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Money, law and exchange: coinage in the Greek Polis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 February 2012

Sitta Von Reden
Sitta Von Reden
Affiliation:
University of Bristol
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Extract

It has long been recognised that money is both a reality and an ideology. Yet the interaction between the two, the extent to which all-purpose money, in ancient Greece first realised in the use of coinage, brings about particular ideologies of value and exchange, while at the same time being framed by them, rarely comes into focus. Like literacy, money has frequently been taken as a culturally independent cause for particular effects both at the social and economic as well as the ideological level. In this paper I wish to complicate the story of monetization by relating its ideological superstructure in the Greek polis to the particular institutions in which it circulated.

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Articles
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The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 117 , November 1997 , pp. 154 - 176
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Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1997

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References

1 A sustained attempt to differentiate between phenomenology and ideologies of money is Crump, T., The phenomenon of money (London 1980);Google Scholar see also Hart, K., ‘Heads or tails? Two sides of the coin’, Man 21 (1986), 637–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The following modern works are referred to in this paper by author's name alone: Ebert, J. (ed.), Griechische Epigramme auf Sieger an gymnischen und hippischen Agonen. Abhandlungen der sächsischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig, Phil.-hist.K1. 63 pt. 2 (Leipzig 1972);Google Scholarvan Effenterre, H. & Ruzé, F. (eds.), Nomima. Recueil d'inscriptions politiques et juridiques de l'archaisme grec. Collection de l'école francaise de Rome 188. Vol I. (Rome 1994);Google ScholarHowgego, C., Ancient history from coins (London 1995);CrossRefGoogle ScholarKoerner, R. (ed.), Inschriftliche Gesetzestexte der frühen griechischen Polis (Cologne 1993);CrossRefGoogle ScholarKraay, C., Archaic and classical Greek coins (Berkeley 1976);Google ScholarKurke, L., ‘Herodotus and the language of metals’, Helios 22 (1995), 36–64;Google ScholarSeaford, R., Reciprocity and ritual (Oxford 1994);Google ScholarSokolowski, F. (ed.), Lois sacreés des cités grecques (Paris 1969);Google ScholarSteiner, D.T., The tyrant's writ (Princeton 1994);Google Scholarvon Reden, S., Exchange in ancient Greece (London 1995)Google Scholar.

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3 Kopytoff, I. ‘The cultural biography of things: commoditisation as process’, in Appadurai, A. (ed.), The social life of things (Cambridge 1986) 64–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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6 Seaford, 199.

7 Kurke, 42; see also ead., ‘Kapêleia and deceit’, AJP 110 (1989) 535–44Google Scholar.

8 Thomas, R., ‘Written in stone? Liberty, equality, orality and the codification of law’, BICS 40 (1995) 59–90Google Scholar with discussion and further literature; see also K.-J. Hölkeskamp, ‘Tempel, Agora und Alphabet. Die Entstehungsbedingungen von Gesetzgebung in der archaischen Polis’, in Gehrke, H.-J., Rechtskodifizierung und soziale Normen im interkulturellen Vergleich (Tübingen 1994) 135–64;Google Scholar M. Detienne, ‘L'écriture et ses nouveaux objets intellectuels en Grèce’ in id., (ed.), Les savoirs de l'écriture en Grèce ancienne (Lille 1988) 7-26.

9 The idea of a ‘middling tradition’ emerging from the 8th/7th century BC and creating the conditions for democracy to develop has been redeveloped by Morris, I., ‘The strong principle of equality and the archaic origins of Greek democracy’, in Hedrick, C. & Ober, J. (eds.), Democracy ancient and modern (Princeton 1996)Google Scholar. It should be noted that Morris' argument is quite different from both Spahn, P., Mittelschicht und Polisbildung (Frankfurt 1977)Google Scholar and Meier, C., The discovery of Greek politics (Cambridge/Mass. 1990, German orig. 1980)Google Scholar. While for Spahn hoi mesoi are a socio-political class, and for Meier an heterogenous, educated opposition to the elite (29 ff.), for Morris ‘to meson was not a class but an ideological construct, allowing all citizens to locate themselves in the middle’ (40, cf. 22, with n.13).

10 Hdt.1.94; Arist. EN 1133a17-20. Among modern scholars see esp. Ure (n.4). More recent works allow for a short prelude of non-economic functions, but still think that the decisive stimulus for the increase and spread of coinage was trade; see esp. Kraay, C., ‘The archaic owls of Athens: classification and chronology,’ NC 16 (1956) 63;Google ScholarStarr, C.G., The economic and social growth of early Greece (New York 1977) 108–17Google Scholar. See, by contrast, Austin, M.M. and Vidal-Naquet, P., Economic and social history of ancient Greece (London 1977) 56–8,Google Scholar which is based on Will, É., ‘Fonctions de la monnaie dans les cités grecques de l'époque classique’, in Dentzer, J.M., Gauthier, Ph. and Hackens, T. (eds.), Numismatique antique: problèmes et méthodes (Nancy 1975) 233–46Google Scholar.

11 Laum, B., Heiliges Geld (Munich 1924) 8–126Google Scholar.

12 Will, É. ‘Réflexions et hypothèses sur les origines du monnayage,’ RN 17 (1955) 5–23,Google Scholar esp. 17 f.; Korinthiaka: recherches sur l'histoire et la civilisation de Corinthe des origines aux guerres mediques (Paris 1955) 497 ffGoogle Scholar.

13 Cook, R.M., ‘Speculations on the origins of coinage.’ Historia 7 (1958) 257–62,Google Scholar esp. 261.

14 Price, M., ‘Thoughts on the beginnings of coinage’, in Brooke, C. et al. (eds.), Studies in numismatic method presented to Philip Grierson (Cambridge 1983) 1–10,Google Scholar esp. 6 f.

15 Howgego, 3.

16 K. Rutter argues compellingly that despite evidence of coinage in the sixth century BC, massive spread and use of it is attested numismatically not before the early fifth; see ‘Early coinage and the influence of the Athenian state’, in Cunliffe, B., Coinage and society in Britain and Gaul: some current problems (London 1981) 1–9Google Scholar. Most authoritative now is Kroll, J.H. and Waggoner, N.M., ‘Dating the earliest coins of Athens, Corinth and Aegina’, AJA 88 (1984) 76–91,CrossRefGoogle Scholar who argue that the first electrum coins were issued before 560 BC, the gold and silver coins struck under Croesus in the 550s, and the first Aeginetan coins about 550 BC. Further arguments in Howgego, 6 ff. with Bammer, , ‘A peripteros of the Geometric period in the Artemisium of Ephesus’, AS 40 (1990, 137–60,Google Scholar and against: Weidauer, L., Probleme der frühen Elektronprägung (Fribourg 1975)Google Scholar. For the beginning of coinage in Greece not earlier than the second quarter of the sixth century BC, see Kraay, 43 ff.; Holloway, R.R., ‘The date of the first Greek coins: some arguments from style and hoards’, RBN 130 (1981) 5–18;Google ScholarCarradice, I. and Price, M., Coinage in the Greek world (London 1988) 20–8Google Scholar. The high chronology based on literary evidence is still maintained by Kagan, D., ‘The dates of the earliest coins’, AJA 86 (1982), 343–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar. An extreme view in the opposite direcetion has been advanced by Vickers, M., ‘Early Greek coinage: a reassessment’, NC 45 (1985) 108–28,Google Scholar who dates the earliest coins from Ephesus to 550, the Athenian Wappenmünzen to the late sixth and the first ‘owls’ to some time between 479 and 462 BC; his arguments are inconclusive.

17 Karwiese, S., ‘The Artemisium coin hoard and the first electrum coins of Ephesus,’ RBN 137 (1991) 1–28,Google Scholar esp. 9 f.

18 I have argued in von Reden, 176-81, that sixth-century political poetry betrays a very unstable concept of state authority, and that in Athens the development of coinage needs to be considered in the light of the increasing stabilization of state authority in the sixth century BC. For the definition of coinage, cf. L. Gernet, ‘Value in Greek myth’ (1948), in Gordon, R.L. (ed.), Myth, religion and society (Cambridge 1980) 111–46,Google Scholar esp. 111.

19 For this definition see Seaford, 199. The large variety of different weight standards of coinages which were in existence during the sixth and fifth centuries BC, and the frequency with which they were altered according to new political constellations, especially in the early period of coinage, show the problems of creating a ‘universal equivalent’ in political communities with low political integration. For a convenient overview of weight standards see Kraay, Appendix I.

20 Howgego, 16.

21 Howgego, 6 ff., 12 f. For coinage as a means of fixing and stabilising value see also Wallace, R.W., ‘The origins of electrum coinage’, AJA 91 (1987) 385–97,CrossRefGoogle Scholar esp. 395 ff.

22 Koerner, no. 116; see also Gagarin, M., ‘The organisation of the Gortyn law code’, GRBS 23 (1982) 129–46,Google Scholar esp. 136. Lebêtes are typical objects of banquet equipment and may be seen in conection with the Near Eastern links of the ‘elitist tradition’ which Morris (n.9) identifies.

23 For date and discussion see Guarducci, ICret. Vol. IV ad loc.; Koerner, no 118.

24 Koerner, no. 87; van Effenterre and Ruzé, no 1, 12.

25 ICret I, VIII, 5. It has been argued that lebês stands here not for the actual vessel but as a name for the Aeginetan drachmê piece (Sanctis, de in Monumenti antichi editi per cura del Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei 18 (1907) 302 ff.Google Scholar; cf. Jeffery, L.H., The local scripts of archaic Greece (Oxford2 1990) 313)Google Scholar. This is, however, unlikely as no issue of an Aeginetan drachma carries a lebês as its mark.

26 ICret IV 72 passim. The first Cretan coinage was struck in Gortyn and Phaestus sometime between 450-425 BC. Until the middle of the fifth century a not insubstantial amount of Aeginetan coinage circulated on the island: Rider, G. Le, Monnaies Crétoises du Ve an Ier siècle av.J.-C. (Paris 1966) 166;Google Scholar Kraay, 50. Willetts, R.F., The law code of Gortyn (Berlin 1967) 8–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar dating (with no authority) the beginnings of coinage to the beginning of the 5th century, argues that the town law of Gortyn was a direct result of an increasing interest of the Cretan aristocracy in trade: ‘Gortyn was the first of the Cretan cities to have a coinage. The introduction of Cretan coinage antedates, so far as present knowledge goes, the publication of the Gortyn Code by roughly one generation. There thus appears to be a marked connection between trade, coinage and written law’ (9). There is, however, no reason to make trade a condition for the influx of coinage into Cretan society.

27 ICret II 9 (fifth cent.). For the date of the inscription see Jeffery (n.22) 316. For the absence of coinage in Axos before 380-70; see Le Rider (n.23) 197.

28 Koerner, no. 72-73; van Effenterre and Ruzé, no. 91.

29 For the former van Effenterre and Ruzé, 331; for the latter Cairns, F., ‘Chrêmata dokima: IG XII, 9, 1273.1274 and the early coinage of Eretria’, ZPE 54 (1984) 145–55,Google Scholar esp. 154.

30 Published in Grakov, B.N., Istorija, archeologija i etnographica Srednej Azii (Moscow 1968)Google Scholar (non vidi; see Golenko, K., ‘Literaturüberblick der griechischen Numismatik Nördliches Schwarzmeergebiet’, Chiron 5 (1975) 497Google Scholar ff. No 164). For the following see Schönert-Geiss, E., ‘Bemerkungen zu den prämonetären Geldformen und zu den Anfängen der Münzprägung’ Klio 79 (1987) 406–42,Google Scholar esp. 413, who also gives a paraphrase of the text.

31 Grakov, B.N., ‘Noch einmal zum Pfeilgeld’, VDI 3 (1971) 125–27Google Scholar (with Engl, summary).

32 Wells, H.B., ‘The arrow-money of Thrace and southern Russia’, SAN 9 (1978) (1) 6–9Google Scholar and (2) 24-6. Cf. Schönert-Geiss (n.27) 412-3.

33 Stancomb, W., ‘Arrowheads, dolphins and cast coins in the Black Sea region’, Classical Numismatic Review 18 (1993) 5;Google ScholarZograph, A.N., Ancient coinage. British Archaeological Reports Suppl. Ser. 33 (London 1977) 188–93;Google ScholarGraham, A.J., ‘Greek and Roman settlements on the Black Sea coast: historical background’ in Tsetskhladze, G.R. (ed.), Greek and Roman settlements on the Black Sea coast (Washington 1994) 4–10,Google Scholar with discussion and further bibliography.

34 Karageorghis, V., Palaphos-Skales. An Iron Age cemetery in Cyprus (Konstanz 1983) tomb 49, finds 16-18; pp. 59–61Google Scholar and appendix IV; see also id., CRAI (1980) 49, pp. 135-6, figs. 11 and 12.

35 Karageorghis (n.34) 372.

36 For an overview with further literature see Strøm, I., ‘Obeloi of pre- or proto-monetary value in Greek sanctuaries’ in Linders, T. and Alroth, B., Economics of cult in the ancient world, Boreas 21 (Uppsala 1992) 41–51Google Scholar.

37 I am following again the recent summary and discussion by Strøm (n.36).

38 Strøm (n.36); see also Courbin, P. ‘Obéloi d'Argolide et d'ailleurs’ in Hägg, R. (ed.), The Greek renaissance of the 8th century BC. Tradition and innovation (Athens 1983) 149–56;Google ScholarFurtwängler, A., ‘Zur Deutung der Obeloi im Lichte Samischer Neufunde’ in Cahn, A. & Simon, E. (eds.), Tainia. Roland Hampe zum 70. Geburtstag (Mainz 1980) 81–98;Google ScholarKron, U. ‘Zum Hypogäum von Paestum’, JDI 86 (1971) 131–44Google Scholar.

39 See esp. Courbin, P., ‘Dans la Grèce archaïque. Valeur comparée du fer et de l'argent lors l'introduction de monnayage’, Annates E.S.C. 14 (1959) 209–33;Google Scholar Strøm (n.36); Courbin (n.38); Kron (n.38) with further references. Against, Furtwängler (n.38).

40 Furtwängler (n.38) 89.

41 See Furtwängler (n.38) against Courbin (nn. 38 and 39).

42 Strøm (n.36) 42, 48; for a list of banquet equipment including obeliskoi, see the fourth-century inscription from Chostia in Boeotia, (BCH 62 (1938) 149 ffGoogle Scholar.); cf. Tomlinson, R.A., ‘Two notes on possible hestiatoria’, BSA 75 (1980) 221 ffGoogle Scholar. I do not find the two sixth-century examples Strøm cites convincing evidence.

43 Rhodes, P.J., A Commentary on the Athenaiôn Politeia (Oxford 1980) 165Google Scholar and Ath. Pol. 10.4.

44 Hom. Il. 9.632-8; cf. von Reden, 18-24.

45 Thomas (n.8) emphasises in particular the oral tradition that lies behind the written laws: ‘We … cannot understand the full significance of early written law in Greece without grasping the oral background: for example, the extent of oral communication, of customary or oral law, the role of those early officials called mnemones and therefore of sheer memory in legal procedures’ (p.61); similarly Hölkeskamp, K.-J., ‘Written law in archaic Greece’, PCPS 38 (1992) 87–117,Google Scholar esp. 89 ff. contra: Gagarin, M., Early Greek law (Berkeley 1986) 1 ffGoogle Scholar.

46 Hom. Il. 9.632-38; cf. the trial scene on the shield of Achilles: 18.498-500; Od. 8. 32; Willetts, R.F., Aristocratic society in ancient Crete (London 1955) 86,Google Scholar sees in the term moichagria a special term for recompense in cases of private tort. Compare ICret IV 72 II, 2-45.

47 See Hölkeskamp (n.8), and further Snodgrass, A., ‘Interaction by design. The Greek city state’, in Renfrew, C. and Cherry, J.F. (eds.), Peer polity interaction and sociopolitical change (Cambridge 1986) 47–58;Google ScholarMorris, I., ‘The early polis as state’ in Rich, J. and Wallace-Hadrill, A. (eds.), City and country in the ancient world (London 1991) 25–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

48 The most sustained argument against this view has been offered by Thomas (n.8); see also Stoddart, S. and Whitley, J., ‘The social context of literacy in archaic Greece and Etruria’ Antiquity 62 (1988) 761–72,CrossRefGoogle Scholar with focus on Crete.

49 M/L 2; Koerner, no 91; cf. id, ‘Beamtenvergehen und deren Bestrafung nach frühen griechischen Inschriften’, Klio 69 (1987) 450-98, esp. 451 ff.

50 Thus P.J. Rhodes in a personal communication.

51 Ehrenberg, V., ‘An early source of polis-constitution’, CQ 37 (1943) 14–18,CrossRefGoogle Scholar esp. 14. See also Hölkeskamp (n.8) 136, and SEG 28.103.39-41 for a parallel example.

52 The reading of the text is controversial, see for discussion Koerner, no 37; van Effenterre and Ruzé, no 23.

53 Koerner (n.49) 475-6; id., ‘Vier frühe Verträge zwischen Gemeinwesen und Privatleuten auf griechischen Inschriften’, Klio 63 (1981) 179-206, esp. 193; Hölkeskamp (n.8) 150.

54 Koerner, no 121; van Effenterre and Ruzé, no 82.

55 See also ICret IV 78, 4 ff. See for both Willetts (n.46) 105 f.; Gagarin (n.45) 135; Koerner (n.49) 455-7, 478-9; Hölkeskamp (n.8) 150.

56 IvEr I.1; see also Pleket, , in his review Gnomon 47 (1975) 565;Google Scholar Koerner (n.49) 460-62; Koerner, nos. 74, 75.

57 ICret IV 8a−d; cf. Koerner, no 118.

58 SEG IV. 64; cf. Koerner, no. 86.

59 Cf. IG I3 4 A/B; I3 138 (both Athens); Raubitschek, A.E., ‘Another drachma dedication’, YCS 11 (1950) 295 fGoogle Scholar. (Athens); Payne, H., Perachora I (1940, no 1; p.257Google Scholar (Perachora); I3 250; (Paiania); IvOl 5 (Olympia); CID I 9 (Delphi); IG XII 5, 593 (Ioulis/Keos); ICret II 9 (Axos). Further examples in Sokolowski, index s.v. drachmê, statêr, obolos, argurion.

60 Kurke (unpublished) quoting Morris (n.9) 21.

61 Most recently Hölkeskamp (n.8), cf. Detienne (n.8); Gagarin (n.8) 130 ff. For the continuous penetration of political activity with sacred ritual well into the classical period see Connor, W.R., ‘Sacred and secular: hiera and hosia in the classical Athenian concept of the state’, AncSoc 19 (1988) 161–88Google Scholar.

62 Thomas (n.8) 69 ff. Attention should be drawn here also (a) to the sympotic context in which the constitutional ideas of Solon on the one hand and the laws of Charondas on the other were expressed: Camessa, G., ‘Aux origines de la codification écrite des lois en Grèce’ in Detienne, M. (ed.), Les savoirs de l'écriture en Grèce ancienne (Lille 1988) 130–55;Google ScholarPiccirilly, L., ‘“Nomoi” cantati et “nomoi” scritti’, Civilità classica et cristiana 2 (1981) 7–14;Google Scholar and (b) to the exclusively elite context in which the scribe Spensithios was employed and paid a misthos of 20 drachmai (coins or bullion) in Crete (c. 500 BC); cf. Jeffery, L.F. and Morpurgo-Davies, A., Kadmos 9 (1970) esp. p. 137;CrossRefGoogle Scholarvan Effenterre, H., ‘Le contrat de travail du scribe Spensithios’, BCH 97 (1973) 31–46;CrossRefGoogle Scholar for the social context see Stoddard and Whitley (n.48) 766; and, perhaps slightly overstated, W. Eder, ‘The political significance of the codification of law in archaic societies’, in Raaflaub, K.A., Social struggles in archaic Rome (Berkeley 1986) 262–300Google Scholar.

63 Particularly useful for the question of money use in matrimonial payments is Camaroff, J.L. (ed.), The meaning of marriage payments (Cambridge 1980);Google Scholar see esp. the articles by D. Parkin, ‘Kind bridewealth and hard cash: inventing a structure’, 197-218, and D.B. Rheubottom, ‘Dowry and wedding in Yugoslav Macedonia’, 221-31; fascinating material is also extant for Egypt under Persian rule, where high-value (foreign) coins became part of the dowry in Egyptian families long before taxation and market exchange were monetized; see Lüddeckens, E., Ägyptische Eheverträge (Wiesbaden 1960);Google ScholarPestman, P.W., Marriage and matrimonial property in ancient Egypt (Leiden 1961)Google Scholar.

64 The evidence was first collected by Finley, M.I., The world of Odysseus (Harmondsworth2 1974);Google Scholar cf. id., ‘Marriage, sale and gift in the Homeric world’ in id., Economy and society in ancient Greece (London 1981) 233-45. See more recently di Lello-Finuoli, A.L., ‘Donne e matrimonio nella Grecia arcaica’, SMEA 25 (1984) 275–302;Google ScholarModrzejewski, J., La structure juridique du mariage grec (Athens 1981);Google Scholar see also Morris, I., ‘The use and abuse of Homer’, CA 5 (1986) 81–129,Google Scholar von Reden, 49-57 with further literature.

65 Schaps, D., Economic rights of women in ancient Greece (Edinburgh 1979)Google Scholar esp. 130. His lists in appendix II, however, seem to me to rely on too literal a reading of statements on dowry sizes in oratory and New Comedy.

66 The authenticity of Solonian laws is always doubtful. Because of the reference to nomisma in this particular prescription, its dating to the beginning of the sixth century bc is questionable. There is no reason, however, to doubt its sixth-century origin, given that it seems to be not unparalleled in the late archaic period, cf. Seaford, 74-8. For further discussion see Ruschenbusch, E., Solonos Nomoi. Historia Einzelschrift 9 (Wiesbaden 1966),Google Scholar and Stroud, R., The Axones and Kyrbeis of Solon and Drakon (Berkeley 1979)Google Scholar.

67 Gernet, L., ‘Mots de lexicologie juridique’, Ann.Inst.Ph.O. 5 (1937) 391–8;Google Scholar Schaps (n.65) 104 assumes that jewellry, clothes and household equipment were not part of the proix in classical Athens.

68 Di Lello-Finuoli (n.64) 293 f; Morris (n.64) 108 f.

69 Research on ancient athletic contests takes two directions. The one focuses mainly on the history of disciplines, conditions of training, etc. The other concentrates on the meaning and function of athletic competition in religion and politics. Only the latter interests us here. See esp. Pleket, H.W.. ‘Games, prizes, athletes and ideology’, Stadion 1 (1975) 49–89,Google Scholar and id., ‘Zur Soziologie des antiken Sports’, Medelingen van het Nederlands Institut te Rome 36 (1974) 57-87; (also for earlier literature), Kyle, D.G., ‘Solon and Athens’, AncW 9 (1984) 91–105;Google Scholarid, ‘The Panathenaic games: sacred and civic athletics’, in J. Neils (ed.), Goddess and polis. The Panathenaic festival in ancient Athens (Princeton 1992) 71-101; Kurke, L., ‘The economy of kudos’, in Dougherty, C. and Kurke, L., Cultural poetics in archaic Greece (Cambridge 1993) 131–63Google Scholar. See also W. Rudolph, ‘Zu den Formen des Berufssportes zur Zeit der Poliskrise’, in Welskopf, E.C., Hellenische Poleis Vol. III (Berlin 1974) 1472–83;Google ScholarYoung, D.C., The Olympic myth of Greek amateur athletics (Chicago 1984)Google Scholar. Both of the latter engage in the rather anachronistic question of whether ancient athletics were amateur or professional sports. Local games were mostly open for citizens and foreigners; we hear, however, of games in Hellenistic Asia Minor which were open to citizens only. See Pleket, 56. The evidence for the relatively minor significance of the Olympic games in the eighth and seventh century is discussed by Hönle, A., Olympia in der Politik der griechischen Staatenwelt (von 776 bis zum Ende des 5. Jahrhunderts), (Diss. Tübingen 1967)Google Scholar.

70 Ath. 12. 522 c; cf. RE, Bd I.1 (1893) s.v. ‘agones’ 836-66, esp. 847-9; Rudolph (n.69) 1477 f.; Pleket, ‘Games’ (n.69) 57.

71 IG II2 2311; Pind. Nem. 10.39-48; Schol. Pind. Ol. 7.51; Nem. 10.27; Poll. VII.67. Cf. Ebert, 55; Pleket, 57; RE Bd. II.4 (1896) s.v. ‘athlon’ 2058-63.

72 RE s.v. ‘athlon’ (n.71), 2060 still most comprehensive.

73 London, British Museum, Jeffery (n.25) 238, no. 8; Amandry, , BCH 95 (1971) 618,CrossRefGoogle Scholar no. XI.

74 For an overview see Amandry, P., BCH 95 (1971) 602–26,CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Vanderpool, E., ‘Three prize vases’, AD 24.1 (1971) 1–5.Google Scholar Prizes for victory in games on the one hand, and athla awarded for excellence in warfare on the other can hardly be distinguished in the evidence. This is not accidental but points to the lasting interdependence of warfare, funerary games, and other athletic contests (cf. Arist. Ath.Pol. 58.1; Lys. II. 80, Plat. Men. 249b). Some objects with an athla inscription explicitly mention that they had been awarded for excellence in warfare, others are more ambivalent.

75 Noe, P., ‘The coinage of Metapontum’, NNM 41 (1931) 4–8,Google Scholar no. 311; Jeffery (n.?) 254, 260, no. 13. For the Olympian dedication see Tod, M.N., ‘Epigraphical notes on Greek coinage’ NC 6 7 (1947) 1 ffGoogle Scholar.; for the athla series see esp. the recent discussion by W. Fischer-Bossert, ‘ATHLA’, AA (1992) 39-60, with further literature. Fischer-Bossert himself regards this coinage as being issued to pay mercenaries under Dionysius I. Against this interpretation can be held the outstanding beauty of this coinage, and the fact that it is not found in hoards outside Sicily; see also Gallatin, A., Syracusan Dekadrams of the Euainetos type (Cambridge 1930)Google Scholar.

76 Yalouris, N., ‘Athena als Herrin der Pferde’, MH 7 (1950) 52–55,Google Scholar esp. 53 f. with further evidence. Against Yalouris, however, Kroll and Waggoner (n.16) n. 42, who note the absence of any Nikê, which was the most typical athletic symbol found on coins, in the series. The evidence is inconclusive. Probably a more complex story lies behind the iconography.

77 Howgego, 63 and pl. 14.

78 See re-edition and commentary by Johnston, , ABSA 82 (1987) 125–30Google Scholar.

79 Ebert, 252-4, with full bibliography.

80 The link is most obvious in the Periclean Funeral Oration; for which Loraux, N., The invention of Athens (Princeton 1986; French orig. 1980)Google Scholar. It can also be inferred from the ritual of producing all orphans brought up at state expense before the audience at the Great Dionysia; for which Goldhill, S., ‘The Great Dionysia and civic ideology’, in Winkler, J.J. and Zeitlin, F. (eds.), Nothing to do with Dionysos?' (Princeton 1990) 98–129,Google Scholar esp. 104 f. with Isocr. 8.82 and Schol. Ar. Ach. 504; Aesch. 3. 154.

81 Kurke (n.69) 138 ff. with Diod. Sic. 13. 82.7-8; for the sometimes problematic status difference between victor and citizenry see ead., The traffic in praise (Ithaca and London 1991)Google Scholar esp. 218 ff.

82 In an inscription of the late sixth century an athlete mentions all his victories in local games and in Nemea; Ebert, no 10; cf. Pind. Nem. 10.39 ff. See also Pleket, ‘Games’ (n.69) 57.

83 Ebert, 247-50, no 81 (after 244/5 AD).

84 Pleket, ‘Games’ (n.69) 61, n. 49; for the Theoxenia and its prizes see Ebert, no. 10, 55.

85 Paus. 6.3.11. In fact, all Cauloniates were made Syracuzan citizens under Dionysius; see Rudolph (n.69) 1480. Most such stories about bribery among athletes belong to the Hellenistic period; cf. Rudolph, ibid.

86 Pleket, ‘Soziologie’ (n.69) 70; for opsônia see Dörner, K.F., Der Erlaß des Statthalters von Asia Minor Paulus Fabius Persicus (Greifswald 1935) 39;Google Scholar Plin. Ep. 10, 118 f.; IvOl 56.

87 See for public spending Davies, J.K., Athenian propertied families (Oxford 1976) xvii ff;Google ScholarWhitehead, D., ‘Competitive outlay and comunity profit. Philotimia in classical Athens’, CetM 34 (1983) 55–74;Google Scholar von Reden, 79-104; for political pay M.M. Markle, ‘Jury pay and assembly pay at Athens’, in Cartledge, P. and Harvey, D., Crux: Studies presented to G.E.M. de Ste Croix on his 75th birthday (Exeter 1985) 289–326,Google Scholar also for older bibliography; add Schmitt-Pantel, P., Le cité au banquet (Rome 1992)Google Scholar and Millett, P. ‘Patronage and its avoidance’ in Wallace-Hadrill, A. (ed.), Patronage in ancient Society (London 1989) 15–47Google Scholar.

88 See on the latter Gernet (n.18).

89 Kopytoff (n.3); von Reden, 105 ff. for a similar ambivalence of the agora. Seaford, 223, emphasises more strongly the paradoxical capacity of money to create both order and disorder. As a universal equivalent, money relates the variety of goods to a single measure and thus, as law, creates order and coherence. Yet as an abstraction of things, a convention with no use in itself, it creates disorder because no limit is set to its accumulation. This observation goes back to the early modern metallist/anti-metallist controversy which was not least based on Aristotle (see further Hart, K., ‘Heads or tails? Two sides of the coin’, Man 21 (1986) 637–56)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. While it does explain Aristotle's ethical double bind about money, I do not find it particular helpful as an explanation for the problems raised in the texts i am discussing here.

90 Hartog, F., The mirror of Herodotus (California 1988, French orig. Paris 1980)Google Scholar. L. Kurke ‘Tyrants and transgression: Darius and Amasis’ (forthcoming) puts it succinctly: ‘when the narrative is explicit about others, it is in some sense also about the “same”—the Greeks who are both producers and consumers of Herodotus’ logoi. This is not simply because the Greeks can only imagine the “other” in terms of categories they know … but also because, whatever tales Greeks tell, it is the tensions and contestations of fifth-century polis society that are played out through them, even if only by a dream logic or compression, condensation, and inversion. Or, if we prefer to put it in terms of Herodotus as author of his text…we might say that, like every historian, Herodotus' perception and representation of key issues are shaped by the prevailing concerns of his era. Thus Herodotus cannot fail to see struggles like the struggles in the polis as the author of events, even when his gaze is fixed on Lydians or Persians or Egyptians.’

91 Gould, J., Give and take in Herodotus. Myres Memorial Lecture (Oxford 1991);Google Scholarcf. id., Herodotus (London 1989) 110 ff.

92 Kurke, 45, 49, 50 ff.

93 Kurke (n. 1) appeared when this paper was in progress; I apologize for overlaps. As I can only agree with much of what Kurke says, her paper should be consulted for further discussion of some of the following.

94 From a numismatic perspective, the Lydian origin of coinage is not ascertainable; see Howgego, 1-4. The Artemisium hoard contains coins which were issued both in Lydia and in Ionian cities and neither of them can be said to be earlier than the other. Moreover, the stories of the Lydian invention of coinage invariably refer to the gold and silver coinage of Croesus which (a) postdates the electrum coinage and (b), if identical with the so-called croeseids, cannot clearly be attributed to the time of Croesus (c. 561-547). Carradice suggests that the earliest known issues were contemporary with the early Greek coinages; see I. Carradice, ‘The “regal” coinage of the Persian empire’, in id. (ed.), Coinage and administration in the Athenian and Persian empires, BAR I.S.343 (Oxford 1987) 73-107; cf. Wallace (n.1) and id., ‘The production and exchange of early Anatolian electrum coinage’, REA 91 (1989) 87-95.

95 The Lydian habit was in fact the direct inversion of Greek habits: the deflection of matrimonial payments into the commercial sphere was morally objectionable and became a topos in oratory and comedy aiming to unmask the bad citizen. See von Reden, ‘The commodification of symbols: reciprocity and its perversions in Menander’ in Gill, C., Postlethwaite, N. and Seaford, R., Reciprocity in ancient Greece (Oxford forthcoming)Google Scholar.

96 Achil., fr. 19 (W); Hippias FGH 6 F 6; Poll. 9. 83; Hdt. 1.94. Coinage and tyranny in Greece: Ephor. FGH 70 F 115 and 176; Poll. 9.83; Et. Mag. s.v. obeliskos; see also Thuc. I. 13. See also Shell (n.3) 11-62, Steiner, 159-63, Seaford, 220-32.

97 Shell (n.4) 14 ff; Seaford, 224 f. with Plat. Rep. 359-60. The link between money and invisible power is overestimated in Shell's argument. As Kurke has shown, money could be used visibly (i.e. as a visible acknowledgment of social positions), as well as invisibly (Kurke (n.80) 225-39); conversely, the distinction between phanera ousia and ousia aphanês, which was important in Greek politics and law, did not so much refer to real property as opposed to money, but rather to the distinction between property owned in the form of possessions and that owned in the form of claims; cf. L. Gernet, ‘Things visible and things invisible’, in id., The anthropology of ancient Greece (Baltimore 1981, French orig. Paris 1968); Seaford is more careful, relating the invisibility of the tyrant's power and that of coinage to the idea that both are derived from an unseen and therefore mysterious source (Seaford, 225).

98 Steiner, 195.

99 Ibid., 163

100 Hartog (n.89) 325 f. Kurke's (n.89) retrojection of Herodotean problematizations of tyranny to the sixth century seems to me unpersuasive.

101 Hartog (n.89); see also McGlew, J.F., Tyranny and political culture in ancient Greece (Ithaca and London 1993) 26Google Scholar.

102 L. Gernet, ‘Marriages of Tyrants’, in id., The anthropology of ancient Greece (Baltimore 1981, French orig. Paris 1968) 289-302, esp. 292-5.

103 Seaford, too, notes an analogy of endogamy/incest and monetary investments of the tyrant; yet in line with his general conceptualisation of money, he applies the analogy to the phenomenon of money as a whole, rather than to a particular use of money associated with tyranny (Seaford, 217-8).

104 Arist. EN 1122b20-1123a5; for the difference between aristocratic and democratic ideas about public spending see Davies (n.84), Whitehead (n.84), Kurke (n.80), 218-24, Seaford, 194-99, and also von Reden, 79-89.

105 Cf. Kurke (n.80) 218 ff.

106 The only coin type directly associated with a tyrant is that of Anaxilas' mule cart, commemorating his victory at Olympia in 484 or 480 (cf. above n.77), and even in this case the coins refer to being property of the cities (‘Messenion’ or ‘Rheginon’) rather than of the tyrant.

107 See Wallace (n.21) 393 ff.; Wallace writes, ‘Coinage represented a quite simple discovery, that the guarantee of redeemability by the state was a means of stabilizing value of precious metal. This was a discovery of enormous consequences for later economic and political history. In seventh-century Anatolia it was intended to solve only the particular problem posed by the special nature of electrum alloy' (p. 397). Wallace is, however, reluctant to concede social and internal political consequences to the stabilization of the value of precious metal by the state.

108 For the image of Darius as a physical monument see Kurke, 54, and Hdt. 1.185.1; 1.186.1; 2.110.1; 2.121.1; 2.148.1; 4.81.6; 7.24.

109 Hdt. 3.89. 3; cf. Kurke, 54-5.

110 See above, and Lloyd, A.B., Herodotus Book II. Vol II (Leiden 1988),Google Scholarad loc. Strøm (n.36) observes a concentration of obelos dedications in sanctuaries of Apollo, Athena and Hera.

111 Steiner, 165. For the samaina see Robinson, E.S.G., ‘A hoard of archaic coins from Anatolia’, NC 1 (1961) 107.Google Scholar This coin belongs, as Robinson argues, to a series which was struck by Samian refugees from Persia while they occupied Zankle (494 bc); cf. id., ‘Rhegion, Zankle-Messene and the Samians’, JHS 66 (1946) 13. The rather rare coinage nevertheless made an impression: see Suda s.v. polugrammatos.

112 van Groningen, B.A. and Wartelle, A., Aristote: Economique. Ed. Budé, (Paris 1968),Google Scholar date the second book to a time after the death of Alexander but before the proclamation of Macedon and Egypt as kingdoms (306-5 BC). For an even later dating see Forabosci, D., ‘Archaeologica della cultura economica’, in Virgilio, B. (ed.), Studi ellenistici (Pisa 1984) 75 ffGoogle Scholar.

113 Van Groningen and Wartelle (n.112) 53 f., note the moral discrepancy between the content of the stories and the Aristotelian discussion of exchange in NE 1120a3-1138b13, but do not attempt to explain it.

114 See further II.2. 20, 29, 39. Themocrates of Athens also mints a lead coinage, but he also made merchants accept it as silver, and later exchange back for it (23).

115 See also Oik. II.2. 13, 15, 20, 25, 29, 31, 32, 33, 41.

116 Hippias, too, accepts money from those who wish to avoid their liturgical duties (2) and Dionysius manages to make the citizens of Syracuse come forth with the property they had tried to hide in order to avoid a contribution (20).

117 I would like to thank Paul Cartledge, Karl-Joachim Hölkeskamp, Christopher Howgego, Sally Humphreys, Nino Luraghi, Robin Osborne, Ute Wartenberg and the readers and Editor of JHS for reading and commenting on earlier drafts of this paper. Many thanks also to Leslie Kurke who sent me copies of her work in progress.