Money in Antiquity, vol. III: History of Mints and Monetary Circulation — 1879

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THE

CURRENCY IN ANTIQUITY

VOLUME III

c\

Paris. — Imp. Grauthier-Villars, 55, quai des Grands-Angastins.

THE

CURRENCY

IN ANTIQUITY

LESSONS TEACHED

IN THE CHAIR OF ARCHEOLOGY

NEAR THE NATIONAL LIBRARY

IN 1875-1877

BY

FRANCIS LENORMANT

VOLUME III

PARIS

A. L. ÉV Y MAISONNEUVE AND C «

Bookseller-publisher Booksellers-publishers

13, RUE LAFAYETTE, 13 1 25, QUAI VOLTAIRE, 25

ROLLIN AND FEDARDENT

Booksellers-publishers

4, PLACE L0UV0I8, 4

1879

BOOK III

THE LAW IN ANCIENT COINS

(CONTINUED)

CHAPTER II

A GLANCE AT MONETARY DOCTRINE AND ITS PRACTICAL CONSEQUENCES IN ANTIQUITY

g 1 . — THE GREEKS.

i. Inventors of money, or at least having been the first to give considerable development to its usage (see book I, chapter III, § 2 and 3), the Greeks do not have never misunderstood his true character as a mar- real commodity invested with the role of representative sign and common measure of the value of things. An admirable passage from Aristotle, often cited by economists, contains the philosophical expression of the most healthy and most advanced on the true properties of currency. “We agreed,” said the great philosopher, “to give “and to receive, in exchanges, a material which, useful this by itself, was easily manageable in uses the usual habits of life -, it was iron for example, from Tar- a gent or any other analogous substance, from which we determine “mined first the dimension and the weight, and finally, to <(freeing ourselves from the embarrassment of continual measurements, we “marked with a particular imprint, a sign of his valor to them. With money, born from the first indiscriminate exchanges, "thinkable, sale was also born, another form of acquisition III, 1

2 CURRENCY IN ANTIQUITY

((sition, excessively simple in origin, but c( soon perfected by experience, which revealed, in to the circulation of objects, the sources and means of ((considerable profits." If he does not hesitate for a single moment on the essence of money as having to possess by itself an own value, conforming to its con- conventional circulation, Aristotle is also fully in economic truth when examining the question to know if money constitutes wealth, like some people thought so in antiquity and in the middle age, or if it is only one of the representations and the me- most general and most convenient, oc A man does not “won’t there be any shortage of basic necessities? (i site? and is it not a pleasant wealth that which ((does not stop you from dying of hunger, like this Midas of “the mythology, whose greedy wish caused it to change into (.( or all the dishes on his table (1)? »

In writing these words, to which an economist from our days would have nothing to add for scientific accuracy fically and for precision, the philosopher of Stagira expresses did he maintain his personal theories, or did he give a more philosophical form with opinions generally re- common among his contemporaries? Let us first notice that the theory he presents was at least the one which had course among philosophers, because Plato expresses it a lot more briefly, but still very clearly, in its Re- public, not in this part of pure utopia where it wants to exclude precious metals from the ideal state he dreams of to create, but in the second book, in this part so re- markable where, reconstructing what originally happened

(1) Aristotle. Politics. I, 6, 14-16; t. I, p. 53, translation by M. Barlhé- iemy Saint-Hilaire.

THE LAW IN ANCIENT COINS 3

societies, it establishes the laws of production and the healthy rules of the division of labor (1). If we go through hand- holding all the Greek authors of the autonomous era, we we find not a single one in which appears the slightest trace of the disastrous theory which does not see, in the species gold and silver, only a conventional sign of exchanges, subject to the will of the sovereign or the State. Doubt on the true theory of money does not even seem having awakened in their minds. The distinction of the number rarity and wealth is for them less precise, than the nature of merchandise belonging to money. However- during the passage from Xenophon's treatise On the means to increase the income of CAUique (2), where the scholar Blanqui (3) believed he had found the formal expression of erroneous doctrine according to which cash constitutes the essence of wealth, cannot have the meaning that is attached to it drank this economist. If the expressions of some isolated sentences can give rise to ambiguity, the whole of the treaty and the circumstances in which it was written do not allow us to misunderstand the meaning that should be given recognize. Xenophon pursues a double goal. On the one hand, he supports with the Athenians the need to maintain money in the role of monetary standard, as being subject to variations in production and value less frequent and less strong than those of gold. On the other, he encourages them to give more activity to the exploitation of their Laurium silver mines. He reassures them about from the fear they might have had that the increase in the production of the metal did not come to degrade it, and in

(1) Flat. From Republ. U, p. 371.

(2) IV, 1-2.

(3) History of Political Economy, 1. 1, p. 32.

4 CURRENCY IN ANTIQUITY

this intention he points out that the metals intended in coinage, as serving as instruments for all transactions undergo, as a result of abundance, a less rapid depreciation than goods which do not are only used for one use, even if it is essential like that of wheat, because the multiplication of these metals makes it possible to undertake more operations, acquisitions laugh more things abroad and thus increase wealth, and this was more true in ancient societies than in ours, because the imperfection of the mechanism of creation said, the lack of development of its resources^ required a greater quantity of cash available for same number of operations and companies. Xenophon deceives into believing that with great commercial activity cial and industrial depreciation can be avoided indefinitely. ciation of cash, whatever the proportion in which the metallic mass increases and the speed with which this increase occurs. But we don't could attribute to him the confusion of wealth and nu- meraire.

2. What if we leave literary texts to inter- roger the numismatic monuments themselves, of the study of Greek coins, in any country or whatever era they belong to, we see shot with incontestable evidence that the true notions economics have always served as a rule among the Hellenes to money making. Taken as a whole, the Greek currency is excellent, the metal is pure, the exact weight, the actual value corresponds to the nominal value nale; nothing better has been done among the most

THE LAW IN ANCIENT COINS 5

civilized and most wisely governed of the modern era last. There is always a certain limit of tolerance, which holds the effective weight of the currency slightly to - below its theoretical weight, and this fact even presents itself with such constancy that we can have Terigei* in good standing. He must conclude that it is in this form that civili- Greek sation admitted, for the one who manufactured the currency, the perception of the right of seigniorage and the be- profit which legitimately belongs to it to cover its manufacturing costs, in exchange for the service he provides to the public by delivering the metal to them in the form of currency “dispensing with the embarrassment of continual measurements”. But this tolerance is always maintained within very narrow limits limits and never exceeds the added value data naturalness of the coined metal on the metal in ingots. She is stronger for very small divisional currencies, intended only to make top-ups and with which we did not pay large sums, only for coins representing more considerable values intended for large payments (see book VI, chap. i); iBt this is this which still occurs today among the most advanced in political economy, among those who have the best currencies and best finances. He doesn't know would, in fact, be no disadvantage for the trans- actions to ensure that the supplementary currency is largely fiduciary tie, provided that the law does not purport to oblige the public to receive it other than for small amounts of a specific figure, and provided that the public can always days find to exchange it immediately for money real birth; because then the coin put into circulation for a nominal value greater than its effective metallic value is nothing more than the conventional representation of a certain

6 LÈL CURRENCY IN ANTIQUITY

tain determined weight of metal, which can always be procure against it in the form of real currency which constitutes the majority of traffic.

Without doubt the general and predominant fact of excellence of the Greek coinage of the centuries of full independence dance, which is a commodity commodity, suffers some exceptions, like every rule here below, in human things maines. There were a few cities that let themselves go the fallacious lure of an illegitimate profit by altering the quality of their currencies, without foreseeing that the consequences consequences of this unfair operation would backfire against themselves. But these exceptions are very rare, and in general the bad outcome of companies of this type seems to have quickly disgusted those who tried to indulge in it. We have clearly pointed out some facts about Greek cities who, for one cause or another, preferred to manufacture coins of highly alloyed metal, of a fairly low fineness, pure metal currencies, for example electric coins trum instead of gold coins; but we also saw that the alloyed metal under these conditions had a com- value special and determined thank you, and that it was for this value that it was put into circulation in the form coined (book II, <*chap. i, § 3, 2). Electric currency trum was therefore in principle a commodity currency real as well as pure gold money. She had this- during the inconvenience of lending more to fraud, because the commercial metallic value of Telectrum assumes knows a certain proportion of gold and silver in his composition position, and, as the loyal observation of this proportion could not recognize himself on analysis, it was easy for him who manufactured the currency to obtain a dishonorable gain neat by forcing into the alloy the quantity of silver or even

THE LAW IN ANCIENT COINS 7

by introducing a little copper. It is precisely why the currency of electrum could not support competition from pure gold money, when trade Greek had of the latter in sufficient quantity, from of the reign of Philip II of Macedonia, and that it was then soon abandoned. Previously, from the middle of the 5th century in the middle of the 4th century the people of Cyzicus were far from observing strictly observe the fair proportions of the composition electrum in the staters that they spread on everyone markets (book II, chap. i, § 3, 2; book VI, chap. iv, g 3, and chap. ix, to the word Cyzicenes); their operation was one of the most considerable and at the same time one of the less scrupulous than any Greek city undertook in matters of currencies. But it was not based on the theory rie of the conventional value of the dependent currency of the will of the State, especially since it was above all for export, where they were received as merchants say, that the Cyzicenians struck their staters. They had succeeded, in the midst of the wars which then tore apart the Greek world, to create a monopoly, and they exploited it excessively as they could have exploited that of any other nature of things. All the gold that during this time entered the circulation of the Hellenic countries, with little near thing, passed through their hands; they alone in mon- were born; we only had it through them, in the form of mon- dawn of electrum. Abusing this situation, they delivered him at the price they wanted, giving for the value of an elect- trum at 25 per 100 of alloy of the parts which contained it 40 percent in reality; dictators of the market, they obli- were afraid to take it at this rate, as they hit it, or to do without it. The monopolization of all kinds of merchants dise produces similar results. The people of Cyzicus

8 CURRENCY IN ANTIQUITY

could have put into practice their operation for wheat, for example, as well as for Tor. And here the alteration that we see in the fair title of currencies, far to show the existence of the doctrine of appropriate value functionality of coined species, proves that we consider them would look like real goods, which were trafficked according to the same processes, the same laws and with the same my tricks than any other. Moreover, the way in which the staters of Cyzicus were for an entire century adopted by international trade proves that we could not find not that the people of this city abuse their position by forcing to a certain extent the proportion of alloy of their electrum. But when Phocaea and the other cities of VUnion des heciés (T electrum (1. II, chap. i, § 3, 2; 1. III, chap. I, § 2, 2; book VI, chap. iv, § 3, and chap. ix, to the word Phocaides) wanted to go further along the same path and give an even notably lower title to their mon- international trade no longer accepted their attempts coins like real electrum; it was a cash fiduciary and conventional, which did not circulate for its value nominal only in cities bound by union treaties, but which everywhere else suffered a very strong depreciation tion. Also the manufacturing of this bad money name continued as long as that of the Cyzicenes^ just as it never reached a also great development.

As for the detestable practice of stuffed coins, which, we have shown (book II, chap. ii, g 3), was not nothing other than a surreptitious and shameful broadcast of fiat currencies, which people sought to hide from public by mixing them with loyal currencies, these were without doubt the Greeks who gave the first example. It's

THE LAW IN ANCIENT COINS 9

in imitation of them the Bomains made some. But never in Greece did this practice develop which she took from Eome. Filled pieces are rare in Greek series of the ages of full autonomy. When- that they are not the work of fraud of counterfeiters private, when the origin must be attributed to governments ments themselves, one can almost always see historically that broadcasts of this type, among Hellenes, took place in exceptional circumstances- nels of military necessity^ which they never had among them a character other than that of obsidian currencies modern ones, currencies of pure convention, to which we assign a price unrelated to their metal value- real logic, until the day we can replace them with real cash. These exceptions, intended for temporary circulation and limited to circumstances, ex- ordinary, cannot be taken into account to judge what were, in the eyes of the Greeks, the conditions tions of a peaceful and regular monetary issue. The obsidian pieces are never, strictly speaking, a real currency, but a species of assignats created by necessity. As for the claim that the government ment always has the right, in normal times, to mix currencies stuffed with real currencies, to do so that a portion of the currency in circulation is composed of cash owing their value only to the official imprint and not to their metallic composition, a claim which does not can only arise from the false theory of money-^ij'nc, we find it already anchored among the Romans in the last centuries of the Republic, and we had the opportunity sion to show how many deplorable consequences it had produced early in Rome; but nothing authorizes

10 CURRENCY IN ANTIQUITY

to believe that a similar claim ever existed, nor the theory from which it derived, in Greece independent and thriving.

3. It is not only the character that is both philosophical and phical and practical of the Greeks, it is not only their commercial instinct which kept them, as long as the hel- Lenism lived a free life, the true doctrines of netaries and the fair manufacture of metallic species. If they always had good coins, they lasted above all to freedom and the constitutive rules which in their society governed the right of coinage. The consti- fragmented tution that the spirit of local particularism imposes known to Republican Greece, had serious disadvantages practices, on which we insisted above (in this book, chap i, § 2, 1), in monetary matters, since it gave rise to too great a variety of currencies local, cut according to different standards, but it compensated for these disadvantages to a certain extent by making a serious alteration of the metal species intended for circulation. When each city was sovereign and as such determined its own currencies, sovereignty, essentially local, merged with the municipality, the State did not rise to a more extensive conception, and the currency he manufactures quait was in fact only a municipal currency. However, there cannot be a better and safer condition the good quality of the coins. All members of the community, equally interested, for the stability of the public or private wealth and for the security of transactions tions, to ensure that cash put into circulation does not

THE LAW IN ANCIENT COINS 11

•

are not * altered, easily exercise surveillance constant on the operations of the mint, and, taking part in their own and local affairs, prevent frauds that the sovereign power would perhaps be carried to try if he acted in isolation and without control in a wider territorial sphere. The Greek city was also defended them against the temptation to alter its currencies by the constant competition of the currencies of neighboring cities sins. Indeed, the temptation in this genre is especially strong when the government can boast of drawing from its fraudulent operations a large profit, by imposing in a considerable extent of country its bad currency, under the sanction of legal penalties against the refusal which would be done. But a Greek city which altered its currencies had to resign oneself to seeing them exclusively confined within one's internal circulation, which necessarily restricted the manufacturing to data where the profit was too little something to try the adventure and compensate for the disadvantages deny. She would have seen, in fact, all the transactions of its traders hampered by the refusal of its bad mon- navigating to the nearest places, with the which she was in daily reports, and on her own market this currency would quickly have suffered a ruinous depreciation, further accelerated by the way in which the good species from other cities would have come to do competition, without it being possible for him to try to close its territory.

Besides, with freedom, a people never has any problems. small coins; temptation is constant, for a moment see despotic, to defraud his subjects and to carry out to their expense of illegitimate profits, by imposing on them good a currency which has neither the weight nor the purity necessary

13 CURRENCY IN ANTIQUITY

saries so that its real value corresponds to* the value nominal value for which it is issued. But when the nation she herself takes part in. the administration of its businesses, even if economic doctrines would not be still clarified and known, all it takes is natural common sense and the practice of money matters to prevent him from resort to operations whose inevitable result is the ruin of the State and individuals. This is how, until the invention of the system of representative government by modern republics have been, by the principle of their constitution, much more guaranteed than monarchies against the scourge of currency alteration; while he was rampant throughout Europe in the Middle Ages, these are the merchant republics, like Venice or Florence, which defended themselves best. And in Greek antiquity we can add, as we noted just now, that the more the State was restricted and reduced to the city, the more it was democratic like Athens, giving to all citizens participate in public affairs, the more money becomes is preserved in excellent quality.

It must be noted that wherever the truth reigned ble Hellenism, that is to say the spirit of freedom, even in states with a monarchical constitution, such as those of the successors of Alexander, the currency remained good and ideas about the essential nature of cash are maintained remained intact. Where all freedom disappeared, doc- economic trinity was obliterated and power was undermining to the purity of species. For example, in Syracuse we we see at a certain moment a real bankruptcy operated by a change in the intrinsic value of the currency which served as the basis for all accounts (book VII, chap. I, § 1); it is the work of Dionysius, that is to say of a

THE LAW I)ANS ANCIENT COINS 13

man whose name has crossed the centuries like that of a of the most complete personifications of the spirit of tyranny. All the Greek kings, all the life tyrants of Hellenic cities are far from having carried out modern operations disloyal traders: there are many whose species are remarkable for their excellent quality. But in the Hellenic world we hardly encounter bad currencies than among those of kings and tyrants.

The first somewhat considerable examples of an alteration deep and systematic ration of monetary species, present themselves to us in certain portions of the series numismatics of the kings of Persia. The fundamental basis of their monetary system was the gold darique (book VI, chap III, § i; chap. xv, g 2; chap. ix, to the word Dariques). invented by Darius, son of Hystaspes; it exactly equaled titude of weight and purity of title, if it does not surpass it- I don't know, everything that was best at the same time era in terms of coins among the Greeks. Also had they are a favored course throughout the Hellenic world, and more than one statesman from Sparta or Athens laisiga seduced by these beautiful coins, which found a so easy placement. Besides, as currency of empire, we struck the Persian silver shekel (book VI, chap. ix, at this word), whose metal was at a grade a little lower than that of contemporary Hellenic silver coins (above, book II, chap. i, § 3, 1). The crime of Aryandes, the satrap of Egypt, punished with death by Darius, consisted precisely, according to Herodotus (1), to give to coins of this kind, which he had minted in his government ment, a title superior to that of the currencies that the

(1) IV, 166.

14 CURRENCY IN ANTIQUITY

m

great King transmitted to the rest of his empire; and of time of the historian of Halicarnassus commerce knew still, by certain signs, distinguish from other mechanical centuries discs V aryaiidic silver^ to àpyupiov to apuov^txov, which had a higher circulation rate, like better metal. Furthermore, as we have already noted above (in this book, chap. i, § 1, 2), there was in the Empire of the Achaemenids of the provincial coins of the King, intended specifically and exclusively for the circulation of certain Satrapies, whose title was the same as that Persian centuries intended to circulate everywhere, but of which the weights were held a little below, to ensure the superiority to the currency of the Empire; and moreover, in the Satrapies of Asia Minor and Phoenicia, the government royal left almost complete freedom to coinage municipal of cities in silver, reserving only in an exclusive way the manufacture of gold currency (book VI, chap. iv, § 2 and 3).

The Persian monarchy, less intelligent than the Greeks in commercial and economic matters, had, in organizing health its monetary system, believed to be able to achieve the chi- mother of the double stallion, and she pretended to hold him against the strength of things as long as it lasted. However, in the last century of its existence, while it persisted in wanting legally maintain a value of gold 13 1/3 times greater than lower than that of silver, the price of this metal in the trade had fallen everywhere by at least 11 0/0. Necessities- properly and without any royal order being able to come to prevent it, the result was an export of silver towards the Hellenic West in proportions such that, during Alexander's conquest, it had almost disappeared completely from the interior provinces of the Empire, where

THE LAW IN ANCIENT COINS 15

only gold remained, greatly depreciated by the fact, although keeping the same nominal value (above, book II, chap. i, 1 2,2). In matters of finance and economics politically, one fault leads to another, through a almost fatal sequence, especially in one of these mo- narchies in the Asian way, where the only rule is the will of the master and where abuses of power do not meet trent neither brake nor control. The Achaemenid monarchs believed they could stop by altering the species of this metal, the export of silver, which they themselves had brought by focusing on the false idea of the double standard. We lower- were the title of the Persian century of Empire, to such an extent that some of the provinces of Asia Minor which enjoy know from a semi-independence, like Lycia, close mothered this currency of the suzerain and refused to receive otherwise than by providing a countermark, after checking its metallic quality and pricing it at their discretion in relation to the municipal silver coinage pale of the country, which remained of excellent quality. And the alteration was even much stronger in provincial currencies intended for certain purely Asian Satrapies, where there was no trace of independent municipal life, and where the populations, prostrated in the dust before ]the divinity and supreme power of the great King, accept were without resistance the idea that his will was enough to give a piece of metal marked with its em- imprinted a value he could never have approached in the trade in the state of a simple ingot. The big ones -silver coins made for the V* and IX® Satrapies of Darius, especially for the Aramaic portion of the V* Sa- trapy and for euphratic countries, become, in the decadence of the Persian monarchy, detestable

I

16 CURRENCY IN ANTIQUITY

coins, where the proportion of worthless alloy exceeds by far all the admissible tolerances for a honest manufacturing, especially in a currency which, like this, served for the highest payments. Like indeed, this alteration of the silver currency did not bring no cure for the evil against which we sought a pal- liative, and its consequences turned against the bad administration which sought a profit at the expense of his subjects. Instead of stopping the export of silver tallic and not coined to countries where it was a premium, it accelerated it, and with it the depreciation of gold, nating a universal increase in prices. The only result in was to graft one evil onto another, and thus increase the disorder of monetary circulation. Also the use ofJa currency, which had some difficulty in becoming naturalized in the interior provinces of the Empire and to triumph there pher habits, taken for a long time, of another form of circulation (above, book I, chap. m, | 2, 1), made no progress among the natives until the con- Macedonian quest. If the inhabitants of these provinces were not in a position to challenge their sovereign's pretending to give his currency the value he wanted, unrelated to the intrinsic value resulting from its metallic constitution, whenever they could and that they were not forced to receive it, they preferred avoid the use of this altered and depreciating currency ciated; also all commercial operations, all transactions between individuals were stipulated and settled in raw metal ingots, taken by weight as merchantable say. The use of coined cash has not been completed established in these regions and has become the rule there usual only after Alexander, when the populations

THE LAW IN ANCIENT COINS 17

had to deal with Greek-style currency, with mar-money good with a metallic value equal to its nominal value nale, when they were sure that in a monetary coin coated with the official imprint they had, without need to constantly return to verify its accuracy at the balance, the same quantity of fine metal as in a mor- bar of the same weight of the usual commercial ingots.

The ancients having never conceived of the exercise of remembrance popular rained other than direct, not having had wrinkled by representation, have not even known the pos- sibility in a large State of this temperate monarchy, controlled, held in bridle, whose representative mechanism endowed modern peoples. The only mode of temperament, limitation of the omnipotence of monarchical authority that antiquity knew and practiced consisted in the de- development of municipal autonomy of cities. This is not that by this it opposed some barriers to the exercise of royal power, absolute of its essence, especially in the monarchies resulting from that of Alexander, and which it is bound to degenerate into unlimited arbitrariness. In terms of monetary as in political matters, the existence of strong municipal autonomy provides from Alexander to the Roman conquest the only serious guarantee which hinders among kings the temptations to alter currencies. We can, by studying the numismatic series of various royalty of this period of Greek history, observe how those who remained best protected from this scourge were those in whose states the greatest number of cities autonomous had their own coinage, alongside that of of the sovereign. How, for example, a king of Pergamum could he have thought of altering the coins he put in traffic, to seek profit in a similar abuse of m 2

18 CURRENCY IN ANTIQUITY

power, in the face of competition from its own cash the abundant monetary emissions of the cities free Greeks enclaved in its domains? Willy, badly

willingly, he absolutely had to put on a good show only these cities and even strive to do even better lure, so that commerce gives preference to its species these. On the contrary, the Lagids of Egypt could easily close their country to the circulation of foreign currencies: they did not have to reckon with municipal liberties; so they almost inevitably had to let themselves go to the slope which gradually led them to look for resources illegitimate financial sources in the alteration of the number raire, by transforming real commodity money in a conventional sign whose value depends solely of their decrees. From the second half of the 1st century before the Christian era, the disruption, caused by measures of finance that are arbitrary and as badly calculated as they are dishonest clear, was deep in the whole mechanism of the system monetary of the Ptolemies, and under the contemptible reign of Aulète the alteration of currencies, with the upheaval of the public and private fortune which is the consequence inevitable, reached proportions in Egypt that we had not yet seen anywhere, proportions which do not *will only recur in the great monetary crisis of the Roman Empire in the second century AD and in that which ravaged all of Europe in the 14th* (see book VI, chap. vi, §2).

§ 2. — The Romans.

1. From the Hellenic world let us move to the Roman world. The queen city had received from the Greeks, with the use of the mon-

THE LAW IN ANCIENT COINS 19

born, the tradition of true notions about its nature. These notions were preserved late in the doctrine of juriscon- later, long even after they had completely obliterated in practice. Thus the definition of essence and the role of cash, which a passage from Paul contains inserted in the Digest (1), is it still very satisfactory, although that on an essential point it no longer has the precision of that of Aristotle and leaves the door open to false theories, this Sale, says this famous jurisconsult, includes » began by way of exchange; formerly there were no currencies, » and nothing distinguished the marcAandtse at the price. Each, » following the necessity of time and things, exchanged this » which was useless to him against what could present him with » utility, because we most often see that what one pos- 7> excess sede is missing from the other. But, as it did not happen » not always so easily that one possessed what the other » desired, and reciprocally, we choose a material of which )> public and lasting recognition made it possible to provide » to the common difficulties of exchange, by the identity of » evaluation; this material, coated with an official imprint » heaven, no longer bears the name of merchandise^ but that of » price. y>

It is easy to discern where the serious lacuna lies in this definition. The Roman jurisconsult explains very well what he borrowed from the Greek philosophers, how we were leads to substituting sale for simple exchange, to adopting a material which served as a common standard of the value of things, as an instrument of payments, finally to achieve a final improvement by transforming this material into currency, and also how the price in the form of a sum of money differs from the simple commodity given in barter.

(1) xvm, 1, i.

20 CURRENCY IN ANTIQUITY

But he left aside a whole essential part of the an- these definitions of his Hellenic masters, in particular of Aristotle, which was nevertheless essential to complete renounced true principles. He does not say what the philosopher Sophe de Stagire was careful not to omit that the currency which constitutes the price is and must be above all a mark- good, if it is one of a particular and pri- vate nature vilified; that its material must be “useful in itself” and having an own value, consistent with that for the- that we give it and we accept it as a price; finally that the em- The official stamp with which it is stamped is only the external sign. laughing at this intrinsic value", by which the authority public guarantees the accuracy of the weight and fineness of the mor- metal bucket, so as to free it from the embarrassment of continual measurements", which gives him the right to oblige to receive it as he issues it, a right which is not legitimate as long as she herself acted with complete loyalty. The Paul's definition can also be adapted well to the theory of sign money than that of commodity money. Well do not come to proclaim that it is false and disastrous to claim that the currency used as price is only a convenient sign tional of the value of things, which does not need to have by itself an own value in relation to that which we glows in traffic, finally it's your fingerprint official which communicates its conventional value to it, instead of only observing and guaranteeing its real value. It is because this false and detestable doctrine, which has been so long- time infested the world, to which the Romans had left it ford, reigned undivided by Rome in legal theory and in practice for centuries, at the time when the jurisconsult. By commenting on imperial laws and even those of the end of the Republic, he encountered and had to act

THE LAW IN ANCIENT COINS 21

accept as truths of law such monstrous provisions truer than those of Lex Cornelia testamentaria, which pushed the consequences to their last limits of this doctrine (1). The princes in whose service Paul put his knowledge as a jurist, those who had admitted him into their advice and made Ulpian succeed, were precisely cetix which began to exercise in all its fullness, and without putting the slightest precautionary care into it, their alleged right to alter currencies, justified on this sophism that the value of cash derived from their sacred imprint. ^

2. Neither the coins themselves nor the stories of the historians Nothing in Latin indicates the existence of an error in public ideas about the nature of cash or a claim on the part of the State to arbitrarily assign a conventional value to species which would not have actually represented this value, throughout the entire period where the Republic flourished, animated by patriotism superior to particular greeds, and enjoys the benefits of true freedom. The three successive reductions which brought the ace from the weight of 10 ounces to that of one ounce (book VII, chap. ii, § 5; chap. m, §2 and 3), which, in- completely studied, could create illusions on this subject, had in reality no connection with the alterations of the aureus and the denarius, which we notice later, under the Empire, in the. during the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD (book VII, chap. iv, § 1 and 2). These operations presented all a double character. Regarding finances public, it was a means - very disloyal, I admit -

(i)Paul, Stntent, receipt. V, 23, 1.

22 CURRENCY IN ANTIQUITY

naive, but which in the ideas of the time seemed as light legitimate as a conversion of annuities is for us — to reduce by a third or half the State debts in a time of pressing necessity and financial scarcity, with the consent of the people. But as for daily circulation and transactions between parties culars, the reductions in the weight of the ace did not affect it no damage or any trouble, because they only had as a result of passing into the State currency the relationship that was established in commercial operations between the value of the two metals then coined in Kome, copper and silver. From the moment the first first reduction, if in the official accounts all sums were still expressed in copper coins, between individuals it was already the money, coming from abroad under form of coins or ingots or struck in Cam- panie in the name of the Republic (book VII, thap. m, g 1), who regulated the stipulations. Thus the treaties concluded between private persons did not receive any lesion from the reduction tion carried out in the currency which was still the legal unit, although having ceased to be in use the real standard of value of things, and yet at the same moment the government of the Republic benefited from 60 Vo, in paying in aces of the weight of a triens, or in sums of money calculated according to this ace, the debts he had contracted in as weight of 10 ounces. He defrauded his creditors, but he did not pretend to give his new triental aces a nominal value other than their real value as metal. The numerous passages where, in the evaluations of sums relating to the intermediate period between the first introduction of silver coinage in Rome same and the reduction of the ace to a sextans, we use in-

Lk LAW IN ANCIENT COINS 23

differently the words sestertius or as libralis (1), show that the ancient aces of great weight had been neither demo- netized, nor reduced to any other value than that which they had originally, but still continued to circulate alongside new reduced aces, and that they were accepted in the pu- blic for their real metal value, two and a half times stronger than that of the latter pieces. We can even admit, with Mr. Mommsen (2), that there was not in the first reduction of the ace a bankruptcy of the State, which was not in the needs of the financial situation of Rbme, during this flourishing period of the Republic which separates the Pyrrhic War from the first punitive war that. ))Indeed, as we still used in statements public accounts the ancient aes aeris gravis^ equivalent to the silver sesterce, next to the new aces, including the denarius, was worth ten, it is possible that the state debts were paid in this way, without reduction, at their exact rate. In this case, as the Prussian scholar thinks, “there is no would have had neither bankruptcy nor alteration of currencies, in Tac/Ordinary conception of this word, but a simple change in the sign representing the value or, if you wish, in r expression of the value. »

The only act of the Roman people which produced in the beautiful ages of the Republic a real alteration of the currencies was the Flaminia law (book VII, chap. m, § 3), which suddenly reduced the denarius, which from that moment became the true regulator of the value of things, from 7^ to gj of the pound. In this positive act there is a will to give, following a public decision, the currency has a value

(1) See. Boeckh, Melrol. Untersuch. p. 396, 397, 414; Marquardt, Handb. rœm, AUerth. t. m, 2, p. 7; Mommsen, MR, t. II, p. 16. (2)J!ffl, t. n,p.l7.

24 CURRENCY IN ANTIQUITY

arbitrary and conventional other than that which it should have by considering it as a simple commodity. But we cannot forget that the Flaminia law was made when Hannibal was already arriving at the gates of Rome, when the disasters of Trebia and Lake Trasimene had exhausted most of the resources of the Republic, when his subjects revolted on all sides and dried up the better sources of public revenue; In such a distress, we thought much less about economic rules who must direct any monetary issue only to any means to remedy the exhaustion of the treasure, to meet the needs of the moment, and to alleviate the thoughts of the pay of the troops, while retaining their no- minimum the same figure, for fear that the announcement of a reduction in pay would not lead to sedition and disorder. Then, when the danger had been overcome, when the situation tion was^ after a few years, became prosperous again, It turned out that you had gotten used to coins of money reduced in weight, than the price of all things had been settled according to their real value, that the old heavier parts had been gradually removed from circulation through particular speculation, to be re- melted, and that return to the weight of the denarius as it was established before the Flaminia law would have caused a new and pro- causes disturbance in public fortune and in all individual transactions. This is how what had first been a measure of the moment, almost comparable rable to the creation of an obsidional currency, became the origin gin of the definitive fixing of the weight of silver coinage Roman people until the end of the Republic.

THE LAW IN ANCIENT COINS 25

3. There is nothing more fatal than starting to touch the currency. It is a path where the first step once done, it becomes almost impossible to stop. The Flaminia law had been proposed and adopted as a su- first resource, in a moment of such necessity that we no longer looked at the choice of means to deal with it. She remained as a fatal precedent on which to rely henceforth the doctrine of money-^tg^ne, the theory that it was enough for a legislative decision to attribute to the metal coins a fictitious and arbitrary value. This theory soon spread into general opinion among the Romans and was specially adopted by the new aristocratic party, which soon completely took over of business management. It was henceforth one of the dogmas politicians and financiers of this party, that the right of the State to seek an ordinary resource for one's finances in the sort of forced loan that constitutes an alteration of currencies. In this matter as in any other, the germ of death was deposited in Roman society by the reaction oligarchic which marked the advent of nobilitas. Greedy and without principles like all his peers^ who do not know wind have none of the virtues of aristocracies by birth, while they take the disadvantages by accumulating them ling with the vices of interests delivered to all the ardor of their appetites, this aristocracy of money did not see in Rome's domination of the world as a farm exploit excessively and shamelessly. His economic ideas were as false as his petty political views, selfish and blind. By continuing for its own benefit the extinction tion of small property, for which it substituted the latifundia, it brought the ruin and depopulation of Italy lies, that is to say the annihilation of what had been until then

26 CURRENCY IN ANTIQUITY

there and could alone be the solid basis of the power of Eome. With the doctrine of sign money and state law to arbitrarily fix the value of species, it does not does not result only for a time in disturbances of the most serious nature in the monetary system, it introduced into the world an erroneous principle whose conclusions sequences should still be felt after many centuries.

The disturbances resulting from this doctrine, in the currencies and in all parts of public finances, were much stronger still in the midst of Sanarchy glante that generated the civil discords, the struggles parties and personal ambitions, in decadence of the Republic. Left to their own devices, unsupervised eflFective of higher authorities, the monetary magistrates silence, instead of worrying about making good species and to fear the disastrous consequences that must have for all frauds and alterations in these matters, only thought of winning in a short time time as much money as possible by falsification of currencies, party leaders to acquire supporters in the populace at the expense of other people's purses, in providing, through the depreciation of the cash that ame- are born legislative measures ordering to understand each time a higher proportion of filled pieces in the issues of deniers, by providing, I say, to men lost in debt the way to free themselves from their creditors by not actually paying, for the same nominal sum, only half or a third of what they owe were going. We have already spoken above of these facts (1. II, chap. II, § 3, 5), about the stuffed coins, which were then in Rome the great means of altering cash;

THE LAW IN ANCIENT COINS 27

we reported contemporary testimonies there showing what was then the instability of the course of the naies, as well as the disastrous consequences it had for everyone's fortune.

However, at that time, as we have shown, there was in the democratic party, an honest, courageous man and intelligent, who tried the reform of currencies and the return to true principles, Marins Gratidianus; but when the oligarchic cause had triumphed with Sylla, we imputed to him a crime for the attack he had committed on the pre- tense right of the State, and they made him atone, by death in the tortures, the popularity that his reform measures had value to him. Skillful and wise man in the poli- tick, Sylla, for his part, only used moderately the right of alteration of currencies; but he wrote in the law this fundamental principle of the aristocratic party, in pushing its expression and its consequences to the last deny degree of cynicism. Lege Cornelia tenetur^ dit Paul(l), qui vultu principis signatam monetam praeter ady^lterinam reprobateit. The words vultu principis are an addition of the time of the Empire, applying to the currencies that we then struck the provisions of the Leœ Cornelia testa-- mentaria. What was really in this law was that individuals could only refuse counterfeit money emanating from private forgers, but that, for the one who came out of the State workshops and bore its official imprint heaven, one was required, under severe penalties, to receive see without discussion, whatever the weight and the title. It was affirming, for power, the right to alter it following his good pleasure as giving it artificially

(1) Feel, receive. V, 25, 1.

28 LA. CURRENCY IN ANTIQUITY

value by its imprint, and transform it into a crime resistance to the fantasies of this arbitrariness, that Toligarcliie intended to keep it always in his hands.

4. After the wars which had torn the State apart during several generations and thrown on the battlefields citizens armed against each other, despotism Caesarean was first announced as coming to restore order, make peace flourish again, raise up all the ruins and restore prosperity destroyed by anarchy. Caesar first, then Auguste after him, played with rare skill, in all branches of politics and administration, this role of peacemakers and restorers, who serve them is intended to cover the annihilation of all freedom for the benefit of absolutism. Numismatics notes traces of their passage and their reforms, at the same time as their usurpations, the consequences of which destroyed so quickly what little good they had been able to achieve. Caesar restores public credit by making good money as we hadn't seen for a long time, a mon- contains pure metal and exact weight, with emissions of which were almost not mixed with stuffed pieces, mon- never put into circulation for its real value, and this measure became one of the main causes of its popularity. Augustus followed his example, but at the same time removed in the Senate the right to mint gold and silver, for attribute it exclusively to imperial authority, without par- tage and above all without control.

From this moment on, we see the spread of more than never and reign exclusively in the minds of the doctrine that the value of currencies is arbitrary and depends uni-

THE LAW IN ANCIENT COINS 29

only of the will of the sovereign who causes them to be struck. • The constitution of power having become an absolutism without brake and without limit, the Emperor being considered like a god who could do anything and whose every will ties were sacred, the prince, to whom the making of the currency was vested, because it was presumed to have to ensure as a father on public wealth, allowed himself to be persuaded or pretended to believe that the value of money came from Teffigie, intended simply to certify its integrity. The faith attached to the imprint gave rise to the temptation to abuse. We know the consequences that, through necessary law, this fatal doctrine, daughter of despotism. From the moment the cash only presents a sign con- conventional, dependent on authority, the power that Ta created can modify it and vary it - it can also replace with other signs, putting an end to what certain utopians have so strangely named our days this usurped royalty of gold.” As one said most eminent economists of our country, Mr. Wolowski: a Permanent hostility of nations, commercial conflicts, alteration of cash, disguised bankruptcies, assi- gnats, paper money, hatred of capital, chimerical plans financial renovation, such is the sad posterity of a misconception about money.

With a prince as skillful and as wise as Augustus, the disastrous consequences of the attribution of currency to the person of the Emperor, and the doctrine which emerges from it was, were not felt at first, and during several reigns we continued to walk on the path towards which Caesar and his nephew had given the impetus. But it didn't last long. It did not take a very long series of years of imperial omnipotence for

30 CURRENCY IN ANTIQUITY

produce on the throne madmen such as the world hadn't seen one yet. Likewise, in less than a century, the change of the state currency into the currency of the sovereign, and the theory of the origin of value relating to the imperial effigy, produced a system of alteration species which went on exaggerating more and more & me- sure that we were moving forward in the duration of the Empire, and that the successors of Augustus used extensively for the benefit of their passions and their lavishness. We then live, as Vopiscus remarks, that there is no sym- more infallible ptoma of the decadence of the State than cor- disruption of cash, and that the degrees of this decade- dence are marked by the successive alteration of the currency. “We could,” remarked Mr. Wolowski, almost judge the character of emperors by their more or less pure than the coins minted under their reigns. »

The first alteration of Yaureus was committed under Nero, and the same emperor reduced the denarius to 1/96 of the pound of silver, instead of 1/84, while retaining the same nominal value; at the same time the proportion of the alloy was raised from S 0/0 to 10 0/0 of the weight of the piece (book VII, chap. iv, § 1). The author's name alone of these alterations, which inaugurated all the attempts emperors of this kind, is enough to bring out a great and precious teaching. The aureus, after Nero, remained fairly stationary at the weight that had fixed this prince. The silver denarius, on the contrary, continued to descend rapidly until the end of the reign of Domi- here. Nerva lifted the weight somewhat; but, under Conveniently, the alteration resumed its progressive march with greater speed than in the past. Soon

THE LAW IN ANCIENT COINS 3J

it became general for all currencies. violence, covered with the mask of the law, ensured the success of frauds, because the fundamental axiom of law was the principle cipe, borrowed from the Cornélia law^ defending under the severest penalties for refusing currency to the effigy of the prince, whatever the title, whatever the value intrinsic, application pushed to the last limits tes of the doctrine of purely conventional origin of the value of metallic species. With a similar provision as a basis for the monetary legislation of the Em- worse, arbitrariness and bad faith believed themselves to be entirely lawful, and in less than a hundred years the systematic alterations of currencies, ordered by sovereigns, produced a disorder which has barely been equaled in the most disastrous years of the 14th century.

We will expand at length in book VII, chap. IV, § 2, on the details of this monetary disturbance tary, which fills the entire duration of the 3rd century of the Christian era here. This is not the place to enter here, where we do not want to Let us indicate the general facts which relate to the various vicissitudes suffered by the economic theory of currency in the centuries of antiquity. As of the moment where we have now reached, we can abandon give this study. Sometimes there will still be skillful sovereigns like Constantine, who will try to restore public finances by reforming currencies to give them good weight and pure metal (book VII, c. vu, § 1). We will be able to encounter some noble principles of justice and loyalty appearing here and there, as in these beautiful expressions of the chancery formula imperial for the institution of the procurators of the mon- naies: Omnino monetae integritas debet quaeri uhi vullus

32 CURRENCY IN ANTIQUITY

our printer; quodnam eril tutum si in nostra peccC" tur effigy (1)? But all this will simply depend on individual arrangements and will never have a result durable. No matter how much we invent new species of currencies, substitute the solidus for the discredited Yaureus, to finally have coins of some value: these following coins will themselves experience a progression of weakening and rapid alteration (book VII, chap. vi, § 2). The fake doctrine on the essence of money and the origin of its value is now established in the laws and in the spirits. No one thinks of contesting it anymore, and the princes take advantage of it according to the will of their bad faith and of their greed. The true and sound theory, always known and practiced by the Greeks, falls into the most oblivion complete for a long succession of centuries, and fatal Terror which was the economic scourge of the Roman Empire put in the Middle Ages, of which it became one of the most common plagues more cruel.

5. Should we recall, in fact, the disastrous consequences quences that had in our young Christian societies of in the West the doctrine, borrowed from the Empire of the Caesars, that money is only a sign, which owes all its value to the imprint of the power that makes it strike? Diversity infinite fragmented powers, during the feudal era, ac- still believed the disorders which had reigned under the Emperors reurs. Each lord minted money, each monarch committed more or less serious alterations, to de- to create, by means of these sophistications, real

(1) Cassiodor. Variar. VH, 32.

THE LAW IN ANCIENT COINS 33

bankruptcy. It was prescribed that payments would be made every semester, every month, in the current currency rant, and, depending on whether the prince was debtor or creditor However, it weakened or elevated the title of the species. These sad misdeeds did not even reach the goal: following a inexorable law, bad money chased out good money, and the values, after damaging oscillations, become related to degraded cash. From there came the disappearance of species and the increase in , jprix, ills to which we brought remedies as impotent- healthful than harmful by prohibiting exports and imposing maximum health.

Errors, frauds and violence follow one another and follow one another, always leaving behind them the same re- result, the trouble in consciences and the suffering in interests. The periodic alteration of currencies brought disorder everywhere; the morbus numericus, which Von signed milk as fatal to the plague itself, do not spare gna no country: Spain, Portugal, England, the Empire, Hungary, Bohemia, Naples, Savoy, in were afflicted like France. Everywhere the old idea imperial, which made the value of currencies depend on the arbitrary will of the prince, met governments unscrupulous men, eager to take advantage of them. The reli- Although Gion thundered against these abuses by the organ of Popes (1) and Bishops, who were not always exempt of the same fault, and poetry borrows the sublime language of Dante to brand Philip the Fair with the name of false mon- sinker.

(1) Boniface VUI, in a letter from the year 1296, reproaches Philip the Bel monetae depravalione subdiiis atque extraneis iîijuriam fieri.

in, 3

34 CURRENCY IN ANTIQUITY

There if vedrà he duoi che sopra Senna Induce, falsely deposit the coin (1),

the world continued to suffer from an evil of which it did not know not unravel the true nature. The School Angel, the great Saint Thomas Aquinas himself, although he had stated, following in the footsteps of Aristotle, the principles rational principles of money, limits itself to advising the rains from making moderate use of the money monopoly, zice in mulando, sive in diminuendo pondw^ be in change giant, or by reducing the weight (2). ^ In the entire Middle Ages we only meet one man who has, by an effort of common sense reaching to genius, admired stable in the middle of the cloud of error that surrounded you all sides, discerned the true foundations of the mone- shut up. It is this Nicolas Oresme, bishop of Lisieux, whose MM. Wolowski and Koscher, a few years ago, bring the name out of an unjust and five centuries-old oblivion, and who they rightly proclaimed as a great economist and precursor master of the highest research in modern science (3). But the teachings and efforts of Nicolas Oresme were only followed up under the reign of his friend Charles V, of this king to whom popular recognition has awarded the nickname to eSage. After the death of this prince, we quickly forgot the truths that the economist prelate had

(1) Paradwo, XIX, V. 118.

(2) De regimine principis, II, J 3.

(3) Wolowski, A great French economist of the 14th century, in the Acad reports. of Moral and Political Sciences, t. LXII, p. 297 et seq.; Rœscher, A great French economist in the 14th century, in the same collection, t. LXII, p. 433 et seq.; Treatise on the first invention tion of the coins of Nicole Oresme, published and annotated by M. Wolowski, Paris, 1864, in-S”.

THE LAW IN ANCIENT COINS 35

brought to light. The alteration of currencies resumed its course, practiced with a little less madness and more rare intervals than in the 14th century, but always practiced. .

It was only in the 16th and 17th centuries that in Italy and in England, fertile and bold minds begin again to break down the doctrine which emanated the value of the currencies of sovereign power, and in our France we have to go down again to the Assembly Con- establishment and the rebirth of economic science, to see this doctrine of theory and practical, and to find an invariant monetary system clearly fixed on true principles, on the notion that coined cash must have a real value as merchandise, in exact relation to the nominal value attributed to them.

Such has been the grim legacy of misfortune and disruption. tions that an error has bequeathed to the world for many centuries of political economy, born directly by the despo- tism. By quickly looking over the history monetary theory of antiquity, we see the explosion of every page this great truth, that, to have good finances and good currencies^ as if to have a good government, the first conditions are freedom, control and discussion; that despotism, if it seems sometimes restorative and if it seduces too easily material interests', frightened by the storms of freedom^ never good except its first moments, and by a slope inevitable leads people to the most deplorable faults economic and ruin. All science here below must uphold his moral teaching. When the study of medals would have no other result than to confirm by monu-

36 CURRENCY IN ANTIQUITY

irrefutable facts of this important lesson of history, it deserves a noble place in the field of works which emerge from scholarship and which reconstitute the ar- chives of the human spirit and consciousness.

CHAPTER III

HONORARY MAGISTRATES IN ANTIQUITY

§ 1. — MONETARY MAGISTRATES AMONG THE GREEKS.

1. There are few subjects on which modern numismatists have taken less care of this one and who remain more obscure. The inscriptions and literary texts do not provide do not provide any positive information on the magistrates who were responsible for supervising and directing the manufacturing of coins, in the Greek cities, at the time of their full independence, and it is hardly so attentive study of the numismatic numismatics allows us to glean on this subject what only very incomplete observations and above all very few conclusive.

The mints of Greek cities very frequently offer the signature of the responsible magistrate who presided to their manufacture, either in the form of its registered name in full in registered form or in abbreviation, or under that of a monogram containing the main elements of this proper name, or finally by a little guy represented in the field, which is none other than the symbol of the stamp personal of the magistrate (1) (see book IV, chap. m). The

(1) See. J. Brandis, Beitrage zur griechischen Wappenkunde, dans la Zeitschr. f. Num. 1. 1, p. 43-68.

38 CURRENCY IN ANTIQUITY

personal symbol is often associated with the name written in whole or abbreviated, or monogram. In good cities, the currency is signed by several magistrates, who all write down their names more or less completely; in other cases, one of the names alone forms an inscription. ordinary and the other is a monogram, or there is îi several monograms of different people. This system system of signatures was necessary to ensure compliance sability of the magistrate in the event of fraudulent alteration of species minted under his direction, a responsibility which was not of nothing less than life, according to the inscription of Mi- tylene relating to the common coinage of this city with Phocaea (!)• The punishment of the prevaricating magistrate who cor- broke the currency entrusted to his care was therefore the same than that of the private counterfeiter (2), and the two crimes appear to have been legally assimilated.

But the signature of the magistrate or magistrates remains responsible almost never follows the name of the character's job title. Therefore, in this silence of coins, which joins that of documents epigraphic, there is no part of the constitutions of various Hellenic cities which is less known than the rank, quality and designation of officials responsible managed currencies.

However, there is one fact that we can affirm, which is that there was no uniform rule on this subject, that each city had its own uses on this point and had adopted a particular combination. Moreover, as much as he

(1) Transat. of the R. Soc. of Literature, 2nd ser., t. VIII, p. 549; Rev. num. 1868, p. 241.

(2) See. Eckhel, DN, 1. 1, p. cxui, the main texts on criminal lity of counterfeiters.

THE LAW IN ANCIENT COINS 39

seems, we can bring back all these various combinations to two main systems, which shared the world Hellenic. Or the exercise of this part of sovereignty, which consists of the manufacture of coins, was handed over to the principal magistrate of the city, who administered it by employees of his, under his responsibility^ and who consequently signed it, special employees being considered derated as its instruments and delegates, acts of who he answered to the community. Or, consider- rant the division of the main attributes of power between distinct hands as a guarantee of freedom, the constitution took away the management of currencies from the magistracy political treaty, to reassign it to one or more functions special operators, of lower order, independent of the executive authority of the political order and those responsible rightly towards the Senate and the people. This last system seems to be the one which has generally prevailed among the democratic ties, which, among the Greeks, have only represented in its fullness the spirit of true freedom, whose legitimate sensibilities they pushed to the point of a shady jealousy •

2. In Athens, we find the currency entrusted to special magistrates distinct from senior civil servants of the Republic. The affixing of their signature does not appear It appears, moreover, that on the tetradrachms of the second se- rie (book VI, chap. v, §7), that is to say after Alexandre, first sounds the form of monograms, then by writing down as completely as possible three names, which towards the end of this coinage are reduced to

40 CURRENCY IN ANTIQUITY

two (1). Three characters, when the indications are complete, intervene to give guarantee to these currencies (2). The first two are magistrates annual; the name of the third changes, on the contrary, sometimes ten, sometimes eleven and sometimes twelve times, during Tired of functions of the first two; his charge had therefore the duration of a prytany, because the variations that we just indicated correspond precisely to those which occurred among the number of Attic tribes during in the centuries after Alexander (3). But the three

(1) I almost entirely adopt the chronological classification system ogy, proposed by Mr. C.-L. Grotefend, for tetradrachms where the names of magistrates are registered more or less completely; he me seems well established and excellent, except perhaps some modifications of detail to be introduced. But it seems to me, according to the numismatic characters- intrinsic ticks of the pieces, impossible to admit, with Mr. Grotefend,

•the posteriority of tetradrachms with monograms on tetradrachms nominal. Here I do not hesitate to think that it was Beulé who was right to consider them as prior.

(2) Cavedoui, Osservazioni sopra le antiche monete di Atene^ in the t. V of Memorie di religione, morale e litteratura of Modena; Rathge- ber, Nunundneunzfg silbeme Munzen der Athenaier aus der Sammlung zu Gotha, Weissensee, 1858; Beulé, The Coins of Athens, p. 109-H6; J. Brandis, Zeitschr, f. Num, t. I, p. 53; C.-L. Grotefend, Chronologischc Anordnung der athenischen Silbermiinzen, Hanover, 1872.

(3) C.-L. Grotefend, mem. cit. p. 6.

We know that Cleisthenes had established ten tribes among the Athenians. At time of the domination of Demetrius Poliorcetes two new ones were created tribes, the Antigonides and the Demetriad; but they did not survive the defeat of the kings who had been taken for their eponyms. We came back therefore to the ten tribes until 265 BC. AD, oti Ton added to their name- be an eleventh, the Ptolemaid, in honor of Ptolemy Philadelphus. In turn, the regime of the eleven tribes lasted sixty-five years, and, from of 200, there were twelve, a new tribe, the Attalides, having been trained under the hospices of Attalus of Pergamum.

These vicissitudes in the number of Attic tribes, historically dated in a certain manner, would provide the most precious element and the

THE LAW IN ANCIENT COINS 41

names are not accompanied by any title, and the inscriptions attics, so rich in documents going down to only to the smallest details on political institutions and finances of the city of Minerva, are until now absolutely silent on the nature of monetary officers. We cannot therefore make only more or less conjectures on this subject probable, until the discovery of a text positive comes to deny or confirm them.

The first of these magistrates, the one whose name is in- written before the other two (1), was annual, like us have just said, but his office could be renewed to him

safer for the chronological classification of Athenian tetradrachms of the second series, if each of the groups of these currencies offered us regularly as many various names of third magistrate or letters placed on the amphora and indicating the rank of the pry tanies in the year, that it had some at different times. But it is not so; almost always the continuation of a year's pry tanies presents itself to us incomplete in the numismatic monuments, firstly because we we are far from possessing all the varieties which have been struck by these currencies, then, because it is probable that most often we do not have coined in all the prytanies of the year, just as it seems certain that we did not even emit new species every year (we we have so far only 105 groups of coins, for a coinage which has surely lasted, at least, more than two centuries). Thus the tetra- drachmas in the name of Micion and Euryclides (Beulé, p. 339), which belong to nent to the year 2^0 BC. (C.-L. Grotefend, Earykleiies und Mikion, in the Philolugus, t. XX VIII, p. 70-85) and are, therefore, of the time of the eleven tribes, do not offer us amphorae letters beyond the K of the 10th prytany; those whose first magistrate is Antiochus IV, of Syria, having as second, first Nicogene, then Caraïchos (Beulé, p. 205 and 206), were struck in 176 (Rathgeber, Ann. dellnst. Arch. t. p. 33), under the regime of the twelve tribes, and yet the last letter of amphora that we see there is that of the 11th prytany, A.

(1) On the difficulty there is sometimes in determining exactly which is the first magistrate, see. C.-L. Grotefend, Chronol. Anordnung, p. 4 et seq.

4-2 CURRENCY IN ANTIQUITY

cycled several times (1), which is not the case for the se- cond, also annual. He appears to have held a rank of certain importance in the State, enough for its function tion could be awarded by honor to foreign princes. Indeed, if there is an honorable place on the currency of Athè- nes, it is that of this magistrate, and we see it some- once occupied by king Mithridates (2), who seems to have wanted in Athens to renew the practice of his kingdom of Bos- phorus, where the king took the republican title of archon in the Greek city of Panticapaea, by Antiochus IV of Syria, before he was king (3), by Aristion, tyrant of Athens in name of Mithridates (4), by Apellicon his accomplice (5), by a Roman character named Quintus (6), by a Ammonios (7), a Themistocles (8), descendants of the most illustrious families (9). It is therefore, obviously, the

(1) We find, in fact, AI0KAH2 TO AEYTEpov (Beulé, p. 2S9) and TO TPItov AI0KAH2 (Beulé, p. 261).

(2) BQulé, The Coins of Athens, p. 237; Rev. num. 1863, p. 176-179.

(3) Beulé, p. 206.

(4) Beulé, p. 216.

(5) Beulé, p. 211'.

(6) Beulé, p. 3ii0. — It is not certain, moreover, that this is real- ment of a Roman and not of an Athenian associated with some Roman family. Let us note, moreover, the singular use, very difficult to explain, which makes that in these signatures of magistrates of Athenian tetradrachms beyond second continuation, no Latin name ever appears other than first names,

as K67vto;, nonXioç, Aeuxioç.

(7) Beulé, p. 194.

(8) Beulé, p. 305.

(9) Euryclides and Micion of Cephissia, who at the same time led the affairs of the Republic around 220 BC BC and that historians desire bother like the irpooràTai of the Athenians (Plutarch. Arat. 41; Polyb. Y, 106; Pausan. II, 9, 4; cf. the inscriptions in Rangabé, Ant. Hellen. t. U,

THE LAW IN ANCIENT COINS 43

highest of the officials responsible for the currency, of that who had the upper management, responsible rather than competent. But what was his title? Beulé (1) thought to this chief administrator of public finances that Ton sometimes called TajAiaç or Eirtjxs^.TiTYiç tyjç xoiv^aç icpocoSou, tan- early 6 èm rriç Sioimcetùç (9), whose functions were fulfilled by Aristides, by Torator Lycurgus, by Habron his son and by Aphobetos, brother of Aeschines. But we absolutely must re- abandon such a conjecture, because we know in one way positive that the functions of supreme administrator of finances had a duration of four years and could not not be renewed to the same character, while the first of the monetary magistrates was annual and suscep- tible to be recalled up to three times at the same charge. M. C.-L. Grotefend (3) sees in him the Tafitaç tûv GTpaTtcoTtxôv, more plausible opinion than that of Beulé, but unique- ment conjectural and still very doubtful.

It is also possible that, apart from exceptional cases, like those of Mithridates and Antiochus, the character first named on the Athenian tetradrachms of the

n^880; "Ross, Demen von Attika^ p. 43 et seq.) - appear together on the same tetradrachms (Beulé, p. 339), Micion as the first magistrate and Euryclides as second. On the other hand, it is like first first magistrate, having as his second an unknown character by the name of Aria- rathe (Beulé» p. 297), which appears on a group of tetradrachms from the time of the twelve tribes (we find there the mark of the 12*^ prylanie, M)>|a new Euryclides, grandson of the first, who had to exercise his magistracy around 190 BC. (C.-L. Grotefend, ChronoL Anordnung, p. 15), because the date of his life is determined by two inscriptions [Philologus, t. XKY, p. 338; ^iXiCTTwp, t. rV, p. 4 et seq.).

(1) P. 114: J. Brandis {Zeitschr. f. Numism, t. I^ p. 50) does not appear no longer far from this way of seeing.

(2) Boeckh, Staatshaushalt d, Athen. book. H, chap. vi.

(3) ChronoL Anordnung, p. 4.

44 CURRENCY IN ANTIQUITY

second series was a magistrate of a less elevated order, of which the office will be limited exclusively to the surveillance and the currency department. M, Albert Dumont (1) has very ingeniously recognized the first magistrate of a groups of these tetradrachms, Aropos (2), in the character of the same name appearing on an inscription Attica (3) as treasurer of a brotherhood of Eranists. He was quite natural that having in the association one offi- financial authorities of the Republic we would have made it the treasury go out.

The second name appears to Mr. Beulé to be that of the director special currency (apyupoxoTretov), of the citizen who took perhaps every year to business, or rather who was designated for this liturgy: what would be nature to make one think that it was a liturgy, a function imposed, it is the annuity, which would have been difficult to submitted an entrepreneur i)returning the currency to firm by speculation. Moreover, when Demosthenes held to honor to be commissioner for the purchase of grain, there was no less honor to be commissioner for manufacturing currencies. Regardless of this last point, it seems entirely positive that the second magistrate is the to monetize itself. The little guy who sits in the field of money, at the same time as the names, is his personal symbol, his stamp. Of the first two characters who sign the coins of Athens, it seems that the first has the type of the Republic and places it

(1) Eusai on the chronology of the Athenian archons, p. 118.

(2) Beulé, p. 222. — The coins signed by Aropos and Mnasagoras appear to date very little before the war of Mithridates.

(3) Rangabé, Ant. hellén, t. H, n« 8il; ^Eçyhi. àpxaio>. n<»861.

THE LAW IN ANCIENT COINS 45

on cash with his signature, with his responsibility, while the second constitutes itself responsible for its part by marking it with his own seal, with his name. J. Bran- say (1) has very ingeniously brought together here what was happening for the treasure of the Acropolis, at the gates of which the rafAïaç rSç TLoiwi^ TTpodô^ou affixed the official seal of the Republic (2) while the treasurer of Athens sealed them with his seal staff (3).

However, on signed staters and tetradrachms BA2IAEÙÇ MI0PAAATH2 and APIITIflN, the little guy is the star placed between two crescents of the coins of the king of Bridge (4); on the tetradrachms of APIITIflN and OlAHN, this is the Pegasus of the royal tetradrachms of Mithridates Eupator(5) of which Aristion was the representative; on those of ANTIOX02 with NIKOrENH2 or with KAPAIX02, elephant of Antiochus of Syria (6). And this fact does not even occur

(1) Zeitschr. f. Num. t. I, p. 50.

(2) Aristoph. Equit. 943.

(3) Mr. C.-L. Grbtefend (Chronol, Anordnung^ p. 7) tried to establish, contrary to the opinion generally accepted since Beulé, that the sym- bole of the little guy belonged to the first, and not to the second character mentioned. However ingenious and worthy of attention his arguments may be, ments, they do not seem to me to be able to prevail against those over whom the opposite theory is based.

(4) Beulé. p. 237; Rev. num. 1863, p. 176.

(5) Beulé, p. 216.

(6) Beulé, p. 203 and 206. — Here the second magistrate changed in the current of the year, for a cause that we do not know, perhaps by continuation of death, after the 2"* prytany (marked B); the symbol does not change yet not, because it relates to the first magistrate, who remains the same. A similar fact is observed in two other groups:

1 » We have tetradrachms signed by Eumarides and Alcidamas with the marks A and B (!'* and 2^ prytanie), then of Ëumarides and of Giéomenes with marks starting from the 4"* prytania (A), obviously-

46 CURRENCY IN ANTIQUITY

not only to honor foreign princes, as a sort of homage which would have transformed tempo- rarely the currency of the Republic in their currency to them (1). We have signed tetradrachms from OEMIZ- T0KAH2 and OEOTTOMnOI, where the little type of the field re- presents the Salaminian galley with its bow decorated with a trophy (2), symbol incontestably linked to the name of the first magistrate, who must have been a member of the branch of the Lycomides family descended from Neocles, the eldest son of Themistocles, branch in which the name of winner of Salamis reproduced from two to two generations with great regularity (3); he is even probable that this Themistocles of the Athenian tetradrachms was the great-grandfather of the one we see occupying the father- drie of Eleusis around 55 BC. (4). It therefore seems that when the first of the monetary magistrates was a prince

ment of the same year (Beulé, p. 289 and 291); despite the change from the second magistrate the little guy remains the same.

2^ A certain Metrodorus is associated with a Miltiades during the prytanies A and B (Beulé, p. 337), then to a Demosthenes (Beulé, p. 338), and in In both cases we see the same symbol, a bunch of grapes. appear in the field.

(1) This was the opinion of J. Brandis^ Zeitschr. f. Num. t. I, p. 56.

(2) Beulé, p. 303.

(3) Yoy. research on the genealogy of this family, in Bossler, Degentibus Atticae sacerdotalibusy p. 43; and in my archaeological research icals in Eleusist p. 154-157.

(4) Pausan. I, 37, 1. — In t. H of this work, p. 110, I have admitted that the monetary Themistocles could remove the aduchus from the middle of the 1st century BC; but this must be rejected. The tetradrachms which bear its name must be around 150 years older, struck shortly after ^00 BC AD, because they are classified chronologically with a great likelihood between those of Micion and Euryclides (around 220) and those of Euryclides and Ariarathes (around 190), closer to the latter than to the first; see. C-L. Grotefend, ChronoL Ànordnungy p. 15.

THE LAW IN ANCIENT COINS 47

OR simply a character holding an exceptional rank among the citizens, by the possession of a sacred office or by any other cause of the same kind, the second abandoned in deference the right to put the emblem of his seal on the currency. Yet the symbol, for relate to the person and family traditions of the first magistrate, is perhaps no less the one which appeared on the seal of the second during the duration of his charge. The tribute paid by him to the rank of his colleague would have consisted in this case of adopting, for the time when they were to be in charge together, a^seal whose emblem belonged rather to the character he wanted milk honor (1). This is, moreover, a point that is not hardly easy to clarify, where one cannot even arrive at a probable result only by examining from one point of view general, as we will do in chapter m of book IV, the question of whether the symbols of the seals magistrates, placed as accessory types on the coins, are real family coats of arms, as well as that J. Brandis thought, and are not rather, like we tend to believe it for our part, emblems purely personal, of which the same character could change several times in the course of one's life, adopt so sometimes a new type of stamp upon entering in a public office (2), in such a way that these em-

(1) The few facts of which M.-C.-L. Grotefend argues to establish that the little guy in the field is the personal symbol of the chief magistrate, would fit without any difficulty with our hypothesis.

(2) M. Grotefend {ChronoL Anordnung, p. 7) admits that on tetra- Athenian drachmas, even a magistrate changes his symbol every time year of his office. It is true that, to support this conclusion, it is necessary to draws primarily on facts that we are willing to dispute meaning, since they are based on the relationship established between the small

48 CURRENCY IN ANTIQUITY

pale magistrates sometimes seem to bear the blame reflection of the political circumstances of the moment (I).

accessory type and the first magistrate instead of the second. But, even in dismissing them, the principle that the Hanoverian scholar seeks to identify appears stand out in the presence of the three groups of tetradrachms signed by Xeno- clès and Harmoxénos (Beulé, p. 355, 356 and 357). There are three of them, which belong to obviously belong to the same period, where the numeral marks of the prytanies indicate three different years (for Tune from A to Z, for another from F to A and for the third from A to M) and where the symbol also changes three times. Thus, when the same characters remain in function for several successive years or return to charge together at short intervals, for each year, the one who places his emblem on the currency adopts a new one.

We also see, on tetradrachms whose manufacture indicates that they were struck two or three years apart from each other others, the same individual, by the name of GEnophilos, hold the second rank, first with a Lysandre (Beulé, p. 3^9), then with an Amphias (Beulé, p. 198), and on these two occasions use a different emblem.

It is also necessary to pay a lot of attention and reserve in taking into account the facts of this kind, because one could easily be led astray by the homonyms between characters who are surely distinct and who have lived at fairly distant intervals. Thus, there cannot be identity between Apellicon colleague of GorgiasfBeulé, p. 221) and Apellicon, colleague of Aris- totélès (Beulé, p. 210); Lysandre, colleague of Glducos (Beulé, p. 326), and Lysander, colleague of OËnophilos (Beulé, 329); Menedemus, colleague of Epi- gene (Beulé, p. 331), and Ménédème, colleague of TimocratevBei^lé, p. 334). Micion, colleague of Theophrasles (Beulé, 343), must be the fourth of cendant of Micion, colleague of Euryclides (Beulé, p. 339); in fact he seems numismatically impossible to admit, with M.-C.-L. Grodefend {Philologus, t. XXYIII, p. 85), who himself renounced this opinion, that the Micion associated on the coins with a Theophrastus is the sons of the first Micion, mentioned in a list of winners at the games Panathenaics Tan 3 of the cxlvi^ Olympiad (Rangabé, Ant, Hellétt. t. U. No. 962).

(1) It must, moreover, be noted that, among the allusions to events political elements that Beulé thought he recognized in the accessory types of the Athenian tetradrachms, almost none could be accepted. They are usually real mirages, especially when it comes to facts prior to the middle of the 2nd century BC.

THE LAW IN ANCIENT COINS 49

The third name of the Athenian tetradrachms, we we have already said, changes, depending on time, ten, eleven or twelve times during the charging time of the first two magistrates, that is to say at each prytany. To indicate the order number in the year of that in which he exercises his office, we use one of the letters of the alphabet, up to K under the regime of the ten tribes, up to A under the regime of the eleven and up to M under the regime of the twelve, registered on the amphora on which the owl of the guy is placed on the reverse (1). This brand never fails, except at the end of coinage, in the period of its decadence (2),

(1) Beulé, p. 129-134; C.-L. Grotefend, ChronoL Anordnung^ p. 5.

Towards the end of the 1st century BC, after the re-establishment ment of the twelve tribes, there was a time when the change of the third character mentioned on the coins no longer occurs regularly each prytany (see C.-L. Grotefend, mem. cit. p. 12). We have some proof by the tetradrachms of Amphicrates and Epistratos (Beulé, p. 200), where there are only five different third magistrates for the twelve prytanies of Tannée, and those of Andréas and Charinautès (Beulé, p. 202), where there are only three. The length of the year is not does not even divide in a regular way between these last characters, each of whom remains in office for several prytanies. In the tetradrachms of Andreas and Charinautes, KPITON is third magis- trat with the numeral marks A ^^ B only, AMTNOMaxoç with A, E and Z, finally AHMHTP.oç with H, K, A, M.

^2) The amphora letters, indicative of prytanies, are missing in the following groups, all without mention of third magistrate, among the pieces where the names are written with development *

Ammonios and Dio[genes? : Beulé, 191.

Adimantos and Heliodoros: Beulé, p. 188.

Charias and Heraclides: Beulé p. 377;

Ammonios and Dio[key8? : Beulé, p. 193;

Heraclon and Heraclides: Beulé, p. 304.

The same letters were missing from most of the tetradrachms

with monograms, which represent the beginnings of the second period of the

silver coinage of Athens. Between these pieces, series 1, 2, 3, é, 5,

6, 8,9, 11, 13 and 17 of Beulé present the particularity of which we are talking about

mr. 4

50' CURRENCY IN ANTIQUITY

while the name of the third magistrate is sometimes omitted (1); in fact, the inscription of the order number of the prytany during which a coin had been minted it was sufficient if it were found that the title or weight were inaccurate, to establish the liability of the monthly gistrat who had been in charge during this prytania. His name was still on the registers public.

We find, in the organization known to the government- building of Athens, several officials including the office had the duration of a prytany and which could have in

Ions. It is therefore during the period of use of monograms. before the introduction of the names of magistrates written in full, that began the use of letters indicating prytany, placed on the am- phorus on the reverse.

(1) From the highest periods of telradrachm coinage of the new style in Athens, we sporadically encounter a few isolated examples of omission of mention of the third magistrate, the pryta- nie in progress being only indicated by the letter of amphora. But the deletion of this mention seems to become a rule from the first century front key (C.-L. Grotefend, Chronol. Anordnungy p. 9). The rooms where King Mithridates or his representative Apellicon appear as the first magistrates, belong to the beginnings of this new usage and in determining approximate date. In this particularity there is an element ment important, and of which M. G.-L. Grotefend happily helped himself, to lay the first foundations for a chronological classification.

Nominal currencies where the numeral letter is missing on the amphora of prytany, at least those that we listed in the note previous, are without the name of third magistrate. It was a return to habits of the beginning of this new coinage, because the tetradrachms monograms only ever present two, those of the first two magistrates of the period when three were appointed.

Let us also note the exception which marks the two groups of tetra- drachmas of Diocles and Melittides (Beulé, p. 258) and of Quintus and Charias (Beulé, p. 322), which belong to the last times of habit to enter three names. If the third magistrate is mentioned there, we have omitted the inscription of a numeral letter of prytania on Tamphore.

THE LAW IN ANCIENT COINS 51

their attributions the responsibility of taking care of the currencies at a point of view of surveillance and control. Beulé (1) thought of (xeTpovofxoi or supervisors of measurements and àiuo^exTai or public receivers. J. Brandis (2) at sîîOuvoi or to ^oyidTat, accounting officers. M.-C.-L. Grote- fend (3), in turn, believes that these characters were taken in the college of TajjLiat twv Upôv ypvifjiaTcov ttjç 'AÔvivaç, an opinion which seems rather unlikely to me. We can- would also be inclined to recognize here the apps all apyuptou mentioned in an Attic inscription (4). These last characters were^ according to the inscription itself who speaks about it, several to fulfill their functions in a same year, a circumstance which absolutely prevents recognize, with Cavedoni (5), an ap^^wv tou àpyyptou in the magistrate first named on the tetradrachms Athenians.

In any case, what the tetradrachms of the second series establish with certainty is that in Athens the care of the coinage was entrusted to special officials. cials, who occupied, at least two out of three, only one secondary rank in the hierarchy, such as triumvirs monetary funds of Kome (on these, see the | following). Three of these officials, each with different responsibilities. annuities, are involved in the issue of all currency and contribute, each for their part, to giving it the guarantee public under their responsibility. To one the direction su- superior, h r other the manufacture itself, to the third, that

(1) The Coins of Athens, p. 112.

(2) Zeiischr. f. Num. t. I, p. 55.

(3) Chronol. Anordnung, p. 4.

(4) C^rp, inscr. graee, n<* 82.

(5) Mem. di relig. mor. e letter, di Modena, t. V, p. 344.

52 CURRENCY IN ANTIQUITY

which changes most frequently, control and monitoring launches, because it is good that the controller is often renewed vele and doesn't have time to connect with those he watches relationships long enough to easily give birth exposure to complicity which would facilitate fraud; such is the way their roles are distributed. And this gold- ganization is entirely consistent with the general spirit of the Athenian constitution, with complicated precautions and suspicions with which she surrounds the magistrates who have handling of funds. Because not only have they always days of the assessors who straighten them out, the auditors who supervise them, but they are given as subordinate agents- dull of public slaves, because we can put the slaves to torture and thus discover the embezzlement.

3. We do not find such knowledge elsewhere division of responsibility that in Athens, a mechanism as delicate and as ingenious of control to prevent fraud and prevent, if they are committed, that they do not remain hidden. But the fundamental principle of manufacture of currency entrusted to a special official cial, distinct from senior political magistrates, observed with certainty in several other cities.

In the agreement between Mitylene and Phocaea for the manufacturing of hectés d’electrum, with epigraphic text to which we have already had the opportunity to refer several times (see, in this book, chap. i, § 2, 2; and, more far, book VI, chap. rv, § 3; chap. ix, to the word Phocaides)^ the coiner, 6 xo'^ag to i9^aio>*, who exercises his office pen- within one year and whose legal liability is prescribed six months after leaving office, is a special character cial, distinct from political authorities, içyjii] it seems

LOr IN ANCIENT COINS 53

have been an entrepreneur taking on manufacturing for the duration established by law, under certain conditions determined, criminally responsible for the frauds he would commit himself or those that his subordinate agents dull execution could commit outside of him, lack of careful enough supervision on his part; alone- ment^ in this second case he is only liable to a fine, while in the first its penalty is death.

We have, as I have already said, a good number of samples tills of hectés of electrum minted at Mitylene and at Phocaea under this convention. They do not wear proper names of men inscribed, neither monograms, nor small types in the field which constitute the signature or the stamp of money. The distinction between broadcasts each successive coining is done there by another method, which is also that of the staters of Cyzicus (see book VI, chap. lY, g 3, and chap. ix, to the word Cyzicenes) and which makes it even more sensitive to glances. It is the emblem of the city of issue, the tuna in Cyzicus, the seal in Phocaea, which passes into the state of an accessory symbol, subordinate to main type; any emblem of this kind is even lacking on the electrum of Mitylene. But the main type changes at*each broadcast, and particularly at Cyzique, where the production was the most abundant and the most prolonged, unfolds before our eyes a whole cycle of representations, em^ borrowed from the religious traditions of the city, imitated from types of cities with which it had commercial relations the most usual facts, or else allusive to historical facts contemporary torics, the variety of which is almost infinite denies (1). It is clear that with this system of changing the

(1) See. the descriptions in Brandis: Staters of Cyzicus, p. 403- 409. — Hectes of Phocaea, p. 4i4. — Hectés de Mitylene, p. 412.

bi CURRENCY IN ANTIQUITY

types in each broadcast, it is the very representation of the main type which became the certain means of establishing the responsibility of this or that coin when a currency was recognized as fraudulent, because everyone had struck species of an or several types including adoption, during his office, had to be established by acts public or at least mentioned in the registers of accounting (1).

We saw above (in this book, chap. i, § 6, k) that from a certain period the types of currencies money from the Roman Republic become personal to monetary ones, each of them adopting a particular during the duration of its charge. We will notice even, in chap. f' of book IV, dealing with the history types, that, in the Greek cities which did not not held to an invariable and immobilized type, but have admitted on their currencies very diverse representations, or who have adopted the system of introducing variations almost infinite detail in the representation of subjects which remain basically the same, like Tarentum in the objects held in the hand of Taras carried on a dolphin^ of the right of its silver nomes, or in the episodes of horse races which decorate the reverses, — that, in these cities, changes of types of such nature and if multiplied are related to the succession of magistrates minting attendants or factory contractors*

(1) M. J.-P. Six {Num, Chron. new ser. t. XVII, p. 171) note ingeniously that you already know more than 115 different types of sta- territories of Cyzicus, for a period of approximately 14S years which appears to have lasted their manufacture. This makes it obvious that the change in type took place every year, if not more often. Because we are far away to know all those who have been adopted, and every day we see more see new ones.

THE LAW IN ANCIENT COINS 55

cation, and became one more means of observing their responsibility. So when we see on a piece of Tarente (1) the name of the magistrate AAIMAXOC written at the very long, and at the same time the backhand runner depicted holding a lighted torch in his hand^ it is clear that this modification of the type is allusive to the very name of the magis- trat, meaning oc one who takes part in the fight with flames beautiful. » Some cities, such as Abdera of Thrace towards the end of the 5th century BC and in the 4th (2), raised Personal emblem of the seal of the eponymous magistrate, including their coins bear the legend, at the rank of one of the types principal of these currencies. Thus, in Abdera, while the right of the parts invariably bears the griffin, symbol of the city, the hollow square on the reverse is occupied by a representation that changes with the proper name of man inscribed around; with EPI MOAPArOPEfl, for example, it is a woman's face; with EP OPAIO, a lion; with HP0OANE02, the head and caduceus of Hermes; with KAEAN- ^pou, a ram's head, etc. In the numismatics of A- then, Beulé established that the personal emblem of the magister trat named the second on the tetradrachms of the second series, which is there in the state of a small accessory type in the field, becomes by a constant rule the main type on the reverse of the copper coins corresponding to each group of these tetradrachms.

The silver numismatics of Khodes, after Alexander the Great, constantly present on the reverse of the coins, with the type and name of the city, almost always expressed

(1) Combe, Mus. Topsail, ft. LVI, n" 1; Avellino, Ital, vet, numUm, t. I, p. 88, n** 143; R. Rochette, Letter to Mr. the Duke of Luynes on the coin engravers, pi. III, n^ 28.

(2) Brandis, p. 518 et seq.

56 CURRENCY IN ANTIQUITY

only by the initials PO (1), a magistrate's name written entirely in the name and a personal emblem which varies with the name (2). They are the same names, written likewise, who sign the tetradrachms copied from those d^ Alexander the Great, bearing the mark of Rhodes (3), which should be considered as monuments of a purely autonomous imitation coinage (more top, in this book, chap. i, § 1, 6; book VI, chap. v, g 1). The first, as a rank of honor more than as self- eflFective rity, among the magistrates of Rhodes, the one who enjoyed the privilege of eponymy, that is to say which gave His name in the year of his office was the priest of Helios. Below him — because the inscriptions tell us give birth in a very complete way to the organization of powers see in this city, which was said to have a constitution particularly well weighted — were ranked: the registrar, ypa(jL[jwcTei;ç, of the Senate and the people; the six prytanes, char- senior members of the political administration, who exercised their office three by three, for a semester; the strategists, chair- dîint to the things of the army and the fleet, the number of which varied from ten to twelve; the treasurers, Tapai, who also been, depending on the era, five or six, and between which one, holding the first rank and having a higher skill general than the others, was qualified as the Tajjw'aç by ex- cellence; these were the most important civil officials

(1) Before Alexander, the name of the people is written in full, POAION; that of the magistrate, on the contrary, indicated only by one or two letters- very initials, but always accompanied by the particular emblem of this character; Brandis, p. 480 et seq.

(2) Mionnet, t. Ul, p. 413-421; Suppl. t. VI, p. 588-599; Brandis, p. 481-485.

(3) L. Muller, Namism. of Alexander, n* 1160-1167.

THE LAW IN ANCIENT COINS 57

tants, from whom still depended a secretary of strategists and treasurers, a deputy clerk of the proceedings of the Senate and of the people, and finally an undersecretary of strategists and treasurers; Additionally, Tastynome's font functions and those of Tagonothète, or steward of public games, were independent (1). Thanks mainly to the stamps of Rhodian amphora handles, which always bear a eponymous date, we know the names of approximately one hundred and fifty annual priests of Helios for the period between Alexander and the Roman Empire; from another On the other hand, currencies offer us approximately the same number of names of magistrates in the same period. However, between the two lists, it is not possible to identify ten coincidences. This is the proportion that chance will always give necessary specifically for homonyms between two catalogs of information different individuals of the same city, with the habit which re- It was common among the Greeks to reproduce the same names in the families. Moreover, just as in Kome we find as triumvirs having inscribed their names on the coins many people who were later consuls (which does not prove that these currencies are consular^ as we believed You for so long); in Rhodes there may have been more than one individual who, before being elevated to the priesthood prime, will have fulfilled the less important functions which it will have given the right to sign the monetary species as responsible magistrate. But the number infinitely minimal of these coincidences is so significant, that we are entitled to affirm that it is not the priests annuals of Helios, officials superior to all others in their sacred and eponymous character, whose names

(1) Foucarl, Unpublished Inscriptions of Vile de Rhodes, p. 17.

58 CURRENCY IN ANTIQUITY

were inscribed on Rhodian coins at the time of the full independence and great commercial prosperity of this maritime Republic.

Rhodes having retained his nominal freedom and his constitution internal tution until under the Empire, we have the right to search in its numismatics from the imperial era of clarifications on the organization of its coinage in the centuries of its complete independence. Under the Empire, Rhodes lost the privilege of minting silver coins. gent (above, in this book, chap. i, § 4, 4; book VII, chap. IV, § 4), but it continues to emit very large copper coins, sometimes with the effigy of the Emperors intro- taken as a tribute (1), sometimes without this mark of dependence (2). These coins weigh approximately one ounce ro- maine, the same weight as the corner brass sesterces Roman, four of which made a Roman denarius; they carry often attempts the MAPAXMON value indication, which proves to what degree their circulation value in the earth Rhodian territory was purely conventional; indeed, according to an inscription from Cibyra (3), the drachma of Rhodes was priced at 10 aces or | denier, which does for our di- copper drachmas 20 aces or 1 V^ denier, precisely the value their that the metrologist of Alexandria (A) attributes to the drachma strong Rhodian (5), that is to say approximately 5 times the value intrinsic metallic of these parts (see book VI, chap v, § 6; book VII, chap. iv, § 4). Those of these currencies

(1) Mionnet, t. m, p. 427429; Suppl. t. VI, p. 605-607.

(2) Mionnet, t. m, p. 424 et seq., nos. 247-268; Suppl. t. Vl, p. 603 et seq., n»» 304-316.

(3) Corp. register, grac. n<* 4380.

(4) In Vincent, Researches on Heron in Alexandria, p. 212.

(5) See. Mommsen, Mr. Ry 1. 1, p. 5() et seq.

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copper from Rhodes, from the time of the Empire, which have an fully autonomous parentage, bear the mention of one of the magistrates of the city, and it is always the treasurer or whatever tor, Tapaç (l)^whose name, it is true, appears there in genitive preceded by the preposition ItuI, ETTL... TAMIA, that is to say say in a formula which can constitute a simple date and not an indication of liability. However, in numismatics, it is hardly possible to attribute to the for- mule êm Toy Seiva the character of a date pure and simple, from which there is no direct participation of the magistrate appointed to the manufacture of money, that when that this magistrate is the eponym of the city. Also the mention, on coined species, that they were minted oc under the judiciary" of a public officer vested with attributions purely financial and which did not enjoy Teponymy, should it be considered equivalent to his signature, as indicating that it was he who directed the mo- owner and who was responsible for it. It was therefore a TajjLtaç who was responsible for the manufacture of coins municipal councils of Rhodes at the time of the Emperors, and as the institutions of the city had remained the same as when it was independent, it is at least very probable that it is to a magistrate of the same title and of the same rank that had fallen in previous eras the responsibility of the direction of coinage, if developed during the great maritime and commercial power of the Rhodians, at the same time time that the obligation to sign them with his name to establish and establish his responsibility. These are the reasons which lead me to consider the magistrates appointed in the Rhodian numismatics like TajjLtat, whether the first of the treasurers alone would have signed it for a year

(i) Eckhel, DN, t. n, p. 603, t. IV, p. 202.

60 CURRENCY IN ANTIQUITY

ture of the currency, whether it belonged in turn and for a certain time to all civil servants as well qualified who were nominated for each year; indeed, since the number of treasurers or quaestors of Khodes had been increased to six, they were to succeed each other in office from two months to two months, or divide into two colleges of three, each administering the finances during a semester, as three of the six prytanes administered political affairs.

4. After these few examples, borrowed from the quotes or coinage was entrusted to particular officers or well to the financial administrators of the Képublique, tincts of political magistrates, let's take a look at the numismatic series where you can recognize the application cation of the other system^ of the coinage handed over to the management tion and the entire responsibility of the supreme magistrate, of the one who had Teponymy and the role of head of power executive.

A famous gold coin from Smyrna bears the legend of “prytanes of the Smyrnaeans”, IMYPNAIflN nPYTANEI2(l), who are thus revealed as having possessed the direction of coinage in this city during the period of tonomy which corresponds to the centuries of the successors of Alexander, until the creation of the Roman province from Asia. The silver tetradrachms of Smyrna, during this same period, generally have the name on the reverse of the people in the genitive of belonging, IMYPNAIflN, and a name of magistrate written entirely in the nominative case. This magistrate is a prytane, the first in rank, the president

(1) Eckhel, M, t. II, p. 537; Mionnet, t. lU, p. 190. nT 909.

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of their college, which, in Smyrna as in most Greek cities of Asia Minor, possessed the direction of the government. Indeed, on several tetradrachms, at the same time as Ton registered his name, Ton placed the indication of its title in a monogram whose layout varies a little from one copy to another, but which always offers with certainty the letters TTPTTAvts (l). Sometimes this monogram is there alone with the legend of people, without the name of a magistrate expressed (2); it is then the exact parallel of the inscription of the gold coinage (3).

On the cistophores struck at Pergamum, the magistrate local who puts his signature is still the first of the pry- tanes. Because the initials of his name are most often ac- accompanied by a monogram of the letters TTPTT, some times followed by the numeral letter A, TTPTTovtç A(7rpwToç) (4). On the other hand, on some cistophores of Tralles (5), the letters TTPTT, detached or grouped in a monogram, do not cannot be taken to indicate a title; it's the abbreviation of the proper name TTPTTovtç, since it does not

{i) Eckhel, DN, t. U, p. 338; Mionnet, t. HI. p. i90 and s., u°' 913-918, with the names HPAKAEIAH2 and OANOKPATHI.

(2) Mionnet, t. lU, p. 190, no. 910-912.

(3) The anonymous registration of the title of the function of the magistrate who is mint the currency, without mentioning his personal name, such as us Let's talk here, is not a fact without other examples in numismatics. In § 7 of the cbap. i*^' of this book we have seen several military currencies Roman letters signed with the title IfAP^rator, Quœslor or' LE&atus^ without name clean. Likewise, there are copper coins from Leptis Magna in the Syrtique (L. Muller, Num, de Vanc. Afrique^ t. U, p. 3, nos 1 and 2; cf. p. 10), where the legend, in neopunic characters (see book V, chap. in, § 2), offers the words Tpsa — ^psS “Leptis — the prefect”, without giving the name of this superior magistrate.

(4) Pinder, Ueher die Cistophoren, p. 341 and 365.

(5) Pinder, p. 343. 363 and 366.

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companion no name and that, on the cistophore of this city, the rule is that the signature of the responsible magistrate consists of these first four letters, ATTOA^wvwç, APTEjjLwv, AlONu(7ioç, etc.

On a silver coin from TaT}a of Caria (1), we let us read the abbreviated indication of the title of the magistrate whose the name is written there with that of his father: AP;^û>y TABHNflN — APTEMflN nAniOY. It's that time again the first official of the city, Tarchonte, who owns eponymy.

In general, moreover, we are entitled to think that, in the Greek cities of Asia Minor, at least during During the era of Alexander's successors, the system which predominated was that of handing over ment of the administration and direction of the currency in supreme magistrate, who signed it. This way of seeing is not only suggested by the three very positive facts that we have just recalled, it is almost imposed by the exceptional importance of the place occupied by the names of magistrates on the monuments numismatic records of the cities of this region at the time of which we are speaking, by the way in which these names are followed by a surname (this is the standard rule). laughable to Eritres of Ionia and Taba of Caria), and even sometimes from the designation of the ancestor after that of the father.

We also find some examples of the same re- regime in Western Greece.

Corcyra had a government modeled on that of Co- Rinthe (2), its metropolis. Political power belongs there

(l)Leake, Numism. hellen.y Asiatic Greece, p. 126; Brandis, p. 474. (2) Pausan. IV, 4, 4.

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was born to five annual prytanes, the first of which had Fepo- nymîe de Tannée (1). However, it results in a completely formal comparison of coins and inscriptions of Corcyra, that it is the eponymous prytane which is mentioned, with his name in registered form, on monetary species of this city, when we read there the name of a magistrate (2). Mr. Leicester Warren (3) admits, with great credibility- white, that the character whose name is written in the no- minative, with the legend of the people, on the reverse of the silver coins of Lefkada (4), is the priest of T Apollo Actien, first magistrate and eponym of the city, who was also eponym of the Acarnanian League at the time when Lefkada was one of them (5).

MM. Ch. Lenormant and de Witte (6) recognized an almost complete certainty, in the XAPIAEfl2 men- mentioned on several. silver coins of Naples (7d, Charilaos who, being the first magistrate of the city, delivered to the Komains in 321 (8). This ingenious connection would determine the nature of the characters whose names (written in very fine letters below the head of Parthé- nope) and the emblems were placed on the right parts

(1) Franz, Corp. register graec. i. II, p. 23.

(2) F. Lenormant, Bev. num. 1866, p. 150-155. (3] Greek federal coinage, p. 15.

(4) Mionnet t. II, p. 82 et seq.

(5) Rose, Inscript, graec. p. 282; Freeman, History of federal government ment, p. 149.

(6) Elite 'of my. ceramographic, t. I.p. xlyu; Rev, no. 1844 p. 251; De Witte, Studies on painted vases^ p. i03.

(7) Carelli, CataL n«» 101-107; Mionnet, Suppl. 1. 1, p. 242, no. 300, and p. 243, no. 302.

(8) T. Liv. VIII, 25.

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of^Neapolis of Campania; and this city would be to be registered among those where the magistrate who signs the currency is the one which, in the political order, holds the first rank. Its title There was the markdown (l).

In the numismatics of Olbiopolis on the banks of THypanis, from the reconstruction of the city, around 65 av. B.C., when it was first destroyed by the Getae, the name of magistrate inscribed on the currency, which is always in the genitive case when it has been traced integral* ment^ or the first noun, when there are two, is pres- that constantly accompanied by a monogram of the letters APX, indicative of its archoate functions (2). By analog- gie, Mr. de Kœhne (3) admitted with full reason that, on the coins of the previous period, the names which pre- felt under the same conditions, without expressed title, were also the names of archons^ Moreover, on the Olbiopolitan coins of the second era (after 65), we most often find two names abbreviated, the first with the monogram APX, the second without title (4), and even in the first period we often read two abbreviated names, neither of which is accompanied by qualification of functions (5), the respective rank of the two characters being determined only by the priority given to one of the two names. The association that we thus observe in the series of autonomous currencies of Olbiopolis is surely, as Mr. de Kœhne recognized, that of the political magistrate

(1) Franz, Corp, registered. graee. t. Hi, p. 717.

(2) De Kœhne, Prince Kotchouhey Museum, 1. 1, p. 71, 76 et seq.

(3) T.I, p. 13.

(4) De Kœhne, 1. 1, p. 77 et seq.

(5) De Kœhne, 1. 1, p. 46, 50, 53 et seq.

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highest tick of the city, of the first of the archons, who were first nine in number, then five, called also TTpoecïTwç ttIç TTo^etùç, and special coin, i.e. public official of the financial order, or entrepreneur of manufacturing. They share responsibility for the mon- swimming, and, consequently, sign concurrently the pro- duits.

5. This combination of simultaneous mention, on the currency, of the first political magistrate, in possession of eponymy, and money, must have been very widespread in Greek cities. It provides the best and truest similar explanation of the cases, greatly multiplied, where the mon- naies offer us both, without accompanying titles or one nor the other, a name written in full and another re- presented by a monogram, or two monograms placed side by side.

We observe with complete certainty and ca- particularly well determined character in the abundant series of silver drachmas struck at Dyrrhachion and ApoUonia of Epirus after Alexander and in the early days of Roman domination (1). The principle arrangement of types and legends on these coins is invariable (2): on one side^ the cow suckling her calf^ with a man's name in the nominative case and a little guy with evening, which is a personal emblem of a magistrate; of

(1) Lagoy, Rev. num. 1838, p. 334-337; J. Brandis, Zeitschr. f, Num. t. I, p. 56-68.

(2) Dyrrhachion: Mionnet, t. U, p. 37-43, no. 84-153; Suppl. t. lU, p. 330-348, n»' 12 1-272.— Apollonia; Mionnet, t. U, p. 29 et seq. n°- 3-29; Suppl. t. m, p. 314-317, nO' 5-36.

mr. 5

66 CURRENCY IN ANTIQUITY

Another type commonly referred to by the inaccurate name of gardens of Alcinous, that is to say two juxtaposed squares, with more or less rich framing, each of which contains a kind of star; this type of reverse is accompanied by legend of the city, abbreviated in a few letters, AYP for Dyrrhachion and ATTOA for Apollonia, plus a name proper of a man written in full and in the genitive case. Opposite- ment that we might have been willing to wait at the first Firstly, the emblem placed in small type on the right does not belong to the magistrate whose name is written at number minative on this side of the coin, but to the one whose name appears in the genitive case on the reverse. We acquire proof when we see the cornucopia standing straight with the name AMYNTA on the reverse, while the name of the right changes and is successively EYN0V2, KTHT02, OIAflN and IfllTPIflN; the bunch of grapes coincide with APIM- NAlTOY on the reverse, while the right has HPAKAEIAH2, HP0A0T02, MAXATA2 and 0EOAOTO2; a cob and a bunch of grapes with AAMHN02 on the reverse, while the right lets read the different names EYKTHMflN, ZflTTYPOI, KTHT02, APIITHN, ANTI0X02, AAZI02. OIAflTAl, nEPIFENHl etOEPENIKOI, etc. Misled by the analogy with the Athenian tetradrachms of the second series, where the little guy's emblem belongs to the character who is most specifically responsible for manufacturing, the director of currency, J. Brandis, assumed that on drachmas of Dyrrhachion and Apolloniale political magistrate, the epoch nyme, was the one whose name is read in the nominative case on the right, the monnoyer the one whose name is in the genitive case on the reverse. It is precisely the opposite that must be admitted, as Marquis de Lagoy had recognized it in 1838.

The place of honor, on these coins, that which belongs

THE LAW IN ANCIENT COINS 67

held by the first political magistrate, is the legend of reverse, where the man's name is associated with that of the city; it is there, in fact, that King Monunios also places his name when, having become master of Dyrrhachion, he coins types of this city (1). The lesser importance of the magis- trat named on the law is still attested by the existence from a small series and earlier than usual to write both names throughout, series where there is no small types and where the name of the right is expressed by a simple monogram, while that on the reverse is inscribed entirely, always in the genitive case (2). Moreover, this form of the genitive, as long as it does not involve the idea of belonging, which we cannot admit here, implies than that of eponymy, and the intention in which we used is specified by a piece of ApoUonie (3) where the name of the reverse is preceded by the preposition èTct, ETTI KAAOY; the meaning is therefore: “Under the magistracy of N." Thus, in the numismatics of ApoUonie and Dyr- rhachion, it is the eponymous political magistrate who marks the currency of the emblem of his personal seal, while the coin itself the sign of its name in case direct. Let us note, moreover, that there are up to nine or ten different coins under the same eponym, and that, moreover, a coin tree generally appears under several successive eponymous gentlemen. This seems to indicate the existence operation of several different workshops operating at the same time time for this coining, made on a very large scale for export (we will talk about this

(1) Mionnet, t. II, p. 44, no. 164; SuppL t. UI, p. 3o3, no.314; Ch. The- normant, Num. rs. gr. ft. XXI, nos. 5 and 6.

(2) J. Brandis, Zeitschr, f, Num, t. I, p. 58.

(3) Mionnet, t. II, p. 30, no. 4; Rev. num. 1838, p. 335.

1

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export of silver coins from Dyrrhachion and of Apolonia, mainly towards Italy, book VI, chap. v, § 6, and book VII, chap. m, §4); everyone has their director or its contractor, in office for several years, while the eponymous political magistrate is annual.Quant to the responsibility, as it results from the signatures op- posed to coined species, it is organized as follows: next point: the miner is responsible for the quality coins that he makes in his workshop, under some eponymy whatever, and at the same time F eponym (which is probably the first of the prytanes, because Dyrrha- chion and ApoUonie must have had the same constitution that Corcyra, their motherland) is responsible for all the species minted by the different miners during Tired of his administration.

The system of two names, one on the right, the other on the reverse, continues in the series, even more recent, of ApoUonia, where the silver coins, of the weight of the denarius Roman, have on one side the head of Apollo, on the other three Nymphs dancing around the natural fires of the Nym-raont phée, neighbor of the city (1). These are clearly the names of the same two characters as in the pre- laughing; but it is more difficult to determine what is the political eponym and what is the money; because, in this coinage of decadence, we no longer observe a pre- cise and significant for the form in which each of the two shows up. They are both indifferently, sometimes in the nominative, sometimes in the genitive, sometimes all two in the same case; likewise one or the other indifferently,

(1) Mionnet, t. II, p. 30 et seq., n"^ 30-40; Suppl. t. m, p. 317 et seq., n**' 37-44. — On the explanation of the reverse type, see. Eckhel, Num, vet. anccd. p. 92.

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OR both together, can be followed by a patronymic- mic.

The example of the drachmas of Byrrhachion and Apollonia establishes in a very positive way what the rules of the Greek grammar would be enough to admit in advance, that, when on a city currency we find, with the legend of the people, a man's name in the genitive case, this name must be that of the eponymous magistrate of the city, that the preposition em is implied in this formula (I), which designates currency, not as “that of N”, but as that which has was struck under the magistracy of N, “Such is the case in the numismatics from Cherrhonésos of Tauride. The name of the city is almost always indicated in the abbreviated form XEP; at the same time, we usually read on the parts a man's proper name in the genitive case. By the example of a certain tain Agasicletes, mentioned both in an inscription and on coins, Mr. deKœhne (2) has proven that the magis- trat whose name is thus written on the coins of Cherrhonésos is the one whose title was TrpwTguwv, so of the eponymous archon, head of the executive power. Cellar- doni (3) and M, L. Millier (4) also showed that the names of magistrates which appear in the genitive case on the coins of the various cities of Cyrenaica during the republican period, between the extinction of the dynasty of the Battiades and the submission of the country to Ptolemy (450- 322 BC AD), especially on beautiful gold coins

(1) See. Cavedoni, Spicilegio numismatico, p. 66.

(2) Mem. of Soc, of Archéol. and Num. of St. Petersburg, t. He, p. 234-237; Prince Kotchouhey Museum, t. I, p. 134 and 139.

(3) Osserv. sopra le moneie deUa Cirenaica^ p. 45 et seq.

(4) Num, of Vane. Africa, t. I, p. 112 et seq.

^

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of Cyrene^ are those of the archons or ephors epony- my of these cities.

The mention of Teponym in this form, with the pre- sTCi position expressed or implied, does not constitute only a date and does not necessarily imply that the magistrate, thus mentioned on the coinage, would have liked person directs and is responsible for operations monetary. Without doubt, the inscription of a date on the coined cash is not intended to provide a idle teaching; it does not matter whether a piece was struck in such a year, except to establish, in the event where we would recognize an alteration in the cash issued this year, the responsibility of the monetary then depending on tions. The inscription of the name of the eponymous magistrate provides this date, which allows responsibility to be traced to whom it may concern; but it does not result in a way absolute and certain that the person responsible is the character whose name determines the date. We have seen that, on the Athenian coins, the mention of the order number of the prytany was enough to establish the responsibility of the control their monthly, and that with this brand we dispensed with attach the inscription of his name, always easy to find on public records. In cities which limited themselves to mark the coins with the name of the eponym, it was also easy to find on these registers the name of the mon- responsible walnut corresponding to such eponymy, even when the law made it entirely distinct from the eponym political or priestly. This way of dating mon- naies was therefore sufficient to provide the means of verification and for the prosecution of fraud, of which the public had the right to claim presence on the cash placed in his hands by the government, without it being the personal

THE LAW IN ANCIENT COINS 71

truly responsible swimmer whose name was written there. The only form of signature which necessarily entails the direct responsibility of the person who affixes it to the currency is the one that puts the noun in the nominative case. In this case, Tinscrip- The name of the magistrate no longer marks a date, but a personal guarantee that it gives weight and title species, and who is responsible for them.

But, in law, the affixing of the personal seal is equivalent and has always been equivalent to that of the signature. When then a magistrate, of whatever rank, marks the time bears the emblem of his seal, he declares himself personal- responsibly towards the public, as well as when the sign of his name in the nominative case. So there is no longer any hesitate in the presence of certain towns where, as in Abdère and in Maronnée, for example, the name of the eponym is inscribed with the most characteristic form of date, pre- yielded from the preposition cas, but where this eponym places in at the same time on the currency his personal stamp, either in accessory type, or main type opposite on the reverse to the symbol of the city which occupies the right (1). The first political magistrate, invested with the eponymy, is there at the same time the one who has the direction and responsibility responsibility of the currency department. Also, at the same time that, by affixing its own emblem, it constitutes responsible, we sometimes see, in the inscription tion of his name, especially in Abdère, the form of the sign- ture in the nominative case replace that of the date in the genitive case with the preposition èm'; we find, for example, ANAIIAIK02 or MHTPOOflN instead of the much more usual formula PPE M0APAA02, PPE P0AYAPHT02, etc.

(1) Abdera: Brandis, p. 517-S19. — Maronée: Brandis, p. 522 et seq.

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6. Confederations of sovereign cities which reserve absolutely guaranteed their independence trative, only bringing together certain large general policy interests relating to relations with The exterior and the institutions relating to defense common military, the Greek leagues never possessed a developed or complicated federal administration. A Senate made up of the plenipotentiaries of the federated cities and deliberating on common interests, one or more strategists controlled by this Senate, but possessing by the fact great freedom of action in the sphere of their attributes butions, having above all a military role as com- constituents of federal troops formed by contingents of the various cities, exercising as such a certain share of executive power where they were not stopped by the own sovereignty of cities, finally administering the international ports with foreign countries, such was the strong framework simple to which their institutions generally reduced themselves common tions. When then these leagues had instituted a federal coinage, like those we have studied died in § 2 of chapter V^ of this book, it was natural that the direction and responsibility were handed over to the unique strategist or the first of these warrior magistrates, when there were several. And this is indeed what we observed in most federal monetary series of Greece.

The coins of the Phocidian League offer some once a magistrate's name. 11 is never accompanied by a title, but the nature of the functions of the character in it thus mentioned is determined with certainty absolute by the pieces where we read the names of Onymarchos and

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of Phalaicos (1), known in history as two of the strategists of the Phocians in the Sacred War. It's true that these nouns are written in the genitive case, in the form of date eponymous, even more characterized on the coins of the Chalcidian League, where the name of the strategist in office when the piece is issued is always preceded by èni EPI FOAYIENO, EFI AlKAHFIOAflPO, etc. (2). In re- vanche, the names of the strategists registered on the federal species rales of the Acarnanian League (3), always appear there like signatures in the nominative form, often followed by a patronymic.

The names inscribed on the reverse of the silver staters of the Boeotian League are generally shortened in such a way that they do not have a case ending. Among those who seem whole, we observe some in the genitive case (like EYFAPA, from the name which, in common Greek, is Euaprjçjet others in nominative (KAIflN^ dialectical form for Oecov). We have, moreover, some reasons to believe that the one who signed the federal coins of the Boeotians was that of the Boeotars- ques (the strategists of this league were thus called) who, at the moment of the cash issue, had, in turn, step over others and the supreme command of forces of the Confederation (4). We read the name ErAMIvwv^aç on pieces whose style perfectly suits the era. that where the great Epaminondas had the direction of affairs political and military. On the other hand, the name yARO, registered on other staters, cannot be attributed to the Charon of

(1) Leicester Warren, Greek federal coinage, p. 12; Friediaender Zeitschr f. Num. 1. 1, p. 296 et seq.

(2) Brandis, p. 535 et seq.

(3) Leicester Warren, p. 12.

(4) Leicester Warren, p. 24 et seq.

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history, friend of Pelopidas; the shape of the characters of the legend is too archaic for its time.

The federal species of the Epirotes have an expressed name by four or five letters and accompanied by another ex- awarded with a monogram, or two written names of the same way in detached letters, or even two more nograms (1). We are inclined to see in these com- combinations a name of strategist, of supreme military magistrate silence and politics and a name of money. In fact, the superiority of rank of one of the two characters over the other is well characterized by the form in which they appear more often: one writes with a certain development, in detached letters, the other reduced to a monogram in a subordinate place. Additionally, one of the names listed with development, AEPAA (2), is that of Derdas, known by Livy (3) as strategist of the Epirotes in 204 BC AD

The same system of registering two names, that of supreme magistrate of the confederation and that of a mon- silence, is observed, this time with complete certainty, in the silver coinage of the Thessalian League, formed under the auspices of the Romans after the battle of Cynos- heads (see, above, in this book, chap. i, § 3,2). We read on the reverse, with the legend 6E22AAflN, two names of men whose reciprocal position varies: one is in the eponymic genitive, further clarified in an example by reusing the preposition, ETTI ANAPO20ENOY2; The other is in the nominative form. The first is surely the name

(1) Mionnet, t. Il, p, 47-50; Suppl. t. m, p. 359-361.

(2) Leicester Warren, p. 17.

(3) XXIX, 12.

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of the annual and eponymous strategist of the confederation; and, in indeed, several of those offered by currencies can be found in the list of Thessalian strategists that Eusebius has given us served after Phorphyre of Tyre, but which unfortunately ment only covers the years from 195 to 179 BC. J,-C. The other name, which has the form of a responsibility signature bility, could only be that of the special coin, ma- elected gistrat or farm contractor (1).

The magistrates whose names are inscribed on the coins of the Achaean League are certainly not those of the annual federal strategists (2] • Indeed, on the copper coins, where these names are expressed in full, we do not find a single one of those of the known strategists in history as leaders of the league. On the small silver drachmas, where these names are generally abbreviated, one might be tempted at first glance to explain by the two historical characters of Aratos and Lydiades the abbreviations AP and AY, which are found with the marks from the towns of Dyme, Patrse, Aegira and Elis; but, like Ta rightly remarked by Mr. Leicester Waren, it is enough, to deny this interpretation, from the piece by Dymé, where Ton finds both AP and AY; because Aratos and Lydiades cannot could not appear at the same time as strategists. These characters are not even federal magistrates of any order; there is no way to consider them otherwise than we did above (in this book, chap, I, § 2,8), that is to say as civil servants individuals from different cities taking part in the world federal swimming pool and each putting its own mark on

(1) See. R. Weil, Zeitschr. f. Num. t. I, p. 176-183, (â) Leicester Warren, p. 45.

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the species it produces. Men's names change, indeed, at the same time as the names of cities. On the parts of copper, where these names are complete, we do not find to note only two coincidences between the names of magistrates who accompany the indications of different cities, a XAIPEA2 from Corinth and one from Messene, one OaHNOZ from Argos and one from Sicyoiia; compared to the number of mon- nries of this kind that you already know, the proportion^ such coincidences are far below what could give the simple coincidence of homonyms between characters different. On silver drachmas, the reduction of names with a very short abbreviation multiplies a little more apparent coincidences; but, if we find even in four different cities magistrates appointed by AP and with AY, these two syllables can begin both of names so absolutely diverse from each other that homonymy, between the magistrates noted by these abbreviations on the pieces of Dyme, Patrae, Aegira and Elis, is nothing less than certain.

The provisions of the precious text of the convention of monetary union between Mitylene and Phocaea (1), we re- want to know what the mechanism of responsibilities could be for alteration of species in a federal coinage organized like that of the Achaean League, what interest it was necessary to write on the parts, as a guarantee, the name of the city that issued its proportional share of the common currency and at the same time the name of the monetary special about this city. According to the treatise that marble we has preserved — and a similar provision should be the usual rule in conventions of this kind — the

(1) Transaet. of the R. Soc. of Literature, 2nd ser., t. VUI, p. 549; Rev. num. 1868, p. 241.

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monnoyer is criminally responsible for criminal fraud placed by his direct act or by his negligence, before a court of which the authorities of its city form the majority; but this city is in turn financially responsible towards the other city, its associate, of the quality of the species union cash which is made at home; she is required to pay him compensation for the damage caused to the public by the falsifications of its currency, which it will have made the mistake of not monitoring enough. It is to this dual nature of liability and guarantee that corresponds lay the two mentions inscribed on the documents of the nu- federal leader of the Achaean League; the mention of the people from such or such a city, with its qualification as a member of the League, ensures the currency, whatever the place of issue, legal tender in the entire territory of the country federation, and at the same time guarantees, with regard to others confederates in body, the financial responsibility of the city who manufactured, in the case of fraud or alteration. But it is also necessary, for the same case, to ensure liability criminal of the money mill towards his own city; and it is to this object that meets the obligation to sign currencies let him strike for this city. In this way, the means of recourse to whomever is entitled on both sides is assured for any citizen who constitutes currency fraud that he receives in traffic. And this possibility for any citizen to accuse himself was essential among the ancients, who did not know of an institution of prosecution following the name of the company, analogous to our ministry public.

In confederations whose cash, such as that of the Lycian League (above, in this book, chap. i, § 3,2), bore only the signature of the cities, without that of

78 CURRENCY IN ANTIQUITY

their particular coins, there was no guarantee by the marks of the currency that the responsibility of the city^ taken in isolation, towards the confederation. It was then to the magistrates of the city, once it had been returned responsible, to pursue with the help of public registers the personal monetary responsibility. To make this last possible resort, in the absence of a particular brand less money, it is quite probable that each city, as we see again in the convention between Mitylene and Phocaea, had its coinage, which did not returned only after the expiration of the time limits within which prescribed action against the unfaithful official or Fraudulent entrepreneur.

7. In all the monarchies after Alexander, particularly among the kings of Macedonia, Syria and of Egypt, we see adopted as a rule the use of which we have already spoken above (in this book, chap. i, § t, 6) and who does not appear completely organized for the first first time that in the numismatics of Philip II of Macedonia, the use of indicating by small types, mo- nograms or combinations of letters, placed in the field of the reverse, the coin manufacturing workshops royals, struck with the same types on a large extent of territory and in a large number of cities. These brands, like all those that in modern times The latter we used and still use to differ- to produce the products of the various mints of the same countries, are certificates of origin, essential for con- administrative and financial control of monetary operations.

Above all, what was important to designate for this con-

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control and to establish the responsibility of the miner towards the royal government which had charged him with the manufacture of its species, it was the city of issue, the seat of Tate- monetary link. This brand could, if necessary, dispense of any other; also it is the one that you almost find constantly, whose presence seems to have been considered as completely necessary • It is done by one of the three means that we have indicated, sometimes speaking combination of a small type with a monogram of the name of the city or with its initials* The use of trademarks bind formed by monograms or by urn or two letters at the beginning of the name, is the one that prevails in the monetary series of the Seleucids, Lagids and Greek kings of Bactria,

The explanation of these different monetary cities issue on royal coins is a strong subject interesting, but of a particularly delicate nature, which should only be approached with great caution. We must always be afraid of letting ourselves be drawn into fantasies of the imagination, and the certain results that which can be obtained there are in small numbers. Also this order of studies has it only rarely been addressed, and it was not always successful, M. L. Millier is of all the one who succeeded the best, and we must count among the best works of numismatics in our century those he devoted to the study of local brands on coins of Philip II, Alexander the Great and Philippe Arrhidée (1), as well as those of Lysima- that (2), series which are composed in significant part of mon-