From the Athenian Tetradrachm to the Euro

Studies in European Monetary Integration

Gérassimos Notaras

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351157902
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

With the introduction of the euro much recent attention has been focused on the role of currencies and their national and international significance. Whilst much has been made of the euro's achievements in harmonising Europe's financial dealings, it is often forgotten that it is by no means the first pan-national currency to enter circulation. Indeed, as the various contributions to this volume make plain, the euro can in many ways be regarded as a step 'back to the future', that is, a further international currency in a long historical tradition that includes the Athenian tetradrachm, the Spanish peso and the French franc. Covering a timespan of some two and a half millennia, the contributions within this volume fall within four broad chronological sections, the first comprising three contributions that consider aspects of the European experience from classical antiquity until the high middle ages. The discussion then leaps forward chronologically to the modern age, given a focus by three contributions devoted to nineteenth-century European developments. These, in turn, are set within a wider spatial perspective by two essays that review, first, the classical gold standard, primarily in terms of peripheral economies' experience, and, second, the Bretton Woods system. Fourth, and lastly, the euro's origins and birth are explored in three further contributions. By taking such a long term view of supra-national currencies, this volume provides a unique perspective, not only to the introduction and development of the euro, and its predecessors, but also on the broader question of the relationship between trade and common currencies.

CHAPTER 1
Common Currency from Antiquity:
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

Ioannis Touratsoglou

The invention of coin-shaped currency at the end of the seventh century BC in the area of Lydia and Ionia (western Asia Minor) may be regarded as the culmination of a millennium's experience of trade. The use of metal as a means of exchange was known as early as the third millennium BC, attested alongside the employment of agricultural and livestock products. However, the convenience of coin, together with the value of its metal content, guaranteed by the stamp [σφραγίς, ϰαρακτήρ] of the issuing authority (also found on metallic objects exchanged during the period before the invention of coins), gave new possibilities for the economy. Coins' attributes enabled the economy to cast off limitations previously imposed by the imponderable factors that had governed agricultural and livestock production.

Views are divided over both the first authority to issue coins and the needs that they were designed to serve. Ionian merchants or bankers, or priests and even the kings of Lydia have all been advanced as the supposed inventors [heuretai] of coins. The accumulation of wealth, payment for services and the conduct of trade were all given an impulse by whatever innovator. Nonetheless, coinage, besides its essential function as a means for economic transactions, was always a vehicle for administrative control, political propaganda, religious symbolism, inscribed messages, collective beliefs, ideas and goals, common traditions and customs, major artistic trends and so on.

Although the objects used for exchange in the pre-coinage economy were for the most part capable of responding to the requirements of international trade and exchanges, coins gave an impulse to a development of a different kind. This emerged after the Greek city-states began the minting of coins. The stamp, giving legitimacy and a public character to these metal objects so making them coins [nomisma from nomos — law in ancient Greek], also referred to their various issuing authorities. For their respective coin issues, the Greek city-states and ethnē used differing weight standards based upon systems for measuring their agricultural products. Each city-state, as an independent political unit, attempted — especially when it succeeded in acquiring certain power — to impose its own currency policy through seeking, frequently by legislation, to dictate the use of its own coinage for commercial exchanges. 'The national coinage' [ἡμεδαπόν, πάτριον νόμισμ], was described as 'having value for ourselves, but unfamiliar to the other people' [autois men entimon, tois de allois anthrōpois adokimon]. As a result of this process, zones of currency-economic influence were created, and this development may also be seen in the voluntary fragmenting of these zones. The evidence comes from ancient Greek literature, inscriptions and, of course, the coins themselves, together with the extent of their respective circulations and the production of imitations.

In some cases, political and geographical unions of a federal character decided, in the context of common ties, aspirations and institutions, to conduct joint political affairs and military operations and to issue a common coinage. In a similar fashion, some of the Hellenistic kingdoms (the Ptolemies in Egypt, the Attalids in Asia Minor) pursued a largely introspective economic policy, and imposed on their states the use of their own issues. Either at a peripheral, local level (tribes, federations), or in the wider Mediterranean area (through powerful issuing authorities, such as Aegina, Corinth, or Athens), the Greek mints gradually led to the emergence, initially 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 coin issues varied, characteristic examples being the electrum staters of Kyzikos, the hectae [sixths] of Phokaea and the gold darics of the Great King of Persia. These series were widely acceptable during the fifth and fourth centuries BC, mainly because the Greek cities no longer issued electrum currencies and did not strike gold coins, except in emergency.

The turtles [χελῶναι] of Aegina, found in countless hoards in mainland Greece and the Aegean islands, and also in the East with burial dates in the second half of the sixth and the early decades of the fifth centuries BC, constituted perhaps the first international coinage. The reasons for their predominance can be found in both the context of the very considerable trading activity of the issuing authority, and the ability of this island mint to supply the market with money, having secured control of mines abroad and having exploited the potential afforded by this control and by the carrying trade.

Corinth, whose foals [πῶλοι] are found primarily in hoards in west Greece, constitutes a different case. This city on the isthmus, under the aegis of the Kypselid tyrants, sought to secure markets for its own products by founding colonies, mainly along the Ionian and Adriatic shores, that it placed under its own political control. The types and weight standards of these colonies' coinages were, with the exception of Potidaia, aligned with those of the mother city. Hence, the only difference between the coins of the metropolis and those of the colonies was the reference, under the belly of the obverse Pegasus, of the relevant city name through the acrophonic letter of its ethnic: A for Anactorion, Λ for Leucas, Δ for Dyrrhachion, and so on.

On the morrow of the fine 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 silver from Laurion and the fleet victorious at Salamis, to which was now added the fleet of the Delian League. Using the tribute that flowed into the League's treasure chest and exploiting a complex system of political and economic influence, Athens developed to be the leader of an economic empire. The owls [glaukes] flooded the markets of the eastern Mediterranean and became the 'coinage common to all' [to koinon tois pasi nomisma].

It is indicative that, during the Peloponnesian War when Athens not only had to meet enormous war costs but also fund her ambitious building policy, especially on the Acropolis, the city attempted to exploit the advantages of a common currency, and of common weights and measures standards, by imposing the Attic standard upon her allies. However, this attempt was unsuccessful. Nevertheless, when Athens was facing difficulties during the late fifth century BC, coins influenced by the owls were in circulation in Asia Minor and local requirements were met by this currency. During the fourth century 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 on all the Mediterranean markets. In the Platonic dialogues, which outline the currency policy to be followed by the state, the Athenian tetradrachm serves as a model for the 'common Greek currency' [to koinon hellēnikon nomisma], in contrast to the 'currency for everyday transactions' [to nomisma heneka allagēs tēs kath 'ēmeran].

The basis for Macedonian expansion was established by Philip II (361/0-336 BC), who created a powerful kingdom in the Balkans. His gold and silver coins were disseminated — and imitated — mainly in the territories of the Celtic tribes of the Balkans and central Europe. His successor, Alexander the Great (336-323 BC) took the Athenian currency 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 iconography of the young monarch's coinage reflected the pan-Hellenic spirit, which characterized the Asian expedition to the East. His coinage was struck by a series of mints from Aegae to Babylon, and from Amphipolis to Memphis. The Alexandrian tetradrachms [τετραχμα], struck during his lifetime by the warrior king and subsequently by Greek cities and 'barbarian' rulers in his name, replaced Attic tetradrachms in hoards dating from the late fourth and third centuries BC, and dominated the markets. Tetradrachms and drachms on the Attic standard became the 'common currency' [κoινόν νόμισμα] of the Hellenistic period, flooded markets and spread out to the far reaches of the East — from Phoenicia to present day Afghanistan. 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 and of central and western Europe, and Arabs of the shores of the Persian Gulf.

Issues by the Diadochi (successors of Alexander) functioned in a comparable manner. From the second century 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: wreath-bearing] — known as 'New Style' tetradrachms in the modern bibliography — again acted as an international currency, clearly demonstrated by hoard evidence. The roles that had been played during the classical period by Persian darics and the coins of Kyzikos and Lampsakos, brought to the Greek world as payments to mercenaries, were now assumed by the so-called pseudo-Rhodian coins and the tetrobols of Histiaea, found in a large number of hoards dating from the second century BC onwards.

In addition to the decree imposing the Attic weight standard on the members of the First Athenian League, other attempts at the systematic imposition by a state or inter-state organization of a common currency are also known, either with a specific purpose or as a long-term option. Coins with a common reverse, bearing the legend ΣYN [σƲνμαχικόν: of the allies], issued towards the end of the fifth or the beginning of the fourth centuries BC by cities in the eastern Aegean and the Propontis, and 'the silver of the allies' [σƲμγαχικόχ ὰργúριοχ] of the Hellenistic period, reflect the issuing of a common currency by alliances — that is, by multistate organizations.

The issue and imposition of a common currency by cities, kings, ethne or koina [confederacies] marks an extension, and is to be seen within the context of a currency policy that first found an expression in Athens with the Law of Nikophon (375/4 BC). Within the borders of the kingdoms of Macedonia, the Ptolemies (Egypt, Coele Syria, Cyprus and Libya), and the Attalids of Pergamon, royal rescripts imposed the exclusive use of coins struck locally and dictated the rates of exchange for foreign coins. These coins' lower weights restrained their export, while their exchange for tetradrachms on the Attic standard brought huge profits to royal treasuries. The same policy was pursued by Rhodes through the import of so-called plinthophoroi (drachms with a square-shaped pattern on their reverse).

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 shared national and religious features that normally formed the basis of these organizations. These issues reflected an underlying common acceptance of political or military activity, or reveal initiatives almost invariably abortive due to the lack of rich metal reserves and the absence of political success and economic prosperity. Despite the determined efforts of some of the Hellenistic Leagues (Aetolian League, Achaean League), the power and spheres of influence of these federal states and their coinages were ultimately limited. According to hoard evidence, the 'Chalcidians in Thrace' [apo Thrakēs Khalkideis], the leagues of the Thessalians, Euboeans and Boeotians, the Delphic Amphictyony, the Achaean League, and the federal states of the Aetolians, the Akarnanians and the Epirotes, all attempted to impose a common coinage policy, mainly on the territories under their control. Foreign coins that entered these zones either were commonly accepted currency, such as the Alexandrian tetradrachms of the Hellenistic period, or their arrival is associated with specific historical events. These trends are reflected and recorded in the passage in Polybios comparing the Peloponnese under the Achaean League with a city (having common laws, institutions, and weight standards), and the fact that in Euboea the artists of Dionysos wished to be paid in coins issued by Demetrios Poliorketes [Demetrieion], struck on the Attic standard.

During the long history of numismatics from antiquity to modern times there were, on certain occasions, several attempts by various cities and states to form federations and alliances — usually of regional character and influence — with common goals, (occasionally) common institutions, common political agendas and common coinage. In an analogous framework, other coinages, mainly issued by cosmopolitan centres or by powerful empires, were imposed by several means (for example trade, colonization, conquest). They became widely accepted in the ancient or the medieval world, playing a significant role as regulators in the economies of various peoples and, thus, expressed a common will of another kind for monetary uniformity. From these sketchy remarks, it is evident that the idea for a sole, common monetary means is in fact an old one. It actually originated from the attempts of various ancient and medieval societies to achieve the aforementioned goal.

During modern times, in the colourful mosaic of economic/political developments, the spotlight was taken by the coinages of powerful or developing countries, which were internationalized mainly through worldwide commercial transactions. These were the Spanish gold escudos and silver reales (produced in both the heartland of the kingdom and the colonies), the Maria Theresa Thaler (of the multinational Austro-Hungarian Empire), the British pound (of the once vigorous colonial power), and recently, the American dollar. Another attempt at economic uniformity was centred (mainly) in Europe, and focused on the French franc: the Latin Monetary Union (1865-1927), which may, to some degree, be considered the forerunner of the European unification under way at the close of the twentieth century.

The transition to the third millennium AD is highlighted by the birth of the euro, the common coinage of the gradually consolidating European Union. Great expectations are reflected in this coin, associated with the establishment of a prosperous federal organization, which aspires to a better, common future for the inhabitants of the Old Continent. Faithful to her rich tradition, Europe moves 'Back to the Future'.¹

Figure 1.1a-b. Silver stater of Corinth (ca. 520-510 BC). Obv.: Pegasus I.
Rev.: Incuse.
Numismatic Museum, Athens.

Figure 1.2a-b. Silver stater of Aegina (ca. 500 BC). Obv.: Turtle.
Rev.: Incuse.
Numismatic Museum, Athens

Figure 1.3a-b. Silver tetradrachm of Athens (ca. 479-150 BC). Obv.: Head of
Athena r. Rev.: Owl r.
Numismatic Museum, Athens

1 Select Bibliography: M. Crawford, La moneta in Grecia e a Roma (Ba...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Tables
• List of Figures
• Notes on Contributors
• Preface From the Athenian Tetradrachm to the Euro
• Introduction
• 1 Common Currency from Antiquity: Plus ça change, plus c 'est la même chose
• 2 Monetary Integration in the Roman Empire
• 3 'One Money for an Empire': Achievements and Limitations of Byzantium's Currency from Constantine the Great to the Fall of Constantinople
• 4 On the History of German Monetary Union
• 5 The Latin Monetary Union Revisited Once Again
• 6 The Scandinavian Monetary Union 1873-1924
• 7 The Gold Standard: A View from the Periphery
• 8 The Bretton Woods Agreements: A Monetary Theory Perspective
• 9 The European Monetary System
• 10 European Monetary Union: A Project of Promise and Risk
• 11 From the Athenian Tetradrachm to the Euro: Some Concluding Remarks
• Bibliography
• Index