With the introduction of coinage into European Greece, a change was made in the metal of the currency, for gold and electrum, which were plentiful in Asia, were not common in Greece proper, and a silver coinage was there the rule until Philip of Macedon took possession of the Thracian gold mines. The few gold issues before his time were due to exceptional circumstances; thus the gold coinage of Athens (No. 26) was occasioned by great financial stress, when treasure was melted down to supply the currency. There was, however, no lack of gold money in Greece, for after the first electrum issues came the fine gold staters of Croesus, in the early sixth century (No. 27; fig. 12b), and, on his overthrow by Cyrus, an international gold coinage was still available in the enormous issues of the Persian darics (No. 28; fig. 12c), which were in common use all over the ancient world until the Macedonian gold replaced them. A few subsidiary electrum coinages survived in Asia, the most famous being the Kyzikene staters (No. 29; fig. 12m), which were a standard exchange in the Aegean and Black Sea regions. A peculiarity of this coinage is that the distinctive type of the town, the tunny, is relegated to a secondary place, while the main type is a constantly changing design. In the piece illustrated the subject is taken from a group of the Athenian tyrannicides, Harmodios and Aristogeiton, which stood in the market place of their native city.
Fig. 12.—Greek Coins. 1:1.
Another important currency, used especially in western Greece, the "colts" of Corinth, took its type from the local myth that the winged horse Pegasos was captured by Bellerophon at the fountain Peirene, which flowed from the acropolis of the town (No. 30; fig. 12e). The original punch-mark on the reverse was soon replaced by the helmeted head of Athena, who also had a part in the Pegasos myth, and these two types were constant as long as the Corinthian state existed. The money which enjoyed the fairest reputation was that of Athens, which, at the time of the Athenian empire, superseded the issues of the subject cities and became the standard currency in the Aegean Sea. It penetrated into the far East, and there are extant examples of native imitations from India and Arabia. The wide circulation of these staters among barbarous peoples was the cause of their peculiar style; for not only were the types of Athena's head and her owl and olive-branch unaltered from the first sixth-century design, but the execution was an imitation of the primitive manner, the stiffness of archaic art being reproduced in an affected archaism. As the money of Athens was the foremost in the Greek world, it is useful to note the extraordinary number of denominations which were struck in silver at its most flourishing period, the fifth century B.C. A large, but still not complete, series is exhibited here (No. 31). It consists of the Decadrachm (10 drachmae, fig. 12f), an early and rare coin, the Tetradrachm (4 drachmae, fig. 12g), which was the famous Athenian stater or standard piece, the Didrachm (2 drachmae), the Drachm (fig. 12h), the unit of weight, which contained six obols, the Triobol (3 obols), the Diobol (2 obols), the Obol (fig. 12i), the Tritemorion (¾ obol), the Hemiobol (½ obol), the Trihemitetartemorion (⅜ obol), and the Tetartemorion (¼ obol, fig. 12k), the half of the last piece being equivalent to the largest bronze coin, the Chalkous (No. 32).
With the Athenian series is the bronze core of an ancient imitation of a silver stater, of which the silver plating has perished (No. 33). False coining was punished with extreme penalties even in those early days: in an extant monetary convention between Mytilene and Phocaea, of the fourth century B.C.., the crime of adulterating the money is threatened with death.[9]
On the conquest of Athens by Macedon, at the end of the fourth century B.C., the autonomous Athenian coinage was largely superseded by the Macedonian regal issues, and did not recover its position until late in the next century. It was renewed in a different form, with none of the old archaism, of which the occasion was past. The coins of the new style exemplify the thin flat fabric of the period, and although the types of Athena and the owl are preserved, their arrangement is much more complicated. The new head of Athena is a copy from the colossal ivory and gold statue which Pheidias made, and on the reverse of the coins the owl and olive spray are accompanied by many new devices, of which the most remarkable are the names, symbols, and monograms of the monetary magistrates; eminent personages sometimes figure in this place. On the coins exhibited (No. 34; fig. 12l) one of the officials is Antiochos, who was afterwards Epiphanes, king of Syria.
In the interval between the old and new coinages, when the Athenian money was scanty, the currency was supplied by the regal issues of the Macedonian kings and their successors. Under Philip II. and his son Alexander the Great, the Macedonian monarchy extended its dominion by conquest, not only over the isolated Greek cities, but over the ancient empire of Persia. The opportunity was thus provided for a universal coinage, and it was realised in the gold and silver issues of Philip and Alexander (Nos. 35, 36; fig. 12n-q). The acquisition of the Thracian gold-mines gave Philip the means for an abundant coinage of gold, the first considerable Greek issue of the kind, which contributed in no small measure to his political success. The style of these coins of Philip is not different from that of other Greek money, except that they are inscribed with a personal name—of Philip—instead of the name of a whole people, and the types, a horse and jockey and a two-horse chariot, are also personal, as they commemorate the racing successes of the king. The fine heads on the obverse, however, are still divine, that of Zeus appearing on the silver and the young Apollo on the gold, for the idea of representing a living personage on a coin was still distant. Of this money the gold especially was struck in enormous quantities, and the types were imitated more and more crudely, as time went on, in Gaul and Britain. (See the series shown in the Room of Roman Britain.) The coinage of Alexander was even more widely spread. His types were more orthodox than those of Philip: the head of Athena and a Victory on the gold, and the head of young Herakles, wrapped in the lion-skin, with a figure of Zeus enthroned, on the silver staters, although in the head of Herakles there is some suggestion of the features of Alexander. These coins were struck all over the world which Alexander conquered, and lasted after his death as the money of his successors and of independent cities, in some cases even for two centuries; but the kings who divided his great empire modified the type by introducing real portraits of Alexander, as a deified hero, and later of themselves, as living deities, so that the representation of a ruler's head on coins, which is still practised to-day, began with quasi-religious Greek coin-types. The regularity of the Greek coinage which Alexander established was only temporary, and his influence was fast disappearing when the subjection of the world by the Romans in the first century B.C. merged all provincial issues in the complete uniformity of the Imperial mint.
Fig. 13.—Aes Signatum (No. 37). 1:3.
Roman Coins.—As gold in the Asiatic coastlands and silver in European Greece, so in Italy the native medium of exchange was bronze. In the earliest times the raw metal was circulated in broken knobs of indefinite weight (aes rude), which required in all transactions the use of scales. The rude metal was afterwards superseded by cast ingots of an oblong shape, which bore a device to indicate their purpose as money (aes signatum). Yet the weights were still irregular, and no mark of value accompanied the types, so that the pieces were not strictly coins. A survival of this primitive currency is seen in the large ingot which has on one side a tripod and on the other an anchor (No. 37; fig. 13). This piece itself belongs to a later period, when the lighter coined money was already in use. The special purpose for which this and similar pieces were intended is quite uncertain. The first coinage of Rome was less massive than this, but being entirely of bronze, was still inconveniently large and cumbrous (aes grave). The Roman of the fourth century B.C., when he found it necessary to transport any considerable sum, took his money about with him in a waggon.[10] The use of bronze for a token currency, as in Greece, was not possible without a superior coinage of gold or silver to secure its value.