Coinage

The designs stamped on coins include lettering, referred to by numismatists as legends, as well as pictorial and other devices (for other aspects of coinage see Chapter 14). From this point of view Greece has less to offer in the classical period than later, and much less than Rome. It is now believed that the earliest of all coins, in electrum (a natural alloy of gold and silver) from Asia Minor, date from c. 600, and that the Greeks started coining silver shortly before 550. The first and most frequent use of lettering on Greek coins was to identify the issuing state (which commonly used a distinctive pictorial device also). Thus Athens’ well-known owl coins, introduced in the second half of the sixth century, have to the right of the owl AQE, the first three letters (in the Athenian version of the Greek alphabet) of ’AOevaCov, ‘of the Athenians’ (Kraay 1976: 177 etc.). Coins of Korinth, from the very earliest issues, before 550, have9 for9opLv0iwv (koppa) for Qorinthion (Kraay 1976: 220 etc.); and by the fifth century we find some colonies of Korinth using similar designs but their own legends: A for Ambrakia (Kraay 1976: 229), LEY for Leukas (Kraay 1976: 247), E for Epidamnos (Kraay 1976: 248) and so on. From Euboia in the sixth century we have E for Eretria (Kraay 1976: 270) and KAP for Karystos (Kraay 1976: 271), while in the late fifth century there are ‘federal’ Euboian coins with EYB (Kraay 1976: 273-5).

For much of the fifth century there was an Arkadian coinage, bearing APKADIKON (in full or abbreviated) and apparently emanating from three different mints (e. g., Kraay 1976: 288-91), and there has been considerable discussion of the dating and significance of these coins: the latest study concludes that they are probably ‘festival’ coins issued in connection with the Arkadian festivals of Zeus Lykaios, and cannot be used as evidence for a political federation at any date. Another series of coins bearing a legend whose historical interpretation has been disputed is the so-called SYN coinage, a series of coins issued by a number of east Greek states from Byzantion to Rhodes, which have on one face the design and legend of the issuing state and on the other Herakles strangling two snakes and the letters SYN. It is agreed that the coins should be dated c. 400, but different interpretations have been offered: an alliance of liberated states formed after Sparta’s supremacy in the Aegean was ended by the battle of Knidos in 394; or else a pro-Spartan alliance, either to be dated to a period of Spartan recovery c. 391/0 or (the best view) formed by Lysander about the end of the Peloponnesian War.

Athens’ owl coinage became so popular that imitations of it were produced elsewhere, within the Greek world and even beyond it. Some imitations kept the legend AQE (e. g., Kraay 1976: 204-5), but others used their own lettering: for instance, there is a version bearing BAS for bauilewB, ‘of the king’, speculatively attributed to Tissaphernes, the Persian satrap of Lydia who subsidized Sparta’s war effort against Athens in the late fifth century (Kraay 1976: 206). From the late sixth century there is one surviving specimen of an owl coin with the letters Hin - perhaps issued by the former tyrant Hippias when in exile.

The other main use of lettering on classical Greek coins is to give an individual’s name. A principal local official would perhaps be named for dating purposes rather than because he had a particular responsibility for the coinage (e. g., Abdera, in Thrace: Kraay 1976: 530-42). Other men named may be officials who were responsible for the coinage (assumed, e. g., for Zakynthos, off the west coast of the Pelo-ponnese: Kraay 1976: 313, 316). Particularly in Sicily and southern Italy, there are coins on which a name in small characters seems to be the signature of the die-engraver, sometimes made clear with the verb EHOIE, ‘made it’ (an example of that from Klazomenai, in Asia Minor: Kraay 1976: 929).

Rarely before the hellenistic period, letters are used to number coins in a sequence of years, or simply to number the dies from which the coins were struck (years, e. g., Zankle in Sicily, while occupied by Samians in the early fifth century, Kraay 1976: 770, and Samos itself during the fifth century, Kraay 1976: 881-2; dies: Poseidonia in Italy, Kraay 1976: 654-6). Occasionally denominations are specified, particularly the smaller denominations over which confusion could most easily arise (e. g., Korinth, Kraay 1976: 36; Poseidonia, Kraay 1976: 35). Finally, just as Greek vases often have legends identifying the characters depicted on them (see below), this is occasionally done on coins (e. g., the river god Hypsas at Selinous in Sicily, Kraay 1976: 788).