The Origin of Metallic Currency and Weight Standards

by William Ridgeway

Here we may call attention to the fact that whilst Miletus struck her electrum staters on the Phoenician silver standard (their normal weight being 217 grains), the Phocaeans always from the infancy of coining employed for their electrum the gold standard of the heavy shekel (260 grains). But the proper time for discussing why the Lydians, Milesians and Phocaeans all struck their electrum coins of various standards, will come further on in our enquiry.

The coin-standards of Greece Proper.

Before we attempt to examine into the connection of the Homeric talent or ox unit, and the ancient systems of the East, it will be advisable to get a clear view of the coin-standards found in actual use in historical times, and to understand the common doctrine of the derivation of the same. As gold was not coined in Greece Proper until a comparatively late period, owing doubtless to the fact that there was no great supply of it to be had, and that all of it was required to meet the demand for personal adornment, the entire early coinage of Greece (with some few exceptions to be presently noted) consisted of silver. These silver issues were all struck on either of two systems; (1) the Aeginean, or Aeginetic, and (2) the Euboic, the stater of the former weighing about 195 grains, that of the latter about 135-130 grains. But it is a fact of paramount importance that gold, whenever and wherever coined in Greece, was always on the Euboic standard, and there is likewise every reason to believe that gold bullion in the days before gold was coined was computed according to the same standard. Such at least was undoubtedly the case at Athens, as we learn from Thucydides[263], where he describes the resources of Athens both in coined and uncoined metal, and in the gold plates which overlaid the famous chryselephantine statue of Pallas Athene, the masterpiece of Pheidias, and the glory of the Acropolis; and such also, as we shall see, was the case, in the days of Solon.

All ancient accounts are agreed in the statement that Aegina was the first place in Hellas Proper which saw the minting of money. That island was famous from old time as the meeting-place of merchants, and as such under its ancient name of Oenone was glorified by Pindar[264]. Its position rendered it a most convenient emporium, where the merchantmen of Tyre met in traffic the traders from both Peloponnesus and northern Greece. Tradition makes its population a very mixed one: “It was called Oenone,” says Strabo, “in ancient times, and it was settled by Argives, Kretans, Epidaurians, and Dorians[265].” According to a fragment of Ephorus, to be referred to presently, it was owing to the barren nature of the soil that the natives turned to trade.

All Greek tradition is unanimous in representing Pheidon of Argos as the first to coin money in Hellas Proper, and to have done so at Aegina. Much obscurity enshrouds the history and the date of Pheidon, owing to the conflicting accounts of the historians. For our immediate purpose it would be quite sufficient to state simply that he cannot have lived later than 600 B.C., but in consequence of some prevailing doctrines with regard to the history of Greek weights being based on inferences (probably quite unwarrantable) which have been drawn from the statements given about this despot, we must take a more elaborate survey of the sources.

Pausanias[266], writing about 174 A.D. says that the Pisaeans in the eight Olympiad (747 B.C.) brought to their aid Pheidon of Argos, who of all despots in Hellas waxed most insolent, and that along with him they celebrated the festival. But now comes the testimony of Herodotus[267], who was writing circ. 440 B.C., and who tells us (VI. 127) that when Cleisthenes the despot of Sicyon held the svayamvara for his daughter Agariste; amongst the suitors who came from all parts of Hellas, was “Leocedes, son of Pheidon, the despot of the Argives, Pheidon, who had made their measures for the Peloponnesians, and had of all Greeks waxed to the greatest pitch of violence, he who expelled the Elean presidents of the games and himself held the festival.” There cannot be the slightest doubt that both Pausanias and Herodotus refer to the same tyrant, but the dates are irreconcileable. As Cleisthenes, the Athenian law-giver, was the son of Agariste, her wooing cannot have been much earlier than 560 B.C., and consequently Pheidon must have reigned at Argos shortly before 600 B.C.

Weissenborn (followed by Ernst Curtius) has sought to cut the Gordian knot by emending the text of Pausanias, thus reading 28th instead of 8th Olympiad, which would make Pheidon help the Pisaeans in the year 668 B.C. But even this drastic remedy is hardly sufficient to meet the requirements of the statement of Herodotus.

Our earliest authority for the tradition that Pheidon coined at Aegina is a passage of Ephorus preserved by Strabo (VIII. 376)[268]: “Ephorus says that in Aegina silver was first struck by Pheidon; for it had become an emporium, inasmuch as its population, owing to the barrenness of the land, engaged in maritime trade; whence trumpery goods are called Aeginean ware.” According to another passage of Strabo, which may be likewise from Ephorus, as it comes at the end of a long statement, the first part of which Strabo expressly declares is taken from that writer: (“They say) that Pheidon of Argos, who was tenth in descent from Temenus, and who surpassed his contemporaries in his power, whence he recovered the whole of the inheritance of Temenus, which had been rent into several parts, and that he invented the measures which are called Pheidonian and weights and stamped currency, both the other kind and that of silver.” It must be carefully observed that this is the only ancient passage which says a word about the invention of weights by Pheidon. If this statement can be taken as trustworthy we might very well conclude that Pheidon was the person who introduced the decimal principle and made 10 silver pieces instead of 15 equivalent to the gold stater. If however this is an addition of Strabo[269], who wrote about A.D. 1-21, and whose account of Greece Proper is the most defective portion of his great work, we cannot let this passage weigh against that already given from Herodotus, who is perfectly silent as regards the invention of weights. Furthermore there is the fact that Strabo does not venture to describe the weights as called Pheidonian, but carefully limits that appellation to the measures as we find also to be the case with Pollux, when he is describing various kinds of vessels: “and likewise a Pheidon would be a kind of vessel for holding oil, deriving its name from the Pheidonian measures respecting which Aristotle speaks in his Polity of the Argives[270].” Here again we find a clear mention of the Pheidonian measures, coupled with the high authority of Aristotle’s treatise on the Constitution of Argos in his great “Collection of Polities,” formed to serve as the material from which to build his great philosophic work on Politics.

There is again no mention of Pheidonian weights in the newly found Polity of the Athenians (which seems beyond doubt the same as that known to the ancients under the name of Aristotle), where it is stated that “in his (Solon’s) time the measures (at Athens) were made larger than those of Pheidon” (c. 10)[271]. Although the writer refers to the Aeginetic coin-weights in the next clause, he does not refer to them as the Pheidonian.