Choosing and Changing Monetary Standards in the Greek World during the Archaic and the Classical Periods

Psôma, Sélènè

doi:10.1017/cbo9781139565530.005

Cited by 48 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…'Lydo-Milesian', 'Attic-Euboean') are our own contemporary descriptions rather than emic ascribed labels. Qualitative overview of these weight standards, the differences between them and their chronologies have variously been offered, alongside explanation of why communities might choose to adopt coinages with new weight standards or to replace old systems (Psoma 2016). This latter question is the main object of focus here, to be investigated using a more quantitative approach.…”

Section: Coins In Transaction: Weight Standardsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Coinage networks in fifth-century BCE Ionia

Loy

2024

Anatol. Stud.

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This article revisits ‘the problem of Classical Ionia’, the long-persisting idea put forward by John Manuel Cook in 1961 that Ionia experienced regional economic impoverishment in the fifth century BCE. By looking comprehensively at the dataset of coinage available from fifth-century Ionia, this article argues that there is actually significant evidence for regional networking in Classical Ionia, and that various communities, even if not continually emitting new coinages at all points in the fifth century, adopted various strategies for maintaining their economic reach and extending their network of trading partners. Formal network analysis is applied to the coinage dataset, taking the shared weight standards to which communities minted their coins as indicative of participation in common economic networks. The network patterns are tested against two other patterns, specifically the distribution of fifth-century Chian and Samian amphoras, and the pattern of Ionian-coin-containing hoards from within and beyond Ionia. Together, these patterns strengthen the case for a high-level Ionian economic resilience, offering a radically different position to Cook and reaffirming that continuing economic networking was crucial to the activities of fifth-century Ionian states.

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Section: Coins In Transaction: Weight Standardsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Coinage networks in fifth-century BCE Ionia

Loy

2024

Anatol. Stud.

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“…A persuasive model for the development of weight systems in the Bronze Age proposes that the diffusion of weighing technology occurred through merchants’ interactions based on the “random propagation of error constrained by market self‐regulation” rather than intervention by political authorities (Ialongo et al, 2021). A weight system (as distinct from a coinage weight system) was used by a state or imposed upon it for a variety of historical, commercial and military reasons (Psoma, 2015) and would be used for the weighing of bullion, but the decision to strike coinage required something more proactive. In a key paper, Kim and Kroll (2008) analyzed the hoard that pinpoints the time in the second half of the 6th century bce when the Greek polis of Colophon on the coast of Asia Minor started producing minute fractional coins although concurrently using bullion.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Making money out of making money in ancient Athens

Davis,

Albarède

2023

Archaeometry

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The observed weights of ancient coins are usually less than the nominal ‘ideal’ weights of the coin standards to which they belong because state authorities took a fee, ‘seigniorage’, for minting coins to cover costs and make a profit. The basis for calculating the amount taken by the state and the way it administered manufacture are not well understood. Here we analyse the weights of 1,344 of the earliest coins of Athens (c.550‐479 BC). We reveal a parabolic relationship between the cost of the silver and the weights of the coins whereby a progressively higher proportion was taken as the denomination decreased, meaning that the smaller the coin, the larger the proportion of silver taken from it. There was tight control of the minting process and mathematical sophistication in precisely adjusting the silver content from the first introduction of coinage. It also made minting a profitable business. Changes in minting practice can be detected with the introduction of the Athenian ‘owl’ coins, when the percentage of silver taken by the state increased and the spread of weights widened to include coins weighing more than the nominal weight. The latter indicates a significant shift towards monetisation of the economy.

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“…In most of the cases monetary units in a city's documents that are not accompanied by an adjective deriving from their issuing authority refer either to the city's coinage or to the coinage that was considered legal tender in the city: Psoma 2009: 174, 178;2019b: 185 n. 101. 13 For weight standards during the Archaic and the Classical periods, see Psoma 2016. For weight standards of the Hellenistic period, see Mørkholm 1991: 7-11;Ashton 2011: 193-196, 200;Reger 2018;Meadows 2021a.…”

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confidence: 99%

Unity versus Diversity in the Hellenistic Period

Psoma

2024

C&M

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This paper offers a full description of the koinon hellenikon nomisma of the Hellenistic period and of almost all other coinages of the same period. The koinon hellenikon nomisma was issued on the Attic standard, while all other coinages were struck with different standards: Milesian, Aeginetan and reduced Aeginetan, Corinthian, Corcyrean, Persian, Nesiotic, Chian, the standard of Rhodes, that of the cities of Apollonia and Dyrrachium in Illyria, and of the kistophoroi. The use of these different standards pointed to previous monetary backgrounds of the cities and koina in question. It aimed, as was the case during the Archaic and the Classical periods, mainly to create different monetary zones, thus revealing, through the local circulation of coinages struck on the same standard, a sort of regional unity. This was not the case of the many Attic weight standard coinages. Alexanders, Antigonid, Seleucid, Attalid and other royal coinages, as well as coinages of cities minted with civic types and on the Attic standard, could circulate all around the vast Hellenistic world. The choice of kings and cities to mint on this standard and hoard evidence reveal that this was in fact the koinon hellenikon nomisma of the period. Epigraphic evidence supports this view: Alexanders – and other Attic weight coinages – served various military needs such as the payment of siteresia, the repair of walls, the payment of ransom to free prisoners, travel funds for theoroi and ambassadors, money for public subscriptions (epidoseis), and funds for various religious and other obligations. These were the needs that the koinon hellenikon nomisma of the Platonic Laws (742a-e) was supposed to fulfil. Thus, the Attic standard coinages refer to unity, while all others to diversity.

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Choosing and Changing Monetary Standards in the Greek World during the Archaic and the Classical Periods

Cited by 48 publications

References 0 publications

Coinage networks in fifth-century BCE Ionia

Coinage networks in fifth-century BCE Ionia

Making money out of making money in ancient Athens

Unity versus Diversity in the Hellenistic Period

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