Fig. 46. Coin of Lycia.
When silver money was struck, it was natural that the barter-unit which came nearest in value to the silver didrachm would be equated to it, and the piece of silver would accordingly be termed Shield or Tortoise, just as the silver equivalent for the old copper rod was called the Obol, and in due course the corresponding device would be impressed on the silver coinage. The same explanation may probably be applied in other cases, such as that of the boar on the coins of Lycia. On the coins of the Gaulish tribe Sequani who made the best bacon and hams which came into the Roman market, the swine is found[408]. Doubtless this animal was their chief source of wealth, and formed a unit of barter, but we have not space for any more examples.
It is worth noting that it is quite possible that the men who issued the earliest coins of Boeotia and Aegina were influenced in the shape they gave these coins by the actual objects which they were replacing. The coins of Aegina with their high round upper side and flat under side suggest the general outline of a tortoise. As the people of Olbia, like the Chinese, Burmese and Ceylonese, had to make coins in the shape of a fish, so the Aeginetans acting under a like instinct may have wished to give a conventional representation of the tortoise. The earliest coins have the incuse on the reverse divided into eight triangular compartments. Are these the eight plates which form invariably the plastron or under surface of all the tortoise family? Later on the Aeginetan incuse is always in five compartments, but in the two well-known triangular depressions we perhaps find an echo of the tortoise-plastron[409]. The earliest coins seem to represent a sea-tortoise, for the feet are real flippers quite distinct in shape from the legs shown on the later coins. As the plates of the carapace (upper surface) are not fully represented in the archaic coins, this omission may not be merely due to rudeness of work, but rather because in the case of the sea-tortoise the thirteen plates of the carapace are not so prominent as in the land-tortoise. On the later coins where the feet are those of the land-tortoise the coins accurately represent the thirteen plates.
It has to be borne in mind that the shape of the incuse depressions on the reverse of coins is very constant. Thus on the Aeginetan coins we never find what is known as the mill-sail incuse which is the peculiar feature of the reverse of the early Boeotian coins, nor on the other hand do we even find the eight-fold incuse on the coins of Boeotia. Some influences must have determined the choice of form, such as I have just suggested in the case of Aegina. Did the first Boeotian Mintmaster shape his coins with the real buckler in his mind’s eye? On the reverse of these coins we find the incuse forming a rude X, which is bounded by a circle of dots, whilst in the centre of the incuse is the initial letter of the name of the issuing town, such as 𐌈 for Thebes, 𐌇 for Haliartus. Does the X-shaped incuse represent conventionally the cross-bars of the frame of the shield seen at the back, the circle dots indicating the outline? The letters on these coins are the earliest inscriptions on the coins of Greece Proper. We can easily see how they came to be placed on the coins, as soon as we remember that there was a Λ on the Lacedaemonian shields, a Σ on the Sicyonian, a Μ on the Messenian[410]. Why do not we find the initial in the coins placed on the front of the shield, where it must have stood on the real buckler? If as is held by the best authorities the coins of Boeotia formed a federal currency, we see a reason for the practice. As the silver shield replaced the real buckler, the old unit which had been universally employed through Boeotia, no town would have been permitted to put its initial on the shield engraved on the obverse. No doubt the old actual shield of currency was plain, and each purchaser painted the initial of his own country upon it. The Mintmasters accordingly of each town regarding the whole coin as a shield placed the letter of these several states on the reverse. Baumeister (Denkmäler, s.v. Wappen) gives pictures of the back of two shields. The frame of the shield consists of a circular rod, with two cross bars. The idea of making the incuse represent the other side of the object given in relief on the obverse seems to be just the stage between a complete representation of the object as in the tunny of Olbia, and that evinced by the early coins of Magna Graecia, on which the reverse gives in the incuse exactly the same form as that in relief on the obverse.
At first sight the result of this great variety of local units apparently places impassable barriers to trade, but a knowledge of the actual facts of barbarous communities and their monetary systems as they exist in our time easily dispels this impression. I quoted above ([p. 46]) the words of Mohammed Ibn-Omar, wherein he points out that every separate district in the Soudan has its own lower unit or units, whilst everywhere alike the ox and the slave are the higher units; these local units are equated one to the other, so that there is no difficulty in trading. The same holds true of ancient Greece; the tortoise-shell of Aegina may have been reckoned equal to a certain amount of Attic olive oil or to a jar of wine of certain size, which formed the unit of commerce at Thasos and Chios, whilst in its turn a jar of wine was reckoned as equivalent to a package of silphion from Cyrene, a kettle from Crete, or an axe, or certain number of axes, or half-axes from Tenedos, or an ox-hide shield from Boeotia. All were sub-multiples of the ox, and had a fixed value in gold, and later in silver, as weighed against grains of corn. This supposition is in complete accord with the system revealed to us in the Homeric Poems, and is confirmed by the evidence drawn from barbarous races in modern times. It is likewise to be borne in mind that the tendency to place religious and mythological types on Greek coins was one especially developed in the later but not in the earliest period of coinage. No doubt aesthetic considerations played a large part in the adoption of such types, which came especially into prominence when Greek art was at its height. On the early coins one simple type is the rule, whilst at a later stage, besides the old national type, many adjuncts and symbols are added. Contrast the early coins of Athens with the later. The archaic issues have an olive spray and an owl, the later have not merely the owl, but an amphora, and a symbol in the field alluding to the legend of Triptolemus. Again, at Argos the early coins have simply the wolf or half-wolf or wolf’s head, with a large A on the reverse, but in the later times the A is accompanied by symbols, such as a crescent and letters. The hare appears on the coins of Rhegium and Messana, having been chosen as a type, according to Aristotle, by the tyrant Anaxilas in commemoration of the introduction of that animal by him into Sicily; but it also appears on a rare coin of Messana, not as a main type, but as caressed by Pan. This does not prove that the hare was a symbol of Pan, but that for artistic purposes the rustic god in the act of caressing the hare is chosen instead of the more commonplace type of the hare all alone. So at Thasos the coins with old Silenus quaffing from a wine-cup do not signify that Silenus was a principal object of worship, but he is simply added for picturesque effect. We can at all events draw one conclusion from the historical origin assigned to both this type and that of the axe of Tenedos, that in the middle of the 4th cent. B.C. the Greeks did not see any religious significance in them, any more than they did in the representation of the mule-car which had won at Olympia, placed on his coins by Anaxilas. If, as has been so emphatically laid down by the leading modern Greek numismatists, the types on Greek coins are so essentially religious in origin, it is extremely difficult to explain the extraordinary rapidity with which all such notions as regards their origin must have vanished from the minds of the most learned of the Greeks, at so early a date as the 4th cent. B.C. (hardly more than two centuries after the introduction of the art of coining). The Greeks regarded those types from much the same point of view as we regard St George and the Dragon on sovereigns and crowns, or the Lady Godiva riding in puris naturalibus on the Coventry tokens. The effort to turn agonistic into religious types by contending that, as the Olympic festival was of religious origin, so the successful chariot which had won at Olympia was a sacred symbol, can only be regarded as an ingenious effort to attach by even the most slender thread a simple commemorative type to a religious origin.
Fig. 47. Coin of Messana.
There is not the slightest reason for treating with incredulity the statement that Anaxilas introduced the hare into Sicily. Pollux[411] tells us that there were no hares in Ithaca, and from the same source we learn that the islanders of Carpathus, wishing to add the animal to the products of their isle, introduced a single pair, the descendants of which became in a short time so numerous that they ruined the crops, a story which finds a singular parallel in the history of the introduction of the rabbit into Australia in our own days. The hare was to the old Greek sportsman (as we know from the Tracts on Hunting of Xenophon and Arrian) what the stag was to the mediaeval baron, and the fox to the modern English squire. If William the Conqueror, as says the chronicler, “loved the tall deer as though he were their father,” the tyrant Anaxilas may well have prided himself upon the introduction of the hare into Sicily in much the same manner as modern sportsmen have brought the French partridge into England. When once the type was started, the dislike of any change in coin types is so strong that we need not be surprised at the hare appearing for a long period on the coins of Messana and Rhegium. Besides, the hare was considered by the Greek gourmet as the choicest of viands: all readers of Aristophanes are familiar with “jugged hare” as a proverbial expression for “the best of cheer.”
Variation of Silver Standards.
The connection between the types on early silver coins of Greece and the earlier local units of value being probably such as I have indicated, we next approach the question of changes in the weight of the silver coins at various places and at various times. Besides the ordinary Euboic and Aeginetic standards we find others such as the Rhodian, and the Ptolemaic, the former so named because the island of Rhodes from the beginning of the 4th century B.C. ceased to strike tetradrachms of the full Attic weight of 270 grs. and coined instead pieces which range in weight from 240 to 230 grs., the latter getting its name from the dynasty of the Lagidae, who quickly dropped the full weight of the tetradrachm (270 grs.) as struck by Alexander, and reverted to the Phoenician silver of 220 grs., which they used not only for silver, but also for gold; it is to this last fact that the name Ptolemaic as given to the standard is really due, for as a standard for gold it was certainly new. But not merely shall we find coins standing so far apart from the usual standards that we are obliged to give them distinctive appellations, but we likewise find various modifications of the Aeginetic in various places, whilst in some parts of northern Greece and Thrace we shall find the so-called Phoenician and Babylonian standards in occupation. It is hardly possible that mere degradation of weight will account for all the phenomena; accordingly the object of this section will be to show that from first to last the Greek communities were engaged in an endless quest after bimetallism: we shall find, as we have already indicated, that whilst the gold unit never varies in any part of Hellas until a late epoch, the silver coins exhibit differences not merely between one district and another, but even between one period and another in the self-same city or state. There is incontrovertible evidence to prove that the same trouble was caused by the fluctuation in the relative value of gold and silver as arises in modern times. Xenophon[412] in his treatise De Vectigalibus (speaking of the benefit likely to accrue to the state if the silver mines of Laurium were better worked) makes the most interesting remark that “if any one were to allege that gold too is not less useful than silver, that I do not deny, yet this I know that gold, whenever it turns up in quantity, becomes on the one hand cheaper itself, and on the other makes silver dearer.” This passage alone is sufficient to show how sensitive was the old Greek money market in the beginning of the 4th century B.C., and this statement is amply substantiated on Italian soil by a passage quoted by Strabo[413] from Polybius, from which we learn that after the discovery of a rich gold mine in the land of the Taurisci of Noricum, within the space of two months “gold went down one third in value throughout all Italy.” Such being the effect of a discovery of gold, it is evident that either the silver currency must undergo certain modifications in order that a definite round number of silver units may be equal to the gold unit, or on the other hand the gold unit must undergo modification. But as we have shown that the gold unit remained unaltered throughout all Hellas, Asia and Egypt down to the time of the Ptolemies, it follows that whatever changes were necessary must have taken place in the silver standards. Of this we have proof in the case of Rhodes itself. Down to 408 B.C. the three ancient cities of Ialysus, Camirus and Lindus issued each a separate series of coins, Camirus on the Aeginetic standard, the other two on the Phoenician. In 408 B.C. all these united in founding the new city of Rhodes, and henceforward there is a single coinage. At first the Attic standard seems to have been employed for silver, as rare tetradrachms of 260 grs. are found, but it must have very soon given place to the so-called Rhodian, the tetradrachm of which ranges from 240 to 230 grs. About the same time (400 B.C.) the Rhodians began to issue gold staters of the so-called Euboic standard, and for a century this double issue of gold and silver continued unbroken. It is plain, from the case of this famous island, that it is only the silver standards which changed. There can be no doubt that the unit by which gold in bullion was reckoned before that metal was coined was the so-called Euboic or ox-unit, but during the archaic period we find both the so-called Phoenician (220 grs.) and Aeginetic (drachms of 92 grs.) being employed for silver in the island, whilst after 408 B.C. gold is issued on the ox-unit, but silver, although at first on this standard, immediately changes to the Rhodian of 240 grs. Evidently then the fixed element is the gold, the fluctuating the silver. The coinage of Rhodes likewise exemplifies the doctrine already indicated, that the employment of religious and mythological symbols seems to mark not the earlier but rather the later stages of Greek coining. Thus Camirus employed the fig-leaf, Ialysus half a winged boar, and Lindus the lions head with open jaws, but after 408 Helios the Sun-god, from whom all Rhodians alike claimed descent, and to whom the island was sacred[414], becomes the regular type, with the type parlant of the Rose (Rhodon) on the reverse.