Ancient Coins of the Graeco-Roman World

Ancient Coins of the
Graeco-Roman World
The Nickle Numismatic Papers
Edited by
Waldemar Heckel and Richard Sullivan
Through the ages, coins have been more than a
common standard or a means of exchange between
peoples for goods and services. The development of
coinage gave men freedom to move beyond their
communities, served as a propaganda tool for advancing
armies and visually showed people the
source of politics which governed their lives. Today,
these same bits of metal, these ancient video disks,
transmit through time information that might otherwise
be lost to us.
This volume comprises a selection of papers given
at a conference held at the Nickle Museum of The
University of Calgary, Alberta, by perhaps the most
distinguished gathering of numismatists ever to assemble
in North America. Topics include specific
coins of the Graeco-Roman world as well as discussions
on coinage and propaganda, art, architecture,
and archaeology.
Archaeologists, historians, coin collectors, students
of the Classics, in fact, anyone who is interested in
art and life as it existed in ancient times will be
captivated by this collection.
Waldemar Heckel is Associate Professor of Classics
at The University of Calgary, specializing in Macedonian
History and Prosopography. He was also
chairman of the Nickle Conference Organizing
Committee.
Richard Sullivan is Adjunct Professor of History at
Simon Fraser University in British Columbia. He is
author of numerous articles on the Greek East in
Roman times and has a book forthcoming on Eastern
Royalty.

Ancient Coins of the
Graeco-Roman World
The Nickle Numismatic Papers

Ancient Coins of the
Graeco-Roman World
The Nickle Numismatic Papers
Edited by
Waldemar Heckel and Richard Sullivan
Essays by
C. M. Kraay Richard Sullivan
M. B. Wallace Duncan Fishwick
Nancy Moore B. Levy
Stanley M. Burstein Richard Weigel
Frank Holt Frances Van Keuren
Otto Morkholm P. Visona
Bluma Trell Alexander G. McKay
Robert L. Hohlfelder
Published by Wilfrid Laurier University Press
for The Calgary Institute for the Humanities

Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data
Main entry under title:
Ancient coins of the Graeco-Roman world
Revised versions of papers presented at the Nickle
Conference, held in the Nickle Arts Museum of the
University of Calgary, Oct. 19-23, 1981.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-88920-130-7.
1. Coins, Greek - Congresses. 2. Coins, Roman -
Congresses. I. Burstein, Stanley Mayer. II. Heckel,
Waldemar, 1949- III. Sullivan, Richard, 1936-
IV. Calgary Institute for the Humanities. V. Nickle
Conference (1981 : Nickle Arts Museum)
CJ233.A5 1984 737.4938 C84-099646-2
Copyright © 1984
Wilfrid Laurier University Press
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
N2L 3C5
84 85 86 87 4 3 2 1
No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system, translated or
reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, microfiche, or any
other means, without written permission from the publisher.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
FOREWORD ix
EDITORS' NOTE xi
PROGRAMME OF CONFERENCE xiii
ABBREVIATIONS xv
PART I: CREEK COINAGE 1
Greek Coinage and War 3
C. M. Kraay, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
The "Reduced Euboio-Attic" Coin Weight Standard 19
M. B. Wallace, University of Toronto
PART II: ALEXANDER AND THE HELLENISTIC EAST 39
The Silver Coinage of Alexander from Pella 41
Nancy Moore, Princeton University
Lysimachus the Gazophylax: A Modern Scholarly Myth? 57
Stanley M. Burstein, California State University,
Los Angeles
The So-Called "Pedigree Coins" of the Bactrian Greeks 69
Frank Holt, Concord, Virginia
The Monetary System in the Seleucid Empire
after 187 B.C. 93
Otto Morkholm, National Museum, Copenhagen
PART III: THE PHOENICIAN WORLD 115
The Coins of the Phoenician World—East and West 117
Bluma Trell, New York University
PART IV: COINS AND PROPAGANDA 141
Royal Coins and Rome 143
Richard Sullivan, Simon Fraser University
An "Altar" Coin in Heidelberg 159
Duncan Fishwick, University of Alberta
Nero's Liberation of Achaea: Some Numismatic
Evidence from Patrae 165
B. Levy, Princeton University

viii Nickle Numismatic Papers
The "Commemorative" Coins of Antoninus
Pius Re-Examined 187
Richard Weigel, University of Western Kentucky
PART V: COINS AND ARCHAEOLOGY 201
A Coin Copy of Lysippus's Heracles at Tarentum 203
Frances Van Keuren, University of Georgia
Foreign Currency in Etruria circa 400-200 B.C.:
Distribution Patterns 221
P. Visona, University of Michigan
Art and Architecture as Severan Coin Types 241
Alexander G. McKay, McMaster University
Caesarea Maritima in Late Antiquity: An Introduction
to the Numismatic Evidence 261
Robert L. Hohlfelder, University of Colorado
PART VI: ABSTRACTS 287
S. P. Bellier
T. V. Buttrey
Frederick M. Lauritsen
William E. Metcalf
G. M. Woloch
PLATES AND FIGURES 299

FOREWORD
Established in 1976, the Calgary Institute for the Humanities has
as its aim the fostering of advanced study and research in all areas
of the humanities. Apart from supporting work in the traditional
"arts" disciplines such as philosophy, history, ancient and modern
languages and literatures, it also promotes research into the philoso-
phical and historical aspects of the sciences, social sciences, fine
arts, and the various "professional" disciplines.
The Institute's main raison d'etre is to provide scholars, both
established academics and post-doctoral fellows, with time to carry out
their research. It also sponsors gatherings of persons who share
common academic and intellectual interests, with a view to promoting
discussion and disseminating ideas.
The Nickle Conference, held (appropriately) in the Nickle Arts
Museum of the University of Calgary in October 1981, was such a
gathering. Devoted to numismatics, a passionate avocation of the
Nickle family, to whose munificence the University of Calgary is much
indebted, this conference brought together a distinguished collection
of numismatists from Canada, the United States, Great Britain, and
Continental Europe, the most distinguished gathering of numismatists
ever to assemble in Canada, and perhaps in North America. The
Institute is very pleased to publish here revised versions of the
papers delivered on that occasion, and we are sure that this volume
will be of interest to all scholars and students interested in the coins
and history of the Ancient World.
We wish to record here our gratitude to the Research Services
Office and the Development Office of the University of Calgary, and
to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for
the grants which made the conference possible, and also to the De-
partment of Classics, the Nickle Arts Museum, the Faculties of Hu-
manities and Continuing Education, University of Calgary, for their
support. Thanks are due also, of course, to the editors of the
volume, Waldemar Heckel and Richard Sullivan, and also to John
Humphrey who generously assisted with the final version of the
manuscript. As ever, we thank Gerry Dyer for her painstaking work
in typing the final version, and indeed so many earlier versions, of
the volume.
J. C. Yardley,
Acting Director

EDITORS' NOTE
This volume represents the culmination of the efforts that have
gone into the organization and staging of the Nickle Conference since
September 1979. Sponsored by the Calgary Institute for the Humani-
ties, the Office of the Curator of Numismatics, and the Faculty of
Continuing Education of the University of Calgary, the conference
was held October 19-23, 1981, at the Nickle Arts Museum. In addi-
tion to providing a forum for the presentation of new ideas--many of
which are published here--the congress introduced to the scholarly
community the significant numismatic collection that has been brought
together at the University. The organizers thought it fitting that the
conference should be named in honour of Samuel C. Nickle, an Alber-
ta pioneer whose generous donation to the University resulted in the
establishment of the Nickle Arts Museum, and of his son. Carl, whose
gift forms the nucleus of that museum's coin collection.
The present selection includes most papers given at the October
meeting, though in slightly revised forms. Aside from conventions
required by the Press, no effort has been made to harmonize these
papers stylistically. As to abbreviations of ancient titles and modern
scholarly books or periodicals, we have in general followed the Oxford
Classical Dictionary and L'annee philologique. If citations in a paper
differed from these but left no likelihood of confusion, we did not
alter them.
Some speakers presented tentative conclusions or reports of work
in progress, and their views are published only in abstract form;
others felt that publication of even a summary would be premature.
Hence, we wish to acknowledge the contributions of those individuals
whose papers do not appear in this collection: Drs. Vladimir and
Elvira Clain-Stefanelli (Smithsonian Institution), Dr. A. A. Barrett
(University of British Columbia), Mrs. A. H. Easson (Royal Ontario
Museum), and especially Mr. C. Orton, Curator of Numismatics
(Nickle Arts Museum). Professor F. E. Shlosser presented a report
in conjunction with that of Dr. G. M. Woloch; her subject is alluded
to in Dr. Woloch's abstract. Regrettably, the format of the article by
Professor Francis Cairns (Liverpool) could not easily be accommodated
by the IBM Displaywriter; the article has been published in ZPE 54
(1984), 145-155. Professor Duncan Fishwick's article also could not
appear and will be published elsewhere. He has, however, con-
tributed another paper to the volume.

xii Nickle Numismatic Papers
We wish also to thank those people who helped with the organi-
zation of the Nickle Conference: Drs. M. B. Walbank and J. W.
Humphrey of the Department of Classics, Dr. K. Loose and Mrs. M.
Aldridge of Continuing Education, Mr. Tom Preston of the Nickle Arts
Museum, and Dr. H. G. Coward, Director of the Calgary Institute for
the Humanities. Thanks for help in various ways are due to Dr. W.
E. Metcalf, Professor W. C. Forrest, Dr. S. M. Burstein, and Pro-
fessor M. F. McGregor; Mrs. Vi Lake helped with the typing of some
papers, and Mr. Philip Amos assisted in reading the manuscript. The
contributors will doubtless join us in giving special thanks to Mrs.
Gerry Dyer, who not only did all the secretarial work before and
after the conference but also prepared the camera-ready, final ver-
sion of the entire volume. The editors particularly thank Professor
John W. Humphrey for help with the manuscript. We are also grate-
ful to the University of Calgary for a subvention to aid in the pub-
lication of these papers.
In conclusion, it is with great sadness that we record the loss of
Drs. Colin M. Kraay and Otto Mrirkholm, two of the most renowned
scholars in the field of ancient numismatics. Few, if any, of those
who contributed to this volume will say that they have not benefited
from his written work, from his helpful criticism, from simply having
known him.
Waldemar Heckel
Richard D. Sullivan

PROGRAMME OF THE NICKLE CONFERENCE 1981
October 19: C. M. Kraay, "Greek Coinage and War"
October 20: T. V. Buttrey, "Seldom What They Seem—The Case
of the Attic Tetradrachm"
F. Cairns, "Chremata Dokima"
M. B. Wallace, "Changes in Coinage Standards on
Euboia"
E. Clain-Stefanelli, "Fractional Silver Coinage of Sicily
during the Fifth and Fourth Centuries B.C."
Bluma Trell, "The Coins of the Phoenician World--East
and West"
P. Visona, "Foreign Currency in Etruria circa 400-200
B.C.: Distribution Patterns"
D. Fishwick, "The Federal Altar of the Three Cauls:
The Evidence of the Coins"
C. Orton, "The Coins of Massalia"
A. C. McKay, "Severan Architecture and Art as Coin
Types"
October 21: 0. Morkholm, "The Monetary System in the Seleucid
Empire after 187 B.C."
N. Moore, "Coinage of Alexander the Great from the
Mint of Pella"
S. M. Burstein, "Lysimachus the Gazophylax: A
Modern Scholarly Myth"
F. L. Holt, "The So-called "Pedigree Coins' of the
Bactrian Creeks"
October 22: W. E. Metcalf, "From Creek to Latin Currency in
Third-Century Egypt"
R. D. Sullivan, "Royal Coins and Rome"
B. E. Levy, "Nero's Liberation of Achaea: the Numismatic
Evidence"
R. H. Hohlfelder, "Caesarea Maritima in Late Antiquity:
The Numismatic Evidence"
S. Bellier, "Metallurgical Investigations on Ancient
Coins"
F. M. Lauritsen, "A Late Roman Coin Hoard from
Aphrodisias, Turkey"

xiv Nickle Numismatic Papers
G. M. Woloch and F. E. Shlosser, "On Cataloguing a
Medium-Sized University Collection"
Frances Van Keuren, "A Coin Copy of Lysippus's
Heracles at Tarentum"
A. H. Easson, "An Introduction to Ancient Coinage
through the Collections of the ROM"
October 23: V. Clain-Stefanelli, "Master Counterfeiters of Ancient
Coins"
C. M. Kraay, "A Sixteenth-Century Collector of Roman
Coins"
Read by Title: R. D. Weigel, "The Commemorative Coins of Antoninus
Pius Re-examined"

ABBREVIATIONS
AIIN = Annali dell' Istituto Italiano di Numismatica
AJN = American Journal of Numismatics
ANRW = Aufstieg und Niedergang der romischen Welt
ANS = American Numismatic Society
BMC = Catalogue of Creek Coins of .... in the British
Museum
BMCRE = E. Mattingly and R. A. G. Carson, Coins of the
Roman Empire in the British Museum (London,
1923ff.)
CAH = Cambridge Ancient History
CRR = H. Crueber, Coins of the Roman Republic in the
British Museum (London, 1910)
EPRO = Etudes preliminaires aux religions orientales dans
I'Empire Romain
FGrH = Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker
Cnecchi = E. Cnecchi, I medaglioni romani, l-lll (Milan, 1912).
Head HN 2 = B. V. Head, Historia Numorum, ed. 2 (Oxford,
1911)
|C_ = Inscriptiones Craecae
ICBR = C. Mihailov, Inscriptiones Graecae in Bulgaria
Repertae, I-IV (Sofia, 1956-66; I 2 1970)
IGCH = M. Thompson, 0. Mrirkholm, C. Kraay, Inventory of
Creek Coin Hoards (New York, 1973)
IGLSyr = Inscriptiones grecques et latines de la Syrie (L.
Jalabert and R. Mouterde, Paris, 1929 - )
IGRR = Inscriptiones Craecae ad Res Romanas Pertinentes,
1, 3, a (R. Cagnat et al., Paris, 1906-1927)
IMiletus = A. Rehm, Die Inschriften, Mi let, 3 (Berlin, 1914)
IPriene = F. Hiller von Gaertringen, Inschriften von Priene
(Berlin, 1906)
JNFA = Journal of Numismatic Fine Arts
JNG = Jahrbuch fur Numismatik und Geldgeschichte
JNSI = Journal of the Numismatic Society of India
JRAS = Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society

XVI Nickle Numismatic Papers
Magie, RRAM = D. Magie, Roman Rule in Asia Minor, 1-2 (Princeton,
1950)
MUB = Melanges de I'Universite Saint Joseph (Beyrouth)
MAC = Numismatic e Antichita classiche. Quaderni Ticinesi
NNA = Nordisk Numismatic Xrsskrift (Scandinavian Numis-
matic Journal
NNM = Numismatic Notes and Monographs, American Numis-
matic Society
NS = Numismatic Studies
OGIS = Orientis Craecae Inscriptiones Selectae (Leipzig,
1903-1905; ed. E. Dittenberger)
PEQ = Palestine Exploration Quarterly
PC = Migne, Patrologiae Cursus, series Graeca
PIR 2 = E. Groag, A. Stein, et al., Prosopographia Imperil
Romani, ed. 2 (Berlin, 1933 - )
Recueil 2 = W. Waddington, E. Babelon, Th. Reinach, Recueil
general des monnaies grecques (ed. 2, Paris, 1925)
RIC = E. Mattingly, E. A. Sydenham, et al., Roman Imper-
ial Coinage (London, 1923ff.)
RIN = Rivista Italiana di Numismatica e Scienze affini
RRC = M. Crawford, Roman Republican Coinage (Cambridge,
1974)
RRCH = M. Crawford, Roman Republican Coin Hoards (Lon-
don, 1969; Royal Numismatic Society, Special Publi-
cation no. 4)
SIG 3 = Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum, ed. 3 (Leipzig,
1915-1923)
SNG = Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum
SNR = Schweizerische Numismatische Rundschau / Revue
Suisse de Numismatique
StudSem = Studi Semitic!
Sydenham = E. A. Sydenham et al.. Coinage of the Roman Re-
public (London, 1952)
Welles, RC = C. B. Welles, Royal Correspondence in the Hellen-
istic Period, A Study in Greek Epigraphy (Rome,
1966)
WSM = E. T. Newell, The Coinage of the Western Seleucid
Mints ( = Numismatic Studies, 4: New York, 1941)
ZfN = Zeitschrift fur Numismatik (also ZNum)

PART I
CREEK COINAGE

CREEK COINAGE AND WAR
Everyone living today must know that both actual war and
preparation against the eventuality of it are very expensive items
indeed in a nation's budget. Yet, because of the economic structure
of the modern world, the impact of military expenditure on coinage as
such is not immediately apparent; strategic materials imported from
abroad are not, in fact, paid for by exporting sackfuls of paper
money or current coin. The reason for this is obvious enough: the
paper money and the coins have no intrinsic value, for as paper or
metal they are nearly worthless, and they function only as tokens
representing a nation's stock of real wealth consisting of bullion or
natural resources or manufactured goods or services.
In the ancient world things were much simpler, and the relation-
ship of coinage to wealth much more immediate. Of course, coinage
was not the only form of wealth: agricultural produce, metals, manu-
factured goods were important then, as they are today. But coinage
was then normally struck in precious metal, so that the actual coins
represented wealth and were not merely tokens standing for it. In
such circumstances, coins need not be localized in circulation; gold
and silver coins could be, and were, exported in sackfuls to pay
directly for imports, as we see in the example of the numerous hoards
of Athenian tetradrachms discovered in various parts of the Near and
Middle East. The full pattern of this movement of coinage is not
recoverable because, in areas in which a local coinage was the legal
tender, the imported coinage was normally melted down on arrival to
supply bullion for the local coinage. Occasionally, however, the
urgency to convert imported foreign coins into local currency appears
to have been so great that the quicker, but less efficient, process of
overstriking was employed rather than the slower process of melting
down, casting new flans, and restriking. Thus, in late fourth-
century Crete, we can detect a flood of foreign coinage, particularly
from Cyrenaica, which had entered the island in the pockets of
returning mercenaries and been restruck with local types.