Ioannis Touratsoglou: Common currency from Antiquity to the present day

Ioannis Touratsoglou
Common currency from Antiquity to the present day.
Visitor's Guide.
Athens, Greece: Numismatic Museum, 2000.
(full text)
[p.2]: The invention of coinage in the middle of the 7th c. BC in the area of Lydia and Ionia may be regarded as the culmination of the experience of millennia with regard to trade. The use of metal as a means of exchange was known as early as the 3rd millennium BC and is attested alongside the use of agriculture and livestock products. The convenience of the coin, however, the value of the metal of which it was made, and the stamp of the issuing authority that guaranteed the value of the metal, which is also found on metallic objects exchanged in the period before the invention of coins, opened up new possibilities to the economy. These were the reasons that the economy now cast off the limitations imposed by the imponderable factors that governed agricultural and livestock production.
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Views are divided both as to the first authority to issue coins and as to the needs they served. Ionian merchants or bankers, priests, and even the kings of Lydia have been advances as the supposed "inventors" of coinage. The accumulation of wealth, payment for services, and the conduct of trade were all given an impulse by the innovation.
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[p.3]: Although the objects of exchange of the pre-coinage economy were for the most part capable of responding to the requirements of international trade and international exchanges, coins gave an impulse to a development of a different king, which emerge after the Greek city-states began to mint them. The stamp that gave legitimacy and a public character to such a metal object, making it coin (Gr[eek]. nomisma, from nomos=law), also referred to each of the various issuing authorities. For their coin issues, the city-states and ethne of Greece used different weight standards that were based on the systems used to measure their agricultural products. Every city-state, as an independent political unit ―especially when it succeeded in acquiring a certain power― attempted to impose its own currency policy, seeking to dictate for commercial exchanged, frequently by legislation, the use of the coinage issued by itself, the "national coinage" of the inscriptions, which is described as "having value for one state, but unfamiliar to other people". As a result of this process, zones of currency-economic influence were naturally created, and the phenomenon may also be observed of the voluntary or involuntary fragmenting of these zones. The evidence for this is derived from ancient Greek literature, inscriptions, and of course the coins themselves, together with the extent of their circulation and imitations of them.
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[p. 4]: In some cases, political and geographical unions of a federal character decided, in the context of common ties, aspirations and institutions, jointly to conduct political affairs and military operations and to issue a common coinage. In a similar fashion, some of the Hellenistic Kingdoms (Ptolemies, Attalids) pursued a largely introspective economic policy and imposed on their states the use of their own issues. At a peripheral, local level (tribes, federations), or in the wider Mediterranean area (powerful issuing authorities such as Aegina, Corinth, or Athens), the Greek mints gradually led to the emergence, at first latent, of the need for the creation and imposition of a coinage that met with general acceptance. The particular reasons behind the predominance of particular issues of coins vary, characteristic examples being the electrum staters of Kyzikos, the hectae of Phokaea and the gold staters (darics) of the Great King: these series were widely accepted in the 5th and 4th c. BC, mainly because the Greek cities no longer issued electrum currencies and did no strike gold coins.
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[p.5]: The turtles of Aegina, which have been found in countless hoards with a burial date in the second half of the 6th and the early decades of the 5th c. BC in mainland Greece and the islands, and also in the East, were perhaps the first international coinage. The reasons for their predominance are to be sought both in the context of the enormous trading activity of the issuing authority, and in the ability of this authority to supply the market with money, having secured control of mines and having exploited the potential afforded by this control and by the carrying trade.
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Corinth, whose foals (Pegasi) are found primarily in hoards in west Greece, is a different case, since the city on the Isthmos, under the aegis of the Kypselid tyrants, sought to secure markets for her own products by founding colonies that it placed under its own political control; the types and weight standard of the coinage of these colonies were, with the exception of Potidaea, aligned with those of the mother city.
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[p. 7]: On the morrow of the great victory won by the Athenians and Spartans at Mykale, the city of Athens undertook to protect the interests of the Greek cities against the Persians, aided by the silver from Laurion and the fleet victorious at Salamis, to which was no added the fleet of the Delian League. Using the tribute that flowed into the League treasure chest and exploiting a complex system of political and economic influence, Athens developed into the leader of an economic empire. The owls flooded the markets of the eastern Mediterranean and became the "coinage common to all".
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It is indicative that during the Peloponnesian War, when Athens not only had to meet the enormous costs of the war but also funding her ambitious policy, the city attempted to exploit the advantages of a common currency and common weights and measures standards, imposing the Attic standard on her allies. The attempt was not successful. Nevertheless, at a time when Athens was facing difficulties (late 5th c. BC), coins influenced by the owls were in circulation in Asia Minor, and local requirements were met by this currency. In the 4th c. BC imitations of the ―still strong― Athenian currency circulated in Egypt, Palestine and Arabia. In his Poroi, Xenophon gave a detailed account of the purchasing value of the Athenian currency in all the Mediterranean markets. In the Platonic dialogues, which outline the currency policy to be followed by the state, the Athenian tetradrachm serves as the model for the "common Greek currency", in contradistinction to the "currency for everyday transactions".
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[p. 8]: The basis for Macedonian expansion was laid by Philip II (361/0 or 359-336 BC), who created a powerful kingdom in the Haemos (Balkan) peninsula, but his gold and silver coin issues were disseminated ―and imitated― mainly in the territories of the Celtic tribes in the Balkans, the central and the western Europe. His successor, Alexander the Great (336-323 BC) took the Athenian currency policy as his model and began, probably after the victory at Issos (333 BC) to issue silver and gold coins on the Attic weight standard. Throughout Alexander's vast empire, the issuing of these types was imposed through a series of mints from Aegae to Babylon and from Amphipolis to Memphis. The Alexadrian tetrachma of the inscriptions, struck during his lifetime by the warrior king or posthumous issues by the Greek cities and
[p. 9]: "barbarian" rulers in his name, replaced the Attic tetradrachms in the hoards of the late 4th and 3rd c. BC, and dominated the markets. Tetradrachms and drachms struck on the Attic standard were the "common currency" of the Hellenistic period, flooding the world's markets and travelling to the far reaches of the East. A typical example of the popularity enjoyed by Alexander's issues is provided by the large number of imitations struck by various peoples on the fringes of the Greek world (Thracians, Celts of the Balkan peninsula, central and western Europe, Arabs of the shores of the Persian Gulf).
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The issues of the Diadochi functioned in the same manner. From the 2nd c. BC and throughout the late Hellenistic period, when coins of Alexander were no longer issued, other coins attempted to fill the huge gap. The Athenian tetradrachms (stephanephora) ―known as "New Style" tetradrachms in the modern bibliography― again played the role of an international currency, as is clear from the hoard evidence. The role played in the Classical period by darics, and the coins of Kyzikos and Lampsakos, which were brought to the Greek world as payments to mercenaries and cities of the eastern Aegean, and of course the role of the Alexandrian drachms, particularly with regard to the payment of mercenaries, was now assumed by the so-called pseudo-Rhodian coins and the tetrobols of Histiaea, which are found in a large number of hoards from the 2nd c. BC onwards.
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[p. 10]: In addition to the decree imposing the Attic weight standard on the members of the First Athenian League, we know of other attempts at the systematic imposition by a state of inter-state organisation of a common currency, either with a specific purpose or as a longer-term option. Coins with a common reverse bearing the legend ΣYN (=SYN[machon], i.e. "of the allies"), issued at the beginning of the 4th c. BC) by certain cities in the eastern Aegean and the Propontis, and the "silver of the allies" of the Hellenistic period, reflect the issuing of a common currency by alliances ―that is, by inter-state organisations.
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The issuing and imposing of a common currency by cities, kings, ethne or koina marks an extension and is to be seen within the context of a currency policy that first finds expression in Athens with the Law of Nikophon (375/4 BC). Within the borders of the kingdoms of Macedonia, the Ptolemies (Egypt, Coele Syria, Cypros and Libya), and the Attalids of Pergamon, royal rescripts imposed tha exclusive use of the coins struck by the kingdom, and dictated the rated of exchange of foreign coins. The reduced weight of the coins produced by these issuing authorities had a restraining effect on their exportation, while the exchanging of them for tetradrachms on the Attic standard brought huge profits to the royal treasuries. The same policy was pursued by Rhodos through the introduction of the so-called plinthophoroi.
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[p. 11]: The currencies issued by the koina of ancient times seem invariably either to have been the result of pressing economic need, or to have been part of a general attempt to give expression to the shared national and religious features that normally formed the basis of these organisations. These issues certainly reflected an underlying common will to political or military activity, or reveal initiatives that were almost invariably of a peripheral character, due to the lack of rich metal reserves and the absence of a political and economic prosperity. Despite the determined efforts of some of the Hellenistic confederations (Aetolian League, Achaean League), the power and sphere of influence of these federal states, and their coinages, were ultimately of limited scope. According to the evidence of the hoards, the "Chalkideans in Thrace", the leagues of the Thessalians, Euboeans, and Boeotians, the Delphic Amphictyony, the Achaean League, and the federal states of the Aetolians, Akarnanians, and Epirotes, all attempted to impose the same policy of a common coinage, mainly in the territories under their control. The foreign coins that intruded into these zones were either commonly accepted currency, such as the Alexandrian tetrachma of the Hellenistic period, or coins whose presence is associated with specific historical events. The passage in Polybios comparing Peloponnesos under the Achaean Confederacy with a city (with common laws, institutions, and weight standards), and the fact that in Euboea the artists of Dionysos aspired to be paid in coins issued by Demetrios Poliorketes (demetreion), struck on the Attic standard, reflect both these trends and record both practices.
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[p. 12]: The increasingly coordinated efforts of Rome, the new rising power, to control the output and circulation of coins in its wider vital area, were successful, in accordance with the hand of destiny. In its final years, the Roman Republic made use, initially here and there, and particularly in the Hellenistic East, of the already existing currency structures, in the end making the denarius an international coin.
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The iconographic pluralism of these coins, and the controlled proliferation of issues (mainly in the eastern Mediterranean) continued into imperial times, finally to be eclipsed during the great crisis that shook the Roman world in the 3rd c. AD. Emperors like Aurelian (AD 270-275) and Diocletian (AD 284-305) attempted to carry out structural changes and other radical measures to reverse the decline of the imperium. At the end of the century Diocletian introduced the institution of the Tetrarchy and founded a new, more cohesive administration system for the state, as part of which he imposed a uniform currency system on all Roman subjects. All the imperial mints now issued coins to the same specifications (classes, denominations, iconographical types, metal content, etc.).
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[p. 13]: The gold aurei, and especially the silver-plated nummi of the Tetrarchs were one of the means deployed in an attempt to improve the finances of the empire and to restrain the strong inflationary trends of the period. After the clashes of the civil war, centralisation ultimately proved triumphant, with the proclamation of Constantine I (the Great) as sole emperor in 324. His sole rule, of course, was associated with the translocation of the capital to Byzantium and the foundations of a new empire, that was to last a thousand years.
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It was not by chance that the coin introduced by Constantine the Great in 309/10, the gold solidus, dominated the international political and economic stage for over seven hundred years, providing the Byzantine Empire with incredible wealth and prestige. An unrivalled means of exchange and political domination, supported by a central authority concerned to represent itself as undisputed and possessed of enormous reserves and potential, the Byzantine coinage had a large number of imitations issued by various peripheral peoples (from the Vandals, Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Franks, to the Lombards, Arabs, Scandinavians, Normans, Turkomans, Bulgars, Serbs, etc) who strove to appropriate not only its purchasing power but also the solvency that it symbolised. Byzantium soon succeeded, in 498 (under Anastasios I), in establishing a reliable bronze coin, the follis, which for centuries effectively met the empire's requirements for everyday exchanges. The silver Byzantine issues (e.g. hexagrammon, milliaresion), in contrast, were never widely disseminated.
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[p. 14]: During the late Middle Ages, when the power of Byzantium was waning, other economic powers came to the fore. With the Crusaders, the deniers tournois of the European West began to flow into the eastern Mediterranean. In the first half of the 13th c. the silver grossi or ducati issued by some of the rising cities in northern Italy made their presence felt. In south Italy from 1231 onwards, the gold augustales of the German emperor Frederick II made their gleaming appearance. From the middle of this century onwards, however, the eastern Mediterranean was dominated by the currencies issued by the emerging republics of the north-Italian cities: the silver grossi and ―later, after 1284/5― the gold ducats of Venice, the gold genovini of Genoa, and the gold fiorini of Florence. The Venetian coinage, in particular, circulated widely in the Balkans and competed with Islamic issues in the East. In northern Europe, the creation of the Hanseatic League (14th-16th c.), in which a leading role was played by the German port of Lübeck, provides an extremely interesting case, in which a series of cities founded a trade union (the common coin being the silver Witten) in order to promote trade in a broad commercial network in the Baltic.
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[p. 15]: In early modern times, the colourful mosaic of economic and political phenomena shone in the light of special issues made by prosperous or rising states, which became international currencies and were used mainly for world trade; these include the Spanish (gold) escudos, and (silver) reales that flooded both the New and the Old World (16th-18th c.) the Thaler of Maria Theresa (in the name of the empress of the multinational Austro-Hungarian Empire), and the British pound sterling (issued by the mighty in the 19th c. colonial power), and more recently the dollar of the USA (the modern, federal superpower).
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[p. 16]: Another attempt to impose a uniform economy was centred mainly on Europe and the French franc: the Latin Monetary Union (1865-1925) may to some extent be regarded as a forerunner of the European unification attempted at the end of the 20th century. The present day, at the dawn to the 3rd millennium AD, is marked by the birth of the Euro, the common coin of the nascent European Union, which has aspirations to make a great contribution to the foundation of a federal state-form, heralding a better, common tomorrow for the residents of the Old Continent. Europe, drawing upon the deep well of its traditions, turns "Back to the Future".

Another version is available in Google Books:
Touratsoglou 2007
"Common Currency from Antiquity: Plus ça change, plus c’est la mème chose." In Philip L. Cottrell, Gérassimos Notaras and Gabriel Tortella, eds., From the Athenian Tetradrachm to the Euro. Studies in European Monetary Integration, pp. 1-6. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2007.
http://books.google.es/books?id=0r6GmCAU05gC&dq=From+the+Athenian+tetradrachm+to+the+euro:+studies+in+European+monetary&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=U-SNmXWK2Q&sig=LmDJKhMCveycDxJrbaOvuCvQKLQ&hl=ca&ei=bsoeS4_hJpWw4QbfpMjrCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CA0Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=&f=false

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APPENDIXNUMISMATIC MUSEUM, ATHENS
THE PERMANENT EXHIBITION
2nd Floor of the Iliou Melathron
Room 7
Money and Society
The relationship between people and money in various periods of time is explored via philosophy, literature and history and presented in Η. Schliemann’s summer office. The strong international coins that dominated extensive geographical areas for large periods of time are exhibited, such as the daric and the Athenian tetradrachm, the Byzantine solidus, the Arabic dirham, the Venetian ducat, the Spanish thaler, the British pound, the American dollar and the euro. Economic phenomena, like inflation and devaluation, are being considered as well as the impact of metal supply on coin production.
http://www.nma.gr/exb_2ndf8_en.htm

Χρήμα και κοινωνία
Στο θερινό γραφείο του Ερρίκου Σλήμαν προσεγγίζεται η σχέση των ανθρώπων με το χρήμα σε διάφορες εποχές, όπως αποτυπώνεται σε έργα της φιλοσοφίας, της λογοτεχνίας και της ιστορίας. Παρουσιάζονται τα ισχυρά, διεθνή νομίσματα που επικράτησαν σε εκτεταμένες γεωγραφικές περιοχές για μεγάλα χρονικά διαστήματα, όπως ο δαρεικός, το αθηναϊκό τετράδραχμο, ο βυζαντινός σόλιδος, το αραβικό dirham, το ενετικό δουκάτο, το ισπανικό τάληρο, η βρετανική λίρα, το αμερικανικό δολλάριο και το ευρώ. Προσεγγίζονται διάφορα οικονομικά φαινόμενα, όπως ο πληθωρισμός και η υποτίμηση, καθώς και η επίδραση της διαθεσιμότητας του μετάλλου στη νομισματική παραγωγή.
http://www.nma.gr/exb_2ndf8.htm