Background on Greek coins.pdf - RebelText

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Athens, was critical to his appeal to the populace. Arethusa, the local fountain goddess of Syracuse, appears on the obverse of the Syracusan tetradrachm; Dionysos on the staters of Thebes, famous for its wine; and the Pegasus, who according to legend was tamed by Bellerophone in Corinth (with the help of Athena), is on all silver coins of that city-state as well as of its colonies. The conquests of Alexander the Great transformed the numismatic landscape of ancient Greece, ushering in what is known as the Hellenistic period of Greek coinage. They snuffed out most of the diverse coinages of city states and replaced them with one main type: Heracles wearing a lion skin on the obverse and, on the reverse, Zeus seated on a throne, holding a scepter in his left hand and an eagle, his symbol, in his right. These coins bear the reverse inscription of “Alexander” (��). Recognizing the economic and political importance of having a uniform coinage, Alexander quickly established his own mints in the places he conquered, probably moving die makers from one mint to the next. As Alexander conquered new city-states he established mints to strike a vast silver coinage. For example, Martin Price, who wrote the most authoritative work on the coinage of Alexander the Great, writes: 1 “When Alexander arrived in Cilicia he found a well established Persian coinage produced from Tarsus by the satraps. The silver staters displayed the figure of Baal of Tarsus, seated and holding his flowering sceptre...the same engravers clearly turned from cutting dies for the Persians to producing those of the imperial Macedonian coinage. Details of the throne, drapery, and figure can be closely compared in the two series, and it is certain that the mint began to strike the Alexander series without any serious break in production...immediately after Alexander’s arrival in summer 333 BC.” Alexander coins were considered sound money—the receiver knew that the coin was of a certain weight in silver. The weights of the coins were regulated by city officials called magistrates. It is some of their official symbols and monograms that we find on the reverses of the Alexander coins, usually underneath or to the left of the throne. The Alexander coinage was principally used to pay soldiers, tribute (levies & taxes), and later protection money to barbarians. When Alexander was alive, there were about 26 mints producing his coinage, from Amphipolis to Alexandria and Babylon. After his death, Greek rulers and cities throughout the former Alexandrian Empire produced Alexander coinage at 52 mints at its peak. In all about 114 different mints 1 From The Coinage in the Name of Alexander the Great and Philip Arrhidaeus, by Martin Jessup Price (1991), p. 369. 2
produced Alexander coinage over a period of 250 years. The last “Alexanders” were minted at Mesembria around 65 B.C. Greek coinage was again transformed following Alexander III’s death in 323 BC, when the empire was carved up among the diadochi, Alexander’s generals and administrators who succeeded him. A veritable mess ensued. Ptolemy, one of the leading generals, received Egypt and managed to keep control of it in the midst of incessant warfare. The general Antigonus had control of Asia Minor, Syria, and Mesopotamia at one time (316); however, Lysimachus, Seleucus I, and Ptolemy I united against him. Both Antigonus and Ptolemy were defeated at the battle at Ipsus (in 301 BC), and Antigonus was killed. Lysimachus took control of Thrace and later (in 301 BC, after the defeat of Antigonus at Ipsus), West Asia Minor. In 286 B.C. he added Macedonia by defeating Pyrrhus, but five years later he was defeated by Seleucus. The general Seleucus (“the Nikator”) received Babylonia, enlarged his holdings by conquering Susiana and Media, then invaded Northwest India. Later (c.305) he yielded part of present Afghanistan to Chandragupta but received war elephants in return. (These are depicted on the reverse of some of his coins.) When Antigonus was defeated at Ipsus in 301 B.C., Seleucus gained a large part of Asia Minor and all of Syria. He finally won Asia Minor by defeating Lysimachus in the battle at Corupedion in Lydia in 281, an event that marked the end of the Diadochi. This left the descendants of Ptolemy, Seleucus, and Antigonus as the chief claimants to power in the Hellenistic age. The new rulers’ mints continued producing the Alexander types for varying lengths of time, gradually adding their names to the reverse. At this point in the development of coinage, images of humans were rare and those of living humans were never used as tipos. Lysimachus replaced Heracles with the deified Alexander wearing the lion skin on the obverse of his silver tetradrachm. Thereafter, eastern Greek coinage quickly evolved into a portrait gallery of living rulers, a precursor of the Roman coinage to come. Seleucus I (the Nikator) does not portray himself on coins, but the portraits of his successors (Seleucus II-IV and Antiochus I-V), often beautifully crafted, become the obverse types on Syrian coins. The mints of Syria, Egypt and Bactria all created striking portrayals of their rulers. To the West, in mainland Greece, Sicily and Southern Italy, the custom of not portraying living rulers persisted up to Roman conquest. Examples of Ancient Greek Coins and their Descriptions Lydia Double Siglos (561-541 BC) The earliest coins were struck in Lydia in electrum, a natural alloy of gold and silver, and archeological evidence places the origin of coinage at around the middle of the 7 th Century BC. The introduction of gold and silver coins (bimetalism) is attributed to Croesus between 560 and 545 BC. These earliest of coins had a design on only one side (the obverse). The reverse bore 3
Page 1: Ancient Greek Coins Through the Tim
Page 5 and 6: The island of Thasos was the princi
Page 7 and 8: Sicily, Messana. , c. 420-413 BC. A
Page 9 and 10: About Die Numbers All of the coins

Background on Greek coins.pdf - RebelText

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