jahrbuch numismatik geldgeschichte - Bayerische Numismatische ...

24 David MacDonaldLeague and, with rare exception, for the coinages of the individual Boiotiancities until the time of Alexander. The wheel on the reverse is a distinctivecoin type of Chalkis, related to the local cult of Apollo. The appearance ofthese two badges on a single coin indicates a political combination, such asclearly existed about 506 B.C. when the Boiotian League and Chalkis ravagednorthern Attika at the time of the abortive Spartan campaign led byCleomenes against Athens.3E. Babelon proposed substantially this thesis shortly after the turn of thecentury. The important Taranto Hoard of archaic Greek silver coins containedone of the two known specimes of the issue,4 and Babelon dated thedeposition of the entire hoard to c. 509 B.C. on the basis of the "Boiotian/Chalkis"coin, believing it to be the latest coin in the hoard. Subsequentstudy of other issues represented in the hoard has lowered the depositiondate of the hoard to 490-480 B.C., providing a terminus ante quem of sortsfor the issue, although one so late as to be of little value.5Babelon's thesis has been repeated broadly, with some modifications.There is now little insistence on c. 506 B.C. as the date for the issue; theremay well have been a number of other alliances between Chalkis and Boiotiansin the late sixth century that are not mentioned in our sources.6 Thestyle and fabric of the issue, in the light of modern numismatic opinion, suggesta date substantially earlier, about 520 B.C.7 Some scholars have seen theissue as evidence of a "foedus aequum", but Wallace claims it as proof thatChalkis actually joined the Boiotian League for some time during the latesixth century.8 Numismatists in recent years have generally recognized that3 Her. 5, 74-77. The event is variously dated between 509 and 505 B.C. by modern historians.An able and balanced treatment: R.J. Buck, A History of Boeotia, Alberta 1979, 114-117.4 n. 1 supra.5 S.P. Noe, The Coinage of Metapontum Parts 1 and 2, with additions and corrections by AnnJohnston, New York 1984, 37-40.6 Suggested as a possibility in Kraay, Archaic, 109.Kraay, Archaic, 109, and C.T. Seltman, Greek Coins, 2nd ed. London 1955, 57 note thesimilarity of fabric to the Athenian Wappenmünzen and early owl tetradrachms, which arecurrently generally dated c. 520 B.C. The chronology of early Greek coinages is a vexed Problem.Contrast M. Vickers ultra-low chronology, Early Greek Coinage, a Reassessment,NumChr 1985, 1-44, with the centrist Position of J.H. Kroll and N.M. Waggoner, Datingthe Earliest Coins of Athens, Corinth and Aegina, AJA 1984, 325-340. Vickers' datingwould force the dates of other series to be lowered as well, crowding issues unacceptablyin the early fifth century. Vickers seems also to have dismissed too quickly much hoardevidence. He does demonstrate, however, the uncertainties of other dating schemes. All thismakes it possible that the shield/wheel issue could have appeared c. 506 B.C., but here isno specific reason to date it so.8 Wallace, Early, p. 38 n. 2: "Coins commemorating alliances are not well authenticated, andI should prefer to suppose that Chalkis temporarily joined the Boiotian League in, or soonbefore, 506 — as she did again briefly 200 years later (see M. Holleaux„Note sur un decretd'Eretrie, in REG 1897, 157-89, reprinted in Etudes d'epigraphie et d'histoire grecques I(Paris, 1938), 41-73, especially p. 60."