READING HALL

THE DOORS OF WISDOM

THE PERSIAN EMPIRE AND THE WEST

CHAPTER V

COINAGE FROM ITS ORIGIN TO THE PERSIAN WARS

ANTICIPATIONS OF COINAGE

METALLIC coinage—consisting of pieces of precious metal, refined, shaped and stamped with some mark of authorityguaranteeing quality and weight—is preceded in the development of commerce, logically if not always chronologically, by three stages. The first is that of simple barter, when any commodity is exchanged against any other; the second that of trade with a recognized medium, such as stock-fish or oxen or utensils; the third that in which use is made of metallic ingots of various weights, stamped with a mark guaranteeing quality, but not divided according to a standard. The fully developed coin differs from the last only in being of standard weight, so that, by those who accept the authority issuing it, no use of scales is required. But slight as the advance on the preceding stage may seem to be, it is no less momentous in its own sphere than, in another, was the advance made by the printing-press on manuscript.

All these stages are represented in the ancient world. It is unnecessary here to dwell on the earliest stage, or on the use of amorphous pieces of metal, more or less broken up for convenience of division by the scales into quantities required at any time. Hoards of such broken metal, merely amorphous, or cast in the form of bricks, bars, plates and the like, are forthcoming from all kinds of places, from Assyria to Ireland, and at all periods from the ninth century before to the fifth century after Christ. In central Italy such rude metal was in use from about 1000 bc to the third century bc. A later development is shown when the metal is cast in the form of more or less regular ingots or bars, sometimes ornamented. Such bar-money, which could be broken into smaller pieces and weighed, is found at all periods down to the Middle Ages; it was the most convenient method of keeping bullion, whether intended for conversion into coin or not.

Our literary records show that many utensils were used in the ancient Mediterranean world as units of value. With the exception of the roasting-spit, however, it cannot be said that any specimens of them have survived in circumstances which show that they were used as money in the Mediterranean world. The so-called bronze axes from Sardinia, Cyprus, Crete, Euboea, Mycenae, are merely ingots with incurving sides convenient for lashing (whereas the edge of an axe must curve outwards), and cannot be identified with the Homeric ‘axes’ and ‘half-axes.’ If they were modelled on anything, it was ox-hides. (They doubtless served as currency, though whether they were the equivalent of gold talents or not, has not yet been definitely made out.) Prehistoric sites in central Europe, on the other hand, have furnished actual bronze double-axes, pierced with holes too small for a practicable handle, but intended for stringing them together; and from Gaul come hoards of small bronze celts which seem also to have been used for currency. In Crete, as late as the sixth century bc, fines were reckoned in tripods and cauldrons. There is as yet no evidence of finds of such objects conforming to a weightstandard, in the way in which the early British and Indian ‘waterclocks’ conform.

The use of iron and bronze spits (obeliskoi) as money—whence the names obol for a small coin, and drachm for a ‘handful’ of six pieces—is thoroughly well attested. Spits of which six went to a handful must have been quite serviceable for cooking, unless, as one author states, they were deliberately blunted. Pheidon’s dedication of obeliskoi in the Heraeum at Argos and the offering by the courtesan Rhodopis at Delphi are definite examples of such spit-money. The latter evidently consisted of current pieces. As to Pheidon’s dedication, it is in dispute whether it represented currency which had been demonetised, in consequence of his reforms; or standards of currency which he was inaugurating or regularising, deposited for reference; or merely specimens dedicated without any such reference; the last view seems the most plausible. The well-known bundle of spits actually found in the Heraeum is reasonably to be identified as the dedication attributed by tradition to Pheidon, whether he made it or not. Striking parallels to the Greek use of spits come from Etruria, where from the eighth to the sixth centuries BC. first bronze and, later, iron spits were hung together on ornamental handles in sets of six.

Another form in which metal was employed for currency was the ring. This was especially frequent in Egypt, and there are many examples of what may be ring-money forthcoming from prehistoric sites in Central Europe. For its use in the prehistoric Aegean and allied civilizations the hoards of rings from Troy, Mycenae, Aegina and Cyprus are evidence; but the attempt to base metrological systems on the weights of the actual rings is a failure. The later wheel-money of the Gauls is probably analogous to the ring-money.

Apart from such objects bearing no formal relation to the developed coin, there are a few of coin-like form, of very early date. Such are the gold dumps (hardly later than the ninth century) from Mycenaean Salamis in Cyprus, and a silver piece of similar form found in a late Minoan deposit at Cnossus; these seem to be on standards which were in use in the early Aegean. They are cast, not struck, but otherwise very like the earliest coins.

THE EARLIEST COINS

Such anticipations of metallic coinage are however isolated in the period of transition between the Aegean and the Ionian cultures. As early as the seventh century, perhaps earlier, the inhabitants of Lydia and the Ionian coast-towns which were in touch with that kingdom began to use the stamped electrum pieces, which are the earliest examples in the western world of a true metallic coinage. The metal which was used was the native ‘white gold’, a mixture of gold and silver in varying quantities, which was found in the sands of the river Pactolus and elsewhere. When the foundations of the earliest basis in the temple of Artemis at Ephesus were laid, this electrum coinage was already well developed, with various types, such as the lion, the gryphon’s head, the seal. If the date of the basis is rightly placed shortly before 700 bc, the introduction of such currency, specimens of which were buried beneath it, is thrown back well into the eighth century. And since (whether this early coinage was issued by civic authorities or by private persons) such a type as the seal can hardly have originated far from the sea, it seems to follow that not merely Lydia, but the Ionian coast-towns also, knew the use of coins at this early date. Of our literary authorities, Xenophanes, in the sixth century, ascribed the origin of coinage to the Lydians. Herodotus, in the fifth, says that the Lydians were the first men to strike and use coins of gold and silver, by which he must mean what he says: coins of gold and coins of silver, not coins of electrum, which is a mixture of the two metals. He was doubtless thinking of the later coins attributed to Croesus which are the earliest coins of pure gold and pure silver; his statement is so far specifically accurate, and is quite consistent with his other remark about the Lydians, that they were the first small dealers—for such people need coins more than the great merchants. The solution of the Iono-Lydian controversy may be that the coast-towns must have been full of Lydian shop-keepers who may have privately inaugurated a coinage for their own purposes; or the Lydian kings may themselves have caused such coins to be struck in the towns under their influence. The extraordinarily irregular and unsystematic character of the earliest electrum coinage lends some colour to the theory that it was originated rather by private persons—such as bankers—for their own convenience than by state-authorities. The types which were impressed on them were, in any case, the signets of the private persons or public authorities who issued them, tokens, as Aristotle says, that they contained the full quantity of metal, guaranteed by the issuer. Whatever the character of a coin-type may be, religious or commercial or other, the reason for its appearance on the coin is that it is the sign by which the guarantor may be recognized. There are exceptions, but only apparent: thus at Cyzicus, which issued vast numbers of electrum staters, the main type varies according to the issue; but the city badge (the tunny-fish) is never absent, though placed in a subordinate position.The importance given to the main type was intended to make the coinage attractive, and win it acceptance as an international medium—an intention which was most successfully fulfilled.

The early electrum coins of Asia Minor and certain others, which there is good reason to suppose were produced in the neighbourhood of Mt Pangaeus (although most of the gold of that district was exported before being turned into coin), are undoubtedly the most primitive in make that have come down to us. On the west of the Aegean, south of Macedon, there is an entire absence of that irregularity in fabric, style and quality of metal, which is characteristic of the districts we have been discussing. The metal is uniformly silver, not electrum or gold. For the most part, all the early coins can be attributed to definite places. Of these coinages of old Greece, that of Aegina is the most primitive in appearance; and this fact has been connected, with various statements to the effect that coinage was invented by Pheidon, king of Argos. Although Herodotus says that Pheidon gave Peloponnesus a system of measures, and although his famous obeliskoi represent a currency of iron spits, there is no evidence earlier than Ephorus, in the fourth century, connecting him with a developed metallic coinage like the silver ‘tortoises of Aegina’. There appears to be no other witness to Pheidon having ruled over that island. The tradition is however favoured by the facts that the Aeginetan coins conform to what was known as the Pheidonian standard, and that the most primitive of them may reasonably be assigned to the first half of the seventh century. On the other hand the former fact, coupled with the primitive appearance of the coins, would have sufficed to suggest to the Greeks the connection with Pheidon which Ephorus has preserved. The tradition must be admitted as reasonable, but insusceptible of proof.

III

THE SPREAD OF COINAGE

The spread of the invention down to the time of the Persian Wars may best be followed by taking our stand at successive fixed periods. Whatever the date at which coinage was invented, by the middle of the sixth century it was firmly established in widely spread areas. In Asia Minor, not only in Lydia, but in the great trading cities of the coast from Cyzicus, in the north down to Cnidus in the south, there circulated a large variety of coins, mainly of electrum, but also occasionally of silver. Towards the middle of the century a Lydian ruler, probably Croesus, inaugurated, as we have seen, a coinage of pure gold and of pure silver: a great advance beyond the haphazard electrum currency, which was thereby largely superseded. The islands near the coast, such as Samos and Cos, followed close on the heels of the mainland cities; and there was evidently a considerable coinage among the other islands which formed the bridge to Greece. As we move farther from Asia Minor electrum becomes rarer; indeed (although some small pieces have been plausibly attributed to the Alcmaeonidae in Delphi) there is very little satisfactory evidence of the use of electrum coins in Greece itself south of Macedon. There silver is the standard metal when true coinage is introduced, and the primitive bronze or iron ingots, spit-money and other early forms superseded. Of the earliest currencies in silver, the first pegasi of Corinth seem to be not much less primitive than the first Aeginetan ‘tortoises’. The view that their introduction may have been due to Periander is attractive and reasonable, in so far as the Corinthian tyrant must have felt it necessary to support his power by an active commercial policy. The money of Corcyra probably dates from the era of its independence, about 585 bc. The coinage of certain members of the Boeotian League, such as Thebes and Tanagra, began before the middle of the century. When Athens began to issue coins is uncertain; her well-known ‘owls’ are reasonably assigned to the time of Peisistratus, and there is little doubt that before his time the Athenians issued the rare two-drachm pieces with ‘heraldic’ types which are found especially in Attica, Euboea and Boeotia. The term heraldic is a misnomer, since all early coin-types are equally heraldic in origin, but no better name has been suggested. These, in spite of their varying types, are so uniform in fabric that they must be the product of a single mint; and the presumption is that they represent the Solonian system. Before Solon’s time the Attic currency was on the Pheidonian standard, and may have consisted of the amphora coins of which the attribution has so long been matter of conjecture. The middle of the sixth century saw a great expansion in Attic trade, well illustrated by the way in which Attic pottery began to dominate the market, and not unconnected with the rivalry between Athens and Aegina. One of the most effective means of capturing the Aeginetan trade must have been the introduction of an attractive coinage.

It is surprising that the great trading cities of Euboea, notably Chaicis and Eretria, should be so meagrely represented in the field of early coinage. Even if the ‘heraldic’ pieces just mentioned were taken from Athens and assigned to Euboea, the amount of coinage would far from correspond to the commercial importance of the cities. Apart from such issues, there remain only certain small electrum coins, of which the attribution is extremely doubtful, and a few early silver coins bearing chariot and horseman types which used to be generally given to Olynthus in Macedon. It is possible that the Euboeans were content, until late in the sixth century, when the first coins certainly attributable to Chaicis and Eretria were struck, to use the coinage of Corinth, with which they were in such close relations.

Outside the districts mentioned and Sicily (of which later), the only place employing coinage before the middle of the sixth century was the important colony of Cyrene. It is curious that Crete and Cyprus remained outside the movement. As to Persia, it is not certain that, on the fall of the Lydian empire, the Great King immediately inaugurated a Persian coinage on the lines of the Croesean. Persia had managed without a coinage so long that we need not be surprised that another generation should elapse before Darius, son of Hystaspes, struck the first darics and sigloi. On the other hand, there is much to be said for the suggestion that the light gold staters of ‘Croesean’ types as distinguished from the heavier gold staters of ‘Babylonian’ weight, may have been issued for circulation in Asia Minor not by Croesus himself, but by the Persian governors who followed him at Sardes.

Phoenicia, Egypt and Mesopotamia, in spite of their vast commercial activities, never had a coinage until they were penetrated by Greek influence—possibly out of mere conservatism, aided by the fact that, where commerce is carried on mainly by great river or sea-routes, and bulky objects for barter can be transported by water with greater ease than by land, the necessity of coinage may not be so keenly felt.

By the time of the Persian Wars most of the important places in the Greek world were accustomed to a coinage of their own. Corinthian and Corcyraean trade carried the invention to southern Italy; to Sicily it came, shortly before the middle of the sixth century, probably from the mother-cities in Peloponnesus and the Aegean, although, as soon as Athenian exports and coinage began to play a large part in commerce—as they did about the middle of the century—the Athenian ‘owls’ began to circulate in the island to the exclusion of foreign rivals. In Asia Minor coinage continued to spread round the coast of the peninsula, especially in the south, including in its influence the great city of Salamis in Cyprus.

About the middle of the sixth century the Cyzicene electrum coinage began to develop as a kind of international trade-currency on a great scale. Crete still remains little affected, although some of its cities may have been using coins as early as 500 BC. North of the Aegean there are, at the end of our period, plentiful issues in the rich metalliferous districts of Thrace and Macedon, both among the barbarous tribes—who nevertheless inscribed their coins in Greek and must have used Greek workmen—and in Greek towns. The activity of these mints may have been stimulated by the Persian invasion; except in Thasos there is very little coinage in these parts earlier than 500 bc. Most remarkable is the alleged appearance in south Russia, at Olbia, of a coinage of large cast bronze coins towards the end of the sixth, or early in the fifth, century.

The end of our period saw the appearance of the first coins to partake, so far as we know, of the character of medals. The Demaretei of Syracuse undoubtedly, whatever be the exact facts concerning their origin, commemorate the victory of Himera. The Athenians celebrated Marathon by placing olive-leaves on the helmet of Athena.

COIN STANDARDS

If there is much that is vague and uncertain in the account that has been given above of the origin and spread of coinage, it is clearness itself compared with any possible description of the metrological problems with which the historian of the period is confronted. While one school seeks to establish connection between the various standards in use, and to assume that they were originated on mathematical principles, involving minutely accurate calculations, another, diametrically opposed, maintains that political jealousy caused each state to keep to its own old weightsystem, which had only local currency; that the standards of antiquity did not spread from Babylonia and Egypt ‘like the cholera or the Black Death’; and that each of these early local weight-systems must be investigated by itself. In attempting to steer a middle course between these extremes we are still confronted by the difficulty of ascertaining the normal weights. Usually our only evidence is provided by the coins themselves, which may be unequal in preservation and in alloy, so that nothing but an approximation to the normal can be reached. It cannot be too strongly insisted, therefore, that the figures used in the following description are merely adopted for working purposes as the best obtainable by modern methods.

It should be premised that in weighing the precious metals the scales used were a mixture of the sexagesimal and the decimal systems. The talent was divided into 60 minae, but the mina into 100 drachms. This curious combination was borrowed, like many of the Greek weight-systems themselves, from Babylonia. The word stater was used by the Greeks, as was shekel by the Orientals, for the standardor unit-coin in any system; circumstances must decide what number of drachms—varying from 4 to 2—it contained. For the sake of simplicity we shall ignore the small denominations.

The subject of trade-weights, as distinct from coin-standards, is too obscure to be considered in this place. And the whole violently controversial question of the relation of Greek weights to those of Mesopotamia and of the prehistoric Aegean must also be touched upon but lightly.

The early electrum coins of western Asia Minor provide us with staters of five kinds. They are the so-called Phoenician, Graeco-Asiatic or Milesian group, with staters of about 14-10 gms. (with a maximum of 14’23 gms.); a very small group known as the Phocaic, of 16’58 to 16’22 gms.; a very large group, consisting almost entirely of Cyzicene staters, of rather more than 16’00 gms., and distinct from, though sometimes confused with, the Phocaic group; the Lampsacene group of about 15’25 gms.; and a group, chiefly connected with Samos, of staters from 17’43 to 17’32 gms. The standards used for pure gold coins in early times in Asia Minor were three: that of the heavy ‘Croesus’ staters, of which but twelve are known, weighing from 10’76 to 10’64 gms. with an average of 10’71 gms.; that of the light ‘Croesus’ staters, weighing from 8’10 to 7’97 gms.; and the Persian daric standard, estimated at from 8’4 to 8’34 gms.

Of these, the daric standard appears to coincide with the shekel of the Babylonian Royal gold standard, theoretically estimated at 8’4 gms.

The early silver of the Ionian cities was much less important than the electrum of the same period. The silver coins before the fifth century were for the most part small denominations, not higher than a drachm; but there are a few early staters which approximate to what is known as the Aeginetic standard. The attributions of these pieces are in the highest degree uncertain; they have been assigned to Chios, Teos, Phocaea, Cyme in Aeolis, Cnidus, Cos and Camirus. So far as these coins are really Asiatic, they must be regarded as outliers of the great Aeginetic system which dominated the Aegean basin. The theories invented to account for the origin of the various electrum and gold standards of Asia Minor and to explain their relation to silver have always ignored these Asiatic coins of Aeginetic weight, and considered only other silver standards which were hardly if at all in use for coinage at the period concerned: a fact which throws grave doubt on the value of such speculations. Whatever may be true of Asia Minor, however, we have in the coins of Aegina itself a vast mass of currency of which the stater-standard is probably, judging from recent investigations, about 1’3 gms. There is no good ground for supposing that the earliest coins of Aegina, before about 550 BC, are on a lighter standard than their successors. The origin of this weight has been much discussed without any result; but its identification with the Pheidonian standard—whether Pheidon invented that, or merely stabilized an older standard— appears to be reasonable. After the earliest period of the coinage, that is the beginning of the seventh century, the standard spread slowly to widely separated districts of the Mediterranean world. From the west coast of Asia Minor it went eastwards as far as Cilicia, where coins on this standard were issued, perhaps by Aphrodisias on the peninsula of Zephyrium, for about a century from the last quarter of the sixth century. But these coins stand alone in this part of the world, for the supposed ‘reduced Aeginetic’ coins of Cyprus were on a local standard intended not to compete with those of normal Aeginetic weight, but to outweigh coins of the Persian standard. The same is true of the early coins of Sinope in the north.

It is on the mainland of Greece proper that we find the empire of the Aeginetic standard most old-established and enduring. Aegina, indeed, is in this respect no island; and Crete is, in the same respect, as in so many others, but a process of Peloponnese. We know from Aristotle that Pheidonian measures were in use in Attica itself down to the time of Solon; and we know that the ‘emporic mina,’ as late as the end of the second century bc, was on the old Aeginetic standard. The whole of the mainland from Thessaly southwards would have used the Aeginetic standard for centuries from the earliest days of coinage, had it not been for the influence of the trade-route from east to west across the Isthmus of Corinth, which is responsible for the fact that Athens and Corinth fell out of line, and divided the Aeginetic domain into a northern and a southern portion. At one or two points, as in Corcyra, it is possible that Corinthian influence caused a slight modification of the Aeginetic standard. The Corcyraean stater, too light to be regarded as purely Aeginetic (for its maximum is 11’64 gms.), seems to be the equivalent of four Corinthian drachms or eight Euboic obols. Cephallenia and Zacynthus were similarly affected, reducing the Aeginetic norm to suit their Adriatic trade. The supposed early Aeginetic coins of the Chacidian colonies of Zancle, Naxos, Himera and Rhegium are probably of the Corcyraean standard.

The early Corinthian, Attic and Euboic standards may be considered as one group, forming the great rival of the Aeginetic. Within this group, however, we distinguish a lighter standard, with a drachm of about 4’2 gms. and a heavier one with a drachm of about 4’3 gms. The lighter standard is that of the so-called heraldic coins; of the earliest Corinthian coins, before the introduction of the armed goddess on the reverse; of certain early coins of which the attribution as between Chaicis and Olynthus is disputed, and of some others of which the Macedonian origin is assured. The heavier standard is represented by the coins of Cyrene, the earliest of which, with incuse reverses, date from not later than the middle of the sixth century; by the earliest Athenian coins with the head of Athena and the owl; by the Corinthian double-type coins; by the early issues of certain Euboean origin; by many coinages of Macedon, and so on: in fact it is what is generally known as the Euboic-Attic standard. The standard adopted by the majority of the colonies in south Italy seems to have been derived from Corinth before the raising of the standard. The introduction of the higher weight in Greece itself was probably the work of Peisistratus. It has been suggested that he was inspired by the example of Cyrene. But it is not certain that the earliest Cyrenaic coins precede in date the earliest Attic ‘owls.’ There is also no evidence for connecting the weight in question with that of the Samian electrum, which is definitely higher, or with the weight of the Egyptian ket.

If the heavier Attic standard dates from the first tyranny of Peisistratus, what, we may ask, is the application of Androtion’s and Aristotle’s accounts of the Solonian reform to the pre-Peisistratean coinage of Athens? It seems clear that any such coinage must have been on the lighter standard: drachm of 4’2 gms. and mina of 420 gms. This cannot by any decent manipulation of text or figures be brought into harmony with Aristotle’s story. He implies that there was a general increase of the weights all round; that a new mina was made of which the drachm (or part) was equivalent to of the Pheidonian mina previously in use. Now the old mina of 100 Pheidonian drachms (or 50 Aeginetic staters of 12’3 gms.) weighed about 6’15 gms.; and of this is 8‘8 gms. So that the new Solonian ‘drachm’ was of the weight of what we should regard as a rather heavy didrachm of the later Attic weight. Aristotle himself remarks that ‘the stamped coin in old times was called a didrachm,’ instead of a tetradrachm; and the use of the term drachm for what later was called a didrachm is confirmed by extant archaic weights. It has been suggested that the doubling of the nominal value of the coins took place in the time of Hippias; a memory of some trick of his is preserved in Pseudo-Aristotle. Aristotle appears to know nothing of the lighter standard, the existence of which has been proved by recent research. He seems to have assumed that the weight introduced by Solon was the same as that familiar to him from the ‘owls.’ It is an assumption which has also been made by all numismatists down to the last few years. Androtion, however, whose work was used by Aristotle, understood that Solon made the mina which had previously contained 73 drachms consist of 100, so that the weight of the drachm was reduced, and creditors who were paid old debts in the new coinage lost heavily. We may dismiss the implication that a pre-existing mina divisible into 73 Aeginetic drachms was newly divided up into 100 reduced drachms, and what follows from it. But his figure 73 looks exact, and if we use it as we used Aristotle’s 70, we find that the Solonian ‘drachm’ weighed not 8’8 gms. but 8’4 gms. This is much nearer to the evidence provided by the metrologists on the the Corinthian and Euboic or Attic coinage of pre- Solonian days.

Of the other silver standards with which we meet in the early days of Greek coinage, the three which are sufficiently important to be mentioned here are chiefly represented by Asiatic issues. The so-called Phoenician, Graeco-Asiatic or Milesian standard of about 14’10 gms. was, as we have seen, used in quite early days for electrum. The denominations of early silver on this standard in Asia Minor are usually drachms or smaller. The so-called Babyionic standard, already mentioned in connection with the heavier gold issues of Croesus, also determined his silver coins (staters of about 10’7 gms., with their halves) and those of a number of mints on the coasts of Asia Minor. Both the standards mentioned are found also in the extremely important currency of the mining districts of Macedon in the second half of the sixth century. When the Persian imperial coinage was inaugurated the silver was issued on a standard slightly higher than that of Croesus. The weight of the Persian silver siglos is normally 5’6 gms. This weight (so far as we can ascertain the normals) stands to the weight of the Persian gold daric in nearly the same proportion as the weight of the Croesean silver stater to the Croesean light gold stater. That is to say, when the Persians raised the weight of the standard gold coin they raised that of the silver in proportion. We know that the daric was tariffed at 20 sigloi; similarly the Croesean light gold stater must have been equivalent to 20 Croesean silver drachms, or ten of his staters. This decimal relation was curiously combined, as elsewhere, with a duodecimal division of the denominations.

CHAPTER VI

ATHENS: THE REFORM OF CLEISTHENES