alain bresson the university of chicago ans 2012 seminar — nyc — 07/03/2012 why coinage? the...

Alain Bresson The University of Chicago

ANS 2012 Seminar — NYC — 07/03/2012

Why Coinage? The Economic Side of the Archaic Electrum coinage

• The various hypotheses

• Money East and West

• The coins of Western Asia Minor

• Cost: Weighing and Striking

• Electrum and after

• Conclusion

The various hypotheses

Aristotle’s commercial explanation

Fully accepted by

Charles SeltmanGreek Coins: A history of metallic currency and coinage down to the fall of the Hellenistic kingdoms, London 1933 (2nd ed. 1955)

Critiques of the commercial explanation

Cook, R.M. (1958): “Speculations on the Origin of Coinage”, Historia, 7, 257-262. •The first electrum coins of Asia Minor were comparatively of high value, and thus inappropriate for a daily use on the agora. [See Plutarch’s Life of Solon, quoting Demetrios of Phalerum himself saying he quoted the axones of Solon on the Athenian agora.]

•By the time of Solon (594 BCE) the price of a sheep would have been of one silver drachma (ca. 4.33 g).

• Assuming an electrum / silver ratio of 1:10, and as the smallest coins of the Artemision are 1/96th (0.15 g), the smallest electrum coins would have had the value of one-third of a sheep [electrum 0.15 g = silver c. 1,5 g = c. 1/3 x 4.33 g]

• These coins could not be used on the agora, the daily market.


Kraay, C.M. (1964): ‘Hoards, Small Change and the Origin of Coinage’, Journal of Hellenic Studies, 84, 76-91. • Even later period Greek cities, with the exception of Athens and the region of Thrace-Macedon, did not export their silver coinage at a long distance and thus coins had no practical use in foreign trade

• The lack of small, divisional coinage made usage of coinage useless on the agora for daily exchange.


Kraay, C.M. (1964): ‘Hoards, Small Change and the Origin of Coinage’, Journal of Hellenic Studies, 84, 76-91.


• Profit of the state (S. Bolin and G. Le Rider).

Bolin, S. (1958): State and Currency in the Roman Empire to 300 A.D., Stockholm.Le Rider, G. (2001): La naissance de la monnaie: Pratiques monétaires de l'Orient ancien, Paris

Le Rider:• The Lydian state or the small Greek cities of the coast were poor as compared to oriental kingdoms.• They needed a new source of revenue. Overvaluation of the coin as compared to the metal value.•Profit at minting as the main reason of coinage (Menas inscription 2nd c. BC, Sestos – explicit mention of revenue linked to the introduction of a bronze coinage).


Wallace, R. (2001): “Remarks on the Value and Standards of Early Electrum Coins”, in: Balmuth 2001, 127-134.Balmuth, M.S., ed. (2001): Hacksilber to Coinage: New Insights into the Monetary History of the Near East and Greece, Numismatic Studies 24, New York.

• Much alloy variability in the electrum of Western Asia Minor

• Uncertainty on the alloy leads the state to guarantee a given value

• No one has interest to melt them down for one would lose the extra value added by the mark of the state.

•So coinage has been introduced for casual reasons (electrum of Asia Minor)


Reden, S. von (1995): Exchange in Ancient Greece, London.

Kurke, L. (1999): Coins, Bodies, Games and Gold : The Politics of Meaning in Archaic Greece, Princeton.

• von Reden: Coinage as a means of social justice

• Kurke: Coinage as a means of political justice (and opposed by the aristocrats)See the parallel raw metal / coins and hetairai / pornai

Critique of the critiques

Cook, R.M. (1958): “Speculations on the Origin of Coinage”, Historia, 7, 257-262.

=> The smallest coins cannot be of any use on the agora?

• It depends on what you buy. You don’t buy only onions and garlic. You could also buy all kinds of products (grain, animals, wool, wine, etc.) for consumption or as capital.

• The mode of acquisition is linked to the mode of payment.

• This leads to a redifinition of the agora, the market: not a place where you buy small quantities for a daily use, but you can1) negotiate high or medium value contracts2) acquire sizeable quantities to provide food or other items necessary for the life of an oikos.


Kraay, C.M. (1964): ‘Hoards, Small Change and the Origin of Coinage’, Journal of Hellenic Studies, 84, 76-91.

=> No circulation of the coins out of the city

• But according to Kraay’s own analysis, circulation within the several zones suppose forms of commercial exchange between the several cities of the zone.

• The coins tend not to circulate in large quantities (privileged use in their zone of minting – elsewhere they are only metal)

• When coins travel at a long distance in a zone of different standard they can be melted down (case of the Ptolemaic kingdom, where no foreign coins are found after 315 BC – process of systematic reminting)


Kraay, C.M. (1964): ‘Hoards, Small Change and the Origin of Coinage’, Journal of Hellenic Studies, 84, 76-91.=> No small silver coins • The lack of small silver coinage is now an exploded belief:

Arnold-Biucchi, C., L. Beer-Tobey et N. M, Waggoner (1988) : ‘A Greek Archaic Silver Hoard from Selinus’, AMSMN , 33, 1- 35.

Kim, H. (2004): “Archaic Coinage as Evidence for the Use of Money”, in: Meadows & Shipton 2001, 7-21 / Meadows, A., & K. Shipton, eds (2001): Money and its Uses in the Ancient Greek World, Oxford: Oxford University Press.


Bolin, S. (1958): State and Currency in the Roman Empire to 300 A.D., Stockholm.Le Rider, G. (2001): La naissance de la monnaie: Pratiques monétaires de l'Orient ancien, Paris.

• 1 – Bolin / Le Rider: Why switching to a gold and silver coinage around 550 if the system was so profitable?

• 2 – Le Rider: The alleged poverty of the Greek cities does not hold true for Croesus.


• All the previous explanations share a common feature: they all postulate a gap between a ‘first phase’ (origin, variously explained), and a ‘second phase’ (more or less linked with some commercial uses)

• The point is to develop a unified theory of coinage

Money East and West

The earliest coins of Asia Minor

• Every one admits that in the Orient payments could be made in raw, weighed silver

• Why, once coined in the Greek world, couldn’t precious metals be used for payments?

.Phocée

The Phanes coinsStater diameter: 21.000 mm – Weight: 14.029 g

CM BMC Ephesus 1 (BNK.950)

The Phanes coinsTrite – Weight: 4.75 g

http://elearning.unifr.ch/antiquitas/_archives/modules/fiche.php?ID_fiche=211

Seal from PhokaiaStater diameter: 20.000 mm – Weight: 16.518 g

CM 1893-7-6-1

Cost: Weighing and Striking

Actual cost of minting of Florentine coins

•Picciolo 0.008 mg silver

•Quattrino 0.013 mg silver

•Grosso 0.023 mg silver

•Fiorino 0.050 mg silver ?

-> The city / mint made its best efforts to reduce the cost of minting small coins

-> Reluctance of contractrors to mint small coins or ‘The big

problem of small change’

Equation of minting

y = n/x

• y is the percentage of brassage to the value of the coin

• n is brassage (= cost in silver of sriking one coin)

• x is the weight of the coin

n = 0.02

• y is the percentage of brassage to the value of the coin

n = 0.02

Why the emergence of coinage in Asia Minor?

•Because gold, silver or electrum were used to evaluate transactions

[parallel of the Orient, where silver was used in transactions]

•Because there was a market economy

[not a system of rations, see for instance the Persepolis Treasury Tablets]

•Because the velocity of transactions increased

[the cities of Western Asia Minor were the most advanced of the Greek world and they were trading cities]

Why the emergence of coinage in Asia Minor?

•Minting avoided the cost of multiple weighing, which could become devastating with small weights

•The chance of having resources of gold, silver of native electrum meant the cost of introducing the new technology was minimized by the high value of the metal

•The coins could be used for all kinds of purposes, payments of soldiers (see Alcaeus), of prostitutes, of taxes, but also payments in the agora

•Advantage of monometallism: no exchange fees between coins of different metal

Electrum and after

• Switch to bimetallism after 550

• But electrum not totally abandonned (Cyzicenes, Phokaia-Mytilene and other small mints)

The paradox of the introduction of a separate gold and silver coinage

•Given the advantages of monometallism, why abandonning it?

•Uncertainty of the alloy means uncertainty on the actual value of the coin [especially important if the coin travels to a neighboring city]

Example of physical analysis of Samian cooins, Konuk 2006

Silver croesid, 5.36 gThe croesids were adopted by the Persians. The Persian kings struck croesids until Darius’ reform (c. 515-513), when the daric / shekel system was introduced

Gold croesid from the British Museum

The paradox of the introduction of a separate gold and silver coinage

•Cementation was known in Asia Minor before the 6th c.

•The point was the capacity to recuperate silver during the process of cementation.

[Andrew Ramage, Paul Craddock, King Croesus' Gold: Excavations at Sardis and the History of Gold Refining. Archaeological Exploration of Sardis, 11. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Art Museums, in association with British Museum Press, 2000, but who did not make the link with the cost of minting]

6. Conclusion

‘So far as we have any knowledge, [the Lydians] were the first people to introduce the use of gold and silver

coins, and the first who sold goods by retail’ (Herodotus 1.94)


Bolin, S. (1958): State and Currency in the Roman Empire to 300 A.D., Stockholm.Le Rider, G. (2001): La naissance de la monnaie: Pratiques monétaires de l'Orient ancien, Paris.Wallace, R. (2001): “Remarks on the Value and Standards of Early Electrum Coins”, in: Balmuth 2001, 127-134. • 1 – Bolin / Le Rider: Why switching to a gold and silver coinage around 550 if the system was so profitable?

• 2 – Wallace: Why not abandonning coinage after 550?

• 3 – Le Rider: The alleged poverty of the Greek cities does not hold true for Croesus.

alain bresson the university of chicago ans 2012 seminar — nyc — 07/03/2012 why coinage? the...

Documents

silver coinage

archaic electrum coinage

origin of coinage

divisional coinage

bronze coinage

smallest electrum coins

electrum coins of asia

conclusion slide