after restoring the reading on an inscribed lead weight at the museum of Beirut, and consequently associated bronze coinage marked with the letters ΔΗ and civic era dates with a foundation in Phoenicia (1950b). More recently Kushnir-Stein (1995b) endorsed Seyrig's reading and conclusions and suggested two periods for these coins, in the later second century B.C. and in the first century B.C. (see below). She has also suggested that the site of Demetrias-by-the-Sea should be identified as a refoundation of Strato's Tower based on similarities in neighboring Dora's and Demetrias's Roman issues. Accordingly Hoover (2007b) attributed dated silver drachms struck under Demetrius II's first reign (146–138 B.C.) of uncertain “southern mint” that bear the ligature of these two letters on their reverse (as well as die-linked obverse type) with the city (see also Houghton, Lorber, and Hoover 2008: 291).

Samaria It has recently been suggested that Samaria minted coins during the reign of Antiochus IX, based on the find spots of coins in the environs of the city (Houghton 2000; Houghton, Lorber, and Hoover 2008: 546–547). These are undated silver coins of low denomination (hemidrachms and obols), in keeping with the region's tradition during the Persian period. The portrait of the king appears on the obverse, and on the reverse Athena holding a Nike in her outstretched right hand and a spear in her left, and the vertical inscription ΒΑΣΙΛΕ ΑΝΤΙ ΦΙΛ.

Jerusalem

Fig 14 23

Barag has recently suggested that a certain bronze coin from the days of Antiochus IV is evidence of a royal issue in the city based on the distribution of coins in Palestine and the attribution of the fabric of the flan and the iconographic content to a southern mint (2000–2002). These coins bear on their obverse the portrait of the king, and on their reverse a seated goddess, holding a Nike in her outstretched right hand. At her feet is a bird, and she is flanked by the inscription ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΑΝΤΙΟΧΟΥ. According to Barag, these coins were struck in Jerusalem at the beginning of the Maccabaean revolt before the city was taken by Judas Maccabaeus (c. 167–164 B.C.) and represent its transformation into a polis. However, too few coins were actually found in Jerusalem and its close environs (see Barag's distribution list, 61–63; Syon 2006; and Houghton, Lorber, and Hoover 2008: 94–95, who argue for Samaria), so his argument is highly theoretical. In any case, Jerusalem minted bronze coins during the reign of Antiochus VII, in 132/131–131/130 B.C.; on their obverse is a lily and on the reverse an anchor, the inscription ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΑΝΤΙΟΧΟΥ ΕΥΕΡΓΕΤΟΥ, and the Seleucid era date (fig. 14.23). Although attempts have been made to assign these coins to Ascalon (Meshorer 1981: 11), their attribution to Jerusalem seems accepted today (Houghton 1983, nos. 831–834; SNG Israel I, nos. 2133–2150; Hoover 2003; Syon 2006; Houghton, Lorber, and Hoover 2008: 391–392).

Page 9 of 18

Greek Coinages of Palestine Ascalon

Fig 14 24

Fig 14 25

The beginning of minting under the Seleucids has been summarized by Brett, Spaer, and Fuks (Brett 1950; Spaer 1984; Fuks 2000); a reassessment of its issues under the Seleucid rule was the subject of Voulgaridis (2000: 266– 369). Seleucid minting in the city began during the reign of Antiochus IV (169/168; Brett 1950: 44, 47, nos. 2–3; SNG Israel I, no. 1161; Houghton, Lorber, and Hoover 2008: 98, no. 1494; and see Mørkholm 1966: 125–130; fig. 14.24). Ascalon resumed its royal minting under Alexander I in 148–146 B.C. (SNG Israel I, nos. 1555–1559; Houghton, Lorber, and Hoover 2008: 245–246, nos. 1847–1849), and continued under Antiochus VI (SNG Israel I, no. 1821–1821A; Houghton, Lorber, and Hoover 2008: 332–333, nos. 2026–2027). During the reign of Tryphon, Ascalon struck similarly formulated coins to those of Ptolemaїs (Baldus 1964; Houghton 1983, nos. 816–817; SNG Israel I, nos. 1843–1845; Houghton, Lorber, and Hoover 2008: 346–347, nos. 2047–2048). The city continued to mint during the reign of Antiochus VII silver drachms and undated bronze coins (Houghton 1983, nos. 818–819; SNG Israel I, nos. 2094, 2095–2100; Houghton, Lorber, and Hoover 2008: 392, nos. 2124 [and 2122 for the bronze, though attributed to the Galilee based on find evidence]). Ascalon also struck royal silver coins—drachms and tetradrachms—during the reign of Alexander II (Zabinas; Brett 1950: 49, nos. 12–13; Houghton 1983, no. 820; Spaer 1984: 232, no. 1; SNG Israel I, nos. 2423–2425; Houghton, Lorber, and Hoover 2008: 463–464, nos. 2253– 2256). During the shared rule of Cleopatra Thea and her son Antiochus VIII, the city struck royal silver coins, including tetradrachms and didrachms (Brett 1950: 50, no. 15; Houghton 1983, no. 821; Spaer 1984: 232, nos. 2–3, 5; SNG Israel I, nos. 2483–2488; Houghton, Lorber, and Hoover 2008: 480–481, no. 2277). During the sole reign of Antiochus VIII the city struck similar coins, that is, silver tetradrachms and didrachms bearing his portrait only (Brett 1950: 50, no. 16; Houghton 1983, nos. 822–824; Spaer 1984: 232–233, nos. 7, 9, 13; Barkay 1994: 24, no. 16; SNG Israel I, nos. 2597–2645; Houghton, Lorber, and Hoover 2008: 516–518, nos. 2339–2341; fig. 14.25). Similar coins bearing a portrait and an eagle were struck in Ascalon during the last year of his reign, that is, a coin of his half-brother Antiochus IX (Spaer 1984: 237, no. B; SNG Israel I, no. 2751; Houghton, Lorber, and Hoover 2008: 547, no. 2395), after he took over most of the areas of the Seleucid kingdom. During the reign of Antiochus IX, minting continued in various denominations in the year 113/112 B.C. as well (Brett 1950: 50, no. 19; Spaer 1984: 233, (p. 266) no. 16; SNG Israel I, nos. 2752–2753; Houghton, Lorber, and Hoover 2008: 547, no. 2395).

Marisa Houghton, Lorber, and Hoover suggested that a head of Apollo/Tyche type of coin, flanked by the inscription ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΑΝΤΙΟΧΟΥ, with vertically set controls mark ΗΔΛΜ or ΗΔ, is from the days of Antiochus VI, and should be attributed to Marisa based on 20 coins found at the site during the excavations (2008: 333, no. 2028). Following this reasoning, they have also argued that a diademed head/splayed double cornucopiae coin type, with the inscription ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΑΝΤΙΟΧΟΥ, is from the days of Antiochus VII, and should be attributed to Marisa, based on provenance in Israel and similarity in style and fabric to the previous type (2008: 392–393, no. 2125). Such attributions seem however too tentative, since the idea that considerable numbers of the same coin type found in a site during excavations is evidence for local production is not necessarily true. It should be noted however that these coins were previously attributed to Gaza (e.g. SNG Israel I, nos. 2105–2112), but this attribution is now questioned because of their provenance and due to the fact that they not bear a mintmark of Gaza or the sign of Marnas.

Page 10 of 18

Greek Coinages of Palestine Gaza

Fig 14 26

Hill posited that a number of coins from the reign of Antiochus V and Demetrius I were struck in Gaza, but qualified this by saying that their monogram signifies a private name and not the name of a mint (Hill 1914: lxvii). Minting under the Seleucids has been recently summarized by Hoover (2007a). It seems that in the days of Alexander I, Gaza started minting undated bronze coins with the abbreviation of the name of the city, or its monogram, the combination of the letters ΜΑ, which represent its chief deity, Marnas (Houghton 1983, nos. 827–828; SNG Israel I, nos. 1560–1575; Hoover 2007a: 66–68; fig. 14.26). Gaza continued to strike bronze coins during the first reign of Demetrius II (SNG Israel I, nos. 1738–1745). After a hiatus of some length, it seems that during the reign of Antiochus VII the city struck three series of bronze coins, among them dated and undated coins. The attribution of the two series of undated coins to Gaza is not certain, since they do not have the mark of the city (Houghton 1983, nos. 829–830; SNG Israel I, nos. 2101–2104; Houghton, Lorber, and Hoover 2008: 333, 393, nos. 2028, 2125 [Marisa and Coele Syria]). The dated coins bear the monogram of the city and a Seleucid era date, which reveals that they were minted in 136/135–135/134 B.C. (SNG Israel I, nos. 2113–2124; Houghton, Lorber, and Hoover 2008: 389–390, no. 2119 [attributed to Ptolemaїs]). (p. 267)

Quasi-autonomous, Semi-autonomous, and Autonomous Mints

Acco-Ptolemaїs During the time of Antiochus IV, the city produced quasi-autonomous bronze coins with the portrait of Antiochus IV on the obverse, and on the reverse Zeus standing alongside the inscription ΑΝΤΙΟΧΕΩΝ ΤΩΝ ΕΝ ΠΤΟΛΕΜΑΙΔΙ, that is, “of the people of Antioch of Ptolemaїs,” therefore leading some scholars to see these as autonomous coins (SNG Israel I, nos. 1156–1160; Houghton, Lorber, and Hoover 2008: 92, no. 1480; fig. 14.27). A somewhat similar yet extended formula is know from semi-autonomous bronze coins, from the time of the joint rule of Cleopatra Thea and Antiochus VIII, and the sole rule of the latter, which displayed on the obverse the dioskouroi and on the reverse a cornucopia next to the inscription ΑΝΤΙΟΧΕΩΝ ΤΩΝ ΕΝ ΠΤΟΛΕΜΑΙΔΙ ΙΕΡΑΣ ΑΣΥΛΟΥ, that is, “of the people of Antioch of holy asylum Ptolemaїs” (Hill 1910: lxxix–lxxx, pl. 16: 4, 6; Newell 1939: 20, nos. 12, 18, 23, 25, 27; see also Rigsby 1996: 488–491; fig. 14.28). During the reign of Antiochus IX the city struck small silver coins bearing the head of Apollo on the obverse and a lyre on the reverse, next to the monogram of the city and a Seleucid era date (Newell 1939: 37–38, no. 45).

Demetrias-by-the-Sea Undated bevel-edged municipal bronze issues of head of Zeus/cornucopia type, flanked by the letters Δ–Η on the reverse, were attributed by Kushnir-Stein (1995b) to the city's autonomous output in the late second century B.C.

Ascalon

Fig 14 27

Page 11 of 18

Greek Coinages of Palestine Fig 14 28

In 168/167 B.C., the city minted autonomous coin, on their obverses the head of Tyche and on the reverse the prow of a warship above which is the inscription ΑΣΚΑΛ[Ω]ΝΙΤΩ[Ν], that is, “of the people of Ascalon.” Beneath it is the word ΔΗΝΟΥ (misspelling of the word ΔΗΜΟΥ, as can be seen from coins without the corruption found recently in Ascalon and its environs), that is, “by decision of the people,” alongside the Seleucid era date (Hill 1914: liv, pl. 11: 13). In 112/111 B.C., (p. 268) perhaps after the intervention of Cleopatra III, queen of Egypt, the city produced coins that bear the abbreviation ΙΕΡ ΑΣΥ, which is usually interpreted as “holy asylum” (Brett 1950: 51–52; Houghton 1983, nos. 825–826; Spaer 1984: 230–231; see also Rigsby 1996: 519–521). Minting continued under Antiochus VIII until the Seleucid calendar year 209 (104/103 B.C.; Spaer 1984: 234, no. 48; SNG Israel I, no. 2641; Houghton, Lorber, and Hoover 2008: 517–519, no. 2340), while from the Seleucid year 207 (106/105 B.C.), coins of the city bear the inscription ΑΣΚΑΛΩΝΙΤΩΝ ΔΗΜΟΥ ΙΕΡ[ΑΣ] ΑΣ[ΥΛΟΥ], that is, “by decision of the people of the holy asylum of Ascalon” (Rosenberger 1984–1985, no. 1). It should be noted here that from the Seleucid year 190 (123/122 B.C.), Ascalon minted silver municipal coins in low denominations that are often called semiautonomous, and on which the head of a woman (Astarte-Aphrodite?) appears on the obverse and a dove on the reverse (fig. 14.29). Subsequently, in the Seleucid year 193, the coins feature the head of Tyche on the obverse and on the reverse a warship (Spaer 1984: 230; fig. 14.30). At some point, similar, undated coins appear in the city (Hill 1914: pl. 11: 9, 11–12); these may be attributed to the end of the second century B.C., when Seleucid rule in Palestine came to an end.

Gaza

Fig 14 29

Fig 14 30

Fig 14 31

At some time municipal bronze coins of a single denomination were struck in Gaza. The head of Zeus appears on the obverse of these coins, and on the reverse double cornucopiae surrounded by the inscription ΓΑΖΑΙΩΝ ΔΗΝΟΥ (a misspelling of ΔΗΜΟΥ), that is, “by decision of the people of Gaza” (Hill 1914: lxix, pl. 15: 1–2). On another type, the head of the goddess of the city (Tyche) appears on the obverse and on the reverse Zeus standing with a wreath in his raised right hand, and opposite him the inscription ΔΗΜΟΥ ΣΕΛ[ΕΥΚΕΩΝ] ΤΩΝ ΕΝ ΓΑΖΗ, that is, “by decision of the people of Seleucia of Gaza” (Hill 1914: lxix–lxx, pl. 15: 3). No date appears on either type; however, Le Rider dated them to the reign of Seleucus IV (Le Rider 1965: 410, n. 1)—a determination that seems arbitrary since it has nothing to base itself on. Two more municipal autonomous types appear bearing a date: one shows the head of Zeus on the obverse and on the reverse a standing goddess wearing a chiton and holding a drinking goblet in her right, outstretched hand next to the inscription ΔΗΜΟΥ ΓΑ[ΖΙΩΝ] ΙΕΡ[ΑΣ] ΑΣ[ΥΛΟΥ], that is, “by decision of the people of holy asylum of Gaza” (Hill 1914: lxix–lxx, pl. 15: 4–5; see also Rigsby 1996: 521–523); the other type shows the head of a goddess on the (p. 269) Table 14.2 Seleucid coinages of Palestine Ruler

Reign (B.C.)

Mint

Dating System

Page 12 of 18

Material/Standard

Greek Coinages of Palestine

Antiochus III

(223)198– 187

Acco-Ptolemaїs

Seleucid

Bronze

Seleucus IV

187–175

Acco-Ptolemaїs

Seleucid

Silver/Attic

Antiochus (son of Seleucus IV)

175

Acco-Ptolemaїs (?)

Seleucid

Silver, bronze/Attic

Antiochus IV (Epiphanes)

175–164

Acco-Ptolemaїs, Ascalon (Ashkelon), Jerusalem (?)

Seleucid

Silver, bronze/Attic

Antiochus V (Eupator)

164–162

Acco-Ptolemaїs

Seleucid

Silver/Attic, Silver/Phoenician

Demetrius I (Soter)

162–150

Acco-Ptolemaїs

Seleucid

Silver, bronze (?)/Attic

Alexander I (Balas)

(152)150– 145

Acco-Ptolemaїs, Ascalon (Ashkelon), Gaza

Seleucid

Silver, bronze/Attic

Demetrius II [I] (Nicator)

146–138

Acco-Ptolemaїs (?), Demetrias-bythe-Sea, Gaza

Seleucid

Bronze

Antiochus VI (Dionysus)

144–142

Acco-Ptolemaїs, Ascalon (Ashkelon), Marisa (Mareshah)

Seleucid

Silver, bronze/Phoenician?

Tryphon

142–138

Acco-Ptolemaїs, Ascalon (Ashkelon)

Regnal

Silver, bronze/Phoenician

Antiochus VII (Euergetes)

138–129

Ascalon (Ashkelon), Gaza (?), Jerusalem, Marisa (Mareshah)

Seleucid

Silver, bronze/Attic

Demetrius II [II] (Nicator)

129–125

Acco-Ptolemaїs

Seleucid

Silver/Attic

Alexander II (Zabinias)

128–122

Ascalon (Ashkelon)

Seleucid

Silver/Attic

Cleopatra Thea/Antiochus VIII

125–121

Acco-Ptolemaїs, Ascalon (Ashkelon)

Seleucid

Silver, bronze/Attic

Antiochus VIII (Epiphanes) [Griphus]

(128) 121–96

Acco-Ptolemaїs, Ascalon (Ashkelon)

Seleucid

Silver, bronze/Attic and Phoenician

Antiochus IX (Philopator) [Cyzicenus]

114/113– 96/95

Acco-Ptolemaїs, Ascalon (Ashkelon), Samaria (?)

Seleucid

Silver, bronze/Attic, Phoenician

obverse, with the letter mem in Aramaic in the background, and on the reverse, a tripod flanked by the inscription ΓΑΖΗΣ ΙΕΡΑΣ ΑΣΥ[ΛΟΥ], that is, “holy asylum of Gaza.” The later coins of these types show the year 205 according to the Seleucid era—108/107 B.C. (Kushnir-Stein 2000; fig. 14.31). Gaza minted autonomous coins

Page 13 of 18

Greek Coinages of Palestine similar to these on which a new calendar appears (years 13 and 14), which Kushnir-Stein believes (2000) is an autonomous municipal calendar, and makes it possible to determine that Gaza was conquered by Alexander Jannaeus not before 95/94 (p. 270) B.C. (see also Kushnir-Stein 1995a; Hoover 2007a: 69–70). Previously unknown lead Zeus/filleted cornucopiae coins bearing the Seleucid era date 235 (78/77 B.C.), with a ligatured ΓΑ mintmark, were attributed to the city contradicting Josephus account on its destruction by Alexander Jannaeus (Hoover 2006; 2007a: 70). The inscriptions on the municipal coins of Gaza under the Seleucids are similar to those on the coins of Ascalon (see above); thus the minting of coins in both cities simultaneously cannot be ruled out. Fig. 14.1. Philistian rbʿ šql of Ashdod. Israel Museum, Jerusalem (scale 1:1). Fig. 14.2. Philistian šql of Ashkelon. Israel Museum, Jerusalem (scale 1:1). Fig. 14.3. Philistian rbʿ šql of Gaza. Private collection (scale 1:1). Fig. 14.4. Judahite (yehud-Jerusalem) grh Private collection (scale 2:1). Fig. 14.5. Samarian mʿh. Israel Museum, Jerusalem (scale 2:1). Fig. 14.6. Edomite šql. Israel Museum, Jerusalem (scale 2:1). Fig. 14.7. Šql of Acco/Tyre. Israel Museum, Jerusalem (scale 1:1). Fig. 14.8. Judahite (yehud-Jerusalem) hemiobol. Private collection (scale 4:1). Fig. 14.9. Judahite (yehud-Jerusalem) quarter obol (J. Rosen collection, on loan at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem; scale 4:1). Fig. 14.10. Judahite (yehud-Jerusalem) quarter obol. Private collection (scale 4:1). Fig. 14.11. Judahite (yehud-Jerusalem) hemiobol. Private collection (scale 4:1). Fig. 14.12. Tetradrachm of Acco-Ptolemaїs under Ptolemy II. Private collection (scale 1:1). Fig. 14.13. Tetradrachm of Acco-Ptolemaїs under Ptolemy IV. Private collection (scale 1:1). Fig. 14.14. Tetradrachm of Iopé under Ptolemy II. Israel Museum, Jerusalem (scale 1:1). Fig. 14.15. Tetradrachm of Iopé under Ptolemy V. Israel Museum, Jerusalem (scale 1:1). Fig. 14.16. Tetradrachm of Gaza under Ptolemy II. Israel Museum, Jerusalem (scale 1:1). Fig. 14.17. Tetradrachm of Dora under Ptolemy V. Israel Museum, Jerusalem (scale 1:1). Fig. 14.18. Tetradrachm of Ascalon under Ptolemy IV. Private collection (scale 1:1). Fig. 14.19. Tetradrachm of Acco-Ptolemaїs under Seleucus IV. Private collection (scale 1:1). Fig. 14.20. Tetradrachm of Acco-Ptolemaїs under Antiochus IV. Private collection (scale 1:1). Fig. 14.21. Tetradrachm of Acco-Ptolemaїs under Tryphon. Private collection (scale 1:1). Fig. 14.22. Tetradrachm of Acco-Ptolemaїs under Cleopatra Thea and Antiochus VIII. Private collection (scale 1:1). Fig. 14.23. Bronze coin of Jerusalem under Antiochus VII. Private collection (scale 1:1). Fig. 14.24. Bronze coin of Ascalon under Antiochus IV. Private collection (scale 1:1). Fig. 14.25. Tetradrachm of Ascalon under Antiochus VIII. Private collection (scale 1:1). Fig. 14.26. Bronze coin of Gaza under Alexander I. Private collection (scale 1:1). Fig. 14.27. Quasi-autonomous bronze coin of Acco-Ptolemaїs. Private collection (scale 1:1). Fig. 14.28. Quasi-autonomous bronze coin of Acco-Ptolemaїs. Private collection (scale 2:1). Fig. 14.29. Municipal bronze coin of Ascalon. Israel Museum, Jerusalem (scale 4:1). Fig. 14.30. Municipal bronze coin of Ascalon. Israel Museum, Jerusalem (scale 4:1). Fig. 14.31. Municipal bronze coin of Gaza. Private collection (scale 1:1).

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Greek Coinages of Palestine ——— . (2001). “Fractional Coins of Judea and Samaria in the Fourth Century B.C.E.” Near Eastern Archaeology 64: 106–121. Gitler, H., and C. Lorber. (2006). “A New Chronology for the Ptolemaic Yehud Coinage.” AJN 18: 1–41. ——— . (2008). “A New Chronology for the Yehizkyah Coins of Judah.” SNR 87: 61–82. Gitler, H., and O. Tal (2006a). The Coinage of Philistia of the Fifth and Fourth Centuries B C : A Study of the Earliest Coins of Palestine. Collezioni Numismatiche 6. Milan. ——— . (2006b). “Coins with the Aramaic Legend Šhrw and Other Unrecorded Samarian Issues.” SNR 85: 47–68. Gitler, H., O. Tal, and P. van Alfen. (2007). “Silver Dome-Shaped Coins from Persian-Period Southern Palestine.” Israel Numismatic Research 2: 47–62. Goldman, Z. (2000). “The Sign of the Lily: Its Source, Significance and History in Antiquity, Part 2.” Shnaton: An Annual for Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies 12: 105–143. (Hebrew) Grabbe, L. L., and O. Lipschits, eds. (2011). Judah between East and West: The Transition from Persian to Greek Rule (c 400–200 B C E ). Library of Second Temple Studies 75. New York. Hill, G. F. (1910). Catalogue of the Greek Coins of Phoenicia. London. ——— . (1914). Catalogue of the Greek Coins of Palestine (Galilee, Samaria and Judaea). London. Hoover, O. D. (2003). “The Seleucid Coinage of John Hyrcanus I: The Transformation of a Dynastic Symbol in Hellenistic Judaea.” AJN 15: 29–39. ——— . (2006). “A Late Hellenistic Lead Coinage of Gaza.” Israel Numismatic Research 1: 25–35. ——— . (2007a). “The Dated Coinage of Gaza in Historical Context (264/3 B.C.–A.D. 241/2).” SNR 86: 63–90. ——— . (2007b). “A Seleucid Coinage of Demetrias by the Sea.” Israel Numismatic Research 2: 77–87. Houghton, A. (1983). Coins of the Seleucid Empire from the Collection of Arthur Houghton. Ancient Coins in North America Collections 4. New York. Houghton, A. A. (2000). “A Seleucid Mint at Samaria-Sebaste?” Celator 14(7): 22–25. Houghton, A., and C. Lorber. (2002). Seleucid Coins: A Comprehensive Catalogue Part I: Seleucus I through Antiochus III. Lancaster. Houghton, A., C. Lorber, and O. Hoover. (2008). Seleucid Coins Part II: Seleucus IV through Antiochus XIII. New York. Houghton, A., et al., eds. (1984). Studies in Honor of Leo Mildenberg. Wettern. Humphrey, J. H., ed. (1995). The Roman and Byzantine Near East: Some Recent Archaeological Research JRA supp. ser. 14. Ann Arbor. Jeselsohn, D. (1974). “A New Coin Type with Hebrew Inscription.” IEJ 24: 77–78. Kadman, L. (1961). The Coins of Akko Ptolemais. Corpus Nommorum Palestinensium 1/4. Jerusalem. Kushnir-Stein, A. (1995a). “Gaza Coinage Dated LIC—A Reappraisal.” SNR 74: 49–55. ——— . (1995b). “The Predecessor of Caesarea: On the Identification of Demetrias in South Phoenicia.” In Humphrey: 9–14. (p. 273) Kushnir[-Stein], A. (2000). “Late Hellenistic Coins of Gaza and the Date of the Hasmonean Conquest of the City.” Schweizer Münzblätter 198: 22–24.

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Greek Coinages of Palestine Lemaire, A. (1991). “Le royaume de Tyr dans la seconde moitié du IVém e siècle av. J.-C.” In Atti del II Congresso Internazionale di Studi Fenici e Punici, Roma, 9–14 Novembre 1987, I. Rome: 131–150. Lemaire, A., and F. Joannes. (1994). “Premières monnaies avec signes cunéiformes: Samarie, IVém e s.av.n.è.” Nouvelles Assyriologiques Breves et Utilitaires 4: 84–86. Le Rider, G. (1965). Suse sous les Séleucides et les Parthes: Les trouvailles monétaires et l’histoire de la ville. Mémoires de la Mission Archéologique en Iran 37. Paris. ——— . (1992). “Séleucos IV à Ptolémaïs: Le tresor du Liban.” Revue Numismatique 34: 39–43. Lipschits, O., and Oeming, M. eds. (2006). Judah and the Judeans in the Persian Period. Winona Lake. Lipschits, O., G. N. Knoppers, and R. Albertz, eds. (2007). Judah and the Judeans in the Fourth Century B C E Winona Lake. Machinist, P. (1994). “The First Coins of Judah and Samaria: Numismatics and History in the Achaemenid and Early Hellenistic Periods.” In Sancisi-Weerdenburg, Kuhrt, and Root: 365–380. Magen, Y. (2007). “The Dating of the First Phase of the Samaritan Temple of Mount Gerizim in Light of the Archaeological Evidence.” In Lipschits, Knoppers, and Albertz: 157–211. Meshorer, Y. (1981). “Again on the Beginning of the Hasmonean Coinage.” INJ 5: 11–16. ——— . (2001). A Treasury of Jewish Coins: From the Persian Period to Bar Kokhba. New York. Meshorer, Y., and S. Qedar. (1991). The Coinage of Samaria in the Fourth Century B C E. Los Angeles. ——— . (1999). Samarian Coinage. Numismatic Studies and Researches 9. Jerusalem. Mildenberg, L. (1979). “Yehud: A Preliminary Study of the Provincial Coinage of Judaea.” In Mørkholm and Waggoner: 183–196. ——— . (1994). “On the Money Circulation in Palestine from Artaxeres II till Ptolemy I. Preliminary Studies of the Local Coinage in the Fifth Persian Satrapy. Part 5.” Transeuphratène 7: 63–71. ——— . (1996). “Yehūd und šmryn. Über das Geld der persischen Provinzen Juda und Samaria im 4. Jahrhundert.” In Cancik: 119–146. Mørkholm, O. (1966). Antiochus IV of Syria. Copenhagen. ——— . (1980). “A Group of Ptolemaic Coins from Phoenicia and Palestine.” INJ 4: 4–7. ——— . (1981). “Some Coins of Ptolemy V from Palestine.” INJ 5: 5–10. Mørkholm, O., and N. M. Waggoner, eds. (1979). Greek Numismatics and Archaeology: Essays in Honor of Margaret Thompson. Wettern. Newell, E. T. (1916). The Dated Alexander Coinage of Sidon and Ake. Yale Oriental Series. Researches 2. New Haven. ——— . (1939). Late Seleucid Mints at Ake-Ptolemais and Damascus. ANSNNM 84. New York. Price, M. J. (1991). The Coinage in the Name of Alexander the Great and Philip Arrhidaeus: A British Museum Catalogue. Zurich. Rahmani, L. Y. (1971). “Silver Coins of the Fourth Century B.C. from Tel Gamma.” IEJ 21: 158–160. Rappaport, U. (1981). “The First Judaean Coinage.” Journal of Jewish Studies 32: 1–17. Rigsby, K. J. (1996). Asylia: Territorial Inviolability in the Hellenistic World Hellenistic Culture and Society 22. Berkeley.

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Greek Coinages of Palestine (p. 274) Ronen, Y. (1998). “The Weight Standards of the Judean Coinage in the Late Persian and Early Ptolemaic Period.” Near Eastern Archaeology 61: 122–126. ——— . (2003–2006). “Some Observations on the Coinage of Yehud.” INJ 15: 28–31. ——— . (2007). “Twenty Unrecorded Samarian Coins.” Israel Numismatic Research 2: 29–34. Rosenberger, M. (1984–1985). “Two Unpublished Coins of Ashkelon.” INJ 8: 6. Sancisi-Weerdenburg, H., A. Kuhrt, and M. C. Root, eds. (1994). Achaemenid History 8: Continuity and Change. Leiden. Seyrig, H. (1950a). Notes on Syrian Coins. ANSNNM 119. New York. ——— . (1950b). “Antiquités syriennes 43. Démétrias de Phénicie.” Syria 27: 50–56. (Updated reprint: Antiquités Syriennes 4: 117–124 [Paris, 1953]) SNG Israel I, Houghton, A., and A. Spaer. (1998). Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum, Israel I: The Arnold Spaer Collection of Seleucid Coins. London. Spaer, A. (1976). “Antiochus IV at Ake-Ptolemais.” In Cahn and Le Rider: 139–141. ——— . (1977). “Some More Yehud Coins.” IEJ 27: 200–203. ——— . (1984). “Ascalon: From Royal Mint to Autonomy.” In Houghton et al.: 229–239. Sukenik, E. L. (1934). “Paralipomena Palaestinensia: The Oldest Coins of Judaea.” Journal of the Palestine Oriental Society 14: 178–184. Svoronos, J. N. (1904–1908). Τὰ Νομίσματα τοῦ Κράτους τῶν Πτολεμαίων. Athens. Available at: www.coin.com/images/dr/svoronos_book3.html. Syon, D. (2006). “Numismatic Evidence of Jewish Presence in Galilee before the Hasmonean Annexation?” Israel Numismatic Research 1: 21–24. Tal, O. (2007). “Coin Denominations and Weight Standards in Fourth-Century B.C.E. Palestine.” Israel Numismatic Research 2: 17–28. ——— . (2011). “‘Hellenistic Foundations’ in Palestine.” In Grabbe and Lipschits 2011: 242–254. Voulgaridis, G. (2000). “Les ateliers monétaires de Ptolémaïs-‘akko et d’Ascalon sous la domination séleucide.” Ph.D. diss., Université Marc Bloch–Strasbourg. Oren Tal Oren Tal s Cha r, J. M. Alkow Department of Archaeology, Son a and Marco Nadler nst tute of Archaeology, Tel Av v Un vers ty.

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The Coinage of the Parthians

Oxford Handbooks Online The Coinage of the Parthians Fabrizio Sinisi The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Coinage Edited by William E Metcalf Pr nt Publ cat on Date: Feb 2012 Onl ne Publ cat on Date: Nov 2012

Subject: Class cal Stud es, Greek and Roman Archaeology, Mater al Culture Stud es DO : 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195305746.013.0016

Abstract and Keywords The Arsacids were the ruling dynasty of Parthia between the middle of the third century BC and AD 224. There is no Parthian coinage in gold, since Vonones's alleged gold coins have been shown to be modern forgeries. The silver drachm was the main denomination, on a modified Attic standard of around 4 g. Silver denominations also include tetradrachms, struck from the conquest of Mesopotamia around 140 BC down to the end of the dynasty, and smaller fractions, such as obols, diobols, and triobols, appearing on a rather irregular basis during the first half of the dynasty down to the time of Orodes II. Bronze provided the medium for small change in everyday local circulation. At various intervals throughout the Parthian period, autonomous city coinages were also struck in bronze, as mainly attested for Seleucia, and to a lesser extent for Susa and Ecbatana. Keywords Parthia Arsacids coinage silver drachm bronze

HE Arsacids were the ruling dynasty of Parthia between the middle of the third century B.C. and A.D. 224. They

took their name from Arsaces, a tribal chieftain who led the nomadic group of the Parni, or Aparni, to the conquest of the former Seleucid northeastern satrapy of Parthia in around 238 B.C., after its secession from the Seleucid kingdom and the short-lived rule of Andragoras. Accordingly, they are also known in the ancient sources simply as Parthians. The Parni were part of the Dahae, Central Asian tribes of Iranian stock, and therefore it is no wonder that Arsacid coinage, which started almost immediately after their conquest of Parthia, represents a synthesis of the Seleucid monetary heritage, with elements originating from the Irano–Central Asian background of the new dynasty. This process then enters another stage with the conquest of Seleucid Iran and Mesopotamia in the third quarter of the second century B.C., leaving these two components involved in a dialectic relationship that lasted until the third century A.D. (historical survey in Bivar 1983; Wolski 1993, 2003; for material from the Babylonian astronomical diaries, Sachs and Hunger 1996; for the latest survey on available sources see Hackl, Jacobs, and Weber 2010). Despite having attracted interest since the seventeenth century, systematic presentations of the Arsacid coin series date basically only to the twentieth century (Wroth 1903; Petrowicz 1904; Newell 1938; Le Rider 1965 for Susa). A whole set of problems still affects Parthian coin studies, pertaining on the one hand to objective difficulties of the source material and on the other to a scholarly approach often lingering on problems difficult to solve in the present state of knowledge of the whole Parthian period. The lack of general studies of the technical features of the coinage is especially notable (only Caley 1955). The result is that the main (p. 276) reference work in use today, the fundamental and still precious Introduction by D. Sellwood (1980), is basically a list of types, without an organic analysis of the material or of its structural framework. The paucity and often contradictory nature of written sources, chronologically and geographically circumscribed when available, combines with the scarcity of contextualized finds (McDowell 1935, Le Rider 1998 for Seleucia on the Tigris; Le Rider 1965 for Susa; Loginov and Nikitin 1996 for Merw; but see also Sherozia and Doyen 2007 for a survey of Parthian coin finds from excavations in an area outside historical Parthia like Georgia). While this has not hindered the establishment of a generally

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The Coinage of the Parthians accepted numismatic sequence, attributions are in several cases to be regarded as hypothetical, and a sound correspondence between the numismatic and historical reconstructions remains still an open issue (see Mørkholm 1980: 46).

Metals, Denominations, Mints There is no Parthian coinage in gold, since Vonones's alleged gold coins (Sellwood 1991) have been shown to be modern forgeries (Walker 1994/1995). The silver drachm was the main denomination, on a modified Attic standard of around 4 g. Silver denominations also include tetradrachms, struck from the conquest of Mesopotamia around 140 B.C. down to the end of the dynasty, and smaller fractions, like obols, diobols, and triobols, appearing on a rather irregular basis during the first half of the dynasty down to the time of Orodes II (57–38 B.C.). Bronze provided the medium for small change in everyday local circulation. At the basis of its denominational system was the Greek chalkous of around 2 g, modeled on the reduced chalkous introduced at Ecbatana by the Seleucid Alexander Bala just before the Parthian conquest (Le Rider 1965: 339). With regard to weight and silver content, the reign of Orodes II seems to mark a general debasement. Afterward, the drachms seem to be set at about 3.70 g with a silver content hardly exceeding 70% (Caley 1955; Alram and Gyselen 2003: 78, 162). Tetradrachms, on the other hand, show a much greater debasement, with a silver content below 50% already in the early first century A.D. (Caley 1955). They become a billon coinage and ultimately disappear shortly after the advent of the Sasanians in the third century A.D. Apart from the series issued in Seleucia, which kept closer to the original standard, a gradual loss of weight is ascertainable also in the bronze coinage, which reached its final stage in the course of the first century A.D., with the chalkous only nominally struck at a weight around 1.5 g (Brindley 1976). While drachms were coined throughout the kingdom, tetradrachms were normally struck only in the Greek polis of Seleucia on the Tigris, where in contrast drachm minting is attested only in the very earliest phase (McDowell 1935). The larger silver coins often bear monograms, commonly attributed to mint officials, (p. 277) while from the first half of the first century B.C. drachms regularly display on their reverses mintmarks that have allowed identification of the mints of Ecbatana (the most important one), Nisa, Rhagae, Susa, Margiane, and Mithradatkart. Various other mintmarks are known, but their readings remain speculative. Bronze was minted abundantly with the corresponding silver series in most of the main towns of the kingdom, as witnessed by the relevant mintmarks frequently occurring on the reverses. At various intervals throughout the Parthian period, autonomous city coinages were also struck in bronze, as mainly attested for Seleucia, and to a lesser extent for Susa and Ecbatana. This picture of a number of mints working at the same time, especially typical of the period between the second and first centuries B.C., in the first century A.D. looks radically changed: if the mintmarks are to be read literally, Seleucia and Ecbatana appear to be, and will remain until the end of the dynasty, the only mints then striking coins —tetradrachms and drachms, respectively, as well as the connected bronzes. The mechanisms of mint organization are still not well known, but the dates that since Phraates IV (c. 38–2 B.C.) regularly appear on tetradrachms’ reverses, with Greek months and years after the Seleucid era beginning in 312/311 B.C., clearly show that coin production did not take place on a regular annual basis. (The employment of the Macedonian or Babylonian calendar in conjunction with the Seleucid era and Macedonian month names has been debated; see Hauser 2000; Korn 2006). Dates are occasionally noted also on bronzes struck in Seleucia and in two occurrences, under Artabanus I (127–124 B.C.) and Artabanus II (A.D. 10–38), on drachms. Working on the finds of the French excavations in Susa, Le Rider (1965) has proposed to read in the various types employed on bronze the structure of a regular annual production, with different types marking each year. While it is possible to recognize such a pattern in the period between Orodes II and Artabanus II (A.D. 10–38), there is no evidence for its use throughout the whole Parthian epoch.

Typology

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The Coinage of the Parthians The typology in its essential features also clearly shows the Seleucid legacy: the obverse is regularly occupied by the royal bust (a simple head at the beginning), the reverses by a seated archer. This is thought to be inspired by the Seleucid seated Apollo, but Achaemenid antecedents might also have had a role in such an image choice. From the middle of the first century B.C., on the other hand, tetradrachms’ reverses display more complex images generally involving the king and the figure of Tyche. The occasional variation on both silver denominations occurs in the shape of “victory” scenes celebrating the successes of the king over his rivals for the throne. (p. 278) Breakages with the conventional obverse profile portrait are also known, albeit uncommon, and some kings appear depicted in full frontal view. Bronze obverses display the same features, but the reverses show a wholly different approach, with a large and varied iconographical repertoire whose richness has yet to be fully appreciated. It includes numerous representations of zoomorphic subjects, images related to the royal ideology, and a vast array of deities appearing in Greek garb. If the very concept of the image of the regal diademed head or bust is inherited from the Seleucid coinage, the general royal attire clearly shows new elements (Curtis 1998): with very few exceptions, the king always appears bearded and long haired, often with elaborate hairstyles, with earrings, and dressed in heavily decorated Central Asian clothing, occasionally displaying characteristic designs like griffins. The neck is usually encircled by torques of various shapes, sometimes with zoomorphic terminations. While generally the king is simply diademed, from Mithradates II on the tiara makes its appearance: not a battle helmet such as those depicted on Hellenistic coinages, it looks nonetheless like a rigid headdress, typically decorated with beads and elements such as horns, stars, or small zoomorphic figurines. The portrait of the king with tiara, which until then had appeared irregularly, becomes common with the second century A.D. Although not employed as in the canonized system of the Sasanians, it already displays the basic element of different crown features to distinguish the various royal depictions. Similarly, the archer on the drachms’ reverses, with riding trousers and a pointed soft cap, is an unmistakable representation of a Central Asian steppe warrior, very far from anything a Greek might have conceived. The royal image maintains these markedly eastern features even on the reverses of tetradrachms and bronzes, perfectly mirroring the obverse portrait even when the king is seated on throne or on horseback. Beside the main images, a whole series of secondary elements is commonly employed, on silver and bronze alike and on both coin faces, often in increasingly complex combinations: stars, crescents, palms, eagles, Nikai, anchorlike devices, and additional monograms as well. Among these accessory devices we might possibly rank also the dot occasionally appearing on the king's forehead, long reputed to be a representation of a wart as a symbol of royal legitimization (but see Invernizzi 1990).

Legends A prominent trait of continuity with the Seleucid coinage is the Greek language employed for the legends on all denominations. The arrangement is usually in a square surrounding the reverse image, but round inscriptions are not unknown, especially under the first kings. These legends appear almost exclusively in the (p. 279) genitive, listing the king's titles but always accompanying the dynastic name of Arsaces, an element that has obviously not helped in the attribution of the coinage to different rulers. Until the second half of the first century B.C., the series of titles shows an evolution that has helped to establish a sequence for the relevant period, even if several chronological problems still are debated. With Orodes II (57–38 B.C.) the legend ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΝ ΑΡΣΑΚΟΥ ΕΥΕΡΓΕΤΟΥ ΔΙΚΑΙΟΥ ΕΠΙΦΑΝΟΥΣ ΦΙΛΕΛΛΗΝΟΣ becomes the standard that remains unchanged until the end of the Arsacid coinage. A process of corruption in the Greek characters begins very quickly, leading before the end of the first century A.D. to the appearance on the drachms’ reverses of groups of signs only resembling Greek letters. Around the middle of the first century A.D., letters in Parthian script make their appearance on the drachms, with at first only the king's initials being marked behind his obverse portrait. Several decades later, the process leads to the addition to the drachms’ reverse legend of a full line in Parthian, mentioning the personal name of the ruler followed by his title, written in its heterographic form of MLK’, “king.” The tetradrachms maintain a more Greek character in their legends, and despite being subject to corruption as well, they never see the employment of Parthian script. New elements are nonetheless added in the course of time, and from the last series of Vologases I

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The Coinage of the Parthians dated to A.D. 78–79 onward, single Greek letters are regularly employed as control marks behind the tetradrachms’ obverse royal bust, while the king's personal name becomes a standard part of the tetradrachm's legend.

Monetary History The first Parthian coins are the drachms attributed to Arsaces himself. The ancient sources have preserved different accounts relating to the events that gave birth to the Arsacid kingdom, but it is universally accepted that the Parni were led by Arsaces to the conquest of Parthia, in all likelihood in 238 B.C. There they settled, quickly intermingling with the local substratum. The Arsacid era of 247 B.C. probably refers to the assumption of power by Arsaces over the Parni before the invasion of Parthia. Remarkably enough, a fully autonomous coinage was issued by the new power in a rather short time. Even if it clearly owes a lot to the Seleucid monetary model, in order to proclaim the different cultural and ideological background of the new dynasty, the break with the Greek tradition of royal imagery is openly stressed. The establishment of new conventions through successive stages can be easily followed (Abgarians and Sellwood 1971). These then set the standard for the whole successive Arsacid coinage.

Fig 15 1

In his first issue (fig. 15.1), Arsaces's unbearded profile head looks to the right, as do the Seleucid royal portraits. Similarly, the seated archer on the reverse is turned to the left. The Greek legend, ΑΡΣΑΚΟΥ ΑΥΤΟΚΡΑΤΟΡΟΣ, is arranged in two vertical (p. 280) lines on the sides, exactly as on Seleucid coins. Despite these elements, the coin is immediately recognizable as issued by a non-Greek ruler: the king wears the pointed soft cap, which had appeared before on the Achaemenid series, as does the archer, whose Iranian riding costume is fully visible. On the following series, first the king's head turns to the left, then his name is accompanied by karen, the Aramaic equivalent of autokrator, and finally the reverse archer is turned to the right to assume the posture he will maintain until the end of the Parthian coinage. Similar bronzes display a bow case on the reverse. Some of these coins bear on the reverse a monogram formed by the letters M and T, provisionally read as the mintmark of Mithradatkart, the royal citadel of the Arsacid capital of Nisa—notwithstanding the fact that Mithradatkart is usually and more easily connected with the mintmark M-Θ-T, to add to the still hypothetical character of several of the current mint attributions. As far as the archaeological history of the site is concerned, the idea of a mint active in Mithradatkart in the second half of the third century B.C. would be untenable, since the dating of the whole complex is nowadays generally thought to be somewhat later. Equally problematic is the letter A appearing on other drachms of the same type. Another open issue is the identity of the archer, scholars being divided about the options; he might represent a “deified” ancestor or simply the king. A definite answer is difficult, but as the link with the Seleucid Apollo on omphalos is still not obviously apparent in this phase, since the Parthian archer is seated on a stool, the already noted (Brindley 1972; Curtis 2007) Achaemenid connections might perhaps be stressed: these would in fact provide a context for the seated archer figure, for the karen title, and for the obverse head with the soft cap as well. That the living Arsaces might have tried to represent himself as heir of the old Iranian empire of course in no way excludes that his memory could later have been subject to some kind of special homage, but the character of the Iranian royal ancestor cult still remains problematic (see for example Dąbrowa 2009; Muccioli 2009).

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The Coinage of the Parthians

Fig 15 2

Fig 15 3

The picture of the series of Arsaces I's immediate successors mirrors the difficulties in the reconstruction of the relevant historical sequence, as their issues closely follow the pattern of Arsaces's coins. Arsaces II seems to have been recognized on coins, while the next period remains obscure, since the Seleucids with Antiochos III are thought to have reestablished suzerainty over Parthia for some time, possibly causing an interruption of Arsacid coin production. Historically speaking, the following stage is the one marked by the reign of Mithradates I (171–138 B.C.; Assar 2004 has proposed 165–132 B.C.), who led Parthia from the status of peripheral chiefdom to world power with the successive conquests of Media, Mesopotamia, and Elam between 148 and 138 B.C. Accordingly, he has long been credited with the revival of minting activity (but see Assar 2004, 2005). In any case, the next series largely continue the concept of Arsaces I's drachms, with the head in pointed cap to the left and the seated archer. New elements are then introduced: the reverse figure seats on the omphalos of the Seleucid Apollo image, while the obverse (p. 281) portrait is now a bust. On the following issue, finally, the title accompanying the dynastic name of Arsaces is “King,” Basileus, which will readily become “Great King” in the course of a process of quick absorption of elements of the titulature of Achaemenid origin (Curtis 2007; fig. 15.2). The occasional addition of theos and theopator illustrates the likelihood of a gradual refinement of the royal ideology (Gariboldi 2004). The visible synthesis in the imagery of royal power with the cultural heritage of the new subjects moves to a new stage in the following coin series. In a completely new image (fig. 15.3) Mithradates is portrayed as a Hellenistic ruler, diademed, with short hair, the only possible concession to a non-Greek background being the long beard. This profile portrait then is turned to the right again, following Seleucid usage, and is employed on the new tetradrachms struck in Seleucia after the conquest of Mesopotamia in 141 B.C. The reverses of these large silver coins bear the image of Herakles, and the related series of drachms show a seated Zeus aetophoros in place of the Arsacid archer. On these coins, the epithet philellen makes its appearance. Its meaning has traditionally been interpreted as relating to a wide-ranging philhellenism of the Parthians, pursued by the kings in the cultural and ideological spheres as well. This view has been challenged and the term explained as stressing political issues instead. As a matter of fact, nothing proves its use outside a context of political-propagandistic nature (Wolski 1983; Wiesehöfer 2000, 2005: 111 ff.). While it is likely that the old Seleucid mints were employed by the new masters, the coins themselves provide a rather ambiguous picture, as in this phase, conventions concerning the form and placing of the mintmarks on the drachms were still not definitely established. Consequently, different types of monograms are attested, in the shape of single letters, only a few of them occurring in later periods, or as combined groups of letters.

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The Coinage of the Parthians

Fig 15 4

This experimental phase carries on during the decade following the demise of Mithradates I, covered by the short reigns of several rulers. On the drachms of Phraates II (138–127 B.C.) and Artabanus I (126–122 B.C.), monograms and letters, when visible, usually appear on the obverse. Most of Phraates's drachms bear the (p. 282) mint name properly spelled out, in full or abbreviated form, rather than represented by a monogram. Nisa, Margiane, and Areia are clearly attested. This ties in well with textual evidence concerning the campaigns waged by these two kings, both of whom lost their lives fighting against Central Asian nomads. Other names, often never appearing again on the coins, are less clear, and their location in the east of the kingdom must be regarded as a hypothesis awaiting proof. A reverse image on tetradrachms of Phraates II (fig. 15.4) shows the trends at work also on the iconographic level, as it reproduces Tyche with a male, bearded head, a clear hint to the ongoing process of synthesis with a figurative language that in some way had to be reformulated for new needs (Curtis 2007). As this deity is likely to be identified with Ishtar/Nanaya (Parpola 1997: xxix, lxxxix n. 97; Sinisi 2008), we may well be already observing the employment of Hellenistic images to anthropomorphically represent local gods.

Fig 15 5

Fig 15 6

Fig 15 7

Fig 15 8

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The Coinage of the Parthians This overlapping of old and new solutions, with Seleucid inspired choices regularly appearing, was put to a decisive end by Mithradates II (121–91 B.C.) whose tetradrachms display a royal bust oriented to the left and the Arsacid archer on the (p. 283) reverse (fig. 15.5), as do all his drachms. In due time, the omphalos of Seleucid origin also disappears and is replaced by the high-backed throne that becomes the standard device from then on (fig. 15.6). Various symbols and control marks recur on both obverse and reverse of all his denominations, generally resembling rather officials’ monograms of the type employed for the tetradrachms than those commonly regarded as mintmarks. The bronze coinage sees a reorganization in a system of four basic denominations, quadruple, double, unit, on a weight standard of 2 g, and half unit, distinguished through the issues by specific reverse images (Brindley 1976). Notable features of the later phases of the coinage of Mithradates II are the introduction of the title “King of Kings” in the legend and of the tiara in the royal portrait (fig. 15.7). Even if new epithets continue to be added until the middle of the first century B.C., with the Basileus Basileon formula the Arsacid titulature finally completes the evolution of its fundamental components in the tradition of the great oriental monarchies, notably the Achaemenid one. The adoption of the tiara seems to go in the same basic direction by stressing the discontinuity with the Greek royal imagery. This departure from Greek iconographic models, set as standard by Mithradates II, is even more apparent in the following period, conventionally known as “Parthian Dark Age,” covering the years from the death of Mithradates II to the accession of Phraates III in around 70 B.C., when a number of kings struggled for the throne in a still-disputed sequence (Mørkholm 1980; Assar 2006). The tiara is almost ubiquitous, with an increasing decoration of horns, pellets, and deer figurines in a further expression of the Central Asian connections of the Arsacids’ heritage (fig. 15.8). While none of these rulers is styled king of kings, the titulature shows a varied alternation of new solutions, so epithets like eusebes or philopator make their appearance. Among the new typological developments at the end of the period we find the first frontal royal image on silver, and the canonization of the drachms’ mintmark position below the reverse archer's bow.

Fig 15 9

(p. 284) From these years onward throughout the century, in the area bordering on the eastern frontier of the kingdom, Parthian drachms begin to be countermarked, always on the obverse but purposely avoiding defacement of the royal image, with punches showing little busts or symbols (fig. 15.9), sometimes inscribed with the issuer's name. Remarkably enough, in due time these countermarked Parthian drachms develop into imitation series, with these little images directly engraved on the die as integral part of the obverse type. These series have been connected with the nomadic tribes established in Afghanistan after they overthrew the Graeco-Bactrian kingdom around 140 B.C. Some of these groups, of probable Saka origin, likely recognized some degree of Arsacid authority in the westernmost region closer to Parthian territory (Simonetta 1958). To the same context must be attributed the findings of Tillia Tepe in northwestern Afghanistan, where a gold coin imitating a Parthian drachm of the first century B.C. was included among the many gold artifacts collected in six princely burials, together with an aureus of Tiberius and an Indian gold coin datable to the first century A.D. (Sarianidi 1985). On the other hand, some of these countermarked series belong to a Parthian background, although separated from the main imperial one, with the region of Sistan as original seat. In the early first century A.D., they give way to the coinage of the Gondopharean dynasty, also known among scholars as the Indo-Parthians (Simonetta 1978; Alram

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The Coinage of the Parthians 1986, 1987). Under Phraates III (70–57 B.C.) and Mithradates III (57–54 B.C., but possibly reigning earlier as coruler of Phraates III) a sort of stabilization seems to take place, as the reappearance of the title king of kings on Mithradates's coins would imply. With the reigns of the next two kings, Orodes II (57–38 B.C.) and Phraates IV (38–2 B.C.), the direct confrontation with Rome begins, opening with the campaign of Crassus and the fateful events of Carrhae in 53 B.C., to become a permanent issue in the relationships of the two empires. Against this background, the coins struck by Quintus Labienus with the cognomen Parthicus may be worthy of note as a remarkable episode of numismatic history between Parthia and Rome. The former Roman envoy in fact led, together with Pacorus, the son of Orodes II, a Parthian invasion of Roman territory in 40–39 B.C. In order to pay the Roman troops that joined him after the first successes, he struck gold and silver with his portrait on the obverse and a Parthian horse on the reverse (Hersh 1980).

Fig 15 10

Fig 15 11

With regard to the Arsacid main series, despite the general debasement observed during the reign of Orodes II (Caley 1955), in this period the Parthian coinage seems to reach a sort of peak. The output in coin production under Orodes II and Phraates IV is in fact by far the largest of the whole Parthian monetary history, only Mithradates II being represented in similar numbers in the numismatic material. In his fundamental work of 1994 on a large lot of tetradrachms of these two rulers, F. De Callataÿ examined in detail more than 400 such coins. Comparison with the coin production of other Hellenistic realms produced clear testimony to the proficiency of the Arsacid authorities in minting enormous quantities of coin in a short (p. 285) time. Since with Phraates IV dates and months appear regularly on the tetradrachms’ reverses, it was possible to show that the tetradrachm production was concentrated in the spring and summer to provide money for military campaigns. Significant iconographic developments may also be observed: Orodes's tetradrachms abandon the reverse image of the Parthian archer employed since Mithradates II, and the seated king receiving homage from the goddess Tyche is portrayed. Occasionally the king appears alone, with a small Nike in his hand, or accompanied by a goddess in the guise of Athena, but the image of the king with Tyche (fig. 15.10) is the one destined to dominate the tetradrachm reverses until the end of the dynasty. The iconographic vitality of the tetradrachms is paralleled by a proliferation of accessory symbols on the drachms, whose main images appear surrounded by a growing set of crescents, stars, and various other small images throughout the series of both these kings (fig. 15.11). The numerous mintmarks witness a drachm production still widespread in the territory.

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The Coinage of the Parthians The bronze coinage, which had already been simplified in its structure by a reduction of the denominations in use at the end of Mithradates II's reign (and a reduction in weight shortly after), seems to introduce a new system of regular annual issues marked by differing reverse types (figs. 15.12–15.13), after the pattern employed at the mint of Susa (Le Rider 1965). In due time also the surviving denominations appear to be reduced to a single one, weighing about 1.5 g (Brindley 1976).

Fig 15 12

Fig 15 13

Fig 15 14

Fig 15 15

Fig 15 16

(p. 286) This dynamism is somewhat counterbalanced by a general stabilization in various aspects, from the legends to the basic typology for tetradrachms’ reverse types and the practice of dating them that become the features that were most successfully transmitted to the successive stages of Arsacid coin history. Under Phraataces (2 B.C.–A.D. 4) the Parthian archer reappears on tetradrachm reverses, soon to be replaced by the bust of queen Musa (fig. 15.14), who is also portrayed on drachms and bronze. A mention of these very coins may possibly be found in the Chinese Hanshu, the annals of the Western (or Former) Han dynasty, written in the second half of the first century A.D. (Wang 2007). Analogously, the coins of Vonones I (A.D. 8–12) bear images of Nike on their reverses (fig. 15.15). The king is characteristically depicted short-haired, fitting a westernized ruler who in fact grew up in Rome. With the advent of Artabanus II (A.D. 10–38), after his victory over Vonones, another stage is entered. While his very first tetradrachm issue follows usual models with king and Tyche, on the reverses of large silvers of the second half of his reign Artabanus receives homage also from a kneeling figure tentatively identified with Vonones himself (fig. 15.16). The scene is repeated on the dated drachms struck in Susa between A.D. 23 and 24, where the king is aptly styled nikephoros. Most important, the appellative philellen is missing from these series, in what has been seen as a hint of a political change of attitude by the Parthian court. In this light also the return after Vonones to the sitting archer design on drachms has been interpreted as a step back to traditional formulas. This would be a

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The Coinage of the Parthians reflection in the coinage of what is known about Artabanus in the western sources, which credit him with the beginning of a process of revival of the “national” Iranian heritage in the context of the clash with Rome.

Fig 15 17

Fig 15 18

Artabanus's drachm issues are divided into two styles (figs. 15.17 and 15.18), the later one, with a more square featured bust, setting the standard model for the drachms of the next kings (Sellwood 1967). These are the last Parthian series to (p. 287) witness, through the relevant mintmarks, coin striking by a substantial number of mints: Susa will be taken over by the Elymeans in around A.D. 45 (Le Rider 1965), with the other ones simply vanishing. The abundant bronze types connected with the later drachms seem to follow the annual subdivision structure, which is possibly attested here for the last time. Apart from the bronzes of the Vologases ruling in the first half of the second century A.D., only very limited numbers of types are attested for each reign thereafter. The first half of the first century A.D. is characterized by numerous crises, with various pretenders fighting for the throne, often with Roman support, and several reigns are accordingly short-lived. The general trends in the stylistic evolution of Artabanus II's coinage develop further, and royal portraiture is now purely conventional and increasingly stylized, with the drachms of Gotarzes II (c. A.D. 40–51) and of the later Artabanus III (A.D. 80–82) bearing a royal bust practically identical to that of Artabanus II (fig. 15.19). As in several occasions joint series were struck, the need was felt to introduce elements of differentiation. Thus, the personal name of the king appears in Greek on some tetradrachms and drachms of Gotarzes II (a practice that will become standard on tetradrachms from the last years of Vologases I, A.D. 78–79) while drachms of Vologases I (A.D. 51–78) of his latest issues bear the initials of the king noted in Parthian script on the obverse (fig. 15.20). The employment of Parthian script is a possible clue to the identification of Vologases I with the Arsacid Valash mentioned by the later Zoroastrian text of the Denkard (see Hintze 1998). It would be another hint of the traditionalist and nationalist trend of Parthian policy inaugurated by Artabanus II. The mints are now limited to Ecbatana for drachms and Seleucia for the large silvers, along with the relevant bronze issues.

Fig 15 19

Fig 15 20

Fig 15 21

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The Coinage of the Parthians

Fig 15 22

Fig 15 23

The appearance of the king's initials in Parthian on drachm obverses is also to be occasionally observed under Pacorus II (c. A.D. 78–110). The series of Pacorus II have some iconographic interest, as the king initially appears beardless (fig. 15.21): (p. 288) this possibly indicates the king's youth, since on later issues the portrait displays a growing beard. In the last original type seen on tetradrachm reverses, Pacorus's large silvers of A.D. 81–84 show the king on horseback receiving homage from the Tyche and a male figure, in all likelihood Artabanus III (fig. 15.22).

Fig 15 24

Another element originally introduced by Gotarzes II, which becomes customary after the years A.D. 77–78, when Vologases I and Pacorus II strike coins together, is the marking of single Greek letters on tetradrachm obverses (fig. 15.23). In their attestation under Vologases II (c. A.D. 110–147) the letters Α, Β, Γ, Δ, and Ε are all employed at the same time in a single month, a mint practice that still is not fully understood.

Fig 15 25

Fig 15 26

With the second century A.D. a succession of rather long reigns begins. The imagery is now stylized even on tetradrachms, and only minor details distinguish the drachms issuers. The tiara, which reappeared in the second half of the first century A.D., is now widespread, and its decoration is often the only discriminating trait between different rulers (figs. 15.24–15.25). Kings (p. 289) portrayed without tiara, like Osroes I (c. A.D. 110–129?; fig. 15.26) or Vologases IV (A.D. 191–208), display very characteristic hair treatments. The corruption of the Greek legend of the drachms, already advanced at the end of the previous century, reaches new peaks, together with the now highly abstract image of the reverse archer. The Ecbatana mintmark itself is increasingly simplified. From Mithradates IV (c. A.D. 140), the king's name is incised on drachm reverses in Parthian, a practice initially devised to distinguish identical royal busts represented on the obverse. Under Vologases V (c. A.D. 208–222) the king's initials written in Parthian on the obverse are reintroduced. The degeneration of the engraving on drachms and tetradrachms alike is coupled with an ever increasing debasement of the large denomination, long since struck in billon but still losing weight and silver content nonetheless: under

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The Coinage of the Parthians the last kings the tetradrachms have only about 20% silver in their alloy (Caley 1955). The crystallization of the system is apparent, and no remarkable event concerning monetary history is to be observed. The decline of Parthian coinage as a whole will finally end only with the advent of the new dynasty of the Sasanians in the third century A.D. Part of the political landscape of Arsacid Iran were smaller entities like the Parthian dynasty of Sistan (Simonetta 1978; Alram 1986, 1987) and those of Elymais, Characene, and Persis (Le Rider 1965; Augé, Curiel, and Le Rider 1979, Sellwood 1983b; Alram 1986, 1987). From Sistan, the Parthian group that gave birth to the Gondopharid dynasty moved gradually east toward northwestern India, where they appear well established in the first half of the first century A.D. The coin series follow a regional subdivision between Sistan, Arachosia, and northwest India. The original Arsacid imperial model undergoes significant development, and in the Indian-based issues both denominational system and typology absorb significant local elements. In this environment, the Indo-Parthian coinage overlaps also in its features with Saka and Yuezhi/early Kushan issues, until the last rulers are overwhelmed by the Kushans themselves in the early second century A.D. (Alram 1999). In the westernmost areas, on the other hand, the Indo-Parthian series reach the third century A.D., with the last prince to strike coins, Farn-Sasan, active in the early Sasanid period (Nikitin 1994). The Elymean series originally began in Susa with the first independence of the region from the Seleucids in 147 B.C., strictly following their coin model. Susa being firmly in Parthian hands from 129 B.C., an Elymean mint was established around 80 B.C. in Seleucia on the Hedyphon, striking drachms and tetradrachms. The king's portrait on these coins already shows signs of Parthian influence, which become all the more apparent at the resumption of minting in Susa around A.D. 75, under Orodes I. A sharp debasement of silver already being under way, these bronze drachms and tetradrachms show an obverse royal image often including a Parthian-style tiara (fig. 15.27), while the legends of the larger denominations, quickly reduced to isolated issues, appear to be in Parthian.

Fig 15 27

Fig 15 28

(p. 290) In Characene, independent coinage is also first attested before the Arsacid conquest by Mithradates II, with the tetradrachms minted in 125 B.C. by Hyspaosines in Spasinu Charax. Here the Seleucid coin heritage will preserve its character much longer, and Parthian coin influence may be detected only in the later phases after Meredates, from around A.D. 140. A series of obols and diobols that surfaced relatively recently (Alram 1987; Sellwood 1989) may be included among these coinages. The types are close to the main Arsacid ones dating to the end of the first century A.D., but denominations and style hint to a different issuing authority. Accordingly, they are provisionally attributed to semiautonomous rulers in Fars after the alleged find spot. The coinage of the dynasts of Persis, the Frataraka, sets itself clearly apart from the other minor series by its general features, being almost devoid of any Hellenistic element right from the origin, dated between the early third (Müseler 2005/2006) and the beginning of the second century B.C. (Alram 1986), or some decades later (Wiesehöfer 2007). While the denominational system, with the tetradrachm at the center, is inspired by Seleucid models, the typology is totally alien to them, both on obverse and on reverse, being instead firmly rooted in the imagery of the ancient Achaemenid empire. The legends are initially in Aramaic, then giving way to Middle Persian. In the course of time the Parthian influence makes itself felt, from the disappearance of the large silvers and their

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The Coinage of the Parthians substitution as main denomination by the drachms to new features of the obverse portrait: under Darev II (beginning of first century B.C.) the ruler's bust turns to the left and wears a Parthian-style tiara (fig. 15.28), while the reverse legend is arranged in a square. Even when diademed, the obverse busts clearly show the influence coming from the Arsacid imperial imagery. The reverses on the other hand remain distinctly independent in their repertoire, with various designs alternating, the most typical being a fire altar, an obvious anticipation of Sasanian formulas. This is no surprise, since these princelings are indeed the direct predecessors of the new Persian dynasty: with the advent of the Sasanians in the early third century A.D., the other minor coinages will cease, like the main Arsacid series, while the coinage of Persis, reshaped by Ardashir I, will naturally develop into the new imperial coinage of Iran. Fig. 15.1. Drachm of Arsaces I, Sellwood 1.1: Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Fig. 15.2. Drachm of Mithradates I, Sellwood 10.1. Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum. Fig. 15.3. Drachm of Mithradates I, Sellwood 11.1: Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (KHM), GR05277. Fig. 15.4. Tetradrachm of Phraates II, Sellwood 17.1. Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum. Fig. 15.5. Tetradrachm of Mithradates II, Sellwood 24.5: British Museum 5301_0357. Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum. Fig. 15.6. Drachm of Mithradates II, Sellwood 26.3: Vienna, KHMGR05297. Fig. 15.7. Drachm of Mithradates II, Sellwood 28.3. Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum. Fig. 15.8. Drachm of Gotarzes I, Sellwood 33.2: Vienna, KHMGR05320. Fig. 15.9. Drachm of countermarked issue, Sellwood 91.2: Vienna, KHMGR00376. Fig. 15.10. Tetradrachm of Phraates IV, Sellwood 50.9. Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum. Fig. 15.11. Drachm of Orodes II, Sellwood 48.6: Vienna, KHMGR05444. Fig. 15.12. AE of Phraates IV, Sellwood 52.47: British Museum Phraates IV, no. 141. Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum. Fig. 15.13. AE of Phraates IV, Sellwood 52.62: British Museum Phraates IV, no. 270. Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum. Fig. 15.14. Drachm of Phraataces/Musa, Sellwood 58.9: Vienna, KHMGR05502. Fig. 15.15. Drachm of Vonones I, Sellwood 60.5: Vienna, KHMGR05505. Fig. 15.16. Tetradrachm of Artabanus II, Sellwood 62.1–3: British Museum Artabanus III, no. 8. Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum. Fig. 15.17. Drachm of Artabanus II, Sellwood 61.7. Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum. Fig. 15.18. Drachm of Artabanus II, Sellwood 63.6: Vienna, KHMGR05516. Fig. 15.19. Drachm of Artabanus III, Sellwood 74.6: British Museum 1911.0902.6. Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum. Fig. 15.20. Drachm of Vologases I, Sellwood 71.1: British Museum 1917, 0204.127. Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum. Fig. 15.21. Drachm of Pacorus II, Sellwood 73.11: Vienna, KHM GR05561. Fig. 15.22. Tetradrachm of Pacorus II, Sellwood 75.3: British Museum Pacorus II, no. 33. Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum. Fig. 15.23. Tetradrachm of Vologases III, Sellwood 79.3: British Museum vologases II, no. 12. Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum. Fig. 15.24. Drachm of Vologases IV, Sellwood 84.132: Vienna, KHMGR05600. Fig. 15.25. Drachm of Osroes II, Sellwood 85.3: Vienna, KRM GR05614. Fig. 15.26. Drachm of Osroes I, Sellwood 80.1: British Museum Osores, no. 3. Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum. Fig. 15.27. Drachm (AE) of Orodes I, Alram 1986a n. 469–470. Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum. Fig. 15.28. Drachm of Darev II, Alram 1986a n. 564: British Museum Mithradates I, no. 58. Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum.

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The Coinage of the Parthians Bibliography Abgarians, M. T., and Sellwood, D. G. (1971). “A Hoard of Early Parthian Drachms.” NC  7 11: 103–119. Alram, M. (1986). Nomina Propria Iranica in Nummis Materialgrundlagen zu den iranischen Personennamen auf antiken Münzen. Iranisches Personennamenbuch 4. Vienna. ———. (1987). “Die Vorbildwirkung der arsakidischen Münzprägung.” LNV 3: 117–146. ———. (1998). “Stand und Aufgaben der arsakidischen Numismatik.” In Wiesehöfer: 365–387. ———. (1999). “Indo-Parthian and early Kushan Chronology: The Numismatic Evidence.” In Alram and KlimburgSalter: 19–48. Alram, M., and R. Gyselen. (2003). Sylloge Nummorum Sasanidarum Paris-Berlin-Wien Vol. 1. Ardashir I –Shapur I Vienna. Alram, M., and D. Klimburg-Salter, eds. (1999). Coins, Art and Chronology: Essays on the Pre-Islamic History of the Indo-Iranian Borderlands. Vienna. Assar, G. F. (2004). “Genealogy and Coinage of the Early Parthian Rulers. I.” Parthica 6: 69–93. ———. (2005). “Genealogy and Coinage of the Early Parthian Rulers. II. A Revised Stemma.” Parthica 7: 29–63. ———. (2006). “A Revised Parthian Chronology of the Period 91–55 BC.” Parthica 8: 55–104. Augé, C., R. Curiel, and G. Le Rider. (1979). Terrasses sacrées de Bard-è Néchandeh et Masjid-i Solaiman Les trouvalles monétaires. Mémoires de la Délégation Archéologique en Iran, 44. Paris. Bivar, A. D. H. (1983). “Iran under the Arsacids.” In Yarshater: 21–99. Brindley, J. C. (1972). Review of An Introduction to the Coinage of Parthia, by D. Sellwood (1971). NC  7 12: 319– 321. ———. (1976). “The Organisation of the Parthian Bronze Coinage.” In Cahn and Le Rider: 31–38. Cahn, H. A., and G. Le Rider, eds. (1976). Proceedings of the 8th International Congress of Numismatics New York/Washington 1973 Paris. Caley, E. R. (1955). Chemical Composition of Parthian Coins ANSNNM 129. New York. Cribb, J., and G. Herrmann, eds. (1998). After Alexander: Central Asia before Islam New York. Curtis, V. S. (1998).“The Parthian Costume and Headdress.” In Wiesehöfer: 61–73. ———. (2007). “Religious Iconography on Ancient Iranian Coins.” In Cribb and Herrmann: 413–434. Curtis, V. S., and S. Stewart, eds. (2007). The Age of the Parthians: The Idea of Iran, II London. Dąbrowa, E. (2009). “Mithradates and the Beginning of the Ruler-Cult in Parthia.” Electrum 15: 41–51. De Callataÿ, F. (1994). Les tétradrachmes d’Orodès II et de Phraate IV Étude du rythme de leur production monétaire à la lumière d’une grande trouvaille Cahiers de Studia Iranica, 14. Paris. Dittmann, R., et al., eds. (2000). Variatio Delectat Iran und der Westen Gedenkschrift für Peter Calmeyer. Alter Orient und Altes Testament. Vol. 272. Münster. Gariboldi, A. (2004). “Royal Ideological Patterns between Seleucid and Parthian Coins: The Case of Theopator.” In Rollinger and Ulf: 366–384. (p. 293) Hackl, U., B. Jacobs, and D. Weber. (2010). Quellen zur Geschichte des Partherreiches. Göttingen.

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The Coinage of the Parthians Hauser, S. R. (2000). “Zur Datierung der arsakidischen Tetradrachmen.” In Dittmann et al.: 321–342. Hersh, C. A. (1980). “The Coinage of Quintus Labienus Parthicus.” RSN 59: 41–49. Hintze, A. (1998). “The Avesta in the Parthian Period.” In Wiesehöfer: 147–161. Invernizzi, A. (1990). “Facial Marks in the Parthian World.” Silk Road Art and Archaeology 1: 35–50. Korn, A. (2006). “Parthian Month Names and Calendars.” Parthica 8: 153–167. Le Rider, G. (1965). Suse sous les Séleucides et les Parthes. Mémoires de la Mission Archéologique en Iran 38. Paris. ———. (1998). Séleucie du Tigre Les monnaies Séleucides et Parthes. Monografie di Mesopotamia 6. Florence. Loginov, S. D., and A. B. Nikitin. (1996). “Parthian Coins from Margiana: Numismatics and History.” Bulletin of the Asia Institute 10: 39–51. McDowell, R. H. (1935). Coins from Seleucia on the Tigris Ann Arbor. Mørkholm, O. (1980). “The Parthian Coinage of Seleucia on the Tigris, c. 90–55 B.C.” NC 140: 33–47. Muccioli, F. (2009). “Il problema del culto del sovano nella regalita’ arsacide: appunti per una discussione.” Electrum 15: 83–104. Müseler, W. (2005/2006). “Die sogenannten dunklen Jahrhunderte der Persis. Anmerkungen zu einem lange vernachlässigten Thema.” JNG 55/56: 75–103. Newell, E. T. (1938). “The Coinage of the Parthians.” In Pope: 475–492. Nikitin, A. K. (1994). “Die Münzen des letzen indo-parthischen Königs von Sīstān. Ein Abschied von ‘Ardamitra.’” NZ 102: 167–170. Parpola, S. (1997). Assyrian Prophecies Vol. 9 of State Archives of Assyria. Helsinki. Petrowicz, A. (1904). Arsaciden-Münzen. Wien. Pope, A. U., ed. (1938). A Survey of Persian Art I. London. Rollinger, R., and C. Ulf, eds. (2004). Commerce and Monetary Systems in the Ancient World: Means of Transmission and Cultural Interaction Oriens et Occidens, 6. Stuttgart. Sachs, A. J., and H. Hunger. (1996). Astronomical Diaries and Related Texts from Babylonia Vol. 3. Diaries from 164 B C to 61 B C Vienna. Sarianidi, V. I. (1985). Bactrian Gold: From the Excavations of the Tillya Tepe Necropolis in Northern Afghanistan Leningrad. Sellwood, D. G. (1967). “A Die Engraver Sequence for Later Parthian Drachms.” NC  7 7: 13–28. ———. (1980). An Introduction to the Coinage of Parthia. London. ———. (1983a). “Parthian Coins.” In Yarshater: 279–298. ———. (1983b). “Minor States in Southern Iran.” In Yarshater: 299–321. ———. (1989). “New Parthian Coin Types.” NC 149: 162–168. Sherozia, M., and J.-M. Doyen. (2007). Les monnaies parthes du Musée de Tbilissi (Géorgie) Moneta 62. Wetteren, Switzerland. Simonetta, A. M. (1958). “A New Essay on the Indo-Greeks, the Sakas and the Pahlavas.” East and West 9(3): 154– 183.

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The Coinage of the Parthians ———. (1978). “The Chronology of the Gondopharean Dynasty.” East and West 28: 155–178. Sinisi, F. (2008). “Tyche in Parthia: The Image of the Goddess on Arsacid Tetradrachms.” Numismatische Zeitschrift 116/117: 231–248. Walker, A. (1994/1995). “Forgeries and Inventions of Parthian Coins.” Bulletin on Counterfeits 19: 1–35. (p. 294) Wang, T. (2007). “Parthia in China: A Re-examination of the Historical Records.” Curtis and Stewart: 87– 104. Wiesehöfer, J., ed. (1998). Das Partherreich und seine Zeugnisse The Arsacid Empire: Sources and Documentation Stuttgart. ———. (2000). “‘Denn Orodes war der griechischen Sprache und Literatur nicht unkundig…’. Parther, Griechen und griechische Kultur.” In Dittmann et al.: 703–721. ———. (2005). Iraniens, Grecs et Romains. Cahiers de Studia Iranica, 32. Paris. ———. (2007). “Fars under Seleucid and Parthian Rule.” In Curtis and Stewart: 37–49. Wolski, J. (1983). “Sur le ‘philellénisme’ des Arsacides.” Gerión 1: 145–156. ———. (1993). L’empire des Arsacides. Acta Iranica XVIII. Leuven. ———. (2003). Seleucid and Arsacid Studies: A Progress Report on Developments in Source Research Cracow. Wroth, W. (1903). Catalogue of the Coins of Parthia: A Catalogue of the Greek Coins in the British Museum London. Yarshater, E., ed. (1983). Cambridge History of Iran, 3 I The Seleucid, Parthian and Sasanian Periods. Cambridge. Fabrizio Sinisi Fabr z o S n s s W ssenschaftl che M tarbe ter n the Num smat c Comm ss on of the Austr an Academy of Sc ences, V enna.

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The Roman World

Oxford Handbooks Online The Roman World The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Coinage Edited by William E. Metcalf Pr nt Pub cat on Date: Feb 2012 Subject: C ass ca Stud es On ne Pub cat on Date: Nov 2012



(p. 296)

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Early Roman Coinage and Its Italian Context

Oxford Handbooks Online Early Roman Coinage and Its Italian Context Andrew Burnett The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Coinage Edited by William E Metcalf Pr nt Publ cat on Date: Feb 2012 Onl ne Publ cat on Date: Nov 2012

Subject: Class cal Stud es, Greek and Roman Archaeology, Anc ent Roman H story DO : 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195305746.013.0017

Abstract and Keywords Rome made its steps in the production of coined money against the background of Italy's coinage development. The Romans started to make coinage in around 300 BC, and the system they gradually established lasted until the middle of the Second Punic or Hannibalic war. It was followed by the much-longer-lasting denarius coinage. Hoards of bronze from the late second and early first millennia BC in Italy consisted of scrap metal, chopped-up objects, and large round objects, formed in the bottom of crucibles during the manufacture of bronze or the melting down of scrap. These objects have been one of the influences on the later shape of early Roman monetary objects. The early currency of bronze in Rome is known today as “aes rude.” Other elements of early Roman coinage are coined bronze, coined silver, cast heavy bronze bars or ingots; and cast heavy bronze discs (“aes grave”). Keywords Rome taly coinage bronze monetary objects aes rude aes grave

HE Romans started to make coinage in around 300 BC, and the system they gradually established lasted until the

middle of the Second Punic or Hannibalic war (218–201 BC); it was followed by the much longer lasting denarius coinage. The subject has been well studied and discussed for many years, and a number of good surveys or collections of evidence exist, although much remains disputed (Thomsen 1957–1961; Crawford 1974b; Stazio and Taliercio 1998). To understand how the early Roman coinage developed, we need to step back a little and look at the Italian context (see HN3 Italy). By the end of the fourth century BC, parts of southern Italy enjoyed a flourishing production, and use of, coinage (see chapter 7). Major mints had become established centuries before and remained in production. Indeed, the late fourth century was characterized by three main features (Burnett 2005b): • An increase in the volume of coinage produced by the principal mints. The most important were Neapolis (Naples; Pozzi 1986; Cantilena, Giove, and Rubino 1986; Taliercio 1986) and Taras (Taranto; Evans 1889; Fischer-Bossert 1999; figs. 16.1, 16.2), followed by Velia (Williams 1992), Croton, Thurii, Metapontum (Johnston1990), and Heraclea (Van Keuren 1994). • An extension of the geographical use of coinage. Previously coinage seems to have been restricted to the mint cities and their immediate chorai. But (p. 298) coinage now began to be minted and used in new regions in the interior of southern Italy, like Samnium (Sannio 1980). • A growth in smaller denominations, particularly of small silver diobols and, at many places, bronze coinage. The explanation(s) of these changes remain speculative. While a growth in the money supply and the expansion of the monetary economy to include smaller transactions would have been the consequences of the changes, there is no suggestion that there was any such “modernist” motivation that lead to their creation. One suggestion is to seek an explanation in the increase in warfare and the need to pay the mercenary leaders and armies that were

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Early Roman Coinage and Its Italian Context progressively more used by the city-states of south Italy to combat first the peoples of the interior and later the growing power of Rome (Burnett 1986b). An alternative, perhaps complementary, view sees the change in Italy as a reflection of the changes taking place in central Greece—an increase in the display of wealth in the wake of the (hugely profitable) conquests of Alexander the Great and indeed the growth of the use of coined money that took place in Greece at the time (Williams and Burnett 1998). In Greece, also, bronze coinage was introduced in a substantial way in the later fourth century BC, and it can be seen that south Italy, in its pattern of coinage, was part of the central Mediterranean world of Greece and the Aegean. It was against this background that Rome made its first, very tentative, steps in the production of coined money. Inasmuch as we can believe later literary sources like Livy, the concept of money was previously well embedded in Roman society. This view can be illustrated, for example, by better sources such as the reconstructed Twelve Tables, the Roman law code of the sixth century BC. We can observe a functional awareness of money as a measure of value; fines are payable in money, and social status is defined in monetary terms. Of course, many other and earlier societies, whether in Egypt or the Near East, had enjoyed developed concepts of money without actually making specifically monetary objects like coins. Coinage was a much later historical phenomenon, and before its invention silver metal was widely used as a measure of value and sometimes also as a means of payment. In central Italy it seems that there was an analogous situation, though one where bronze rather than silver was the metal of choice. The later Latin word as, the standard coin denomination, for example was probably derived from the word aes, meaning bronze. We can give one or two examples of the use of bronze. Social structures and the payment of fines have already been mentioned. A particularly interesting example concerns the introduction of military pay. The literary evidence for the date of its introduction at Rome is unfortunately inconsistent, and both 406 and 340 BC are possibilities. Whichever date is correct, however, it is clear that the introduction of military pay is earlier than the introduction of coinage at Rome, so payment to soldiers must have been made by paying out uncoined metal. Indeed the Latin word for military pay, stipendium, is derived from the Latin verb pendere, “to weigh.” (p. 299) Hoards of bronze are known from the late second and early first millennia BC in Italy. They may consist of scrap metal, chopped up objects, and sometimes large round objects, which were probably formed in the bottom of crucibles during the manufacture of bronze or the melting down of scrap. These objects are relevant, as they may perhaps have been one of the influences on the later shape of early Roman monetary objects. This early currency of bronze is known today as “aes rude,” raw bronze, a term derived from the description given by Pliny the Elder of the early development of Roman coinage (Natural History 33.42–44; fig. 16.4). Pliny wrote in the first century AD, several centuries after the events he describes, and even though he seems to be drawing on earlier sources, such as Timaeus, who wrote at the time, it is hard to reconcile Pliny's commentary on early Roman money with the archaeological evidence that has emerged over the last century. Proximum scelus fuit eius qui primus ex auro denarium signavit, quod et ipsum latet auctore incerto. Populus romanus ne argento quidem signato ante Pyrrhum regem devictum usus est. Libralis …  adpendebatur assis. … Servius rex primus signavit aes. Antea rudi usos Romae Timaeus tradit. … Argentum signatum anno urbis cccclxxxv Q. Ogulnio, C. Fabio coss., quinque annis ante primum Punicum bellum. The next crime was committed by the man to strike a coin made from gold, and even who did it is unknown. The Roman people did not even use silver coin before king Pyrrhus was defeated [271 BC]. A bronze unit of a pound … passed by weight. … Servius the king [of Rome, sixth century BC] was the first to strike a bronze coin; Timaeus records that previously the Romans used raw bronze. Silver was coined in the 485th year of the city, when Q. Ogulnius and C. Fabius were consuls, five years before the First Punic War [= 269 B.C.]. Pliny refers to some but not all of the elements of the early Roman coinage. Apart from the aes rude, or unformed bronze, there are four in all: (1) coined bronze; (2) coined silver; (3) cast heavy bronze bars or ingots (known somewhat misleadingly today, following Pliny, as “aes signatum,” usually translated as “stamped bronze” but probably better translated as “bronze with a design applied”); and (4) cast heavy bronze discs (known today as “aes grave,” heavy bronze). Let us consider each in turn.

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Early Roman Coinage and Its Italian Context Coined Silver This element (Burnett 1998) was struck principally in the denomination known today as the didrachm, but, later in the third century, some half pieces or drachms were made, as were, on two occasions, some rare very small fractional pieces. (p. 300) The weight standard (7.3 g) of the earliest silver Roman coins (fig. 16.5) was derived, like the silver purity of the metal (about 93% pure), from other Italian coinages, especially that of Neapolis. But early Roman silver differed in one very important respect—the designs used changed frequently, whereas the designs used on Italian coinage had tended to be static and long-lasting. In all, eight different designs were used, the first four having the Latin inscription ROMANO, perhaps an abbreviation of the plural romanorum, “of the Romans,” and the second four having the simple ROMA (fig. 16.7); the significance of the change has been much discussed but remains unclear —perhaps more of a change to a normal Latin form (nominative singular of place) away from a Greek form (genitive plural of people). As time progressed, the weight standard and silver purity also changed, the former declining and the latter increasing to virtually pure silver (over 98% fine). Before attempting to explain these patterns and changes we need to consider the other main elements of the early Roman coinage.

Coined Bronze The first two coined bronze issues are both very rare (Taliercio 1998). The first, known from fewer than a dozen pieces, copied the designs (head of Apollo/forepart of man-headed bull) and weight standard from contemporary coins of Neapolis but replaced the Greek legend neopoliton, “of the Neopolitans,” with romaion, “of the Romans” (fig. 16.8). The second issue, known from a unique example, is a development—a man-headed bull remains, but the head of Apollo is replaced with that of a female, usually described generically as a “goddess” but perhaps to be identified as the goddess Roma (Burnett 1986a). In addition, the Greek legend is replaced with the Latin ROMANO. Subsequently there were three more bronze issues with ROMANO (fig. 16.6). Two of these (Minerva head/horse's head and Apollo head/lion) were made in very large quantities, whereas the third, which seems to have been made in Sicily as suggested by modern find-spots, was very rare.

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Click to view larger Fig 16 1 16 10

Later coined bronze was much more closely tied to the coined silver. As on the silver, the inscription changed to ROMA, and the bronze seems to have been made in concert with the silver—some of the designs are the same (figs. 16.9, 16.10), and we find similar subsidiary symbols (perhaps issue marks) used on both (a sickle and a club). (p. 301) (p. 302)

Cast Bronze Bars or Ingots These elements (the aes signatum) weigh about 1.5 kg (Haeberlin 1910; Thurlow and Vecchi 1979; Burnett, Craddock, and Meeks 1986). That they are Roman seems assured by the fact that two of them bear the inscription ROMANOM (either “of the Romans” or “Roman [bronze]” = [aes] romanom; fig. 16.12). They are derived from the so-called ramo secco or “dry branch” metal bars, which are found mostly in northern Etruria and Emilia and which seem to date from at least the sixth century BC (fig. 16.13). Both sorts of bars, ramo secco and Roman, are found together in hoards of the third century, but they are different in three main ways. Whereas the Roman bars seem to adhere to a weight standard, the ramo secco bars do not. Second, the ramo secco bars are made of a peculiar alloy, of highly ferruginous bronze, whereas the Roman bars are of a standard leaded tin bronze. The ramo secco bars never depart from their simple dry branch design, but the Roman bars have differing paired designs, 11 in total. These changing designs provide some help with dating: one depicts an elephant (fig. 16.11) and seems surely to refer to the Pyrrhic War (282–271 BC), the first time that elephants were seen in Italy, while others seem to allude to naval victory, and so presumably date to the First Punic War (264–241 BC).

“Aes Grave”

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Early Roman Coinage and Its Italian Context This element consists of large discs cast in leaded tin bronze (Haeberlin 1910; Thurlow and Vecchi 1979; fig. 16.14). They are produced in several series, with a range of denomination marks: I I (fig. 16.19), S, ····, ···, ··, and ·, and on one occasion we also find II and III. Assuming the unit (I) is the as, we then have the as, its half or semis, the third or triens (4 ounces), the quarter or quadrans (3 ounces), the sixth or sextans (2 ounces) and the twelfth or uncia (1 ounce), and on one occasion the 2-as and 3-as. To oversimplify, the “aes grave” was made at two weight standards: a heavier standard based on a unit of one Roman pound (about 324 g) and a lighter standard based on a unit of about 5/6of the Roman pound (about 280). The metal composition is the same as that of the “aes signatum,” and the “aes grave” similarly has a series of changing designs. Two of these also have a sickle and a club as subsidiary symbols, and are thereby linked to the coined silver and bronze mentioned above. We can summarize the pattern and relationship between these different elements (see table 16.1).

Click to view larger Fig 16 11 16 14

Much is controversial about the early Roman coinage, not least its chronology (Thomsen 1957–1961; Crawford 1974b; Burnett 1977, 1998; Pedroni 1996; Hollstein 1998–1999). There has been a long-running controversy between scholars who (p. 303) (p. 304) accept the statement in Pliny that silver began in 269 BC and others (today the majority) who find this date irreconcilable with the archaeological evidence of coin hoards. As for the end of the early Roman coinage, there is a similarly long-lasting controversy between those scholars who attribute the first denarii (the coins that were made after the early Roman coinage) to 269 and those who date the inception of the denarius to a much later period. In this long and weary microbattlefield of numismatic scholarship (see also Crawford 1969, 1985; Lo Cascio 1980– 1981; Marchetti 1993; Crawford 1998; Stazio and Taliercio 1998), there have been no clear victors, but the consensus today is clearly for a date for the beginning of the early Roman coinage in the years just before or after 300 BC, and for its cessation sometime in the middle of the Second Punic War—211 BC is the current, and almost certainly correct, orthodoxy.

Chronology The two best fixed points for the chronology are for the chronology of the late fourth-century Italian coinage and the arguments for the date of the introduction of the denarius.

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Early Roman Coinage and Its Italian Context The relative chronology of south Italian coinages has been built up over many years, by the study of style, the analysis of hoards, the establishment and die links, and other considerations like changes in weight standards. For all the major mints listed earlier (Neapolis, Taras, Velia, Croton, Thurii, Metapontum, and Heraclea) we now have a tolerably clear picture of the relative sequence of different groups or periods of coins. It would be wrong to imply that there is no room for doubt, since there certainly is, but the parameters are limited. This enables us to set up a coherent table of the relative sequence of Italian coinages for the period; a good, recent example can be found in the introduction to HN3 Italy. Clear indications of the coinages to be associated with the decade 340–330 are given by the rare occurrence of coins in the name of Alexander the Molossian, the cousin of the other Alexander who invaded southern Italy around 332 BC, and more substantially through the coins of several of the Italian mints that can be identified as being struck over comparatively well-dated coins from Corinth and its colonies. For the later period, there are many indicators of the introduction of the denarius. These include: • the presence of the very earliest denarii found during archaeological excavation of the destruction layers at Morgantina in Sicily, dating to 211 BC (p. 305) • that some Siculo-Punic coins, minted during the Carthaginian invasion of Sicily in 213–211 BC, were struck over Roman coins of the early denarius system • the “quadrigati,” the last Roman coins of the pre-denarius period, and some of the earliest denarii are associated in Sicilian hoards containing datable coins of the rulers Hiero and Hieronymus (216–215 B.C.) and the subsequent “Democracy” (215–212 B.C.), showing that they belong to that period These and other considerations point clearly to a date for the introduction of the denarius in either 212 or 211 BC. These two good anchor points of chronology enable us to date the early Roman coinage to the period between about 300 and 211 BC. Within these limits the evidence is less good. Mention has already been made of some of the designs of the aes signatum, which suggests that it continued until the First Punic War (264–241 BC). Some overstrikes of Roman bronzes over Syracusan ones (e.g. Burnett and Crawford 1998) and Neapolitan bronzes over Aesernian ones give a general pointer toward the middle of the third century. The recent San Martino in Pensilis hoard helps fill the gap a bit (Ceglia 1999; Burnett 2006). With evidence such as this, we can create a chronology of the early Roman coinage that is probably accurate to plus or minus 10 years (see table 16.1). On that basis, we can discuss two aspects of the pattern of the early Roman coinage: first, its relationship to other Italian coinages, and second, its own internal development.

Relationship to Other Italian Coinages As described earlier, Italian silver and bronze coinage was produced in abundance in the later fourth century. The large scale of minting continued well into the third century, and many silver didrachms, rarer drachms, silver fractional pieces, and bronze coins continued to be made until the period of the Pyrrhic War. From that time, let us say from about 280 BC, changes started to occur. The weight standard of Taras (fig. 16.1) and the other more southerly mints like Heraclea, Thurii, and Croton was reduced by about 16% from 7.9 g to about 6.6 g (Burnett and Hook 1989; Hollstein 2000). At about the same time, the level of minting by Italian states started to decline—the silver didrachms of Metapontum stopped at this time, followed shortly afterward by those at Thurii, Croton, Heraclea, Locri, and Velia. Only Taras and Neapolis continued to make silver coinage in appreciable quantities, probably down to about 250 BC, when their production also stopped. (p. 306) Table 16.1 The development of early Roman coinage Date

Currency bars

Aes grave

Silver

c. 320

Struck bronze Apollo/Forepart of bull RΩΜΑΙΩΝ

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Early Roman Coinage and Its Italian Context

c. 300

Mars/Head of horse

ROMANO 7.3 g c. 280

ROMANOM issues

Heavy series: 324 g Dioscuri/Mercury

c. 275

Elephant/Sow

c. 269

c. 264

Apollo/Apollo

Apollo/Horse

(334 g)

ROMANO 7.2 g

Apollo/Dioscurus

Hercules/Wolf

Goddess/Lion ROMANO

ROMANO 7 g c. 255

Naval types Roma/Head of horse ROMANO Roma ROMANO/Eagle Light series: 280 Roma/Roma

ROMANO Roma/Victory ROMANO 6.6 g

c. 240

c. 230

Dioscuri/Mercury

Mars/Head of horse

Mars/Head of horse

(Sickle)

ROMA (sickle) 6.6 g

ROMA (sickle)

Apollo/Apollo

Apollo/Horse

Apollo/Horse ROMA

(Acorn)

ROMA 6.6 g

Roma/Roma

Mars/Horse ROMA

Mars/Horse ROMA (club)

(Club)

(Club) 6.6 g

Hercules/Pegasus ROMA (club)

Wheel (inc. 3 as)

Roma/Dog ROMA

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c. 225

Janus/Prow

Quadrigati

Note: A solid line indicates a definite connection, a broken line a probable one. Some of the quadrigati seem to have been minted outside Rome, for example, in Sicily or Apurja, during the early years of the Second Punic War. (p. 307) (p. 308) One or two new silver mints in Campania—Cales, Suessa, and Teanum sidicinum (Cantilena 2000)—sprang into fairly short-lived production in the first half of the century, and Campania also enjoyed the circulation of the enigmatic “Campano-Tarentine” coins—coins probably minted at Taras but on the Campanian weight standard and with an obverse design based on that in use at Neapolis (Stazio 1986; fig. 16.15). All these Italian silver coinages, however, seemed to have ceased by 250, even though there was a brief revival in the Second Punic War (218–201), when Metapontun and Taras issued silver coins on Punic weight standards, and Hannibal's long occupation of Bruttium saw silver production by the Brettii (fig. 16.16), as well some Punic coinage, minted probably at least partly in Locri. These were the last issues of non-Roman silver in Italy, and, though they and their predecessors continued to circulate during much of the period of the war, the denarius reform was accompanied by an aggressive policy of taking all previous silver out of circulation. Such actions were comparatively rare in the ancient world, since they required an enormous organizational effort, and were only undertaken for very strong reasons, whether of economics or politics. Here we may suspect that it was the devastating physical and psychological effects of Hannibal's invasion that prompted such a forceful assertion of Roman identity.

Click to view larger Fig 16 15 16 19

Italian bronze coinage does not, however, seem to have stopped as early as the silver. The major silver-producing mints produced much bronze coinage during the third century, except for Taras (which was unusual in making hardly any bronze but apparently compensating by making very large quantities of fractional silver coins). In addition, a number of new mints started to produce bronze in the third century, from Umbria to Lucania, and that century saw mints in Italy producing large volumes of bronze coinage. The use and production of of aes grave spread through central Italy and was even adopted further south, in Apulia by the Roman colonies of Venusia (fig. 16.17) and Luceria. In Campania, many mints started to coin bronze coinage following the model of the prolific issues of Neapolis. And although few mints have been studied in any detail, at Neapolis (Taliercio 1986) and Metapontum (Johnston 1989; fig. 16.3) we can be fairly sure that bronze coinage continued until the Second Punic War. Other mints may well have followed the same pattern, and the war does also seem to have been the occasion for the last substantial issue of coinage, especially in bronze, from a number of Italian mints, such as Venosa in the south (Burnett 1992) or in Etruria in the north (Contibuti 1976; Cristofani 1989; Vecchi 1988–1999). Such bronze issues continued at a very few places, like Brundisium and Copia, after the war but on a tiny scale, and from 200

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Early Roman Coinage and Its Italian Context BC the currency of Italy was effectively entirely Roman. (p. 309)

Internal Development How can we generalize from this evidence and characterize the changing picture of the currency in the thirdcentury Italian peninsula? Roman silver had begun around 300 BC on a small scale—the first issue had only four obverse dies. The first Roman struck bronzes were also minted in small quantities, to judge from the relatively few that are known today. All this suggests a picture of small and relatively short-lived emissions of coins with long gaps in between, and indeed in hoards the earliest Roman coins are heavily outnumbered by contemporary Italian ones. (p. 310) Toward the middle of the third century, the picture began to change—the volume of coinage struck by the Romans increased (to judge from the greater number of dies in use), weight standards changed, silver purity was increased, and one sort of object (the aes signatum) was discontinued. The remaining three elements—coined silver, coined bronze, and aes grave—were sometimes linked to each other by shared common subsidiary symbols (the sickle and the club) and eventually used more or less the same designs (e.g. the janiform head). The impression one gets is that the different elements of the coinage, which had previously been produced on a small, intermittent, and disconnected basis, all derived from disparate models, were from this time reorganized into a distinctively Roman coinage, which might well have continued indefinitely but for the financial and monetary pressures imposed on the Roman state in the Second Punic War against Hannibal (Burnett 1989, 2000). The Romans simply ran out of money, and although the silver coinage (fig. 16.18) was debased by an initial 10% in purity and the bronze reduced by 50% in weight, these changes were not sufficient. Much greater reductions in purity and weight took place until the whole system collapsed, to be replaced shortly thereafter by the new denarius system, which introduced a new system that was to prove extraordinarily long-lasting: although it underwent many changes, it continued in a recognizably similar form for some four and a half centuries, until the third century AD. What was the effect of the growing production and use of coined money on the Roman state? Interpretations naturally depend largely on the differing attitudes of modern scholars toward the ancient economy and ancient economic awareness (Burnett 2005). One can perhaps easily discount any explanation that might posit a Roman wish to increase the money supply or transform the economy to one based on coined money. The diminutive nature of the earliest issues means, as discussed, that they were far too small to have had any such effect. The small scale and episodic nature of the coinage also makes other explanations, such as production to meet military pay, unlikely: military pay requires a lot of coinage produced regularly. And there is little evidence to connect the coinage with any expansion of the Roman commerce and trade—the evidence here is very thin, but the distribution of Roman pottery (if that is indeed what that “atelier des petites estampilles” is) is at variance with that of the distribution of Roman silver, which was confined at first to southern Italy and later Sicily (though recently two finds from Spain have been reported). Literary sources suggest commercial activities in Illyria and Africa, but both are areas that did not see Roman coinage for one or two generations. My personal view (Burnett 1989) is that we should see the inception of coinage at Rome as a cultural phenomenon, and that we should explain the decision to produce coinage, a Greek institution, as part of a wider picture of the hellenization of Rome around 300 BC—whether in the arts, architecture, or society (for which see, e.g., Starr 1981; Cornell 1995). One can more or less define the (p. 311) Greek world around 300 BC by the pattern of silver production, and its adoption at Rome can readily be understood as the adoption of yet another Greek institution by the emerging power struggling to establish its international self-identity. However, even if the origin of coinage at Rome was social or cultural, the growth of the volume of coinage in production and use began to change the nature of the Roman monetary economy to one that was more characteristic of other ancient Mediterranean states in being based on coinage in the urban environment. Yet we should not overstate this change. There are a few finds of coinage from Rome, for example, the forum, dating to about 300 BC, but they are very few. Moreover, such comparisons as we can attempt to make between the volume of early Roman coinage and other “financial” information, such as the scale of plunder coming to Rome, as recorded in literary or epigraphic sources, suggest that even later in the third century BC, Roman coinage can only have accounted for a relatively small proportion of the “Roman economy.” Regulatory and support institutions

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Early Roman Coinage and Its Italian Context such as banking and money changing (Andreau 1987, 1999) did indeed come into being during this period, but again it would be misleading to think of Rome as enjoying at this period the same sort of monetary development as other states. That was to come later. Fig. 16.1. Silver stater of Taras, late 4th century BC. 21 mm. British Museum. Fig. 16.2. Silver diobol of Taras, early 3rd century BC. 11 mm. British Museum. Fig. 16.3. Bronze obolos of Metapontum, late 4th century BC. 20 mm. British Museum. Fig. 16.4. Bronze “aes rude,” Italy, 4th century BC (?). British Museum. Fig. 16.5. Silver didrachm, Rome, c. 300 BC. 21 mm. British Museum. Fig. 16.6. Silver didrachm, Rome, c. 260 BC. 23 mm. British Museum. Fig. 16.7. Silver didrachm, Rome, c. 230 BC. 21 mm. British Museum. Fig. 16.8. Bronze coin with Greek inscription, Rome, late 4th century BC. 15 mm. British Museum. Fig. 16.9. Bronze coin, Rome, early 3rd century BC. 19 mm. British Museum. Fig. 16.10. Bronze coin, Rome early 3rd century BC. 21 mm. British Museum. Fig. 16.11. Bronze “aes signatum,” Rome, early 3rd century BC. 168 x 97 mm. British Museum. Fig. 16.12. Bronze “aes signatum,” Rome, early 3rd century BC. 170 x 102 mm. British Museum. Fig. 16.13. Ferruginous “ramo secco” bar, north Italy, 4th century BC (?). 82 x 58 mm. British Museum. Fig. 16.14. Bronze “aes grave” as, Rome, 3rd century BC. 70 mm. British Museum. (p. 312) Fig. 16.15. Silver “Campano-Tarentine” stater, mid-3rd century BC. 20 mm. British Museum. Fig. 16.16. Silver coin of Bretii, late 3rd century BC. 19 mm. British Museum. Fig. 16.17. Bronze semis, Venusia, late 3rd century BC. 18 mm. British Museum. Fig. 16.18. Silver “quadrigatus,” Rome, late 3rd century BC. 22 mm. British Museum. Fig. 16.19. Bronze “aes grave” as, Rome, late 3rd century BC. 65 mm. British Museum.

Bibliography Bibliography Alfaro, C., and A. Burnett. (2003). A Survey of Numismatic Research Madrid. Andreau, J. (1987). La vie financière dans le monde romain Rome. ——— . (1999). Banking and Business in the Roman World Cambridge. Ashton, R., and S. Hurter, eds. (1998). Studies in Greek Numismatics in Memory of Martin Jessop Price London. Burnett, A. (1977).“The coinages of Rome and Magna Graecia in the late fourth and early third centuries BC.” RSN 56: 92–121. ——— . 1986a. “The iconography of Roman coin types of the third century BC.” NC 146: 67–75. ——— . 1986b. “Naples and south Italy: Coinage and prosperity c. 300 BC.” In Stazio and Taliercio: 23–43. ——— . 1992. “La monetazione di Venosa e il suo rapporto con quelle delle coeve colonie latine dell’area adriatica.” In Il Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Venosa, ed. M. Salvatore et al. Matera: 30–35. ——— . 1998. “The Romano-Campanian silver.” In Stazio and Taliercio: 21–48. ——— . 1989. “The beginnings of Roman coinage.” AIIN 33: 33–64. ——— . 2000. “The silver coinage of Italy and Sicily in the Second Punic War.” In Hollstein: 102–113. ——— . 2005a. “From Greece to Rome via southern Italy: More trade, more money and more prosperity?” Proceedings of the Australian Academy of the Humanities 29, 2004: 105–118. ——— . 2005b. “La documentazione numismatica.” In Il Tramonto di Magna Graecia. Atti del XLIV Convegno di Studi sulla Magna Graecia, Taranto, 23–27 Settembre 2004 (Taranto): 31–53.

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Early Roman Coinage and Its Italian Context ——— . (2006). “Reflections on the San Martino in Pensilis hoard.” RN 162: 37–50. Burnett, A., P. Craddock, and N. Meeks. (1986). “Italian currency bars.” In Swaddling: 127–130. Burnett, A., and M. Crawford. (1998). “Overstrikes at Neapolis and coinage at Poseidonia-Paestum.” In Ashton and Hurter: 55–57. Burnett, A., and D. R. Hook. (1989). “The fineness of silver coins in Italy and Rome in the late fourth and third centuries BC.” QT 18: 151–167. Burnett, A., U. Wartenberg, and R. Witschonke. (1998). Coins of Macedonia and Rome Essays in Honour of Charles Hersh London. Cantilena, R. (2000). “La monetazione di un centro campano alleato di Roma. Riflessioni su Teanum.” In Kluge and Weisser: 252–260. (p. 313) Cantilena, R., T. Giove, and P. Rubino. (1986). “Didrammi e frazioni d’argento.” In Stazio and Taliercio: 101–217. Ceglia, V. (1999). “Il tesoretto monetale di San Martino in Pensilis.” Bollettino di Numismatica 32–33: 3–45. Chaves Tristán, F., and W. Hollstein. (2003). “Die Römische Republik/La República Romana.” In Alfaro and Burnett: 238–240. Contributi intorduttivi allo studio della monetazione etrusca Atti del V Convegno del Centro Internazionale di Studi Numismatici, Napoli, 17–22 Aprile 1975 (1976). Supp. to vol. 22 of Annali dell’Istituto Italiano di Numismatica. Rome. Cornell, T. J. (1995). The Beginnings of Rome London. Crawford, M. H. (1969). Roman Republican Coin Hoards London. ——— . (1974a). Roman Republican Coinage Cambridge. ——— . (1974b). “The pre-denarius coinage.” In Crawford 1974a: 35–46. ——— . (1985). Coinage and Money under the Roman Republic London. ——— . (1998). “Selinus and the quadrigatus.” In Burnett, Wartenberg, and Witschonke: 119–123. Cristofani, M. (1989). “La monetazione etrusca dieci anni dopo il Convegno di Napoli.” AIIN 36: 83–100. Evans, A. J. (1889). The Horsemen of Tarentum London. (Reprinted from NC 1889: 1–228) Fischer-Bossert, W. (1999). Chronologie der Didrachmenprägung von Tarent: 510–280 v Chr Deutsches Archäologisches Institut—Antike Münzen und Geschnittene Steine, 14. Berlin. Haeberlin, E. J. (1910) Aes Grave, Das Schwergeld Roms und Mittelitaliens Frankfurt-am-Main. Hollstein, W. (1988/1999). “Überlegungen zu Datierung und Münzbildern der römischen Didrachmenprägung.” JNG 48/49: 133–164. ———, ed. (2000). Metallanalytische Untersuchungen an Münzen der Römischen Republik Berliner Numismatischer Forschungen 6. Berlin. Johnston, A. (1989). “The bronze coinage of Metapontum.” In Le Rider et al.: 121–136. ——— . (1990). The Coinage of Metapontum Vol. 3. New York. Kluge, B., and B. Weisser, eds. (2000). Proceedings of the 12th International Numismatic Congress Berlin 1997. Berlin.

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Early Roman Coinage and Its Italian Context Le Rider, G., K. Jenkins, N. Waggoner, and U. Westermark. (1989). Kraay-Mørkholm Essays Numismatic Studies in Memory of C M Kraay and O Mørkholm Louvain-la-neuve. Lo Cascio, E. (1980–1981). “Il primo denarius.” In AIIN 36: 335–345. Marchetti, P. (1993). “Numismatique romaine et histoire.” Cahiers du Centre Glotz 4: 23–65. Pedroni, L. (1996). Nuove ricerche sulla prima monetazione di Roma Naples. Pozzi, E. (1986). “La monetazione di Neapolis nel IV e nel III secolo a.C.” In Stazio and Taliercio: 91–99. Sannio Pentri e Frentani del VI al I sec a C (1980). [Exhibition catalogue]. Rome. Starr, C. G. (1981). The Beginnings of Imperial Rome Ann Arbor. Stazio, A. (1986). “Il problema delle emissioni campano-tarentine.” In Stazio and Taliercio: 375–392. Stazio, A., and M. Taliercio Mensitieri, eds. (1986). La monetazione di Neapolis nella Campania antica (Atti del VII Convegno del Centro Internazionale di Studi Numismatici, Napoli 20–24 Aprile 1980). Naples. (p. 314) ———, eds. (1998). La monetazione romano-campana Atti del X Convegno del Centro Internazionale di Studi Numismatici, Napoli 18–19 Junio 1993 Rome. Swaddling, J., ed. (1986). Italian Age Artefacts London. Taliercio Mensitieri, M. (1986). “Il bronzo di Neapolis.” In Stazio and Taliercio: 219–374. ——— . (1998). “Le emisssioni romano-campane di bronzo.” In Stazio and Taliercio: 49–139. Thomsen, R. (1957–1961). Early Roman Coinage. Vols. 1–3. Copenhagen. Thurlow, B. K., and I. G. Vecchi. (1979). Italian Cast Coinage London. Van Keuren, F. (1994). The Coinage of Heraclea Lucaniae. Archaeologia 110. Rome. Vecchi, I. (1998–1999). “The coinage of the Rasna: A study in Etruscan numismatics.” RSN 67: 43–63; 69: 5–25; 71: 91–110; 72: 63–85; 78: 3–78. Williams J. H. C., and A. Burnett. (1998). “Alexander the Great and the coinages of western Greece.” In Ashton and Hurter: 380–393. Williams, R. (1992). The Silver Coins of Velia London. Andrew Burnett Andrew Burnett s Deputy D rector of the Br t sh Museum, London.

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The Denarius Coinage of the Roman Republic

Oxford Handbooks Online The Denarius Coinage of the Roman Republic Bernhard E. Woytek The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Coinage Edited by William E Metcalf Pr nt Publ cat on Date: Feb 2012 Onl ne Publ cat on Date: Nov 2012

Subject: Class cal Stud es, Greek and Roman Archaeology, Mater al Culture Stud es DO : 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195305746.013.0018

Abstract and Keywords The denarius coinage consisted, in the main, of four silver denominations, which were probably all introduced at the same time. The leading denomination, as well as its typologically identical halves and quarters, not only were produced from very pure silver but also bore a value mark in asses: this was another novelty that set the reformed silver coins apart from the didrachms (and their fractions) Rome had previously produced. The creation of the denarius coinage was one of the most influential monetary reforms ever carried out by the Romans: the denarius remained the standard silver denomination of their empire for about 450 years, and as a unit of account it was in use well into late antiquity. Furthermore, the tetrarchic argenteus, an important precursor of various other Late Roman silver denominations, was modeled on the denarius, and this coin also provided inspiration for the penny coinages of the Middle Ages. Keywords denarius coinage didrachms Rome monetary reform penny coinages

Monetary History The creation of the denarius coinage was beyond doubt one of the most influential monetary reforms ever carried out by the Romans: the denarius remained the standard silver denomination of their empire for about 450 years, and as a unit of account it was in use well into late antiquity. Furthermore, the tetrarchic argenteus, an important precursor of various other Late Roman silver denominations, was modeled on the denarius, and this coin also provided inspiration for the penny coinages of the Middle Ages. In those days, the Latin term itself was used to designate pennies, and its Romance derivatives (French: denier, Italian: denaro, etc.) have survived even into the modern era. It seems both odd and characteristic at the same time that so far-reaching a reform was conceived in the middle of a war that brought Rome to the brink of extinction, the Second Punic War (218–201 B.C.). Due to the enormous financial strain that had been put on the Roman state by this armed conflict, the Romans were forced to debase the silver coinage with which they had entered the war to an extent unprecedented in Roman monetary history: in the first five years or so of the Second Punic War, the quadrigatus didrachms, which had been struck from almost pure silver (c. 98%) at the beginning, were gradually reduced to a silver content of first around 90% and then around 72%, before some groups of didrachms containing perhaps no more than around 36% of silver were minted (Hollstein 2000: 92–99, 138). At the same time, the weight standard of the bronze coinage accompanying the silver was markedly reduced. In this way, the Hannibalic War caused a complete (p. 316) collapse of the Roman monetary system. An entirely new start was made, with a new coinage. Concerning the precise date of the introduction of the denarius system, no universal agreement has been reached so far, but the margin of uncertainty has become extremely narrow over the past decades. Fifty years ago, Rudi

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The Denarius Coinage of the Roman Republic Thomsen carefully examined all the numismatic evidence available on this matter in his day and deduced that the reformed coins must have been issued in around 215–209 B.C. (Thomsen 1961: 2:311). Thereby Thomsen, in what constitutes a masterly chronological study, was able to resolve a long-standing scholarly debate (on which see Ronchi 1998): both the traditional dating of the denarius reform to 269 B.C. (paradigmatically: Eckhel 1795: 16–17) —a chronology resting on a dangerously precise statement of Pliny (NH 33.44)—and the dating to around 187 B.C. advocated by the “British school” since the 1930s (Mattingly and Robinson 1932; see also Sydenham 1952: xxv) were proved to be wrong. There is, consequently, no need here to lose time over a discussion of the position of the Italian traditionalist school that still maintains a dating of the denarius to the second quarter of the third century (see Ronchi 1998: 46, 51–52). Thomsen's results found brilliant confirmation in the excavations of ancient Morgantina in Sicily. There, well-preserved specimens of the earliest Roman coins of the denarius system—some of them even die linked—were discovered in sealed deposits or in unsealed but coherent and stratigraphically related contexts, beneath destruction layers doubtless connected with the double revolt and recapture of the town in the Second Punic War, in 214/213 and 211 B.C. (Livy 24.36.10; 26.21.14, 17; on the chronology see Hollstein 2008: 42–44). Since the destruction, where it was noted by the excavators, seems not to have been repeated, it was convincingly associated with Morgantina's second revolt from Roman sovereignty in 211 B.C. (Buttrey et al. 1989: 220–222; see also Hersh 1991/1992). Consequently, this year has become a universally accepted terminus ad quem for the introduction of the denarius. While skeptics still prefer to date the creation of the new monetary system to the time span 215–211 B.C. (see, e.g., Loomis 1996: 347), other scholars are convinced that there are good grounds for being more precise: in the modern standard handbook of Republican coinage, published in 1974, Michael H. Crawford offered a concise summary of all the arguments in favor of Thomsen's chronology and discussed additional evidence for it (RRC 28– 35), finally opting for a date of 211 B.C.—a belief he restated, more or less unaltered, 24 years later when reviewing modern research on the topic (“212 or 211”; see Crawford 1998: 121). Recently, it has been suggested that the types of the denarius and its fractions might provide further corroboration of Crawford's original dating (Hollstein 2008). Apart from these considerations, what we know about the development of the Roman state's military and financial situation during the Hannibalic War is widely thought to favor 211 B.C. as the date of the introduction of the new system. Apparently, the Romans could hardly afford a coinage reform before that year, as will be discussed below in more detail.

Fig 17 1

Fig 17 2

Fig 17 3

The creation of the denarius system required access to considerable supplies of bullion; much of the new currency was produced from more or less pure silver (c. 97–99%), thus sharply contrasting with the debased quadrigati (Hollstein 2000: 107, 157, 175). (p. 317) The denarius coinage consisted, in the main, of four silver denominations (see table 17.1), which were probably all introduced at the same time. The leading denomination, as well as its typologically identical halves and quarters, not only were produced from very pure silver but also bore a value mark in asses: this was another novelty that set the reformed silver coins apart from the didrachms (and their fractions) Rome had previously produced. By clearly stating the relationship between the denominations on the coins, confidence in the new coinage would be boosted after the debasement of the quadrigati. The system of denominational marks itself was simply taken over from the earlier cast Roman aes grave, where fractions of the as had been identified by value marks since the early third century. In this way, only the creation of the denarius coinage—which has rightly been called the first “imperial” coinage of Rome (Hill 1909: 28)—brought about the

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The Denarius Coinage of the Roman Republic definite integration of the heterogeneous elements of coinage that the Roman state had been accustomed to using up to then (Burnett 1987: 4). In the early phases of the denarius coinage, a number of differing styles are to be observed (see, for example, figs. 17.1, 17.2, 17.3). The coinage was struck in several different mints in Italy, Sicily, and Sardinia and Table 17.1 Silver denominations of the denarius coinage

(p.

Denomination

Value mark

Value in asses

Types

Fig.

Denarius

X

10

Head of Roma / Dioscuri riding to right

17.1

Quinarius

V

5

Head of Roma / Dioscuri riding to right

17.2

Sestertius

IIS

2½

Head of Roma / Dioscuri riding to right

17.3

Victoriatus

none

not indicated

Head of Jupiter / Victory and trophy

17.4

318) quickly supplanted all non-Roman coins circulating in Italy, thereby monopolizing the market for the newly created Roman exchange medium. The monetary unification of the peninsula and its adjacent islands resulting from this process was the most important consequence of the denarius reform and proved a true turning point in the economic history of the Mediterranean. The denarius was originally struck on a weight standard of 1/72 Roman pound (= 4 scripula, about 4.5 g), with its half and quarter weighing two scripula and one scripulum, respectively. The one element of the system standing apart in various respects—typology, lack of a value mark, lower silver content (just about 65–72%; see Hollstein 2000: 108–111, 175)—was the victoriatus (fig. 17.4), called after its reverse design, a three-quarter denarius by weight, struck on a 3-scripula standard at the beginning and occasionally accompanied by rare double and half pieces. It was produced from around 211 B.C. on for about 40 years only, but in very large quantities (Burnett 1987: 36). As can be seen from the distribution of victoriatus hoards, this denomination originally circulated primarily in southern Italy (Crawford 1985: 56); in the early years of the denarius system it seems to have accounted for the majority of Roman silver coinage in circulation (Backendorf 1998: 175–177). Until now, no consensus has been reached as regards the interpretation of the role of the victoriatus in the Roman economy. What can be stated with confidence is that it did not stand in a fixed relationship to the other elements of the denarius system, as indicated by the absence of a value mark, and this was considered to be in surprising agreement with Pliny's statement that the victoriate “was treated as a commodity” originally (loco mercis habebatur: NH 33.46)—in contrast with “normal” new silver coins like the denarius, quinarius, and sestertius (see Thomsen 1961: 2:377–384). The victoriatus lacked specific iconographic reference to Rome in its design, apart from the legend ROMA: This typological differentiation, which makes it almost look like a “Roman drachm”, as well as the baser alloy, indicates that this denomination was designed to serve a special purpose. Perhaps it was intended to function in the context of the coinages of southern Italy and Sicily (and other drachm coinages, like the superseded Roman quadrigati), as has been argued recently (King 2007: 17–18).

Fig 17 4

Fig 17 5

Unlike the victoriati, all the gold and bronze coins that were produced in the early phase of the denarius coinage displayed value marks indicating their tariffing in asses (or fractions of the as), as did the main silver components of the system: there were three denominations in gold, worth 60 (fig. 17.5), 40, and 20 asses (p. 319) and struck

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The Denarius Coinage of the Roman Republic on standards of 3, 2, and 1 scripula, respectively. Like the reformed silver coins with value marks, all the gold coins bear the same types—in this case the head of Mars on the obverse and an eagle on thunderbolt on the reverse, a martial variation of the triumph theme that had already characterized the quadrigati (pace Meadows 1998: see Hollstein 2008: 56–57). These gold coins were struck in several mints for a brief period in the Second Punic War only, up to around 209/208 B.C. For the bronze coins accompanying the denarius coinage, all of which were produced by striking, the sextantal standard was chosen, with the as having a theoretical target weight of 1/6 of a Roman libra or 2 unciae (i.e. 54.5 g), although the weight of the bronzes fell off rapidly. In contrast with the silver and gold coins, the bronzes bore traditional types: the head of Janus, now laureate (Ritter 1982: 2), on the obverse of the as (fig. 17.6) and other deities on its fractions, with the prora as the common reverse motif of all denominations, each of them clearly identified with a value mark. The types of the bronze coinage were meant to emphasize continuity with the times of cast aes grave, in a monetary landscape that had, for the most part, changed beyond recognition in the denarius reform.

Fig 17 6

The fortune of the different denominations created in the reform was extremely varied: after around 208, no more Mars/eagle gold coins were produced, so the trimetallic system of the Second Punic War swiftly transformed into the de facto bimetallic Republican coinage of the second and first centuries B.C. (until Caesar). The famous gold stater of T. Quinctius Flamininus with his portrait (RRC no. 548; R.-Alföldi 1984) is not a Roman coin at all, and the rare gold issues of Sulla and Pompey the Great (Bahrfeldt 1923: nos. 10–15) are mere Gelegenheitsprägungen (“occasion coinages”), in Max von Bahrfeldt's terminology. Of the silver denominations, the enigmatic victoriati were struck until around 170 B.C., but the production of denarius fractions was discontinued even sooner, at the end of the third century already: just three specimens of two different quinarius types of the first decades of the second century have been recorded in all (Witschonke 1998). Quinarii reappeared only around 100 B.C., when their production was sanctioned in a lex Clodia mentioned by Pliny (NH 33.46). This law probably legalized the equation of the old victoriates—originally three-quarter denarii—with quinarii (i.e. half denarii); the new quinarii struck under the lex Clodia (on chronology, see Mattingly 1998: 152) (p. 320) fittingly bore the types of the victoriati (fig. 17.7), and from then on denarius halves—as well as aurei quinarii under the empire—tended to display Victory reverses. Quinarii and sestertii were struck by the Romans during the Social War (91–88 B.C.) and also during the Civil Wars at the end of the Republic (from 49 B.C.) but they were produced in small quantities and therefore relatively unimportant in economic terms. The vast bulk of coinage in circulation in the later second century B.C. was composed of silver denarii and bronzes—especially asses, which had been produced on a very large scale in the first half of the century. This heavy minting of asses seems to have accounted for an important change in the relationship between Republican silver and bronze coins that was enacted in around 141 B.C. At that time, the denarius (“tenner”)— originally a 10-as piece, which had come to be struck on a standard of 84 to the pound (c. 3.9 g) from about the turn of the century—was retariffed at 16 asses by the Roman authorities, possibly in a lex Flaminia minus solvendi (Festus p. 470 L.; see Crawford 1974: 613). Consequently, the quinarius and sestertius changed to 8 and 4 asses, respectively, and this scale of values remained in force into imperial times. By this measure, the Roman state probably only acknowledged a shift of exchange rates that had developed on the open market because of the oversupply of asses, often worn and unattractive (Buttrey 1957). For a very short time after the reform, denarii with the new value mark XVI were struck (fig. 17.8; on chronology, see Mattingly 1998: 160), then the traditional X was resumed and continued in use, alongside the new monogram ✕- (standing for XVI; see fig. 17.25)—the denarius had also retained its name, after all. A far-reaching consequence of the retariffing of the denarius was a change in the Roman unit of reckoning: from 141 or 140 B.C. on, all state payments and official assessments of value were calculated in sestertii rather than asses. Crawford may well be right in suspecting that this practice was instituted in order to disguise the devaluation of the as, which had in effect taken place (1985: 147–151).

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The Denarius Coinage of the Roman Republic

Fig 17 7

Fig 17 8

The last major coinage reform of the Republic enacted by law was the introduction of the semuncial standard for bronze coins in the lex Papiria de aeris pondere, briefly mentioned by Pliny (NH 33.46). This law was probably passed in 91 B.C. (RRC p. 611), and bronze denominations struck according to the new light weight standard were produced for a few years; one otherwise anonymous series is even signed with the abbreviated name of the law: L. P. D. A. P. (RRC no. 338). Rare sestertii dating from the same period (RRC nos. 337/4 and 340/3) that show the letters (p. 321) E. L. P.—beyond reasonable doubt standing for e lege Papiria—demonstrate that, surprisingly, the short-lived revival of this silver denomination in the Social War was authorized by the Papirian law, too. The semuncial standard for asses was to have an important future, since it was used by Augustus in his major coinage reform of 23 B.C. At the time of its introduction, however, it does not seem to have been popular at all: from the late 80s B.C. onward, the Roman mint struck no more bronze coins for about 40 years. Sulla, who produced a military issue of asses in that period (RRC no. 368), carefully avoided using the semuncial standard and returned to the uncial weight standard instead, which de facto had been in use before the reform. Time was not ripe for a coinage whose fiduciary character was all too obvious. Apart from a tiny issue of “triumphal” aurei struck in the name of Pompey (RRC no. 402: only five specimens recorded), the coinage produced by the Roman state from the death of Sulla in 78 B.C. to the outbreak of the Civil War between the senate and Caesar in 49 B.C. consisted exclusively of silver denarii. In 48 B.C., the minting of the denarius fractions—quinarius and sestertius—was resumed by the Caesareans; the more popular of the two denominations, the half denarius, survived as a silver coin even into the imperial era. But of far greater importance was another innovation of Julius Caesar: in 46 B.C., the memorable year of his four triumphs, he had a huge issue of gold coins produced in Rome, which was signed by the praetor A. Hirtius (RRC no. 466: fig. 17.10). These aurei had a target weight of 1/40 pound (c. 8.18 g) and were worth 25 denarii. The enormous scale of this issue may be assessed by a comparison of the numbers of surviving specimens of the Hirtius aurei and earlier gold issues. Of Caesar's first aurei (RRC no. 452/1: fig. 17.9), produced in 48 B.C. in Illyricum (Woytek 2003: 142) on the model of the golden Gelegenheitsprägungen of Sulla and Pompey, only nine specimens are known (Crawford 1974: 688); of the Hirtius issue, by contrast, no fewer than 537 specimens were documented in a die study (Molinari 2003). But the Roman authorities obviously did not want the production of gold coins to remain an ephemeral phenomenon: aurei were struck in the capital in 46/45 and 44 B.C. (RRC nos. 475/1 and 481), and the former issue, signed by the city prefect L. Munatius Plancus, was even accompanied by aureus halves, which thus made their first appearance in Roman monetary history (RRC no. 475/2). After Caesar's assassination, none of the contenders for power could dispense with striking aurei, which had become a key element of the Roman coinage within a few years after the “Hirtius revolution” of 46 B.C. The sheer necessity of financing the armies engaged in the fight for Caesar's heritage paved the way for the pivotal role of the aureus in the monetary economy of the Roman imperial period.

Fig 17 9

Fig 17 10

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The Denarius Coinage of the Roman Republic

Fig 17 11

(p. 322) Thus Julius Caesar supplemented the Roman monetary system by the creation of gold coinage on a regular basis, and he also revived the production of silver fractions of the denarius. Furthermore, under Caesar's rule, in 46/45 B.C., brass (orichalcum) was introduced to the Roman mint as a coinage metal for the first time. It was used for the well-known coins—in all probability dupondii—struck by the prefect Clovius (RRC no. 476: fig. 17.11) and for the smaller, possibly earlier issue of the same denomination signed by the praetor Oppius (RRC no. 550; on the attribution and chronology of both issues, see Woytek 2003: 271–283). These coins are, together with provincial coinages of Mark Antony and Augustus from the 30s and 20s B.C., important precursors of the brass denominations created in the monetary reform of Augustus in 23 B.C. Caesar's contribution to the development of Roman coinage in all three metals cannot be overestimated: it was in effect the dictator who had laid the foundations for Roman imperial coinage (Woytek 2004).

Administration, Production, Control In Republican times, the mint of Rome was situated on the Arx of the Capitoline Hill, the safest place of the city, next to the temple of Juno Moneta (Coarelli 1994: 23–47), whence the Latin word for “money” (moneta). There was a board of three magistrates whose exclusive competence was the production of coinage: the so-called IIIviri monetales (official title IIIviri aere argento auro flando feriundo, abbreviated IIIviri a a a f f ; the college was expanded to four officials by Caesar in 44 B.C. for some years). This was an annual, presenatorial office that was part of the minores magistratus; it was held by junior officials at the beginning of their careers and is attested epigraphically well into the third century A.D. (Jones 1970). The date of its institution is uncertain. That it developed from the board of IIIviri mensarii that was created in 216 B.C. (Livy 23.21.6) because of the state's shortage of money and is attested until 210 (Livy 26.36.8) is a guess (Pink 1952: 50; RRC p. 602 n. 2) not worthy of too much credit.

Fig 17 12

In the early phases of the denarius coinage, the mint of Rome produced issues signed just ROMA—otherwise anonymous—and coins displaying additionally small symbols (fig. 17.12; see also fig. 17.18), letters, and monograms in the reverse field. The latter are to be interpreted as marks of the magistrates responsible for the respective issues. The monograms gradually gave way to fuller forms of their names (see fig. 17.19 and 17.20), until these were spelled out. Step by step, the standardized coin types of the early denarius disappeared, and the moneyers came to be fully (p. 323) responsible for the design of the coins as such—a license that resulted in a bewildering variety of different coin types (as will be described below). The precise chronology of the colleges of moneyers and, consequently, of Roman Republican coinage as a whole is extremely difficult to establish. Therefore, handbooks have used the simple alphabetical classification by gentes of the officials named on the coins, which was introduced by Fulvio Orsini in the late Renaissance (Ursinus 1577), until the end of the nineteenth century (Babelon 1885/1886). The modern chronological framework of the coinage as laid out in Crawford's RRC is based above all on the analysis of coin hoards (Crawford 1969). In fact, numismatic methodology in respect to hoard analysis was developed precisely in the context of work on Roman Republican denarius coinage in the nineteenth century by Bartolomeo Borghesi and Theodor Mommsen (see Crawford 1990; Hollstein 2004). Although Crawford's RRC is an exemplary study, especially with respect to relative chronology, the precise dates assigned to the various issues in his book must, to a certain extent, be treated with caution. They are based on the hoard evidence available in the 1960s and merely reflect Crawford's interpretation of it. New denarius hoards that have come to light in the meantime have required modifications to the datings given in RRC (see, most

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The Denarius Coinage of the Roman Republic notably, Hersh and Walker 1984), and alternative chronologies have been proposed for various periods of the denarius coinage after further research, even if adjustments in most cases tend to be minor (Hersh 1977; Mattingly 1998; Hollstein 1993; Woytek 2003).

Fig 17 13

Fig 17 14

A distinctive feature of Republican coinage, which adds considerably to the value its study has for numismatics in general, can be ascribed to the inventiveness of the monetales In order to facilitate the supervision of the production process, they devised many different control systems. In a considerable number of issues, especially of the end of the second and the first half of the first century, either single dies or groups of dies were identified by small symbols, numbers, or letters engraved on them. Though some of the systems employed are extremely complex and defy explanation (see, for example, de Ruyter 1996), others provide a valuable insight into the working of the Roman Republican mint: A classic case is the denarius issue of the moneyer P. Crepusius (fig. 17.13), which was produced from 519 continuously numbered reverse dies (Buttrey 1976). Another unusual characteristic of Republican denarii, the use of flans with serrated edges (see a serratus—for the term, Tac. Germ 5—in fig. 17.14), occurs on isolated issues from the earliest phase of the denarius coinage (e.g. RRC no. 79) and then more frequently from the end of the second century down to about 60 B.C. (RRC no. 412). It is not clear whether serration was originally intended to serve a practical purpose, for example to prevent forgeries; today scholars agree, albeit with some hesitation, in regarding it as a purely decorative (p. 324) feature in its heyday (Burnett 1987: 23), a whim of the workers at the mint or the moneyers. The same explanation may also hold for the occasional variation in the physical appearance of Republican denarii. Flans normally, through the centuries, had a diameter of about 17–19 mm, but there are also types that were struck on unusually small, thick flans (RRC no. 320/1; fig. 17.15), while some issues, especially around 85 B.C., were produced on very thin and broad flans, with diameters up to 25 mm (most notably RRC no. 354/1: fig. 17.16; see de Callataÿ 2004). The weight standard of the denarius, however, remained unaffected by these experiments. On the whole, the Republican denarius coinage was struck very carelessly, and quality control often failed, with misstrikes and especially brockages (fig. 17.17) turning up much more frequently than in the coinages of the high principate (Goddard 1993).

Fig 17 15

Fig 17 16

Fig 17 17

Monetales were not the only magistrates entitled to strike coin. Occasionally, we find quaestors (fig. 17.26), aediles, or even praetors signing coins issued by the Roman mint, only in part by special authorization of the senate (EX SC vel sim.; Crawford 1974: 603 and 606). Apart from these cases, it seems likely that commanders in

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The Denarius Coinage of the Roman Republic the field were qualified to produce money by virtue of their imperium (Mommsen 1860: 376; contra RRC p. 604). The issues emanating from the various Italian and Sicilian mints in the Hannibalic War during the first phase of the denarius coinage may perhaps be seen in this context. In the conflict between Sulla and Marius and in the long period of Civil Wars at the end of the Republic, starting from 49 B.C., the minting of aurei and denarii by military commanders in the provinces of the Roman Empire became a widespread phenomenon. These “imperatorial” issues were produced in temporarily established camp mints (moneta castrensis: Lucan 1.380) or, wherever possible, at provincial mints occupied for the purpose (see examples from Gaul, Illyria, Asia, etc. in Woytek 2003, 2006). This common practice played a major role in the diffusion of Roman coinage in the Mediterranean and was instrumental in the development of the structures underlying the production of Julio-Claudian coinage. (p. 325)

The Development of Coin Designs When the denarius system was created, new coin types were designed for the leading denomination and its silver fractions, quinarii and sestertii. The head of the city goddess Roma in a winged helmet was depicted on the obverse, the Dioscuri riding to the right, with leveled spears, on the reverse, where the coins also bore the legend identifying the issuing authority, ROMA (figs. 17.1–17.3; on the originality of the reverse type, see Böhm 1997: 73). Roma was, of course, an obvious choice. As for the Dioscuri, it has recently been suggested that the Tusculan origin of one of the consuls of both 212 and 211 B.C., Q. Fulvius Flaccus and Cn. Fulvius Centumalus, could have motivated the selection of this type in the latter year, since Castor and Pollux had their most famous sanctuary in Tusculum (Hollstein 2008: 51–55). They may, however, figure on the coins primarily in their role as divine protectors of the Roman people: The Di penates publici p R Quiritium had been assimilated to the Dioscuri (cf. RRC no. 307/1a) and were worshiped as such in a temple on the Velia (Dion. Hal. 1.68.1), which is first mentioned in connection with events of 167 B.C. (Livy 45.16.5) but surely dates from a much earlier period (see Varro LL 5.54, on the sacraria Argeorum; Wissowa 1912: 165). Thus, the original types of the denarius presumably united the patroness of Rome with her official guardians. The typological conservatism of the Romans that prompted, to cite but an extreme example, the retention—with very few exceptions—of the design of the as from the so-called Janus-prow series of cast aes grave (c. 225 B.C., on Crawford's chronology, or some years earlier; see Ritter 1982) down to Sulla and beyond was responsible for a protracted use of the denarius types introduced in the reform of the Second Punic War as well: the head of Roma remained the only obverse type of the standard silver coin until the second half of the second century B.C. and occurred most commonly until 100. On the reverse, changes took place earlier. While the charging Dioscuri were retained as the most important type down to about 170 B.C., they were accompanied by a second reverse type, Luna in a biga, from the first decade of the second century onward (fig. 17.18). This type was transformed in the middle 150s B.C., when Victory replaced Luna as the biga's charioteer (fig. 17.19)—a typological change that has tentatively been linked with Rome's predominance in the Mediterranean after the Third Macedonian War (RRC p. 721). In the following decades, various bigae and quadrigae became popular reverse types of the denarii, and the generic term bigati, as Republican denarii are sometimes designated by Livy, Pliny the Elder, and Tacitus, stems from this period of coinage.

Fig 17 18

Fig 17 19

(p. 326) With different deities in the chariots and various animals drawing them, the reverse of the denarius became a field of typological experimentation in the 140s and 130s B.C. An important step on the way toward complete freedom of design consisted in the copying—on denarii—of types that had been used on other Roman denominations earlier (Ritter 1982: 7–8, 20). Already in around 144 B.C., the reverse type of a denarius had been

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The Denarius Coinage of the Roman Republic modeled on the reverse of the quadrigatus didrachms, with just slight variation (Jupiter in quadriga to the right, hurling a thunderbolt, RRC no. 221: fig. 17.20), and some years later, the reverse of rare third-century gold denominations accompanying the quadrigati, the so-called oath scene gold, was copied (RRC no. 234/1, dated to 137 B.C. by Crawford: fig. 17.21). This remarkable issue was the first Roman denarius to show an obverse type other than the head of Roma: the head of Mars. From that point on, the obverse motif could in theory have been chosen freely, but quite characteristically, “Roma” was rather successful in defending her position for some time, since typological traditions were strong. Once again, it was through the repeated copying of older coin obverses that the process got going: the classic obverse of the Republican as, the bearded head of Janus, was chosen to decorate the denarii of M. Furius Philus (RRC no. 281, dated to 119 B.C. by Crawford: fig. 17.22), and the youthful, beardless janiform head well known from the quadrigatus didrachms was put on the obverse of the denarii of C. Fonteius some five years later (RRC no. 290/1: fig. 17.23). At this time, the original reverse design had already disappeared from the denarius coinage completely: the charging Dioscuri were last depicted in two issues of around 120 B.C. (RRC nos. 277 and 278).

Fig 17 20

Fig 17 21

Fig 17 22

Fig 17 23

From then on, Republican moneyers made full use of their freedom to design the coins as they wished, thereby creating the extreme typological diversity that is so characteristic of the Republican denarii and unprecedented in earlier ancient coinages. Moneyers frequently chose coin types relating to their families: this development is to be seen against the background of the social changes in the Roman elite in the second century B.C., which prompted an increase in public displays of status (p. 327) by the aristocracy in various forms (ritual, literary, architectural, etc.), as has been pointed out convincingly (Meadows and Williams 2001: 37–47). As one of the actual factors that proved favorable to the typological paradigm shift may be cited the lex Gabinia tabellaria of 139 B.C., the first law that enforced secret balloting in elections and consequently ended the voting by show of hands. As a result, it became increasingly difficult for candidates running for office to control their support, and new possibilities of selfadvertisement were doubtless welcome to junior officials who planned to launch successful political careers. In a society like the Roman Republican one, few things mattered more than descent, and therefore it comes as no surprise that private types relating to the origins and the family history of the moneyers are most common. The gens Iulia claimed descent from Venus, and in order to illustrate his divine ancestry, the moneyer L. Iulius Caesar put Venus, in a biga of Cupids, on the reverse of his denarii (RRC no. 320, fig. 17.15), struck about 100 B.C. The coins of the Caecilii Metelli, on the other hand, may stand as paradigmatic records of ancestral prowess. In 250 B.C., L. Caecilius Metellus defeated Hasdrubal at Panormus and captured more than 100 Punic war elephants, which were taken to Rome to be shown off at the consul's triumph. Therefore, moneyers and other magistrates of the same family striking coins in the subsequent centuries frequently chose to depict elephants, whether as

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The Denarius Coinage of the Roman Republic secondary symbols (RRC no. 262/1, fig. 17.24) or as main types (RRC no. 269/1, fig. 17.25, and RRC no. 374/1). These are obvious examples, of course: in many cases, we probably fail to grasp more recondite iconographic allusions due to a lack of information from other sources, and the precise meaning of many a Republican coin type still escapes us.

Fig 17 24

Fig 17 25

Fig 17 26

It was not all about ancestral glory, family cults, and divine extraction, however: contemporary politics was also a major factor in the choice of coin types, and pictorial records of—or comments on—current events appeared quite frequently alongside more “personal” designs. An early example of this group of types is a denarius of the quaestor C. Fundanius depicting the triumph of Marius over the Cimbri and Teutoni in 101 B.C. on its reverse, with the young son of the triumphator riding on one of the horses of the quadriga (RRC no. 326/1, fig. 17.26) (pace Mattingly 1998: 152 n. 11; see. Cic. Mur. 11). Hollstein's study of the complex iconography of post-Sullan denarius coinage has made it clear that in this period, types with reference to contemporary history—albeit often in a highly allusive form—accounted for nearly half of the types used in total (Hollstein 1993: 388–389): the wars against Sertorius and against the pirates, various other achievements of (p. 328) Pompey, the exposure of the Catilinarian conspiracy, political concepts of the populares—all this is mirrored in some way in contemporary coinage. It is not by chance that an important part of the numismatic Bildsprache of imperial times developed precisely out of this kind of coin type.

Fig 17 27

Fig 17 28

Fig 17 29

Fig 17 30

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The Denarius Coinage of the Roman Republic The outbreak of civil war between Caesar and Pompey in 49 B.C., which caused heavy minting on both sides, did not immediately entail important typological innovations in the coinage. The decisive change did not occur until Caesar's monarchy, in 44 B.C.: in a senatus consultum that can be dated to December 45 B.C., Caesar, as the first Roman statesman, was officially honored with the right to have his portrait placed on coins of the Roman state in his lifetime (Cassius Dio 44.4.4). The epoch-making decree of the senate took effect immediately: nearly all the denarius types designed by the IIIIviri monetales of 44 B.C. (RRC no. 480) before the Ides of March show Caesar's portrait with the corona aurea on the obverse, mostly accompanied by his patroness, Venus, on the reverse, in various poses (fig. 17.27). Two observations may be made. First, these issues were clearly inspired by Hellenistic royal coin design—the sovereign's portrait on one side, the full-length figure of his divine protectress on the other. Second, the decision to portray the living dictator may have been influenced, even triggered, by the rather frequent use of ancestors’ portraits as coin types in the 50s and 40s B.C.: in this period, moneyers’ relatives— some of whom had died just a short time before—appeared on coins from the Roman mint, and in 46/45 B.C. Pompey, who had been assassinated in the autumn of 48, was portrayed on denarii (RRC no. 470) issued by his elder son in Spain (Ritter 1988; on RRC no. 480 in general, see Woytek 2003: 413–432). Whatever the precise reasons for the decision to put Caesar's portrait on coins, its consequences were overwhelming: portraiture immediately became the most powerful instrument of numismatic “propaganda”—if one may venture to use the term—that the contenders for power after Caesar's assassination had at their disposal. Nearly everybody took the opportunity, even Brutus, on two aureus types and in the famous imperatorial issue boldly celebrating the Ides of March (fig. 17.28). In his case, the choice of coin types caused comment even in antiquity (Cassius Dio 47.25.3), while the heads of Caesar's political heirs Mark Antony (fig. 17.29) and Octavian (fig. 17.30) turned up not unexpectedly: Antony had already been portrayed in the coinage of Rome in 44 B.C., as the official chief mourner of the dead dictator. Through the coinage of the triumviral era the new iconographic (p. 329) concept was transmitted to the imperial period: from Augustus on, the ruler's portrait became the most important—because most easily recognizable—element of Roman imperial coin design (Wolters 1999: 308–311). Caesar's legacy proved decisive here, too.

Coinage and Finances Despite all the interest that coin types may generate, Roman Republican coins of the denarius period were not produced in order to convey visual messages of the state to the people using the money, but for financial reasons. Since the literary source material at our disposal is particularly rich for the later Republican era, as against other periods of antiquity, it provides fairly detailed insight also into economic matters. Therefore, it seems only natural that the economic aspect of Republican coin issues has been attracting specific interest among scholars for some time. Indeed, the nature of this coinage can be understood properly only if single issues or groups of issues are placed in their financial context, whenever possible. To begin with, the very problem of dating the introduction of the denarius provides an important example for the need to consider the economic background of Republican coins. From 215 to 212 B.C., the situation of the Roman aerarium was desperate, as has been noted (Crawford 1974: 33): Livy reports the way the state had to resort to different forms of credit in order to be able to finance its operations. Therefore, many scholars feel that it was, in all likelihood, only after the capture of Syracuse in 212 or, more probably, 211 B.C. (Seibert 1993: 291–292), and after the capitulation of Capua in the spring of 211 B.C. that precious metal became available again in sufficient quantities to produce the new denarius coinage, struck from pure silver (see, most recently, Hollstein 2008: 54–55; contra Ronchi 1998: 66–68). Similarly, at the end of the Republic, Julius Caesar's most important monetary reform— the introduction of the aureus on a large scale—can be interpreted correctly only when set against the contemporary financial background. The decision to strike gold in abundance in 46 B.C. was in all probability influenced by the need to pay out an enormous amount of money to Caesar's victorious army and to the Roman citizens in the autumn of that year as (p. 330) triumphal donatives (Appian, civ. 2.102.422). The creation of a regular Roman gold coinage was thus prima facie occasioned by practical requirements (Woytek 2003: 182–186, 264–268). The “microscopic” perspective is essential for the study of specific problems, but we must not lose track of significant long-term developments. In the decades after the denarius reform and the introduction of the sextantal standard for aes coins, the Roman state issued enormous quantities of bronzes, especially asses, until the middle of the second century. These accounted for the bulk of coin production in total, and from about 170 to the mid-

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The Denarius Coinage of the Roman Republic 150s B.C., the striking of denarii was virtually suspended. Then, the pattern changed fundamentally. The production of silver skyrocketed in the second half of the second century, especially after the retariffing of the denarius to 16 asses, and remained on a high level, with little bronze being coined after the 140s. It has plausibly been inferred that this development coincided with a change in the predominant medium of military pay from bronze to silver (Crawford 1985: 72 and 146). Military pay is doubtless to be regarded as the most important expenditure of the Roman state. For the Republic, this is neatly illustrated by the dramatic increase in the volume of denarius issues during protracted periods of warfare in the first century: both in the Social War (91–88 B.C.) and in the Civil Wars at the end of the Republic, from 49 B.C. onward, issues of enormous size were minted, with the production in the intervening 40 years or so falling off markedly (Woytek 2007: 501–502; Crawford 1974: 651–671). The quantity of denarii struck during these wars was, in fact, so huge that it still accounted for the majority of Roman silver in circulation during the early and middle Julio-Claudian period. Some military issues of the 40s and 30s B.C. were produced on an impressive scale: in fact, the legionary denarii of Mark Antony minted in the run-up to Actium, by far the largest imperatorial issue (RRC no. 544; see Woytek 2007: 503–518), alone seem to have still made up roughly 1/5 of the total denarius population as late as Vespasian's reign (Woytek 2007: 512). In an understandable attempt to quantify changes in output volume as precisely as possible, some numismatists— following the example set by Crawford (1974: 640–694, 1985: 176)—have recently tried to calculate Roman Republican coin production in absolute figures using various statistical methods. Opinions among scholars diverge greatly about whether meaningful results are to be gained from these calculations (Buttrey 1993, 1994; de Callataÿ 1995): the extrapolations involved in them, especially concerning output figures per die, are widely regarded as questionable and potentially unreliable, and the basis of “quantitative numismatics” as a whole therefore seems insecure. For this reason, we should—in the present writer's opinion—not pin all our hopes on the quantitative approach. In order to obtain solid results, it seems preferable to estimate primarily relative fluctuations in coin output, which can be attempted on the basis of the actual representation of issues in the material that has come down to us. This approach was chosen for a study of the well-documented period from 49 to 42 B.C., in which the rhythms of coin production were analyzed in detail, year by year, and were found to be in (p. 331) accordance with the information on finances available in the literary sources (Woytek 2003: 532–536). The author would like to express his gratitude to Wilhelm Hollstein (Dresden) for most useful discussions as well as to Richard B. Witschonke (New York) for reading and commenting on a previous version of this contribution. Günther Dembski (Vienna) generously gave permission to illustrate the article with coins from the Coin Cabinet of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Fig. 17.1. Denarius, RRC 53/2: KHM Vienna, inv. MK 79 (4.49 g; 6 h). Photograph by the author. Fig. 17.2. Quinarius, RRC 47/1a: KHM Vienna, inv. MK 85 (2.14 g; 2 h). Photograph by the author. Fig. 17.3. Sestertius, RRC 44/7: KHM Vienna, inv. MK 83 (1.25 g; 11 h). Photograph by the author. Fig. 17.4. Victoriatus, RRC 70/1: KHM Vienna, inv. MK 35.658 (2.74 g; 11 h). Photograph by the author. Fig. 17.5. 60-as gold piece, RRC 44/2: KHM Vienna, inv. MK 379 (3.35 g; 11 h). Photograph by the author. Fig. 17.6. As (sextantal standard), RRC 56/2: KHM Vienna, inv. MK 100 (52.03 g; 12 h). Photograph by the author. Fig. 17.7. Quinarius, RRC 331/1 (M): KHM Vienna, inv. MK 3949 (1.86 g; 10 h). Photograph by the author. Fig. 17.8. Denarius, RRC 224/1: KHM Vienna, inv. MK 36.477 (4.04 g; 1 h). Photograph by the author. Fig. 17.9. Aureus, RRC 452/1: KHM Vienna, inv. MK 2376 (8.65 g; 10 h). Photograph by the author. Fig. 17.10. Aureus, RRC 466/1: KHM Vienna, inv. MK 2390 (8.12 g; 9 h). Photograph by the author. Fig. 17.11. Dupondius (orichalcum), RRC 476/1b: KHM Vienna, inv. MK 4252 (16.24 g; 12 h). Photograph by the author. Fig. 17.12. Denarius, RRC 122/2: KHM Vienna, inv. MK 205 (3.34 g; 4 h). Photograph by the author. Fig. 17.13. Denarius, RRC 361/1c (obv. corn ear, B; rev. die no. LXIIII): KHM Vienna, inv. MK 1814 (4.18 g; 7 h). Photograph by the author. Fig. 17.14. Denarius serratus, RRC 311/1d (C): KHM Vienna, inv. MK 36.456 (3.89 g; 4 h). Photograph by the author. (p. 332) Fig. 17.15. Denarius, RRC 320/1 (R, two dots): KHM Vienna, inv. MK 2247 (3.99 g; 2 h). Photograph by the author. Fig. 17.16. Denarius, RRC 354/1: KHM Vienna, inv. MK 2614 (3.56 g; 6 h). Photograph by the author.

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The Denarius Coinage of the Roman Republic Fig. 17.17. Denarius, RRC 286/1, obverse brockage: KHM Vienna, inv. MK 3804 (3.80 g). Photograph by the author. Fig. 17.18. Denarius, RRC 141/1: KHM Vienna, inv. MK 4023 (3.91 g; 2 h). Photograph by the author. Fig. 17.19. Denarius, RRC 200/1: KHM Vienna, inv. MK 3223 (4.01 g; 4 h). Photograph by the author. Fig. 17.20. Denarius, RRC 221/1: KHM Vienna, inv. MK 882 (3.84 g; 6 h). Photograph by the author. Fig. 17.21. Denarius, RRC 234/1: KHM Vienna, inv. MK 4079 (3.80 g; 9 h). Photograph by the author. Fig. 17.22. Denarius, RRC 281/1: KHM Vienna, inv. MK 2099 (3.84 g; 1 h). Photograph by the author. Fig. 17.23. Denarius, RRC 290/1 (Q): KHM Vienna, inv. MK 2028 (3.84 g; 5 h). Photograph by the author. Fig. 17.24. Denarius, RRC 262/1: KHM Vienna, inv. MK 967 (3.90 g; 8 h). Photograph by the author. Fig. 17.25. Denarius, RRC 269/1: KHM Vienna, inv. MK 940 (3.84 g; 10 h). Photograph by the author. Fig. 17.26. Denarius, RRC 326/1 (H, one dot): KHM Vienna, inv. MK 2076 (3.87 g; 6 h). Photograph by the author. Fig. 17.27. Denarius, RRC 480/3 (G): KHM Vienna, inv. MK 2421 (4.08 g; 1 h). Photograph by the author. Fig. 17.28. Denarius, RRC 508/3: Numismatica Ars Classica NAC AG Auction 39 (2007: Feirstein, part I), no. 89 (3.71 g). Photo © Numismatica Ars Classica NAC AG. Fig. 17.29. Denarius, RRC 542/1: KHM Vienna, inv. MK 753 (3.87 g; 3 h). Photograph by the author. Fig. 17.30. Denarius, RIC I, 2nd ed., Augustus 254b: KHM Vienna, inv. MK 4477 (3.93 g; 4 h). Photograph by the author.

Bibliography Bibliography Alföldi, M. R.- (1984). “Der Stater des T. Quinctius Flamininus.” NZ 98: 19–26. Alram, M., and F. Schmidt-Dick, eds. (2007). Numismata Carnuntina Forschungen und Material. 3 vols. Vienna. Archibald, M. M., and M. R. Cowell. (1993). Metallurgy in Numismatics. Vol. 3. RNS Special Publication 24. London. Babelon, E. (1885/1886). Description historique et chronologique des monnaies de la république romaine, vulgairement appellées monnaies consulaires 2 vols. Paris. Backendorf, D. (1998). Römische Münzschätze des zweiten und ersten Jahrhunderts v Chr vom italienischen Festland SFMA 13. Berlin. von Bahrfeldt, M. (1923). Die Römische Goldmünzenprägung während der Republik und unter Augustus Eine chronologische und metrologische Studie Münzstudien 1. Halle. Böhm, S. (1997). Die Münzen der römischen Republik und ihre Bildquellen Mainz. (p. 333) Burnett, A. (1987). Coinage in the Roman World London. Burnett, A., U. Wartenberg, and R. Witschonke, eds. (1998). Coins of Macedonia and Rome: Essays in Honour of Charles Hersh London. Buttrey, T. V. (1957). “On the Retariffing of the Roman Denarius.” ANSMN 7: 57–65. ——— . (1976). “The Denarii of P. Crepusius and Roman Republican Mint Organisation.” ANSMN 21: 67–108. ——— . (1993). “Calculating Ancient Coin Production: Facts and Fantasies.” NC 153: 335–351. ——— . (1994). “Calculating Ancient Coin Production II: Why It Cannot Be Done.” NC 154: 341–352. Buttrey, T. V., K. T. Erim, T. D. Groves, and R. R. Holloway. (1989). Morgantina Studies. Vol. 2. The Coins Princeton. Coarelli, F. (1994). “Moneta. Le officine della zecca di Roma tra Repubblica e Impero.” AIIN 38–41: 23–66.

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The Denarius Coinage of the Roman Republic Crawford, M. H. (1969). Roman Republican Coin Hoards RNS Special Publication 4. London. ——— . (1974). Roman Republican Coinage 2 vols. Cambridge. ——— . (1985). Coinage and Money under the Roman Republic: Italy and the Mediterranean Economy London. ——— . (1990). “From Borghesi to Mommsen: The Creation of an Exact Science.” In M. H. Crawford et al.: 125–132. ——— . (1998). “Selinus and the Quadrigatus.” In Burnett et al.: 119–123. Crawford, M. H., C. R. Ligota, and J. B. Trapp, eds. (1990). Medals and Coins from Budé to Mommsen.Warburg Institute Surveys and Texts 21. London. de Callataÿ, F. (1995). “Calculating Ancient Coin Production: Seeking a Balance.” NC 155: 289–311. ——— . (2004). “Le poids exceptionnel de certaines émissions de deniers romains républicains ou comment résister à la tentation de construire une grande hypothèse historique.” RBN 150: 1–13. de Ruyter, P. H. (1996). “The Denarii of the Roman Republican Moneyer Lucius Julius Bursio, a Die Analysis.” NC 156: 79–147. Eckhel, J. (1795). Doctrina numorum veterum. Vol. 5. Continens numos consulares et familiarum Vienna. Goddard, J. P. (1993). “Roman Brockages: A Preliminary Survey of Their Frequency and Type.” In Archibald and Cowell: 71–85. Heftner, H., and K. Tomaschitz, eds. (2004). Ad fontes! Festschrift für Gerhard Dobesch zum fünfundsechzigsten Geburtstag am 15 September 2004 Vienna. Hersh, C. A. (1977). “Notes on the Chronology and Interpretation of the Roman Republican Coinage: Some Comments on Crawford's Roman Republican Coinage.” NC  7 17 = 137: 19–36. ——— . (1991/1992). “At Last, Morgantina.” AJN 3–4: 187–194. Hersh, C. A., and A. Walker (1984). “The Mesagne Hoard.” ANSMN 29: 103–134. Hill, G. F. (1909). Historical Roman Coins from the Earliest Times to the Reign of Augustus London. Hollstein, W. (1993). Die stadtrömische Münzprägung der Jahre 78–50 v Chr zwischen politischer Aktualität und Familienthematik Kommentar und Bibliographie Quellen und Forschungen zur Antiken Welt 14. Munich. ——— , ed. (2000). Metallanalytische Untersuchungen an Münzen der Römischen Republik Berliner Numismatische Forschungen N. F. 6. Berlin. ——— . (2004). “Theodor Mommsen und die Chronologie der römisch-republikanischen Münzen.” In von Kaenel et al.: 173–191. (p. 334) ——— . (2008). “Die Dioskuren und die Einführung des Denars.” JNG 58: 41–63. Jones, J. R. (1970). “Mint Magistrates in the Early Roman Empire.” BICS 17: 70–78. von Kaenel, H.-M., M. R.-Alföldi, U. Peter, and H. Komnick, eds. (2004). Geldgeschichte vs Numismatik Theodor Mommsen und die antike Münze Berlin. King, C. E. (2007). Roman Quinarii from the Republic to Diocletian and the Tetrarchy Oxford. Kneissl, P., and V. Losemann, eds. (1988). Alte Geschichte und Wissenschaftsgeschichte Festschrift für Karl Christ zum 65 Geburtstag Darmstadt. Loomis, W. T. (1996). “The Introduction of the Denarius.” In Wallace and Harris: 338–355. Mattingly, H., and E. S. G. Robinson. (1932). “The Date of the Roman Denarius and Other Landmarks in Early

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The Denarius Coinage of the Roman Republic Roman Coinage.” Proceedings of the British Academy 18: 211–266. Mattingly, H. B. (1998). “Roman Republican Coinage c. 150–90 BC.” In Burnett et al.: 151–164. Meadows, A. R. (1998). “The Mars/Eagle and Thunderbolt Gold and Ptolemaic Involvement in the Second Punic War.” In Burnett et al.: 125–134. Meadows, A., and J. Williams (2001). “Moneta and the Monuments: Coinage and Politics in Republican Rome.” JRS 91: 27–49. Molinari, M. C. (2003). “Gli aurei a nome di Giulio Cesare e Aulo Irzio.” RIN 104: 165–253. Mommsen, T. (1860). Geschichte des römischen Münzwesens Berlin. Pink, K. (1952). The Triumviri Monetales and the Structure of the Coinage of the Roman Republic Numismatic Studies 7. New York. Ritter, H. W. (1982). Zur römischen Münzprägung im 3 Jh v Chr Marburg. ——— . (1988). “Die Bedeutung des caesarischen Münzporträts.” In Kneissl and Losemann: 374–392. Ronchi, F. (1998). “Il dibattito sulla data d’introduzione del denario nella moderna letteratura numismatica.” RIN 99: 39–88. Seibert, J. (1993). Forschungen zu Hannibal Darmstadt. Sydenham, E. A. (1952). The Coinage of the Roman Republic London. Thomsen, R. (1957–1961). Early Roman Coinage: A Study of the Chronology 3 vols. Copenhagen. Ursinus, F. (1577). Familiae Romanae quae reperiuntur in antiquis numismatibus ab Urbe condita ad tempora Divi Augusti ex bibliotheca Fulvi Ursini Adiunctis familiis XXX ex libro Antoni Augustini ep Ilerdensis Rome. Wallace, R. W., and E. M. Harris, eds. (1996). Transitions to Empire: Essays in Greco-Roman History, 360–146 B C , in Honor of E Badian Norman. Wissowa, G. (1912). Religion und Kultus der Römer 2nd ed. Munich. Witschonke, R. (1998). “Some Late ‘Early’ Republican Quinarii.” In Burnett et al.: 137–138. Wolters, R. (1999). Nummi Signati Untersuchungen zur römischen Münzprägung und Geldwirtschaft. Vestigia 49. Munich. Woytek, B. (2003). Arma et nummi Forschungen zur römischen Finanzgeschichte und Münzprägung der Jahre 49 bis 42 v Chr Vienna. ——— . (2004). “Iulius Caesar und das Nominaliensystem der römischen Reichsprägung in der Principatszeit.” In Heftner and Tomaschitz: 343–353. ——— . (2006). “Die Verwendung von Mehrfachstempeln in der antiken Münzprägung und die ‘Elefantendenare’ Iulius Caesars (RRC 443/1).” SNR 85: 69–95. ——— . (2007). “Die Münzen der römischen Republik und der Übergangszeit zum Prinzipat im Museum Carnuntinum (mit einem Exkurs zu den Legionsprägungen des Marcus Antonius).” In Alram and Schmidt-Dick: 2:489–521. Bernhard E. Woytek Bernhard E. Woytek s W senschaftl che M tarbe ter n the Num smat c Comm ss on of the Austr an Academy of Sc ences, V enna.

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The Denarius Coinage of the Roman Republic

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The Julio-Claudians

Oxford Handbooks Online The Julio-Claudians Reinhard Wolters The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Coinage Edited by William E Metcalf Pr nt Publ cat on Date: Feb 2012 Onl ne Publ cat on Date: Nov 2012

Subject: Class cal Stud es, Anc ent Roman H story DO : 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195305746.013.0019

Abstract and Keywords In the division of Roman history into periods, the age of the Julio-Claudians marks the beginning of the Principate. In numismatics too, the transition from Republic to Principate serves as the fundamental caesura in the arrangement and treatment of material. In terms of the monetized economy, though, this transition brought about no breach with the past: the denarius system founded in the middle Republic continued to exist far into the third century AD. Gold remained a fixed element of the coin system of the Principate: the largest denomination was the aureus, which was minted from about 8 g of pure gold. Denarii consisted of approximately 3.9 g of almost pure silver. Their respective halves were gold and silver quinarii, both of which were minted with striking regularity under the Julio-Claudians. Thus, the coinage of the empire developed along the principles that had been laid down in the Republic. Keywords Roman Julio Claudians Principate numismatics monetized economy

N the fundamental division of Roman history into periods, the age of the Julio-Claudians marks the beginning of the Principate. After the murder of Caesar and the ensuing civil wars, the sole victor, Octavian/Augustus, laid the foundation of the new monarchic system. The successors who descended from his family expanded and strengthened it.

Fluctuation between the old Republican norms and new monarchical reality can still be detected everywhere in the early Principate. The claim to have restored the Republic belongs to the two-sided nature of this system. Innovations came consistently disguised in old dress, especially under Augustus. In the family of the emperor and in the role it assumed, the traditional Republican value system and the power of faction merged, foreshadowing what was to come. As Augustus and his successors repeatedly and successfully handed down within their own family their exalted position—that is, their offices and powers, civil and military clientele, and not least of all the most extensive accumulation of private property in their day—they thereby consolidated the monarchic form of government. The elevation of each private heir to emperor by acclamation and by law—a paradoxical reconciliation of normative claims and real circumstances—provided, by a further paradox, the key to maintaining the monarchy even beyond the end of the dynasty. In numismatics, too, the transition from Republic to Principate serves as the fundamental caesura in the arrangement and treatment of material (Sutherland 1984). In terms of the monetized economy, though, this transition brought about no breach with the past: the denarius system founded in the middle Republic continued to exist far into the third century A.D. It may be possible to distinguish an imperial coin at a glance by its iconography, but in general the coinage of the empire developed along the same principles that had been laid down in the Republic.

(p. 336) Coin-System, Mints, and Authority

Page 1 of 16

The Julio-Claudians The minting of gold continued from Caesar on through the civil wars, not least to honor promises of high monetary rewards made to the soldiers involved in the conflict. Gold remained a fixed element of the coin system of the Principate: the largest denomination was the aureus, which was minted from about 8 g of pure gold. Denarii consisted of approximately 3.9 g of almost pure silver. Their respective halves were gold and silver quinarii. Both gold and silver quinarii were minted with striking regularity under the Julio-Claudians. The volume of these coins minted was nonetheless slight, and they played only a small role in circulation. Their issue may have served primarily representative purposes (figs. 18.1–18.4).

Fig 18 1

Fig 18 2

Fig 18 3

Fig 18 4

As for base metal, after the failed introduction of the half-uncial standard in the time of Sulla, the minting of aes fractions was nearly omitted (see chapter 17 here, also on the exceptions). The Roman state did not perceive a need to provide a differentiated volume of money for his citizens. Yet after approximately 60 years, the lack of small change felt everywhere had prepared the ground for a modified attempt at reform. The sestertius, which had long ceased to be issued, now became the largest aes denomination. The coins were minted from approximately 26 g of orichalcum (p. 337) (copper/zinc), a metal golden in appearance and already used for coinage in the eastern Mediterranean. Dupondii (c. 12.5 g), worth one half of a sestertius, were minted from the same metal. Smaller denominations, asses (c. 11 g), and rarer semisses (about 6 g), as well as quadrantes (c. 3 g), were minted from copper as a fourth coining metal (figs. 18.5–18.8). Thus a broad and carefully graded spectrum of different coin values was created, in which the aureus, as the largest denomination, corresponded to the value of 1,600 quadrantes, the smallest unit (Table 18.1). Nine aurei, or 225 denarii, was in Julio-Claudian time the yearly salary of a simple legionary; the denarius corresponded roughly to a day wage; an as could buy a loaf of bread or cup of wine, and a quadrans entrance to one of the urban baths (Szaivert-Wolters 2005).

Fig 18 5

Page 2 of 16

The Julio-Claudians

Fig 18 6

Fig 18 7

Fig 18 8

For gold and silver, it was important that the value of the minted metal should correspond to that of unminted metal. Slight overvaluation of the coins and variations of weight, which resulted not least from minting al marco, were tolerated by (p. 338) Table 18.1 Denominations and their equivalents

Aureus Denarius Sestertius

consumers. The

Aureus

Denarius

Sestertius

Dupondius

1

25

100

200

400

1,600

1

4

8

16

64

1

2

4

16

1

2

8

1

4

Dupondius As

As

Quadrans

state promoted the counting of coins, not their weighing according to substance, by enforcing the acceptance of coins by law at their nominal value and by banning the fraudulent reduction of their precious metal content and the melting down of coins for bullion. There were no comparable guarantees for the fiduciary bronze coinage, which indeed made the numerous irregular forms encountered in this area possible (Hasler 1980; see below). The laws had already prepared the ground for the development of a fiduciary coinage principle for the precious metals. The state continued to produce coins of high quality, even if the weight of aurei and denarii had declined slightly between Augustus and Nero. It was first under Nero, when the great fire of Rome caused all the resources of the empire to be drawn on for the costly rebuilding of the city, that the decision was made to reduce the precious metal content of the coinage: instead of 40 aurei, 45 were now officially minted from a pound of gold; instead of 84 denarii, now 96 were minted from a pound of silver (Plin. N H 33.47; 132). Simultaneous introduction of base metals to the silver made it possible to produce around 15% more denarii from the same amount of precious metal. This change remained the most dramatic watershed in imperial precious metal coinage until the beginning of the third century (Walker 1976–1978; Butcher and Ponting 2005). The weight and composition of base metal coins remained largely stable under the Julio-Claudians. Sestertii and dupondii were even minted at a somewhat higher weight under the successors of Augustus. Nero's singular attempt to produce all base metal coins from orichalcum was abortive (Macdowall 1979). On the other hand, the radiate

Page 3 of 16

The Julio-Claudians crown as the attribute of the reigning emperor came to predominate on the dupondii, and from the time of Nero it became the indicator of its valuation at 2 asses. The radiate crown gave the denomination an unmistakable profile. For both asses and dupondii, which approached asses in weight, the introduction of this attribute made it possible to harmonize their compositions. The traditional mint in Rome resumed work in the year 23 B.C., after an interval of around 20 years (Burnett 1977; Wallace-Hadrill 1986; 19 B.C.: Kraft 1951/1952; Sutherland 1984). Gold and silver coinage, as well as the new bronze coins, were minted. Remarkably, after the imperatorial issues of the civil wars, the names of the “tresviri aere argento auro flando feriundo,” the civic magistrates responsible for the new issues, appeared on the coins. Just as under the Republic, they exploited a variety of types on precious metal coins for the promotion of their families. But on the (p. 339) other side—often to be taken literally—the coins also accommodated the new reality, in which Augustus likewise was a fixed theme in their selection of coin types. Parallel to this development, a mint in the Gallic city Lugdunum began to mint gold and silver coins in imperial style from around 15 B.C. The new mint definitively supplanted the mints active in Spain, which were still producing coins in the 20s B.C. (“Caesaraugusta”; “Colonia Patricia”: Volk 1997). The city, with its advantageous commercial situation at the center of the tax-rich Gallic provinces, connected the important Spanish precious metal mines to places of high expenditure, particularly the troops stationed on the Rhine. Lugdunum, moreover, belonged to a province that stood under the direct administration of the ruler. By reason of his imperium, Augustus could produce coins here independently of the Roman magistrates. This became significant, because soon afterward, the minting of precious metal coinage was suspended in Rome. After 12 B.C., gold and silver were coined only in Lugdunum, while only the minting of bronze coinage was left to Rome. Even bronze coinage was reduced under Augustus to ever smaller denominations, ultimately quadrantes. Around 4 B.C., minting ceased entirely. When the minting of asses resumed some 15 years later, the new pieces closely resembled the issues of the mint officials, but the legends of the coins contained only the titulature of the emperor or his destined successor, Tiberius (fig. 18.9): The time when coins could be used for the selfrepresentation of aspiring magistrates was definitively over, even though, according to epigraphic evidence, the office of the monetales nevertheless remained in existence well into the third century. The separation of the production of all imperial precious metal coins in Lugdunum and of base metal coins in Rome is key to understanding the coinage of the Julio-Claudian era. This separation lasted until the coinage reform of Nero, when local financial need was met by the restriking of older precious metal coins on a reduced standard. This required that the production of precious metal coinage be returned to Rome (Giard 1983; Metcalf 1989; Wolters 1999; Butcher-Ponting 2005).1 From now until the beginning of the third century, Rome remained the central mint for the imperial coinage in all metals.

Fig 18 9

Characteristic of the bronze coinage of the empire is the large SC on the reverse. The letters, expanded to S(enatus) C(onsulto), were and are associated again and (p. 340) again with a special legal competence of the Senate for the production of these bronze coins. This competence was to Theodor Mommsen an important piece of evidence for the development of his theory of the diarchy, a division of power between the emperor and the Senate. Yet the significance of the letters is contested up to this day, and we must take into consideration a shift in their meaning in accounting for their persistence on the imperial bronze coinage. The letters first appeared on the reformed base metal coins of Augustus, from which they can scarcely be separated (cf. figs. 18.5–18.8). The long-accepted interpretation of Konrad Kraft that SC should be connected to honors for Augustus fails to overcome numerous inconsistencies (Kraft 1969; Wolters 2004). It rather seems that reference to the decree of the Senate was intended to confer additional authority on the newly introduced bronze denominations and to promote their acceptance at large (Bay 1972).

Page 4 of 16

The Julio-Claudians The letters SC made it possible to distinguish the bronze coins minted in Rome from the coins of other cities of the empire (cf. chapter 21 here). Just as the uniform prow type had made it possible to recognize and locate Roman bronze coins of the Republic, the large SC on the reverse of the reformed bronze issues assumed this function under Augustus. The bronze coinage of the city of Rome also became the bearer of more differentiated types from the reign of Tiberius onward, and while many provincial bronze coinages conformed to that of the capital, the letters SC became the decisive symbol that differentiated the coins of Rome from the mass of provincial coins: the Roman state could be identified as the institution that guaranteed the value of these coins. The SC retained its validity and purpose in this function until well into the third century.

Types and Legends As with the issues of the Hellenistic monarchs, the coins of the Principate normally feature the image of the ruler or a member of the ruling house as their obverse types. Augustus was represented as a young man with classicizing facial features late into his life (cf. fig. 18.1). Tiberius followed his example. Caligula was murdered young; signs of age first developed on the coins of Claudius. With Nero came a clear break: in the middle of his reign, he switched from a very youthful portrait to one bearing signs of age and above all stressing his corpulence, which emulated the Ptolemaic ideal of tryphé (fig. 18.10). The normal attribute for the head is the laurel wreath, alongside the bare head that still often appears in JulioClaudian times; the oak wreath also occasionally appears. The bust is almost always nude. Many innovations in this regard appear under Nero, who switches from civil to military dress with armor and military cloak (paludamentum) or stresses different aspects of his role as emperor ruler with a globe bust or aegis.

Fig 18 10

(p. 341) The portrait is surrounded by the name and titulature of the emperor. The elements of the titulature used to date the coin had in their contemporary context a primarily symbolic function, in that they stressed achievements and honors received, not least by their iteration. Titulature and the alternation of left and right portraits or reverse motif were simple means of differentiating and thereby controlling issues. One extremely problematic question is whether titulature was rigorously kept up to date, whether the minting of an issue was completed with the legend begun—regardless of new developments—or whether legends were prepared in anticipation of the time of issue. A legend that appears to serve as a date might also have had commemorative character. The aurei and denarii for Gaius and Lucius Caesar (fig. 18.1) record a state of affairs that was valid precisely in 2 and 1 B.C. (Pater Patriae for Augustus, consul designatus and not consul ordinarius for Gaius Caesar), but because of the extraordinary volume of the issue, continuation of their production until A.D. 4 seems possible: the coin type would then have commemorated the conferral of honors. Bringing the legend up to date would have run counter to this monumental character (Wolters 2002a).

Fig 18 11

Reverse types are distinguished by great variety. They show gods and personifications, the emperor or members of the imperial house in action, and honors for them; they refer to current events in Rome and on the borders of the

Page 5 of 16

The Julio-Claudians empire; they show buildings, statues, or devices (Bernhart 1926; Mannsperger 1974; Carson 1990). The reverse legends often deliberately aid in deciphering new coin types (cf. fig. 18.1) and not least support the development of the new language of images from the time of Augustus. In the Julio-Claudian time, coins are very frequently bearers of written messages (fig. 18.11). (p. 342)

Communication Within the field of ancient numismatics, the coinage of the Roman Empire stands out for its large variety of coin types and their rapid variation. Parallel to this is a great intensity of coin production. Already in the middle Republic, it can be observed the way the function of coin types changed with the growth of the Imperium Romanum. As Roman coins became the unrivaled means of payment in the imperium sine fine, coin types no longer served to identify Roman currency beyond the empire; rather, the area in which they circulated enabled communication within the empire. This observation must not lead to exaggerations, such as, for example, Harold Mattingly's description of coins as “newspapers of the day”: even if coins sometimes addressed events very directly, their purpose was not to inform persons of these events. Their function lay rather in strengthening perception: distinctions for the emperor, honors for members of his family, military successes, or the erection of buildings in Rome were multiplied by representation on coins and fixed in memory by their circulation. Coins are part of an atmosphere created by all media, in which the ideas, values, and mentalities of every epoch are expressed (Zanker 1987; cf. Noreña 2001). With regard to time, coin types are retrospective, and they promote reciprocal assurance of common ideals between concipient and viewer. They virtually never contain programs for the future. Nonetheless, the use and development of coin types is a seismograph of political events: In times of upheaval, as during the civil wars before and after the Julio-Claudian rulers, coin types not only increased dramatically in number, but their messages also became more direct and political. The willingness to take risks rose significantly. In politically more peaceful times, as under the Julio-Claudian rulers, coin types might also exert a calming effect: their number diminished, they themselves became more general and ambiguous, and they were more oriented toward the long term. The phases of Augustus's attainment and consolidation of power are paradigmatic for such a shift. The shrill coin propaganda of the civil wars was followed, after victory at Actium, by the nearly exclusive rendering of achievements and honors received (Kraft 1969; Mannsperger 1991; Rich-Williams 1999). Such types supported Augustus's supremacy and accompanied its institutional consolidation. At the beginning of the last decade before the birth of Christ, the intensity of coinage and variety of images were again significantly reduced, and the coin types are dedicated now entirely to members of the imperial house. Indisputably, the question of the succession was being prepared. But even these images must be viewed against the background of the traditional importance of the family and family prestige in the politics and society of contemporary Rome. Certainly the subtle change of perspective, no longer a looking back to the ancestors but recommending the scions of the imperial house in the coinage, opened a new political dimension to closer consideration. (p. 343) Table 18.2 The pattern of precious-metal coinage under Gaius Order of issues

TRP bare

TRP laurel

TRP III COS III laurel

TRP IIII COS IIII laurel

1. Divus Augustus

AV/D

AV/D

AV/D

D

2. Agrippina Mater

AV/D

AV/D

AV/D

D

3. Germanicus Pater

AV/D

AV/D

AV/D

D

AV/D

4. SPQR PP (oak wreath)

D

From now until the early years of Nero, type motifs that referred to members of the imperial house predominate (cf.

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The Julio-Claudians Trillmich 1978). The precious metal coinage of Gaius is exemplary (see table 18.2).2 Apart from the updating of the types by the change of attribute (bare head to laurel wreath) and obverse legend, the entire precious metal coinage of Gaius consists of only four reverse types. Reference to his great-grandfather Augustus, mother Agrippina, and father Germanicus legitimated the new ruler, who presented himself with only the oak wreath type, in exclusively dynastic terms. The images of Divus Augustus and Livia had similarly dominated the precious metal coinage of Tiberius, just as images of his father Drusus and mother Antonia dominated that of Claudius—even if Claudius commanded recognition as emperor with greater emphasis through the presentation of his own achievements, such as the conquest of Britain (cf. RIC I² 30). For the first time since Augustus, the question of succession was again prepared publicly with Nero, who was presented as princeps iuventutis (RIC I² 75–79) shortly after Claudius's marriage to Agrippina. coin types that had concentrated on the imperial house now gave way to types that were more strongly tied to a general ideology of Rome, even more unambiguously through the presentation of Nero as ruler (Clay 1982). In contrast to the very conservative selection of types for the precious metals, the mint of Rome shows itself decidedly innovative, current, and concrete in its messages in the parallel aes coinage. To continue with the example of Gaius: the adlocutio type, alluding to his acclamation as imperator by the praetorians (fig. 18.12; Dio 59.2.1), the dedication of the temple to Divus Augustus (RIC I² 36; Dio 59.7.1–2), the depiction of his three sisters who are probably connected to the oath for them (fig. 18.13; Suet. Cal 15.3; Dio 59.3.4), a type that probably represents Gaius's message to all three classes on his assumption of power (fig. 18.14; Dio 59.6.1), the carpentum for the deceased Agrippina (RIC I² 55; Suet. Cal 15), or even an unassuming Vesta, who possibly alludes to the conferral of the honorary rights of a Vestal on the three sisters of Gaius (RIC I² 38; Dio 59.3.4)—all this stands in striking contrast to the precious metal coinage of Lugdunum, which concentrates solely on the ancestors of Gaius. Looking back from this point, one is also prepared to grant most bronze pieces of Tiberius a strong topicality (Sutherland 1987: 47–66).

Click to view larger Fig 18 12

Fig 18 13

Fig 18 14

The relationship ascertainable between Lugdunum and Rome is a remarkable about-face when compared to the earlier time of Augustus, when the mints of Spain (p. 344) and Gaul frequently developed new types, and their Roman counterparts often only imitated these motifs. Now it was the mint officials of Rome who became innovative

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The Julio-Claudians and whose coin types stood ever more topically in relation to the emperor.

Fig 18 15

Fig 18 16

Fig 18 17

Fig 18 18

These differences give clues toward the process of type selection and the anticipated audience. The bronzes in particular stand in close relationship to panegyric: they celebrate the actions of the emperor and show him as he would have presented himself. They communicate always with the emperor himself, whose well-being benefited from seeing that such images of himself were distributed (Levick 1982). That does not rule out that the emperor—as the ancient authors often succinctly put it—sometimes personally participated in the selection of types: perhaps already the coin type with the capricornus, the star symbol of Augustus (fig. 18.15; Suet. Aug 94.12), certainly the IMPER RECEPT/PRAETOR RECEPT types of Claudius (figs. 18.16, 18.17), which so unabashedly give the circumstances of his seizure of power, or double portrait of Nero with his mother Agrippina, which follows Ptolemaic models (p. 345) (fig. 18.18), are coin motifs that by reason of their explosiveness are inconceivable without the involvement of the princeps. Coins preserved only in small numbers and interpreted as “mistaken messages” permit further observations: the announcement of the deification of Tiberius, a German triumph for Claudius, or the rapid correction of unintended titulature (Sutherland 1987, 66–68; Wolters 2003). All these examples fall into periods of transition between rulers and illustrate an otherwise invisible routine. Apparently, new types that had been produced according to anticipated developments had already been issued by the mint authorities without the possibility of checking in advance their appropriateness with the emperor or his closest associates. It is owing to times of upheaval that a small number of undesirable images could enter circulation before the issues were canceled. If events in the city of Rome prevailed on the bronze coinage, this is certainly to be attributed to the perspective of the magistrates in residence there. Yet this also is due to the lesser mobility of aes denominations, quite in contrast to the precious metal coins that traversed the empire. That mint officials deliberately took the lesser mobility of the bronzes into account with respect to the group they would address is demonstrated by tax measures under Gaius and Claudius that affected Rome and Italy alone: these measures were announced on quadrantes, whose circulation hardly extended beyond the Italian peninsula (figs. 18.19, 18.20). No evidence exists, on the other hand, that specific audiences were targeted with more or less valuable coins according to the worth of the individual pieces. Coin finds in cities and military camps, that is in intensely monetized areas of society, range across all denominations (Wolters 2000/1; contra: Wigg 1997).

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The Julio-Claudians Fig 18 19

Fig 18 20

(p. 346) Whether coin types were at all noticed by users is a controversy that has been debated with unnecessary detail. The intense changeover of types under the Principate signalizes that corresponding attention was expected (Sutherland 1959). Naturally, this expectation need not be directed toward only the content of a certain type but could also be aimed quite generally at varied, a esthetically ambitious coins. The civic bronzes under the Julio-Claudians from Tiberius on, particularly the large sestertii, stand out for the design and technical execution of their types. Their production can easily be interpreted as a form of liberalitas. From a financial perspective, the production of a coin with standardized types not only would be less expensive and technically more efficient, but their use in a multilingual empire that comprised the most diverse cultural traditions would have been considerably simplified.

Coinage and Finance The volume of coinage under the Julio-Claudians in all metals was rather small. The beginning and end of this period offer exceptions: under Octavian/Augustus, a phase of intense coin production for the provision of troops followed the civil wars; and later a massive and continuous recoining of older precious metal coinage began with the reform of Nero. A more precise quantification of coin production from Augustus to Nero is hindered not least by the gradual disappearance of coins minted prior to AD 64. Only the lightweight legionary denarii of Marcus Antonius survived into the third century. Minting rhythms were completely irregular, and intervals of several years of no imperial minting activity are characteristic up to the time of Nero (von Kaenel 1994; Wolters 1999: 234–253): A gap of around 10 years in coin production in all metals and at both mints occurred under Augustus between the birth of Christ and the beginning of the second decade A.D.; before this time, coin production in gold and silver had already been interrupted for approximately six years. Coin production under Tiberius was again entirely irregular, with up to 10-year pauses; precisely when these pauses occurred, however, is difficult to pinpoint because of the lack of datable elements on the precious metal coins. Between Claudius and Nero, the production of base metal coinage was interrupted for approximately 20 years. It is again the coinage reform of Nero that marks a decisive change, with the resumption of massive coin production in all metals. Strengthened by the ensuing civil wars and continuing recoining on the lighter standard under the Flavians, coin production in Rome in all metals could be described from now on as regular and yearly. One reason for the low intensity of coin production under the Julio-Claudians is certainly the fact that a very large amount of money remained in circulation from the decades of the civil wars, both before and after the murder of Caesar. The issues of the parties to the civil wars not only promoted broad monetization in all (p. 347) parts of the empire but also appear to have provided a sufficient volume of money in the precious metals for many years and decades to come. Only the Gaius/Lucius type, minted in massive numbers around the birth of Christ, and the numerous aurei and denarii with the so-called seated Livia (RIC I² 25–30) in the reign of Tiberius stand out. While the possibility cannot be excluded that the former type may have been minted in anticipation of payments from the testament of Augustus (Suet. Aug. 101.2), the production of the Livia type presumably extends over a longer period of time. The progressive decline in coin production under Augustus corresponds to reports of a worsening financial situation in the second half of his reign (Kienast 1999: 378). On the other hand, the financial structure of the state underwent clear change with the advent of the Principate. The direct expenses of the state in the administration of the empire rose, particularly because of the introduction of a standing professional army. Its costs alone encompassed up to 2/3 of all state expenditure (Wierschowski 1984). On top of this were donatives and congiaria, payments for games and festivals, the maintenance of the grain supply, construction in Rome, Italy, and the provinces—expenses bound up with other tasks, which were borne by the state or princeps to an ever greater extent. To meet these expenses, there was the income from direct and indirect taxes, from state-owned industries,

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The Julio-Claudians from leases, and even from punishments. Newly introduced taxes, such as that for the aerarium militare for the provision of soldiers, again burdened Roman citizens after a long intermission (Neesen 1980: 135). Unquestionably, state expenditure in monetized economic transactions rose drastically in the early Principate. It is all the more surprising that this is not reflected by steadily increasing intensity of coin production. The inference can only be that existing and new expenses could be met by state revenue and that the circulating volume of money was essentially sufficient. If the proportion of gold coins was remarkably high in the precious metal coinage of the Julio-Claudians, this presumably is an expression of nothing more than the need to maintain a supply of this convenient denomination for larger payments. The precious metal mines of Spain, opened to the empire under Augustus, offered the necessary resources. The abiding need for freshly minted coins might have been created above all by irregular expenses, such as congiaria and donatives, games and building projects. Reconstructed minting rhythms nonetheless only partly cover known costs (von Kaenel 1994; Wolters 1999: 234–253). One problem that has not been discussed is that such expenses must normally be attributed to the private wealth of the emperor, that is the patrimonium, and not the aerarium. Very few scholars will accept a classification of the mint at Lugdunum as private property of the emperor, not as a mint of the provincial imperial fisci in their legal status as subdivisions of the aerarium (on the structure of the treasury: Alpers 1995). The successor of Augustus, Tiberius, is alleged to have left behind approximately 3 billion sestertii on his death (Suet. Cal. 37.3; Dio 59.2.6: 2.3 or 3.3 billion sestertii). The accumulation of such surplus may be connected to low minting activity under Tiberius. Annual state expenditure for the early empire might be estimated at an (p. 348) amount of around 600 million to 1 billion sestertii per year. It was largely fixed by the high proportion of costs for the army and could have been precisely adjusted from year to year.3 A savings potential of around 100 million sestertii per year does not seem impossible in the reign of Tiberius. As a financial consequence, however, coins would have been systematically withdrawn from circulation in the empire at large.4 Gaius reportedly spent the accumulated savings in the very first year of his reign. Even if more coins were minted under him more regularly, no drastic increase in production can be detected. If the tradition of the financial acts of Tiberius and Gaius is generally reliable, it must follow that the expenses of Gaius were made from the money saved. In consequence, Gaius would have omitted possibilities of self-representation through the distribution of his own images: the coins used for his expenses would have been predominantly those of Augustus and Tiberius, as well as of the Republic. The continuous production of coins from the reign of Gaius in the metals relevant to public finances proceeded under Claudius, if with interruptions and outages in the final years of his reign. Nero again resumed a more regular production of coins in a smaller, slightly rising volume until the time of his reform. Discussions about taxes and duties, commissions to increase public revenue, changes in the administrative structure of the aerarium, and subsidies from the patrimonium of the emperor indicate that the difficulties of the treasury were coming to a head. Against such a background, coinage reform seemed to be a way out: it multiplied the cash capital of the state, which to all appearances no longer had any reserves at its disposal and had difficulty in meeting its payment obligations. With the transfer of the minting of precious metal coins from Lugdunum to Rome, it is likely also that the administration of the aerarium and the financially stronger fisci of the imperial provinces moved still more closely together. After the time of Nero, nothing more is known of the notorious shortages of the aerarium, which was burdened by Italy and Rome with high expenses that were not compensated by comparable revenues from these areas, owing to prevailing tax privileges (Wolters 2002b).

Circulation A central bank, which calculates cash needs and fixes the amount of cash to be introduced into circulation, did not exist in Rome. There were likewise no banks through which newly minted coins might be distributed: only bronze coins might have found a direct route from the treasury or mint onto the tables of money changers, who needed small denominations acquired from the state for exchange. As a rule, state payments were the only way to bring newly minted coins into circulation. If the occasions of payment and of the production of new coin coincided, it was possible to address the recipient directly through coin types. There is no evidence that coins were minted exclusively to communicate a specific event or (p. 349) specific ideas. They could not be brought into circulation without a concrete reason for a payment.5 Moreover, all

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The Julio-Claudians notions of a target audience for coin types suffer from the fact that coins came into different hands at the first transaction in which they were used as a means of payment and were immediately mixed with older coins already in circulation. It is a matter of contention among scholars whether the circulation of money, as is the consequence of the theoretical model of Keith Hopkins, reached an empire-wide assimilation of circulating volumes of money, or—as the material-intensive empirical studies of Richard Duncan-Jones appear to suggest—the circulation of coins instead remained limited by region (Hopkins 1980; Duncan-Jones 1989, 1996; cf. Howgego 1994). The low proportion of freshly minted coins under the Julio-Claudians favors a model of money circulation within largely selfcontained regional spheres. The provincial fisci may have provided a basis for such a pattern: the revenues of a province were first drawn on to meet the expenses incurred within it, and only the surplus was sent to the central treasury in Rome. From the central treasury, provinces in deficit, such as those with high numbers of stationed troops, received adjustment. To avoid the physical transport of money, neighboring provinces will certainly have met such a sum directly, while the transaction with Rome was merely recorded on the account books (Wolters 2006).

Click to view larger Fig 18 21

Fig 18 22

It is to be expected of the administrative structure of the empire that separate areas of circulation developed for Italy and Rome and the provinces of the People on the one hand and for the provinces controlled by the emperor— and financially administered together by the a rationibus—on the other (cf. figs. 18.23, 18.24). In the latter area of circulation, a more rapid integration of new money can be seen in (p. 350) finds from the western half of the empire, while in Italy the proportion of Republican coins in Julio-Claudian time remains significantly higher. Movements of coin beyond these spheres of circulation were thus not caused by state manipulation but by the flow of trade or personal mobility. It must further be noted that not even public transactions were thoroughly monetized, but instead a larger proportion of taxes was collected in kind till the end of empire (Duncan-Jones 1994).

Fig 18 23 Structure of treasury adm n strat on under the Roman Repub c

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The Julio-Claudians

Click to view larger Fig 18 24 Structure of treasury adm n strat on n the Ear y Pr nc pate

Coins were not normally recalled under the Roman Empire. Nevertheless, a decree of the Senate to melt down bronze coins of Gaius, according to Cassius Dio, corresponds to numerous erasures of his name on these coins (figs. 18.21, 18.22; Dio 60.23.3). There is no way of knowing how long the measure was in effect, whether it was an empire-wide or a regional phenomenon, or to what extent it was in fact a reaction to an extensive melting down of bronzes of Gaius that is impossible for us now to detect (Gocht 2003). It was scarcely possible to recall all coins that had once been issued, and for that reason alone a corresponding proscription of them would have attained little more than symbolic value. The coinage reform of Nero was different. From then on, a changed metal standard, that is, the substance of the coins itself, accelerated the disappearance of older coins. But even here, the complete displacement of older coins lasted into the time of Trajan. The disappearance of older (p. 351) coins was further encouraged by their deliberate selection for trade beyond the borders of the empire: coins of equal nominal value within the empire were measured in Germany or India, for example, according to their intrinsic value, so that their different basic values prevailed once they left the empire (Berger 1990; Turner 1989; Bursche, Ciolek, and Wolters 2008). Some cities of the empire, such as Nemausus and Lugdunum in the west, minted significantly more base metal coinage than local need required in Augustan time. These cities may have contributed toward the provision of the empire with small change per official assignment (Grant 1953). Halves of bronzes, great quantities of imitations— which often concentrate on very specific coin types (Providentia asses for Divus Augustus, Agrippa asses, sestertii and asses for Claudius)—as well as countermarks: these phenomena may in different ways be associated with a still insufficient supply of small change, and they manifest the tolerance of the state for the irregular currency (Auberson, Derschka, and Frey-Kupper 2004). In methodological terms, such phenomena are an important indication of the limited mobility of bronze coins. The discussion of the mobility or immobility of coins is not only of relevance to the question to what degree the Roman economy was integrated but is also an important condition for the dating of archaeological complexes. Numerous Julio-Claudian coins bear no sufficiently precise indication of date, and their chronology is often determined by inference from archaeological contexts. To set a terminus ante quem or terminus post quem, an indispensable condition is the fixing of the place at which the coins were minted, as well as the form and speed of their distribution. Research into the influx of coin finds into areas of varying political conditions, such as Germany beyond the Rhine during the years of the attempted Roman occupation between 12 B.C. and A.D. 16, or Britain following the Claudian conquest, has thus far proved to be the most important point of departure in solving this puzzle. There are, moreover, noticeable accumulations of very specific coin types in these politically or commercially separate geographic areas: economic demands may be tied to concrete propagandistic intentions after all, in this groundbreaking field of research (Walker 1988; Kemmers 2003). Fig. 18.1. RIC I² 206 (Augustus); aureus, 7.94 g, 1; Tübingen. Fig. 18.2. RIC I² 82a (Augustus); denarius, 3.81 g, 5; Tübingen. Fig. 18.3. RIC I² 215 (Augustus); gold quinarius, 3.89 g, 6; Künker 125, no. 22. Fig. 18.4. RIC I² 1b (Augustus); quinarius, 1.88 g, 12; Künker 111, no. 6526. Fig. 18.5. RIC I² 325 (Augustus); sestertius, 19.64 g, 11; Tübingen. Fig. 18.6. RIC I² 375 (Augustus); dupondius, 11.26 g, 1; Tübingen. Fig. 18.7. RIC I² 379 (Augustus); as, 10.23 g, 12; Tübingen. Fig. 18.8. RIC I² 420 (Augustus); quadrans, 3.03 g, 4; Tübingen. Fig. 18.9. RIC I² 469 (Augustus); as, 11.16 g, 2; Tübingen. Fig. 18.10. RIC I² 277 (Nero); sestertius, 26.93 g, 6; Tübingen.

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The Julio-Claudians Fig. 18.11. RIC I² 358 (Augustus); denarius, 3.94 g, 10; Künker 124, no. 8678. Fig. 18.12. RIC I² 40 (Gaius); sestertius, 29.09 g, 6; Tübingen. Fig. 18.13. RIC I² 33 (Gaius); sestertius, 26.95 g, 6; Rauch 74, no. 391. Fig. 18.14. RIC I² 56 (Gaius); dupondius, 16.65 g, 6; Tübingen. Fig. 18.15. RIC I² 126 (Augustus); denarius, 3.56 g, 6; Tübingen. Fig. 18.16. RIC I² 36 (Claudius); aureus, 7.74 g, 3; Künker 124, no. 7567. Fig. 18.17. RIC I² 29 (Claudius); aureus, 7.81 g, 6; Künker 143, no. 482. Fig. 18.18. RIC I² 7 (Nero); denarius, 3.59 g, 6; Künker 97, no. 1268. Fig. 18.19. RIC I² 45 (Gaius); quadrans, 3.12 g, 6; Tübingen. Fig. 18.20. RIC I² 91 (Claudius); quadrans, 3.40 g, 6; Tübingen. Fig. 18.21. RIC I² 46 (Gaius); sestertius, 28.29 g, 5; Private collection HG. Fig. 18.22. RIC I² 55 (Gaius); sestertius, 25.99 g, 7; Private collection HG. Fig. 18.23. Structure of treasury administration under the Roman Republic (from Wolters 2004: 258). Fig. 18.24. Structure of treasury administration in the Early Prinicpate (from Wolters 2004: 258).

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The Julio-Claudians Woytek, B. (2003). Arma et Nummi Forschungen zur römischen Finanzgeschichte und Münzprägung der Jahre 49 bis 42 v Chr Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften Phil.-Hist. Klasse 312. Vienna. Zanker, P. (1987). Augustus und die Macht der Bilder Munich.

Notes: (1.) For the transfer of the precious metal coinage from Lugdunum back to Rome already under Gaius, see Sutherland 1984; Szaivert 1984; cf. von Kaenel 1986. On the minting of individual precious metal types in Rome: Metcalf 1989: 57; Wolters 2004: 206. Auxiliary or ancillary mints (Giard 1983) have become more probable due to the discovery of Tiberian dies in the legionary camp Vindonissa (Doppler et al. 2004). It is perhaps no accident that the most common coin types of Julio-Claudian time, the “Gaius-Lucius” type and the “seated Livia,” are often found as dies and precisely those that show no more specifically datable titulature. This particularly accommodated decentralized production with ad hoc minting. (2.) The following is a simplified overview without quinarii and the “COS-issue” that is perhaps to be attributed to Rome. The lack of coins between 3/17/38 and 12/31/39 (TRP II: 3/18/38–3/17/39; COS II: 1/1/39–12/31/39) also shows that minting did not proceed without interruption. (3.) Expenditure from the patrimonium was significantly smaller and might be estimated for Augustus at c. 50–70 million HS per year; clues from the time of Nero suggest a still comparable sum (Wolters 1999: 220–221). (4.) The crisis of the year AD 33 described in Tac. Ann. 6.16–17 and Suet. Tib. 48.1 was one of credit in the context of maiestas processes, not a crisis of insufficient cash in circulation. The solution of providing “public” credit for banks corresponds to the measures taken at the beginning of the twenty-first century to overcome the credit crisis among creditors caused by “subprime mortgages.” (5.) The always high minting volume at the beginning of a reign will have made the new emperor known through the portrait side, but the intentions of representation were tied to a corresponding reason for payment of accession donatives and congiaria. Reinhard Wolters Re nhard Wolters s Un vers ty Professor and Head of Department, nst tut für Num smat k und Geldgesch chte, V enna.

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The Ancient Coinages of the Iberian Peninsula

Oxford Handbooks Online The Ancient Coinages of the Iberian Peninsula Pere P. Ripollès The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Coinage Edited by William E Metcalf Pr nt Publ cat on Date: Feb 2012 Onl ne Publ cat on Date: Nov 2012

Subject: Class cal Stud es, Greek and Roman Archaeology, Anc ent Roman H story DO : 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195305746.013.0020

Abstract and Keywords The minting of coins in the Iberian Peninsula spread in from the mid-fifth century BC until the reign of the emperor Claudius. The first coinages were struck in the Greek colonies of Emporion and Rhode. A monetized society, the use of coins among the natives extended widely during the second and first centuries BC, when more than 160 mints were in operation. The native coinages were promoted by the city authorities, which defined their characteristics, designs, and scripts. This activity continued, from the second half of the first century BC, in the provincial issues minted by colonies and municipalities, but ceased during the reign of Claudius I. With the end of the Roman provincial coinages during the reign of Claudius I, one of the most important public symbols of the cities disappeared, concluding 500 years of civic coinages. Henceforth, all the coinages used in Hispania came from the imperial mints. Keywords berian peninsula minting coinage monetized society Claudius

HE minting of coins in the Iberian Peninsula spread gradually in from the mid-fifth century B.C. until the reign of the emperor Claudius. The first coinages were struck in the Greek colonies of Emporion and Rhode, but the first push toward the monetization of the Iberian Peninsula was motivated by outside factors, as a result of the huge volume of issues minted during the Second Punic War. With these precedents, and dominated by a monetized society like Rome, the use of coins among the natives extended widely during the second and first centuries B.C., when more than 160 mints were intermittently in operation. This activity continued, from the second half of the first century B.C., in the provincial issues minted by colonies and municipalities, but it ceased definitively during the reign of Claudius I.

The Land and Its People The Iberian Peninsula was a territory inhabited by a remarkable variety of cultures with very different levels of social, political, and economic development, depending on whether they were located on the coast, where contacts with traders and navigators brought advances and innovations, or inland, where access was more difficult (Bendala 2004: 17–42). Among the native groups that occupied the Iberian Peninsula we find, in the south and on the Mediterranean coast, a Late Bronze Age native people who evolved toward the Iberian culture, influenced by contacts with Greeks and Phoenicians (p. 357) (Ruiz and Molinos: 1993; Iberos 1998: 23–49). Some of their populations reached significant urban development and were structured in stratified social hierarchies. They spoke a Pre-Indo-European language (Rodríguez Ramos 2004). Inside the Iberian Peninsula, to the south of the Ebro River and in the eastern part of the Castillian plateaux, were

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The Ancient Coinages of the Iberian Peninsula the Celtiberians; some of their populations developed forms of urban organization, and the Greek influences arrived indirectly, through their contacts with the Iberians (Burillo 1998). Their language belonged to the IndoEuropean family (Villar 1995, 2000). In the central and western part of Iberia lived peoples hardly affected by Mediterranean influence and with strong ties to their Late Bronze Age traditions. They only developed into urban models from the late Republican period (Martins 1997: 143–157; Keay 2001: 125–126). The Phoenicians and Punics on the south coast and Greeks in the northeast basically formed the settled foreign population in the Iberian Peninsula, exerting a great impact on the natives until the arrival of the Romans, by the end of the third century B.C. The colonies they established, the emporiums they frequented, and the centers of natural resources became important points of contact with the native populations, through which an exchange of goods, services, and ideas took place. The products the first navigators came to look for in Iberia were diverse, and of them silver was one of the most in demand (Aubet 1994: 241–246; Neville 2007: 135–158). The use of Spanish silver has been attested in a “hacksilber” hoard found in the east, the commercial intermediation of the Phoenicians being advocated by Stern (2001: 25), and also in Auriol coinages (France; Furtwängler 1978: 85–89). The silver was soon integrated in the commercial life of the most important populations of the Mediterranean coast, becoming another form of money.

The Issues of the Greek Colonies The first coinages of the Iberian Peninsula were minted in the Phocean colony of Emporion, toward the second half of the fifth century B.C. (Villaronga 1997) or perhaps earlier, according to the chronology for the Auriol hoard (Furtwängler 2002: 102; Campo 2008: 19), in which some coins were minted in Emporion. They were characterized by their reduced weight, usually less than 1 g, and by the great diversity of types, following a model of minting similar to the one developed in Massalia; they are commonly denominated “fraccionarias ampuritanas” and lasted until the late fourth century B.C. (fig. 19.1).

Fig 19 1

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These coinages had a local purpose and use. From their fractional character and their dispersion, it can be deduced that these coinages had a wide base of users among Greeks and natives, (p. 358) because their reduced value facilitated access to them by a large segment of the population. Toward the end of the fourth century B.C., the Greek colony of Rhode, located about 18 km to the north of Emporion, initiated the minting of drachmas, with an average weight of 4.74 g, modifying the fractional monetary model used until then (fig. 19.2). As Villaronga (2000: 45 and 117) has proposed, this standard must have originated in the weight of “fraccionarias” and Massalia obols, of around 0.80 g. Rhode was, in addition, one of the first cities of the Iberian Peninsula to mint bronze coins, with a standard of 4.12 g (Villaronga 2000: 46), and many of them were overstruck on bronze coinages of Punic Sardinia, issued during the first half of the third century B.C.

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The Ancient Coinages of the Iberian Peninsula (Villaronga 1984a: 206; Campo 2005: 325). Shortly after Rhode initiated the minting of drachmas, the colony of Emporion also struck them with an average weight of around 4.70 g and ceased the issue of “fraccionarias” pieces. This new phase of Emporion took place at the beginning of the third century B.C. and lasted discontinuously until the second half of the second century B.C. The types that were chosen for the first Emporion drachmas (early third century B.C.; fig. 19.3) were the female head with grain stalks in hair, already used in drachmas of Rhode. The reverses show a Nike flying over a horse, which has suggested that the Carthaginians could have been involved in their manufacture, perhaps for the payment of mercenaries recruited in Gallia, where these coinages were widely imitated (Villaronga 2000; Sills 2003: 108–110). In the later issues types show a greater Syracusan influence, with a female head, adorned with a stalk of grain in her hair and surrounded by three dolphins, on the obverse, and Pegasus with the legend ΕΜΠΟΡΙΤΩΝ on the reverse. This typological change has been related by Sills (2003: 101–102) to the period of wider circulation of Pegasi in Sicily (340–290 B.C.) and the fluent contacts between the island and Iberia, dating the change around 280–260 B.C., or by Villaronga (2000: 89–90) to the defeat of the Carthaginians in the First Punic War, around 241 B.C.

The First Iberian Coinages

Fig 19 4

The introduction of coinage among the Iberians was a delayed, slow, and territorially unequal process, since its use only progressively extended through time and space. The Iberian world knew coinage early (fifth–fourth centuries B.C.), because (p. 359) coins arrived in the hands of the natives through trade activities and the Iberian mercenaries who fought in the wars between Greeks and Carthaginians in the central Mediterranean, at least from 480 B.C. (Herodotus 7.165; Diodorus 13.80.2). The first Iberian issues were struck in the city of Arse-Saguntum, presumably in the second half of the fourth century B.C., as part of the development of their political organization (Ripollès and Llorens 2002: 276–282). These coinages must be linked with a process of normativeness of their civic relations, during which important urban transformations and outstanding trade activities in their port took place (Aranegui 2004). With its coinages, ArseSaguntum did no more than begin to formalize the use of silver bullion valued by weight (fig. 19.4). But this was merely precocious, since the beginning of a large number of native issues and an effective monetization only began in the late third century B.C. The designs and the artistic style of the coins struck by Arse are framed within a Greek-Hellenistic cultural atmosphere and show typological ties with the cities of Massalia, Magna Grecia, and Sicily, areas with which ArseSaguntum maintained trade contacts.

The Monetization of the Phoenicians and the Punics

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The monetary model of the Phoenician-Punic people varied with respect to the Greek colonies, because instead of using silver fractions for their routinely low-level exchanges, they showed an initial preference for the bronze, as in

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The Ancient Coinages of the Iberian Peninsula Ebusus (fig. 19.5), from the second half of the fourth century B.C., and Gadir, in the first years of the third century B.C. (Alfaro 2001: 30). Silver was a product that these peoples came to look for from an early time, and it comprised one of the goods (p. 360) that were exchanged; nevertheless, when the Phoenician-Punic society began to articulate is monetary system, it was first based on bronze coins rather than silver ones. It seems obvious that these coinages were minted to cover local expenses. It is surprising that the Phoenician-Punic communities of Ebusus and the south of the Iberian Peninsula had not developed, previously or simultaneously, silver issues, perhaps due to the political and economic maturity of this society and to the fact that issues were intended for modest transactions in a local context, which would exclude military financing, for which the bronze coinages were not thought appropriate.

The Carthaginians and the Second Punic War The natural evolution of the native societies toward monetization accelerated with the presence of the Carthaginians and the development of the Second Punic War. The coin hoards of this period provide information on the type of coinages used to finance the war and the area of their circulation (Villaronga 1993: 21–36). The Carthaginians covered their military expenses largely with metals mined in Iberia. The silver currency, whose unit was the shekel (fig. 19.6), was coined on an initial weight standard of 7.20 g. In addition, gold coins were struck on electrum. The monetary system was completed with bronze issues for daily use (Villaronga 1994: 63–74). On the other hand, the Romans financed their military expenses with a more varied set of currencies, but unlike the Carthaginians, they used local mints and designs. Most of the payments were made with drachmas from Emporion with the Pegasus type, with the head transformed on the reverse (fig. 19.7), which explains the huge volume of coins minted by the city in a short period of time (Villaronga 1984b; Marchetti 1978: 385).

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Other coinages found in hoards buried during the years of the war are the Iberian imitations of Emporion drachmas and fractions and Massaliotan obols (Villaronga 1998a), some with recognizable place names in the legends. The Iberian (p. 361) imitation drachmas were minted in a military context, and it is possible that they were struck with the intention of meeting some war expenses on the Roman side. Other silver coinages that would be possible to relate in some way to the war, although they appeared in much more modest volume, were the Gallic issues “à la croix,” those of Massalia, Hellenistic coins of diverse origin, and those of Ebusus, Gadir, Arse, and Saitabi; several bronze issues are also attributed to this period, such as those minted in Castulo, Obulco, and Gadir. The financing of the war was the factor that contributed in a decisive way to the familiarization of coins and their use by the indigenous population. Nevertheless, coinage did not extend uniformly throughout the whole territory; hoard discoveries indicate that it was concentrated basically on the Mediterranean coastal strip and a little inland, as well as in the Guadalquivir valley. Carthaginian coinages were predominant in the south, those of the Romans in the northeast (Villaronga 1993: 21–36, 72–73).

The Roman Dominion After the defeat of the Carthaginians, the Roman Senate decided to remain in the Iberian Peninsula in order to

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The Ancient Coinages of the Iberian Peninsula exploit its resources. The conquered part was divided into two provinces, Hispania Citerior and Hispania Ulterior, each under the command of a praetor, with power to intervene in local internal policies, which may have included the manufacture of coinages. Hispania Citerior over time included within its boundaries Gallaecians, Asturians, Cantabrians, Celtiberians, Vascons, towns of the Pyrenees, and Iberians; Hispania Ulterior included the Iberians of the southeast, Turdetanians, Lusitanians, Vetons, Punics, and peoples of the south of Portugal. The Roman presence had important repercussions in the life of the natives of the Iberian Peninsula, because it generated a slow and complex process of assimilation and sociocultural exchanges and, simultaneously, a series of legal changes among the subject populations. The Roman dominion favored contacts between the different peninsular people; it integrated their productive economies with those of the Roman state, and during the second and first centuries B.C. contributed to the increase of coin use, because coins became more and more familiar objects. Among the reasons is that Roman society itself was in a process of important monetization. The Romans encouraged the urban organization and with it the tendency toward a monetized economy. The presence of the army, the arrival of colonists, craftsmen, and businessmen, all of them accustomed to and dependent on the use of coinages, contributed to this development. However, as a result of repeated remittances of booties to Rome in the first decades of the second century B.C. (Livy, 34.10.4–7; 34.46.2; 40.43.6) and of the shortage of the native issues, the monetization of the economy took more than (p. 362) 50 years to develop. A case in point is the rarity of the Second Punic War coinages in both stray finds and hoards dated during the first half of second century B.C. Roman coinages did not contribute either, at the outset, to the development of the monetization among the natives, since until the second half of the second century B.C. few Roman coins arrived in Spain (Ripollès 1982: 276–285).

Monetization as Effect of Civic Impetus The native coinages were promoted by the city authorities, who could at that time define their characteristics, perceptible not only in the designs, but also in the scripts used on the legends. The monetization of the Iberian Peninsula took place largely from within, from the issues minted by more than 160 populations (fig. 19.20), linked with the existence of economies in which payment and retail trade were usual and up to a certain point necessary, as was the case in mining zones (Castulo), rich agricultural territories (Obulco; fig. 19.8), harbor areas (e.g. Untikesken, Arse-Saguntum, Malaca, Gadir (fig. 19.9), and military establishments.

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Although some silver issues may have been struck for strictly local purposes (e g. Arse, Iltirta, Ausesken, Kese), a good part were minted in Celtiberian cities and the Pyrenean area (Sekobirikez, Arekorata, Turiazu, Bolskan; fig. 19.10). These more likely originated in a military context (to pay auxiliary troops: López Sánchez 2007), from the last third of the second century to the first decades of the first century B.C. (Otero 2002: 162; Gozalbes 2007: 141–173) rather than to cover Roman regular fiscal (p. 363) payments (Ñaco 2003: 215–222). It is clear,

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The Ancient Coinages of the Iberian Peninsula however, that these issues of silver were soon integrated in the stock of coinage in circulation. The city coinages were used around all the Iberian Peninsula without any type of restriction, since the finds in the cities show issues coming from neighboring cities or from places that struck a huge volume (Ripolles 1982; Bost et al. 1987). To a lesser extent, we also found them in North Africa (Callegarin and Harrif 2000) and in Gallia (Py 2006: 665–689).

Metals and Denominations

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During the second and first centuries B.C., coins in Spain were made of silver and bronze, except for imperial gold issues attributed to Patricia (RIC 50–153) and Caesaraugusta (RIC 26–49). The ternary bronze (copper, tin, and lead) was used by the cities of both provinces, as happened in the Mediterranean at this time (Craddock et al. 1980: 53–64); pure copper has also been recorded in Celtiberian mints, and an alloy of copper and lead was found in some issues of Castulo, Obulco, Ikalesken, and Kelin (Ripollès-Abascal 1995: 131–155; Parrado 1998; Chaves, Otero, and Gómez 2005: 487–496; fig. 19.20). (p. 364) The identification of the native bronze denominations is complex, because the Roman names of denominations were not suitable, due to the obvious variations of weight with respect to the Roman standard, presumably because native bronze coinages were intended for local circulation. However, at the outset, many issues were minted following a high weight average, around 20–24 g, and later those coinages centered around 19–13 g tended to be more common (Villaronga 1998b: 53–74; Mora 2006: 23–61). The published data assure that the average quality of the metal minted was relatively high in second- to firstcentury B.C. silver coinages, although some mints located in the Castillian Meseta display more dispersed values and an average of slightly inferior quality, below 90% (Serafin 1998: 161–167; Parrado 1998: 52–69; RipollèsAbascal 1995: 141). All silver coins were minted in the Citerior, and most of those struck in Hispania adopted the weight of the Roman denarius and probably had an equivalent value. Some cities like Bolskan, Arekorata, Turiazu (fig. 19.10), or Sekobirikez minted quantities of denarii. Those that have been studied do not support the idea that they were struck to finance the Sertonian wars (80–72 B.C.), because by then most silver issues had already been coined, although it seems that they were extensively used in those years (Otero 2002: 162; Gozalbes 2007: 141–148). No city in Hispania Ulterior minted silver coinages, but the territory was supplied with silver coinages, native or Roman.

Designs During the second–first centuries B.C., the native populations had quite an autonomous development, in which they adapted the concept of coinage to their idiosyncrasies. The native issues took on Greek-Hellenistic iconographical figures from diverse origins that by their repeated use became characteristic icons of a series of mints or regions (e.g., grain stalks, Hercules, sphinx, bull, rider; figs. 19.10, 19.12). The small number of connections of the designs

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The Ancient Coinages of the Iberian Peninsula and the ideology of the Hispanic coinages with the Roman cultural world can be explained by the autonomy the Hispanic communities enjoyed, since Rome did not yet have its own standardized iconography of cultural symbols (Keay 2001: 129). Some characteristics of the designs allow us to establish differences in the monetary production of the two Hispanic provinces. In the cities of Hispania Citerior, the monetary types were characterized by being rather uniform, since for the bronze units and the silver denarii the male head on the obverse, and the horseman with spear, palm, or another object on the reverse, was preferred (figs. 19.10, 19.11). The obverse could represent the founding hero or a local divinity of the ethnic group, and the reverse could be adapted to fulfill values or beliefs of the elites of equestrian tradition, as Almagro (2005) has suggested.

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(p. 365) On the bronze fractions, the designs were a little more varied, and they often identified the value of the denominations, as was the case of the horses for halves and the half Pegasus for quarters. The homogeneity of types and scripts suggests the desire to participate in a monetary circuit with recognizable and homologous pieces. In the Ulterior province, however, there was a greater variety of designs, among which the horseman was occasional and quite a lot of types were linked with flora; the existence of a standardized system of fractions distinguished by designs is less evident. The designs of Phoenician-Punic issues and those that were minted with Iberian and Latin legends reflected manifold facets of their identity. They alluded to their cults, like Hercules in Gadir (fig. 19.9), Seks, Asido, and Lascuta; Jupiter-Saturn in Carteia; Hephaestus-Vulcan and Helios-Sol in Malaca; and male and female local divinities in Castulo, Obulco, and Carmo. Such designs were numerous, as well as ones related to the economic resources of the cities (tunas in Gadir and Seks; grain stalks in Obulco, Ilipa (fig. 19.12), Ilse, Murtili, Laelia, Acinipo, and Carmo).

Legends

Fig 19 13

Another relevant characteristic of the ancient coinages of the Iberian Peninsula was the script they used. The development of the cultural features of the native societies that took place during the second–first centuries B.C., as a form of autonomy and (p. 366) self-representation of the elites, can also be detected in the epigraphy (Hoz 1995: 68), which reflects the diversity of existing peoples in Hispania, the Roman permission, and the encouragement of urban life.

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The Ancient Coinages of the Iberian Peninsula Coin legends give evidence of diverse types of script. Foreign cultural groups used their own, such as Greek (figs. 19.2, 19.3, 19.7) and Punic (fig. 19.9). However, the native population used at least three types of scripts. The “Levantine Iberian” was used in the Iberian area (fig. 19.11), and it was employed inland to write the Celtiberian language (fig. 19.10; Villar 1995). The “Meridional Iberian” script was used in the southeastern half of the Peninsula (fig 19.8). Finally, the “Tartessian” or “South-Lusitanian” script, about which virtually nothing is known, is only recorded on the issues of Salacia (Portugal; fig. 19.13). In addition, many native populations of the Hispania Ulterior used Latin script from the beginning, but in a restricted way and for official aims (e.g. place names or ethnics; fig. 19.12); its use cannot be taken to demonstrate that a significant part of the population knew Latin, but rather that it was a specific package of Latin use, which could be defined as coinage literacy (Untermann 1995: 313–315).

The Impact of the Legal Promotions of the Cities From the first century B.C., the establishment of Roman colonies and the legal promotion of indigenous cities, converted now into municipalities, constituted the beginning of a new stage in the monetary history of Hispania (Ripollès 2010). Their number was important, because under Pompey, Caesar, and Augustus, 23 colonies were created and up to 77 cities granted municipal statuts (Galsterer 1971; Abascal and Espinosa 1989: 59–67). These foundations meant important changes in the sociopolitical geography of the Iberian Peninsula and allowed the indigenous elites and the newly established population to acquire Roman citizenship. In the native promoted cities, the social and political changes affected, inter alia, urbanism, government magistracies, personal and place names, and coin designs. The founding of the colonies contributed to the diffusion of Italian-Roman signs of (p. 367) identity and explains the disappearance of the indigenous cultural features in the surrounding areas, due to the Italian origin of the settled population.

New Designs for a New Society The new political arrangement, legal changes granted to the cities, and new contingents of settled populations motivated a change in the designs of the coinages of the cities. They looked more and more Roman, as did other external signs of Hispanic society. The new coin types had mostly a Roman content, because they were chosen by the elites of the promoted cities and because many were inspired by and copied from Roman issues. From Augustus on, the messages the coinages transmitted were in accordance with the new imperial ideology of legitimizing the emperor and his successors (Zanker 1992: 201–280; Keay 2001: 133); with these coin types, elites proclaimed their loyalty to the emperor and the new state. Roman provincial issues showed on the obverse the portrait of the emperor and, in time and to a lesser extent, some members of his family. The date of portrait introduction in the coinages of Hispania is uncertain, and few of them can be dated with certainty before the 20s B.C. The generalization of the imperial portrait, usually wreathed, has raised the question of its obligatory nature, but several exceptions, like Carteia (colonia) and Emporiae (municipium; fig. 19.14), seem to indicate that the cities adopted it voluntarily. The election of the imperial portrait for the obverses entailed that the cities only had the reverses to show designs with local meaning. For this side of the coin, several types were chosen, often adapted from Roman monetary designs.

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The Ancient Coinages of the Iberian Peninsula Roman provincial coin designs often reflected the origin and the culture of the populations of both types of privileged cities of Hispania, the colonies (foreign people) and the municipalities (native settlers). At the outset, some municipalities maintained designs of their previous issues, minted in Republican times; most were replaced during the reign of Tiberius by others based on Roman coinages. The maintenance of the traditional designs suggests that these expressed for local identity and called attention to local history (Edmondson 2002: 55–56), as at Osca and Emporiae (fig. 19.14). (p. 368) In the colonies, the designs referred to another cultural horizon. In these designs, types with Roman symbolism and without connection to the previous indigenous iconography were used. They alluded to the origin of the settled population, in the case of the veterans by means of legionary standards (fig. 19.15); to the Roman ritual of colonization (fig. 19.16); to the symbols of the Roman religion; to the imperial cult, with the erection of altars and temples; and to dynastic themes (fig. 19.17), tuning in to the Roman issues, and influenced by the political context of the time (Wallace-Hadrill 1986: 66–73).

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The iconographic difference between municipalities and colonies was not absolute, since in both types of cities similar designs were also used, such as wreaths (fig. 19.18) or bulls (fig. 19.19). The latter were depicted standing or walking (in Lepida also running) with or without pediment on the horns. This ornament, also known in Republican monetary iconography (RRC 455/4) and in reliefs (Ara Pietatis, Boscoreale cup, altar of Domitius Ahenobarbus) as part of scenes of sacrifice (Ryberg 1955: 67–69, 117–118; Stilp 2001: 47–52), suggests that the bull had a religious

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The Ancient Coinages of the Iberian Peninsula meaning (e.g. Tarraco, Caesaraugusta, Graccurris, and Ercavica; fig. 19.19). (p. 369)

Latin Prevailed The promotion of native cities and the foundation of colonies accelerated the disappearance of non-Latin scripts from public display (Burnett 2002: 37–38). In the last years of the Republican period, a part of the society had already been Latinized, as can be seen from the reduction of the pre-Roman and bilingual epigraphic testimonies and the increase of Latin usage. Epitaphs and dedications used Latin, and very soon this practice became a Roman cultural act for natives, revealing the acceptance of the culture of the rulers and recognizing Latin as the prestige language (Edmondson 2002, 43). In the privileged cities, the use of Latin is attested on official documents, and coin legends reinforced this dynamic, because in them Latin was always used, with the exceptions of Ebusus and Abdera (RPC I: 124–125, 479–482), which also used Punic writing to indicate their place names, and of Saguntum, to which a rare issue in Greek is attributed (Ripollès and Llorens 2002: no. 412–415). In the domestic sphere, natives kept using pre-Latin scripts.

What the Legends Tell The legends of Roman provincial coinages provide more information than the native issues struck during the Republican period, because they contain more words and more abbreviations (figs. 19.16, 19.19), following the late Republican (p. 370) and imperial models (Burnett 2002: 37–38). The generalized adoption of the portrait of the emperor in the obverses made an identifying legend necessary. With Augustus, the imperial title on the coin legends was varied, and only became regularized over time, being more systematized during the reigns of Tiberius and Caligula. Local information was displayed on the reverses. This was the most usual place for naming minting cities, with or without an indication of their legal status, as well as the names and magistracies of those in charge of the issue (mostly in the province of Tarraconensis); of these, the IIviri were most frequently recorded (figs. 19.16, 19.17). Quattuorviri, aediles, quaestores, and praefecti were also mentioned, although much less frequently. The reverse legends also identify divinities and allegorical figures represented in the designs and allow us to perceive the meaning and intention of the objects and monuments engraved.

Why the Cities Minted The Roman provincial coinages of Hispania were struck only in bronze (from the reign of Tiberius, a few mints used copper for the asses and orichalcum for the dupondii and sestertii: for example, Caesaraugusta, Tarraco, Ilici, and Osca) and almost always in a discontinuous rhythm. These features, together with the fact that the most minted denominations were the asses and semisses, suggest that cities put in circulation a relatively modest amount of money, destined for local use and very useful for the payment of small-value exchanges. At the beginning of the reign of Augustus, bronze coinage in circulation in Hispania was scarce and well worn, partially due to low coin production in the course of the preceding five decades, both Roman and native. The civic issues increased and refreshed the stock of bronze coinage. Finds of civic coinages suggest they fulfilled an important task in the monetization of Hispania, reaching in certain cities up to 85% of all bronze coinages in circulation (Bost et al. 1987: 45–51). The provincial issues of Hispania are correlated with local motivations, but their total value in many cities did not exceed the most basic expenses of their administration, as they could be the wages of the apparitores, the cost of maintaining the public slaves, and the payment for public games (Lex Ursonensis 62). The precise reasons that led the cities to strike coins are difficult to identify, although it seems clear that they must be sought within the coins themselves and not in financial necessities of the Roman state. The causes for civic coinages must have been diverse, and some may have been concurrent, like financing services and public works; providing coinages for the daily retail trade through money changers; beneficent acts of money distribution; profiting from the minting issues; some type of commemoration or celebration; the prestige of having coinage; the opportunity to engage an engraver or a workshop. The provision of coinage to the army has also (p. 371) been the function attributed to

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The Ancient Coinages of the Iberian Peninsula some mints (García-Bellido 2006a: 677–694). It is probable that the army settlements exerted a powerful attraction on the provincial coinages once these were coined, and could even prompt some issue by virtue of their benefit to the city or its citizens, because bronze coinage optimized the use of silver coins and favored its exchange.

The End of Civic Coinages From the reigns of Caligula/Claudius I on, the coinages of the Roman cities of Hispania ceased. This end must be connected to the imperial context to which Hispania belonged and must be viewed from a wider perspective that includes the western part of the empire, which was immersed in a trend toward the unification of the Roman monetary system, in which the civic bronze coinages progressively were replaced by the imperial ones. The end of the minting has been variously explained: political reasons, economic weakness of the cities, preference for imperial coinages (Grant 1946: 203 n. 3; Crawford 1985: 272; RPC I: 18–19; Burnett 2002: 39; López Sánchez 2002: 213–236); none of these seems satisfactory by itself. With the end of the Roman provincial coinages during the reign of Claudius I, one of the most important public symbols of the cities disappeared, concluding 500 years of civic coinages. Henceforth, all the coinages used in Hispania came from the imperial mints. Fig. 19.1. AR. Fraction. Emporion. From the Rosas hoard. 4th century B.C. Gabinet Numismàtic de Catalunya 20520. Fig. 19.2. AR. Drachma. Rhode. Late 4th cent. B.C. British Museum, SNG Spain 2. Fig. 19.3. AR. Drachma. Emporion. Early 3rd cent. B.C. British Museum, SNG Spain 14. Fig. 19.4. AR. Drachma. Arse. Early 3rd cent. B.C. Royal Coin Cabinet, Stockholm. Fig. 19.5. AE. Ebusus. Late 4th cent. B.C. Naville XII, 11 (3.05 g). Fig. 19.6. AR. Shekel. Carthaginians in Spain. 218–206 B.C. British Museum, SNG Spain 113. Fig. 19.7. AR. Drachma. Emporion. Late 3rd cent. B.C. The Hague 3 (4.57 g). Fig. 19.8. AE. Unit. Obulco. 2nd cent. B.C. Museo Arqueológico Nacional, Madrid, 1993/67/6833. Fig. 19.9. AE. Unit. Gadir. 2nd-1st cent. B.C. Staatliche Museen, Berlin. Fig. 19.10. AR. Denarius. Turiasu. Late 2nd cent. B.C. Danish National Museum, SNG Copenhagen 354. Fig. 19.11. AE. Unit. Kelse. Mid-2nd and early 1st cent. B.C. Danish National Museum, SNG Copenhagen 308. (p. 372) Fig. 19.12. AE. Unit. Ilipa. 2nd cent. B.C. British Museum, SNG 1549. Fig. 19.13. AE. Unit. Beuibon/Salacia. 2nd-1st cent. B.C. Danish National Museum, SNG Copenhagen 127. Fig. 19.14. AE. As. Emporiae. Late 1st cent. B.C.–early 1st cent A.D. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Luynes 97. Fig. 19.15. AE. As. Gemella Acci. Caligula (A.D. 37–41). (Cast in BM). Fig. 19.16. AE. As. Caesaraugusta. Augustus. C. 15 B.C.–A.D. 14. Bibliothèque nationale de France, fg 532. Fig. 19.17. AE. Dupondius. Caesaraugusta. Caligula (A.D. 37–41). Instituto Valencia de Don Juan 3037. Fig. 19.18. AE. As. Segobriga. Tiberius (A.D. 14–37). Museo Arqueológico Nacional, Madrid, 12592. Fig. 19.19. AE. As. Graccurris. Tiberius (A.D. 14–37). British Museum 863. Fig. 19.20. Civic mints in ancient Spain during the 4th–1st cents. B.C.

Bibliography Bibliography Abascal, J. M., and U. Espinosa. (1989). La ciudad hispano-romana: Privilegio y poder Logroño. Alfaro, C. (2001). “La moneda en las ciudades fenopúnicas.” In Moneda i vida urbana V Curs d’Història Monetària d’Hispània Barcelona: Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya: 29–52. Alfaro, C., C. Marcos, and P. Otero, eds. (2005). Actas del XIII Congreso Internacional de Numismática, Madrid, September 15–19, 2003 Madrid: Ministerio de Cultura. Almagro-Gorbea, M. (2005). “Ideología ecuestre en la Hispania prerromana.” Glaux 25: 151–186.

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The Ancient Coinages of the Iberian Peninsula Aranegui, C. (2004). “El Grau Vell, puerto de Arse-Saguntum.” In Opulentissima Saguntum Sagunto: Bancaixa: 87–97. Balmuth, M., ed. (2001). Hacksilber to Coinage: New Insights into the Monetary History of the Near East and Greece New York: ANSNS 24. Beltrán, F., ed. (1995). Roma y el nacimiento de la cultura epigráfica en occidente Zaragoza: Institución Fernando el Católico. Bendala, M. (2004). Tartesios, iberos y celtas Pueblos, culturas y colonizadores de la Hispania antigua Madrid: Temas de hoy. Blagg, T. F. C., R. F. J. Jones, and S. J. Keay, eds. (1984). Papers in Iberian Archaeology BAR International Series 193. Oxford. Bost, J. P., Fca. Chaves, G. Depeyrot, J. Hiernard, and J.-C. Richard. (1987). Belo IV Les monnaies Madrid: Casa de Velázquez. Burillo, F. (1998). Los celtíberos: Etnias y estados Barcelona: Crítica. Burnett, A. (2002). “Latin on Coins of the Western Empire.” In Cooley: 33–40. Callegarin, L., and F.-Z. el Harrif. (2000). “Ateliers et échanges monétaires dans le ‘circuit du détroit.’” In GarcíaBellido and Callegarin: 23–42. Campo, M. (2005). “Nuevos datos sobre la moneda en la colonia de Rhode.” In Alfaro et al.: 323–329. ———. (2008). “La fabricació de moneda als tallers grecs d’Ibèria: Emporion i Rhode”. XII Curs d’Història monetària d’Hispània. Barcelona: 9–27. Chaves, F., P. Otero, and B. Gómez. (2005). “Los hallazgos monetales del poblado minero de La Loba (Fuenteovejuna, Córdoba). Análisis metalográficos.” In Alfaro et al: 487–496. (p. 373) Cooley, A. E., ed. (2002). Becoming Roman, Writing Latin? JRA Supplementary monograph 48. Portsmouth, R.I. Craddock, P. T., A. M. Burnett, and K. Preston. (1980). “Hellenistic Copper-base Coinage and the Origins of Brass.” In Scientific Studies in Numismatics British Museum Occasional Papers 18. London: 53–64. Crawford, M. H. (1985). Coinage and Money under the Roman Republic: Italy and the Mediterranean Economy London. Díaz, M., and S. Keay, eds. (1997). The Archaeology of Iberia: The Dynamics of Change London. Edmondson, J. (2002). “Writing Latin in the Province of Lusitania.” In Cooley: 41–60. Furtwängler, A. (1978). Monnaies grecques en Gaule: Le trésor d’Auriol et le monnayage de Massalia 525/520– 460 av J -C Friburg. ———. (2002). “Monnaies grecques en Gaule: nouvelles trouvailles (6ème–5ème s. av. J.-C.).” La monetazione dei Focei in Occidente. Atti dell’XI Convegno del Centro Intenazionale di Studi Numismatici, Napoli, 25–27 Ottobre 1996. Rome: 93–111. Galsterer, H. (1971). Untersuchungen zum römischen Stadtewesen auf der iberischen Halbinsel Berlín. García-Bellido, M. P. (2006a). “Ejército, moneda y política económica.” In Garcia-Bellido 2006b: 673–704. ———, ed. (2006b). Los campamentos romanos en Hispania (27 a C –192 d C ) Madrid. García-Bellido, M. P., and L. Callegarin, eds. (2000). Los Cartagineses y la monetización del Mediterráneo Occidental AEA 22. Madrid.

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The Ancient Coinages of the Iberian Peninsula García-Bellido, M. P., and R. M. S. Centeno, eds. (1995). La Moneda Hispánica: Ciudad y Territorio Madrid. Gozalbes, M. (2007). La ceca de Turiazu: Monedas celtibéricas en la Hispania republicana. Serie de Trabajos Varios 100. Valencia. Grant, M. (1946). From Imperium to Auctoritas Cambridge. Hoz, J. de. (1995). “Escrituras en contacto: Ibérica y latina.” In Beltrán: 57–84. Keay, S. J. (2001). “Romanization and the Hispaniae.” In Keay and Terrenato: 117–144. Keay, S., and N. Terrenato, eds. (2001). Italy and the West: Comparative Issues in Romanization Oxford. López Sánchez, F. (2001–2002). “La afirmación soberana de Calígula y de Claudio y el fin de las acuñaciones ciudadanas en Occidente.” Salduie 2: 213–236. ———. (2007). “Los auxiliares de Roma en el valle del Ebro y su paga en denarios ibéricos (133–90 a.C.).” Athenaeum 95/1: 287–320. Los iberos: Príncipes de Occidente (1998). Barcelona: Fundació La Caixa. Marchetti, P. (1978). Histoire économique et monétaire de la deuxième Guerre Punique Brussels. Martins, M. (1997). “The Dynamics of Change in Northwest Portugal during the First Millennium B.C.” In Díaz and Keay: 143–157. Mora, B. (2006). “Metrología y sistemas monetarios en la Península Ibérica, XII.” In Congreso Nacional de Numismática Madrid-Segovia, October 25–27, 2004 Madrid: 23–61. Ñaco del Hoyo, T. (2003). Vectigal Incertum BAR International Series 1158. Oxford. Neville, A. (2007). Mountains of Silver and Rivers of Gold: The Phoenicians in Iberia Oxford. Otero, P. (2002). “Arekorata: La moneda en una ciudad de la Meseta.” In VI Curs d’Història Monetària d’Hispània: Funció i producció de les seques indígenes Barcelona: 147–169. Parrado, M. S. (1998). Composición y circulación de la moneda hispano-romana en la Meseta Norte Valladolid. Py, M. (2006). Monnaies préaugustéennes de Lattes et la circulation monétaire protohistorique en Gaule méridionale Latara 19. Lattes. (p. 374) Ripollès, P. P. (1982). La circulación monetaria en la Tarraconense Mediterránea Valencia. ———. (2010). Las acuñaciones provinciales romanas de Hispania. Madrid. Ripollès, P. P., and J. M. Abascal. (1995). “Metales y aleaciones en las acuñaciones antiguas de la Península Ibérica.” Saguntum 29: 131–155. Ripollès, P. P., and M. M. Llorens. (2002). Arse-Saguntum: Historia monetaria de la ciudad y su territorio Sagunto. Rodríguez Ramos, J. (2004). Análisis de epigrafía íbera Vitoria-Gasteiz. Ruiz, A., and M. Molinos. (1993). Los Iberos: Análisis arqueológico de un proceso histórico Barcelona. Ryberg, I. S. (1955). Rites of the State Religion in Roman Art MAAR 22. Rome. Serafin, P. (1988). “Sul contenuto argenteo di alcune serie Ispaniche.” Bollettino di Numismatica 11: 161–167. Sills, J. (2003). Gaulish and Early British Gold Coinage London. Stern, E. (2001). “The Silver Hoard from Tel Dor.” In Balmuth: 19–26. Stilp, F. (2001). Mariage et suovetaurilia: Etude sur le soi-disant “Autel de Domitius Ahenobarbus ” Rome.

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The Ancient Coinages of the Iberian Peninsula Untermann, J. (1995). “La latinización de Hispania a través del documento monetal.” In García-Bellido and Centeno: 305–316. Villar, F. (1995). Estudios de celtibérico y de toponimia prerromana Salamanca. ———. (2000). Indoeuropeos y no indoeuropeos en la Hispania prerromana Salamanca. Villaronga, L. (1984a). “Las primeras emisiones de monedas de bronce en Hispania.” In Blagg et al.: 205–214. ———. (1984b). “Uso de la ceca de Emporion por los romanos para cubrir sus necesidades financieras en la Península Ibérica durante la segunda guerra púnica.” Studi per L. Breglia I, Bollettino di Numismatica, supp. 4: 209–214. ———. (1993). Tresors monetaris de la Península Ibèrica anteriors a August: repertori i anàlisi Barcelona. ———. (1994). Corpus Nummum Hispaniae ante Augusti Aetatem Madrid. ———. (1997). Monedes de plata emporitanes dels segles V–IV a C Barcelona. ———. (1998a). Les dracmes ibèriques i llurs divisors Barcelona. ———. (1998b). “Metrologia de les monedes antigues de la península Ibèrica.” Acta Numismàtica 28: 53–74. ———. (2000). Les monedes de plata d’Emporion, Rhode i les seves, imitacions Barcelona. Wallace-Hadrill, A. (1986). “Image and Authority in the Coinage of Augustus.” JRS 76: 66–87. Zanker, P. (1992). Augusto y el poder de las imágenes. Madrid. Pere P. Ripollès Pere P. R pollès s Professor of Archaeology, Un vers ty of Valenc a.

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Flavian Coinage

Oxford Handbooks Online Flavian Coinage Ian Carradice The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Coinage Edited by William E Metcalf Pr nt Publ cat on Date: Feb 2012 Onl ne Publ cat on Date: Nov 2012

Subject: Class cal Stud es, Greek and Roman Archaeology, Anc ent Roman H story DO : 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195305746.013.0021

Abstract and Keywords The emperors of the Flavian dynasty had a considerable impact on imperial history. All of the denominations of imperial coinage employed had already appeared in the past; the elements most commonly used in coinage typology—imperial portraits for the obverse, a variety of designs for the reverse—were already familiar. Innovations were interesting, but relatively minor, for instance the regular revival of archaic coin types and the production of “restoration” issues commemorating earlier coinages apparently being withdrawn from circulation. However, the key contribution made by Flavian coinage was that, in both the imperial and provincial series, it selected certain features of earlier coinages, discontinued others, and applied a greater consistency, so that the different categories of coinage, Roman imperial, provincial or regional, civic, and so on, are easily classified and were to remain unchanged for a long period afterward. Keywords Flavian imperial history coinage archaic coin types Roman

Introduction and Bibliography The emperors of the Flavian dynasty ruled Rome for only 27 years, but they had a considerable impact on imperial history. Vespasian emerged from the Civil Wars of 68–69 to bring stability and provide an organized succession for his sons (fig. 20.1), and while the younger, Domitian, may be best known as a tyrant in the tradition of the “bad” emperors of the Julio-Claudian period such as Caligula and Nero, the empire that he handed on to the next generations was equipped to, and was indeed destined to, provide a hundred years of relative peace and prosperity. To some extent, the Flavian coinage reflects history in that it emerged from the chaos of the Civil Wars and was formed into a settled and systematic production with characteristics that broadly changed little for the next century. When the Flavian coinage is compared with that produced under earlier emperors, it is evident that most of its features had already been present. All of the denominations of imperial coinage employed had already appeared in the past; the elements most commonly used in coinage typology—imperial portraits for the obverse, a variety of designs for the reverse (fig. 20.2)—were already familiar. Innovations are interesting, but relatively minor, for instance the regular revival of archaic coin types (Buttrey 1972) and the production of “restoration” issues commemorating earlier coinages apparently being withdrawn from circulation (Komnick 2001). However, such comparisons fail to identify the key contribution made by Flavian coinage, which is that in both the imperial and provincial series it selected certain features of earlier coinages, discontinued others, and applied a greater consistency, so that the different categories of coinage—Roman imperial, provincial or regional, civic, and so on— are easily classified and were to remain unchanged for a long period afterward.

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Flavian Coinage

Fig 20 1

Fig 20 2

(p. 376) The study of Flavian coinage has been facilitated by the publication of RPC volume 2 and the new edition of RIC II (part 1, The Flavian Emperors). Together these two volumes enable the entire coinage to be viewed in systematically classified arrangement, and they also provide commentaries (the new RIC has extensive introductory chapters in the style of BMCRE—previously the best overall introduction to the Flavian coinage). Specialist studies have also advanced our knowledge of Flavian coinage, notably Colin Kraay's and Ian Carradice's Ph.D. studies in the 1950s and 1970s, respectively. The former, focusing on the bronze coinage of Vespasian, is unpublished, but spawned several short articles (Kraay 1978, 1954). Carradice's research, on the coinage of Domitian, was published as a monograph (Carradice 1983) and also led to additional published articles (Carradice 1982, 1993, 1998; Carradice and Cowell 1987) as well as feeding into the new RIC. Other scholars have contributed to the Flavian numismatic literature through catalogues (Giard 1998, 2000) and numismatic articles or monographs (notably Buttrey 1972, 1980).

An Empire-wide Coinage? In 68–69, before Vespasian was first hailed Imperator, Roman imperial coinage had been minted in the names of several short-lived emperors or anonymously (the so-called Civil War issues) at various mints, many not yet located with any degree of certainty. This pattern of dispersed, opportunistic, perhaps chaotic production was inherited by Vespasian, but by the end of his reign, 10 years later, Rome was the only imperial mint still operating. How this transformation happened is worth exploring in more detail (for further discussion see RIC II.1, Vespasian introduction, and for a summary of the mints, table 20.1).

Fig 20 3

Fig 20 4

The military nature of at least some of the earliest imperial issues is indicated by their types and, in one case, a legend: EXSERCI[TVS] MOESIC[VS] (fig. 20.3). Mints producing imperial coins were at first distributed across the empire, from Spain to Egypt, but many were closed before the end of 71, when Rome emerged as the most persistent and by far the dominant producer of imperial coinage:

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Flavian Coinage

Table 20.1 Vespasian's Roman imperial issues: Mints Rome

AV AR AE

69–96

Spain (Tarraco? and Uncertain)

AV AR AE

69–70

Military (Balkan mint)

AV AR

69–70

Uncertain (5 groups)

AV AR

69–71

Egypt/Judaea/Syria

AV AR

69–72

Lyon (early)

AV AR AE

70–72

Ephesus

AV AR

70–74

Ephesus?

AR

76

Lyon (later)

AE

77–78

(p. 377) Two mints that commenced Flavian coin production in 70, however, continued for several years: Ephesus in 70–74, perhaps also 76; Lyon in 70–72 and 77–78. Ephesus produced predominantly silver denarii, plus, at the start, a few rare aurei (fig. 20.4) and, in 72, some extremely rare cistophoric tetradrachms; Lyon produced all the major imperial denominations in 70–72, but in 77–78 only sestertii (fig. 20.5), dupondii, and asses, though in very large quantities. These patterns of production are suggestive of a regional currency supply role for these two mints. They also hint at an increasing role for the denarius in the eastern empire, while in the west it is worth observing that production of local “barbarous” imitations of Vespasian's bronze coins are noticeably rarer than imitations of Claudian bronzes, suggesting that the production of imperial bronze coinage in Lyon was deliberately intended to address local shortages that had earlier resulted in widespread local production of copies. In the meantime, another interesting development is the harnessing of the Rome mint for production of some eastern provincial issues: silver drachms and didrachms for Caesarea in Cappadocia in 73–77; orichalcum denominations for Syria in 74 and for Cyprus in 75–76 (fig. 20.6; Carradice and Cowell 1987, RPC II: pp. 11–13). For these provincial issues, the mint of Rome could provide Greek (Caesarea and Cyprus) or Latin (Syria) legends.

Fig 20 5

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Flavian Coinage

Fig 20 6

Under Vespasian, local production of provincial coinages was largely restricted to issues of lower denomination coins in bronze. Some issues in silver were produced, but these were fewer than in the earlier imperial period, and they were usually very brief: Ephesus cistophori in 72, Caesarean drachms and didrachms in 74–77, Cypriot didrachms and tetradrachms in 75–78, Syrian tetradrachms in 69–73, and Egyptian tetradrachms in 69–71 and 75– 76. Stylistic links between some Syrian (p. 378) and Cypriot silver issues suggest either movement of an engraver or production in Antioch for Cyprus. The latter possibility would mirror the example already provided by the Rome mint and confirm interprovincial organization of production, or at least communication. Thus, the overall picture is one of centralization of production of imperial currency and perhaps increased use of imperial silver in the east, but with the use of established local coinages continuing largely unhindered.

Fig 20 7

Fig 20 9

Fig 20 8

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Flavian Coinage

Fig 20 10

The reign of Titus was very short, yet provides some developments in mint organization, including a major problem. Rome continued to be by far the most important mint for imperial coinages (figs. 20.7, 20.8), and it was also used for production of cistophoric silver tetradrachms for circulation in the province of Asia (fig. 20.9; silver production at Ephesus having ceased before the end of Vespasian's reign). The styles of portrait and lettering in these “Romemint” cistophori is much closer to that of the precious metal than the bronze issues of imperial currency, suggesting, not surprisingly, that the cistophori were produced in the section of the mint that also produced denarii. The other eastern coinages are the usual numerous provincial and civic bronze issues and a small number of provincial silver issues: (p. 379) hemidrachms at Caesarea in Cappadocia and tetradrachms in Cyprus and Egypt. This pattern continues that seen under Vespasian. The most significant innovation under Titus is what appears to be the establishment of a second imperial mint for bronze coinage in the east (fig. 20.10). The characteristics of the coins assigned to this mint are that the obverse legends for Titus include DIVI VESP F among his titles (absent from the main Rome-mint issues); the obverse portraits are large, with heavy, muscular necks; reverse figures are large; lettering tends to be crowded and heavily seriffed; physically, the coins are flat or slightly convex on both sides; and finally, finds of these coins are commonest in Turkey and the Balkans, and numbers in museum collections in the same region are high. But there are problems with these criteria. The legend difference need not imply a separate mint, and only applies to Titus (not Domitian or Julia, who also feature at this mint); the stylistic differences compared with contemporary Romemint coins are not always clear, and in any case are not conclusive evidence of a separate mint; the flat fabric is distinctive, but it was common on Rome-mint coins before the reign of Nero, and it recurs again on some rare Flavian issues that have always been assumed to be from the mint of Rome. The strongest argument for a separate eastern mint may be the evidence of finds, and this has recently been bolstered by the commonness of these issues in the coin trade, at a time when other coinages from the Balkans and western Turkey also seem to be abundant. Why a second mint for imperial bronze coinage should have been established at this time in the east is not known, but the obvious explanation would be that it was intended to meet regional needs for this type of currency. (p. 380) This second imperial mint did not survive long into Domitian's reign. At some date in 82, perhaps only a few months after Domitian's accession, judging by the rarity of these coins compared with the issues struck under Titus, production ceased, and Rome was left as the only imperial mint for the rest of the reign. Interestingly, the Rome mint also ceased production of bronze coinage in 82, though production of gold and silver issues continued and bronze production resumed in 84. As under Vespasian and Titus, the Rome mint also continued to produce occasional issues for export: silver cistophoric tetradrachms for Asia in 81–82 and 95; silver didrachms and drachms for Caesarea in Cappadocia in 93–94; and silver drachms and hemidrachms for Lycia in 95.

Coinage Output and State Finances Coinage and state finances are closely linked, because coinage was the principal medium for financial transactions

Page 5 of 13

Flavian Coinage in the Roman world. It is therefore of particular interest to gain some understanding of the volume of coinage production. Because of the absence of documentary information on this subject, our understanding of output has to be based on the evidence provided by the surviving coinage, but how reliable is the surviving coinage as an indicator of output from the mint 2,000 years ago? Two factors, in particular, need to be considered. One relates to the information on coins—in public museums, in private collections, in publications of excavations, hoards, and so on. How available and how reliable is this information? Another factor is the fineness and weight of the coinage. This has a major effect only on precious metal denominations, in particular the ubiquitous silver denarii of the early empire, but it has a dramatic effect on coin survival in times when standards were changing, and this is what happened during the Flavian period. Patterns of imperial coinage output in the Flavian period have been calculated for most denominations. Some, particularly for gold and bronze coins, are only sample studies based on finds or trade material (RIC); while studies of denarius survival/output are based on more comprehensive hoard surveys (Carradice 1998), backed up by die studies (Carradice 1983: 78–84). A common problem for all these studies is the conditioning provided by the availability of evidence, with the western empire traditionally providing far more reliable study material than the eastern. Since the Roman imperial denominations were most dominant in the central and western provinces of the empire, this might not be thought too grave a problem; however, in the context of Flavian coinage, this western bias of the evidence could be hindering a proper understanding of the eastern denarius issues of Vespasian or the “Thracian” aes mint of the reign of Titus and the first year of Domitian. The recent abundance of the “Thracian mint” issues in trade has already been noted; denarii of Vespasian's Ephesus mint have also been appearing in trade with particular frequency in recent years, but we must be wary of the effects of occasional very (p. 381) large hoards that can flood the “market” and provide a distorted impression of frequency, at least temporarily. Die studies can confirm whether an issue was genuinely huge, rather than just appearing to be large because of the chance survival of a large body of specific material. Bearing in mind these factors, impressions of relative coinage output for different denominations and under the different reigns are now available, assisted by the susceptibility of the Flavian coinage to quite accurate dating because of the frequency with which the titles of the emperors changed. Production was not confined to the Rome mint, but it seems clear that Rome produced the vast majority of the coinage that survives today. The other mints may have made a significant impact in their own immediate regions, for the relatively brief periods they operated, but they pale into insignificance when their output is compared with that of Rome. On the coinage from the mint of Rome, graphs illustrating survival rates of coinage through Vespasian's reign (RIC II.1 pp. 49–51) show definite fluctuations between different denominations. At the start of the reign, there are peaks for both gold and silver, whereas bronze coinage is extremely rare, suggesting that the first priority was production of denarii and aurei. By contrast, AD 71 witnessed massive output of bronze coinage, especially sestertii, but unimpressive returns for silver denarii and gold aurei. Similarly, the second peak for silver, in AD 75, was also a peak for gold but one of the lowest years for aes coinage. This all seems to suggest there were shifts in production between the precious metal and aes coinages—perhaps resources were moved from one to the other, depending on need. It has been estimated that the rate of output of denarii during Titus's brief reign far exceeded that in any comparable period under Vespasian (Carradice 1998: 106), though we cannot know if this high output would have been sustained if the reign had lasted longer. The output pattern within the reign of Titus is difficult to calculate because of uncertainties in dating some of the issues, including the last—largest—issues of Titus, which have titles to suggest they did not extend beyond the summer of 80, though their commonness would perhaps suggest a longer duration of production. Titus's aes coinage has not benefited from quantitative studies comparable to those available for denarii, but it is very clear that his COS VIII issues (80–81) are far commoner than those dated COS VII (the second half of 79). Considering the brief duration of the reign, aes output was high overall, compared with that of Vespasian or Domitian, but again, it might not have been sustained if the reign had lasted longer. Between the reigns of Vespasian and Titus, it is possible to compare output of precious metal coinage on the basis of coin survival patterns today, because standards do not appear to have differed. However, with the reign of Domitian, the second factor of influence has a considerable effect on the evidence for precious metal production provided by coin survival, since Domitian apparently improved the coinage quite dramatically in AD 82, raising the fineness of the silver denarius and the weight of the gold aureus (Walker 1976: 95–101, 120, 1978: 117–119; Butcher and Ponting 1995). Although a second reform, in AD 85, debased the coinage somewhat, it remained finer than earlier Flavian coinage issued under Vespasian or Titus. (p. 382)

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Flavian Coinage

Table 20.2 Survival pattern of Domitian's denarii by minting period Year

Trajan

Hadrian

Pius

M. Aurelius

Commodus

Septimius Severus

Later

81–82

3.5%

5%

7%

8.5%

10.5%

14%

32.5%

82–85

3.5%

3%

0.5%

0.5%

0%

0.5%

0%

85–96

91%

92%

92.5%

91%

89.5%

85.5%

67.5%

This means that three separate standards were operating during the reign—an early “low” standard in 81–82, a “high” standard in 82–85, and a “medium” standard in 85–96—and these different standards had a dramatic effect on the survival pattern of aurei and denarii from Domitian's reign, providing a perfect illustration of the operation of the so-called Gresham's law, whereby “bad money drives out good” (Carradice 1983: 68–74). Table 20.2 shows the survival pattern of denarii from Domitian's three minting periods, from a sample of hoards buried at different periods after his reign (from Carradice 1983: 68). Reading this table from left to right, we see that the finest coins disappear very quickly, while the poorest quality coins gradually increase in numbers, relative to those of the “medium fineness” period, which, having been produced over a period of 11 years, had obviously been by far the most numerous originally. Individual hoards can also add some interesting details to this picture. The “Snettisham jeweler's hoard” from England (Johns 1997), discovered after this sample was counted, was buried during the reign of Antoninus Pius. It contained a total of 83 denarii, dating from as far back as the Republic, but 74 of the coins were Domitianic, all struck between 85 and 96. This hoarder clearly discriminated against lower quality silver coins, hence the absence of issues from the period 69–82, but the best he could find were the issues of Domitian from 85–96, because Domitian's finer coins, and those of the Julio-Claudian emperors, were no longer available when he was hoarding. Compare the Réka Devnia hoard, buried in the mid-third century (Mouchmov 1934). This contained a massive total of 2,808 Flavian coins, but only 296 of them were minted during the reign of Domitian, and 108 (36.5%) of them belonged to the period 81–82. There is much less evidence for the survival of Domitian's gold coins, but the pattern appears to mirror that of the silver (Carradice 1983: 97–100), with aurei of the heaviest period (82–85) disappearing from circulation early in the reign of Trajan. Thereafter, the hoards show that the coins of 85–96 are the most numerous until, in the second half of the second century, these also appear to have disappeared, and only the lightest aurei of the period 81–82 (and of Domitian Caesar) seem to have been available for hoarding. Fortunately, the largest known hoard of Domitianic gold, from Zemun in Croatia (Ljubić 1876), was buried soon after the emperor's death, so this provides a good impression of the relative output within the reign. The Zemun hoard, removing the heaviest available gold, and the Snettisham hoard, favoring the finest available silver coins 50 years later, both illustrate (p. 383) why hoarding patterns are so consistent—these were precisely the coins that were later “missing.” For output of gold coinage under Domitian, what the Zemun hoard suggests is that gold production was slight at the start of the reign but increased substantially in the period 82–85, precisely when the finest silver was being produced, albeit at a modest rate of output. Meanwhile, there appears to have been a high output of bronze coinage at the start of the reign, but production ceased in 82, until it commenced again, modestly, with an issue of mainly asses in 84. Full production of all denominations of aes resumed again in 85 and continued until the end of the reign, with peaks of production apparently in 85–87 and 90–91, though it is worth noting that the survival pattern of bronze coinage differs from region to region, so the peaks can sometimes vary, depending on the source of data (Hobley 1998: 22–31). There are also variations in the output of different aes denominations for separate issues, suggesting the possibility that production shifted between denominations according to demand. Denarius production gradually climbed after 85, until a peak was reached around 92, before falling off somewhat toward the end of the reign. Meanwhile, gold output may have peaked in the years 90–91, with a later decline mirroring that in silver toward the end of the reign.

Imperial Coin Types

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Flavian Coinage The imperial coinage of the Flavian period is generally impressive in appearance, and its types provide a rich source of material for study (e.g., Darwall-Smith 1996; Carradice 1993). Vespasian's earliest issues, largely restricted to small precious metal coins, have indistinct portraits of the new emperor (some of which have the features of Vitellius) and reverse types that copy recent issues of his predecessors or reflect the circumstances of his accession, with military themes prominent. The different mints show variations in choice of types, indicating separate development, though there are also instances of deliberate copying, and the themes in general cover the same, predictable ground: Victory, the restoration of peace (fig. 20.2) and stability, a new dynasty (fig. 20.1), and so on. The eastern issues, circulating in the region of Vespasian's original power base, tend to have the more dynamic and innovative types. Vespasian returned to Rome late in 70, and the following year's aes coinage produced by the mint of Rome was arguably the most varied and impressive of any single year in the entire imperial series. For the largest denomination, the sestertius, a wide variety of portrait types was employed, as well as numerous different reverse designs (fig. 20.2). After 71, Vespasian's aes coinage becomes much less varied, though impressive groups of aes were issued for Titus in 72 and Domitian Caesar in 73, before they also became more limited in range. Meanwhile, a different phenomenon is observed with the precious metal issues of the mint of Rome. For these, annually changing reverse types were employed, many consciously copying earlier imperial or even Republican designs (fig. 20.11; Buttrey 1972).

Fig 20 11

Fig 20 12

(p. 384) The prominence of both Vespasian's sons on the coinage, at all mints that continued in production beyond 71–72, is one of the more distinctive features of the Flavian imperial coinage. The coinage in the name of the younger son, Domitian, is as abundant as that minted for Titus, though in titles and in designs the older brother's seniority is clearly signaled—note, for instance, that on dupondii Vespasian and Titus have radiate portraits, while Domitian is draped. There is also more sharing of reverses between Vespasian and Titus, while Domitian's reverses emphasize his junior position (Princeps Iuventutis) and the fact that he is for the future (Spes). In addition to the dynastic iconography, another recurring subject of historic interest on the coinage of Vespasian is Judaea Capta, either directly, with depictions of Judaea herself in defeat, or through Victory or Triumph types that clearly allude to the military success that earned Vespasian the empire. The more explicit Judaea Capta reverse types were dropped by the mint of Rome after 73, though they reappeared in the output of aes produced by the mint of Lyon in 77–78 (fig. 20.5). Titus shared in his father's victories in Judaea, and Judaea Capta was revived as an imperial coin type under Titus. The dynastic emphasis on coin types also continued. On Sestertii, Titus is depicted accepting a globe from his late father, with the legend Provident August (fig. 20.8). A series of coinage in all metals was also produced for the now deified Vespasian, and other members of the imperial family were also honored, both living (Titus's daughter Julia and Domitian) and dead (his mother Domitilla). Domitian, now heir to the throne, has substantial production, but with no visible elevation of his status—in portraiture and reverse types his coinage is little changed from that produced under Vespasian.

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Flavian Coinage

Fig 20 13

The early coinage of Titus's reign was very similar in type content to that of the later years of Vespasian, but in 80 there was a significant overhaul of reverse designs on all denominations. One of the most famous types, appearing on sestertii, depicts the Flavian Amphitheater, better known today as the Colosseum (fig. 20.12). A new type for gold and silver, depicting an elephant (fig. 20.7), is also assumed to refer to the games celebrating the inauguration of this great building in 80; and many other designs of an apparently religious nature (the so-called pulvinaria— sacred couches of the gods—series) may also allude to this event. The change in typology in 80 also extended to the issues for the rest of the imperial family. The other major innovation on coin typology in 80–81 was the introduction of a series of aes “restoring” earlier imperial bronze coins (fig. 20.13) that are thought to have been removed from circulation (p. 385) at this time—a development that in some ways echoes Vespasian's earlier copying of antique types on gold and silver coinage. The second, apparently eastern, aes mint (fig. 20.10) shared in production of the output of bronze coinage of 80–81 including, it seems, the “restorations,” and because of the many shared types and inscriptions, it is in some cases difficult to distinguish between the two mints.

Fig 20 14

Fig 20 15

Fig 20 16

Fig 20 17

Fig 20 18

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Flavian Coinage The early coin issues of Domitian's reign again closely resembled those of his predecessor, but in 82 there were dramatic changes. The aes mint closed, and the gold and silver coinage was reformed in both quality and appearance. The flans for gold aurei and silver denarii became broader and more regular in shape; a new, more idealized portrait of Domitian began to evolve, later embellished with an aegis (fig. 20.15); and a range of new reverse types was introduced. Among the new types was a series honoring the imperial family, including his empress, Domitia, his niece Julia, and relatives newly deified by Domitian: his brother and sister (Titus and Domitilla) and his long-deceased baby son (fig. 20.14). When the aes mint resumed production in 84 (mainly asses) and 85 (all denominations), this also featured a wide range of completely new reverse types. From now until the end of the reign, Domitian's influence on the coinage is clearly evident. The silver denarius is completely dominated by images of Domitian's patron goddess, Minerva (fig. 20.15), who appears in four varieties, probably derived from well-known statue figures, systematically repeated issue after issue for the rest of the reign. The only interruptions to this typology are a large but brief issue in 88 with designs relating specifically to the Secular Games of that year, and a rare issue with types depicting temples—this issue is undated but probably belongs to 95–96. Meanwhile, gold aurei feature the same four Minerva types, plus two (a defeated Germania, fig. 20.16, and a triumphal quadriga) commemorating Domitian's German victories of 83–84. The sestertii were also used to celebrate the emperor's German victories, commencing (p. 386) in 85 with a complex series including several depicting Domitian himself as warrior, victor, or priest (fig. 20.17). German victory types also appeared on dupondii and asses at first, though later these reverted to standard personification designs: especially Virtus, Fortuna, and Moneta—the latter a new figure introduced by Domitian and perhaps alluding to his unprecedented award of a pay increase for the army. The sestertius series gradually reduced after the mid-80s, until only two core designs remained: Iovi Victori and Domitian crowned by Victory. As with the precious metal coinage, there were only two significant interruptions to the standard typology on aes coinage: a Secular Games series in 88 and a new group introduced in 95–96 that included monuments (fig. 20.18) and buildings on sestertii and other new types on dupondii and asses. Looking back at the reign as a whole, Domitian's influence on coin types is clearly evident (Carradice 1993). The reverse designs either featured him or respected his particular devotions or interests; the legends also typify him— illustrating his megalomaniac personality by insistently recording his numerous titles.

Provincial Coinage and Coin Types The provincial coinage produced during the Flavian period is now far more accessible, following the publication of RPC II. The authors of that work detected an overall increase in the rate of production under the Flavian emperors compared with the (p. 387) preceding period (Augustus to Vitellius), though since the time of Gaius only the eastern provinces were minting nonimperial issues. A wide range of provincial issues was produced under the Flavians, from high-value gold and silver in Roman imperial (aurei and denarii) or local denominations (e.g. cistophori in Asia) to low-value small bronze coins issued by numerous cities from Greece to Egypt. It has already been noted that some issues in silver and others in bronze were minted in Rome for circulation in the east, suggesting some form of central direction over production and supply. Regional organization is also evident in stylistic connections between coinage issues of Syria and Cyprus and issues of Syria and Alexandria, also in the production of coinage in the names of the koinon (Community) of “Paphlagonia,” “the Cypriots” (minted in Rome; fig. 20.6), “the Galatians,” and (unnamed) Bithynia and Macedonia.

Fig 20 19

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Flavian Coinage Fig 20 20

The Flavian provincial coinage was also very mixed in its form and design. Its denominations are many and varied; some equate with imperial denominations, others don’t; and imperial conventions are not followed with regard to denominations—the type of base metal is not significant, nor, it seems, is the use of the radiate portrait. One clear tendency in the period is that larger denominations become relatively more common, confirming an impression that the provincial coinage was evolving away from its Hellenistic or early imperial period origins. Similarly, in typology, the coinage has characteristics that take it further from the Hellenistic origins that were still evident in the JulioClaudian period and toward a coinage with a more explicitly “imperial” character. Obverse portraits are usually easy to identify, many being close to those seen on the Roman imperial coinage, and legends are generally longer and more explicit than in the previous period. On the reverses, although local designs are still common, types referring directly to the emperor become more frequent. This is particularly evident in the reign of Domitian, whose German victories are commemorated on local coin issues