SEHHW

An element in Alexander’s design of unification not less important than exploration and colonization was his monetary policy. No doubt, as in the matter of colonization so in the adoption of his monetary system, Alexander was guided more by political than by economic considerations. But the measures he took in this sphere were of great importance as providing a sound foundation for the economic union he had in view. It is evident that his excellent, abundant, and uniform coinage in itself greatly assisted the development of business in his empire. But his monetary policy had a much wider scope. His currency was not a continuation of the Persian coinage, but had a special significance. In the first place, it was designed to give a Greek aspect and a Greek character to the economic life and business of the world. The types of his coins were Greek, the standard Attic. It was thus a currency adapted to his network of Greek colonies and it was intended primarily for them. Moreover, the new currency, by virtue of its excellence and abundance, was intended not only to supersede for ever the Persian imperial currency and the local currencies of the Persian Empire, but also to put an end to the monetary anarchy that reigned in the Greek world. Finally, it is probable that by providing the new Greek business centres in the East with abundant currency Alexander wished to promote the use of money as a medium of exchange in place of the trade by barter that still prevailed in many parts of the Oriental world.

Charged with important economic consequences as it was, Alexander's conquest of the East did not stand alone. Philip's wars in the northern part of the Balkan peninsula, Alexander’s successful expeditions in the same regions, the activity of Alexander’s satraps in Thrace, and especially the expedition (ill-fated though it was) of Zopyrion against the Scythians (331 B.C.), which brought him as far as Olbia, made Thrace a part of the empire of Alexander and enabled Lysimachus, first satrap and later king of the northern Balkan territory, to extend and consolidate the conquests of Philip and Alexander. We see evidence of this in Lysimacheia, the brilliant capital founded by Lysimachus in the Thracian Chersonese, and in his issue of large quantities of gold and silver coins which competed successfully with Alexander’s coinage in the north and were for a long time the leading currency of the Balkan and north Pontic regions. It may be observed that many trading cities — Byzantium, Callatis, Rhodes, and many others — as well as the Bosporan kings, imitated the currency of Lysimachus after his death in order to secure a fair circulation for their own issues.

Alexander’s currency was not only abundant but uniform in respect of types, purity of metal, and standard (Attic) . After his death and for about nineteen years money of exactly the same types and standard was issued from the same mints by the Successors in the name of Phihp Arrhidaeus and later of Alexander IV, for use throughout the empire, with the exception of Egypt. A certain differentiation began in Egypt and spread later to other parts of the Hellenistic world, when their rulers assumed the royal title. All of these had their own abundant coinage, the most prominent in this respect being Demetrius, Lysimachus, Ptolemy Soter, and Seleucus I. Their coins, however, as regards weight, purity, and standard (with the exception of those of Ptolemy, who finally went over to the so-called Phoenician standard), were almost exactly similar to those of Alexander. The only difference was in the types, the head of the deified Alexander and later the portraits of the Successors replacing on the obverse the well-known Alexandrian types, and new reverses being substituted for the standardized designs of Alexander.

In comparison with the royal issues the leading issues of the past were of little importance. The Persian 'archers' and other coins of the Persian Empire soon vanished. Of the city issues, the Athenian 'owls' were still abundant. Athens seems to have retained her right of coinage from the time of Alexander down to about 220 B.C., when a new style of coinage was substituted for the old. Most modern scholars are inclined to think, in opposition to the earlier view, that there was no suspension of the Athenian coinage between 322 (or 261 B.C.) and some time after 229 B.C., except for a short interruption in the days of Antigonus Gonatas. Corinthian poloi ceased to be struck early in the third century B.C. and were never very popular in the Aegean. Mints in a few other cities were still operating, and the Greek leagues began to issue their own federal money. But many of the Greek cities preferred to issue coins of Alexandrian types. It is curious that King Areus of Sparta, when he decided (about 380 B.C.) to coin his own money, began to issue Alexander tetradrachms of Attic weight but inscribed with his own name.

All these issues, however, were superseded by the royal coinage. This was the result not of compulsion or legislation, as in the time of the Athenian Empire, but of the evident convenience of monetary unity and of the abundance and excellence of the royal coinage. We have indisputable proof of this in the statistics of hoards as recorded by Noe. In all the hoards of the late fourth and early third centuries Alexandrian coins (with a certain number of 'Philippi' added) exceed the total of all the other issues. Even the coins of the Successors (except those of Lysimachus) figure only rarely and sporadically. Alexander's coinage was so famous and so popular in the Hellenistic world that when, after Magnesia, many of the Greek cities recovered their right of coinage (which they had lost in the time of the Successors and of the balance of power), they mutually agreed to begin their autonomous coinage by the issue of uniform Alexandrian and Lysimachian silver money, which they struck in large quantities. I am speaking, of course, of the great currencies of the time, those which played the leading part in commercial life and were kept by rich people in their homes and in the banks. For the expenses of daily life in the cities of Greece proper, Asia Minor, and the Near East, local currency was used almost exclusively, being only to a slight extent supplemented by the currencies of neighbouring cities. This currency was mostly copper and small silver. Its prevalence in daily life is shown by the finds made in the Greek cities of both Greece and Asia Minor, especially Priene (as was well shown by the late Dr. Regling) and Pergamon.

The economic policy of the first Ptolemies found admirable expression in their abundant, beautiful, and peculiar coinage. The coinage and the monetary system underlying it were unique in the Hellenistic world, differing in many respects from those of the other Hellenistic monarchies. I will deal with it briefly.

While he was still satrap and during the first years of his reign, Soter naturally followed the monetary policy of Alexander and minted the same gold and silver coins of the Attic standard as were used by the rest of the Hellenistic world. Soon, however, he initiated a new policy. He altered the standard by issuing silver coins of lighter weight, probably with the object of adjusting them to the current prices of the precious metals which were steadily rising in the case of silver and falling in that of gold. The new standard did not coincide exactly with any of the accepted standards of the time, but approximated most nearly to the Rhodian of the late fourth century (before the siege of the city); and it may have been intended to facilitate trade relations with Rhodes. For a time it was popular: Cyrene for instance probably adopted it.

Later in his reign Soter took a further step which almost completely isolated Egypt from the rest of the Hellenistic world. He reduced the weight of his silver still more by adopting a standard which was practically identical with that used in the Phoenician cities, and this new standard was maintained until the end of the Ptolemaic dynasty. It was in all probability adopted by Rhodes after the siege, and it came to be used throughout the maritime empire of the Ptolemies as well as by all those who fell in one way or another under its sway. This sharp separation from the rest of the Hellenistic world may be partly explained by considerations of a commercial character (cf. above, pp. 381 ff.). The Ptolemies needed large amounts of currency for their caravan trade, which, at least in their early days, was to a large extent in the hands of the Phoenician cities, now their subjects. Moreover, caravan goods and other Egyptian merchandise found an excellent market in the West, and there the main customer was Carthage, the great Phoenician trading city.

It was natural that this new coinage should be minted not in Egypt but in the leading Phoenician cities, Tyre, Sidon, Ptolemais-Ake, Joppa, and Gaza, and later in Cyprus; and coins of these mints were easily recognized by mint-marks and by the special form that was given to the name of the king (Πτολεμαίου Σωτήρος, not Πτολεμαίου βασιλέως). We may suppose that the mint-mark of one of the Phoenician cities — old customers of the Arabs— made the new currency for the caravan trade more acceptable to them.

Besides the Phoenician standard, there was another peculiarity in Ptolemaic monetary policy which separated Egypt from the rest of the Hellenistic world and gave it a peculiar monetary system. While in early days Ptolemaic coinage was based on the same bimetallic (silver and gold) foundation as that of all the other Hellenistic countries, and copper was used practically as token money, at a later date — in the second half of the reign of Philadelphus — a momentous change was made. Heavy copper coins with heads of Egyptian gods were struck in Egypt, coins which were no longer tokens but regular, standard coins accepted at their metal value. Thus a trimetallic system, unknown in the rest of the Hellenistic world, was introduced. For this innovation there were apparently two main reasons. In the first place the former system was not popular with the natives. They took the silver coins, of course, but treated them as bullion, as is shown by the hoards of that time. They were unfamiliar with silver and unaccustomed to the use of it: from time immemorial they had used copper only (and gold) as their means of exchange. The new heavy Ptolemaic copper was, therefore, a concession to them, and it became very popular with them. From the time of its appearance on the market silver coins almost disappeared from coin-hoards in Egypt, their place being taken by the new copper. The copper coinage of Philadelphus was consequently another symbol and expression of the dualism which was established in Egypt by the Ptolemaic system of organization: old Egypt, the Egypt of the natives, with its heavy and clumsy old-fashioned copper, co-existed with the new Egypt, that of Alexandria and the Greeks, with its elegant and handy silver and magnificent gold. But to satisfy the requirements of the natives was not the only aim of Philadelphus in introducing the new bronze coinage. He foresaw that the new coins would drive silver and gold out of circulation, and that the coins made of these two metals would gradually come to be hoarded in the royal treasury and used by the king for his own purposes. And that, without doubt, was what happened, especially after his time.

As has been said, the coinage of the Ptolemies was in the first instance intended to serve the needs of their commerce and of Egypt as they had organized it. This intention found expression in the issue of the imposing heavy copper coins that were destined to become the main currency of the 'country' (χώρα), and of the abundant and modest silver tetradrachms of a standardized character and stable value that were almost exclusively reserved for the use of Alexandria, the dominions, and foreign countries. But at the same time the Ptolemaic coinage was a means of international propaganda, of which gold was the medium. Gold was not very much used in the home trade, especially the most beautiful issues: the pentadrachms (trichrysa) of Soter and later the octodrachms (mnaeia) and tetradrachms (or 'pentekontadrachms', as their equivalent in silver) of Philadelphus and Arsinoe with the fine portraits of the ruling kings. These coins were used chiefly for foreign commerce and political subsidies, and they could not fail to impress contemporaries by their slightly barbaric magnificence and the wealth and strength that they symbolized.

Proud of their currency and confident in their wealth and power, the Ptolemies did not hesitate to take another step towards separation from the rest of the Hellenistic world. They wanted their empire to be a well-knit unit, a solid structure with a uniform organization and a uniform currency. This tendency toward uniformity and self-sufficiency was manifested by several of their measures. Like Athens in the past, they endeavoured to make their own currency the exclusive currency for the whole of their vast empire, in this respect differing from their neighbours the Seleucids. The first step which they took to achieve this aim was to force their own monetary system and their own coins on their foreign dominions. As a rule the Greek cities under their control were not allowed to retain their own currency or, in the rare cases where this was permitted, they were obliged to convert it to the Phoenician standard. The same exclusive use of the Ptolemaic coinage was enforced upon the cities of Phoenicia and Palestine ; their own coinage ceased and the most important of them became the chief Ptolemaic mints. As a result of this policy the Ptolemaic currency became the only one used in the Egyptian dominions. No other coins have been found in the Ptolemaic strata of those Palestinian cities which have been carefully excavated, for instance, Gezer, Marissa, Samaria, and Beth Zur. There was nothing unusual in such unification of currency.

The Ptolemies, however, were not satisfied with this. They took another more important and more unusual step in the same direction. While the Seleucids tolerated the circulation of foreign coins of the same standard as their own within their empire, Philadelphus took certain measures to exclude foreign coins from the Egyptian market. It is in this way that I am inclined to interpret a document belonging to the archives of Zenon, a letter in which a certain Demetrius, probably a royal official connected with the Alexandrian mint, reports to Apollonius on certain difficulties that had arisen in connexion with the king’s order to re-mint all worn-out local gold coins and also gold coins of foreign mints imported into Egypt. This letter (as M. E. Bikerman has pointed out to me) furnishes clear evidence of the establishment in Egypt of a kind of royal monopoly of exchange, at least as regards gold, very profitable for the king and burdensome for the merchants: no private money-changers, no private or even royal banks were allowed to carry out this operation. The whole business was concentrated in Alexandria in the hands of a special royal official. Similar measures were not unknown to the Greek world of the past. The mere existence of such a monopoly practically meant the exclusion of foreign gold from the market. The royal order to re-mint it made this exclusion still more strict; it meant that the king took it for granted that all important business transactions in Egypt, in which gold was used as the medium of exchange, were supposed to be carried out in Ptolemaic currency. Such a restriction of the freedom of trade, aggravated by bureaucratic red tape, which made the process of exchange and of re-minting slow and irregular, naturally aroused the indignation of foreign merchants.

The monetary policy of the early Ptolemies as we have described it presents two aspects. On the one hand it stressed the point that Egypt was the property of the king, his estate, which had a separate existence, and was connected with the rest of the Hellenistic world through the king alone. This was the meaning of the introduction of the Egyptian copper currency. On the other hand the Ptolemies claimed for themselves an exceptional position in the Hellenistic world. They did not wish to be mere members of the Hellenistic balance of power. They insisted upon living in splendid isolation, unless they should be able gradually to bring the rest of the Hellenistic world within their sphere of influence. In this direction tended their acceptance of the Phoenician standard and their enforcement of the royal monopoly of coinage on the whole of their empire. Their policy was crowned with success. Although they were never able to enforce their hegemony upon the Hellenistic world, they certainly isolated Egypt from the rest of it and this isolation gradually became the leading feature of the life of the country.

The Seleucids, like the Ptolemies and the other Hellenistic kings, paid great attention to their coinage, which succeeded without discredit the coinage of Alexander. Like him, the Seleucids kept strictly to the iUtic standard. Like him again, they endeavoured to make their coinage abundant, stable, reliable, and of excellent quality. The issues from the various Seleucid mints were widely distributed not only over their Anatolian, Syrian, Mesopotamian, and Iranian Empire, but also over the rest of the Hellenistic world. The coinage was much simplified by Antiochus I and became the basic currency of the East. Its popularity there is shown by the fact that after the secession of Bactria and Parthia the independent coinage of these kingdoms was in fact a continuation of that of the Seleucids. Moreover, coins of the first Seleucids were "widely circulated far into Asia and were copied again and again, as had been the case with the coins of Athens in the fifth and fourth centuries" (Milne). Their coinage, it may be observed, was of a more personal character than that of the Persian kings and the Ptolemies. Each king issued coins bearing his own likeness.

The kings of the Seleucid dynasty coined in three metals: gold, silver, and copper. Gold was regularly minted until the second half of the third century, when minting stopped and was resumed from time to time by the later Seleucids on special occasions only. The explanation of this curious history of their gold coinage (the Ptolemies coined gold regularly till a much later date, almost until the end of their rule in Egypt) may be found in my opinion in the scarcity of gold in the Near East in general. The main supply of gold — I disregard the gold of the northern Balkan peninsula, which never reached the Near East — came either from Egypt (Nubia), or from the Asiatic North, from the gold mines of Siberia and the Altai. The Ptolemies, of course, kept their gold supply jealously for themselves. Thus the only abundant sources of gold for the Seleucids were Siberia and the Middle East (Asia Minor hardly produced much gold at that time). Since Siberian gold reached Bactria first, it was natural that gold currency should be issued in large amounts especially in the Seleucid satrapy of Bactria. As soon as Bactria became independent and was itself cut off from Siberia, while the Parthians inserted themselves between the Seleucids and the Asiatic North, gold became very scarce in the Seleucid kingdom and the kings subsequent to Seleucus II had to give up their coinage in that metal. We may, by the way, suppose that the question of the gold supply was one of the reasons for the Oriental expedition of Antiochus III.

The main currency of the Seleucid kingdom was silver. As long as Asia Minor with its abundant silver mines was in the hands of the Seleucids, they never suffered from a shortage of silver. The loss of Asia Minor by Antiochus III changed the situation: I shall speak of this in my next chapter. I have already mentioned that the minting of the tetradrachms of the early Seleucids was distributed over their extensive Empire, many mints being established. This does not mean, however, that the cities of the Seleucid Empire had any right of coinage. They minted for the king and in the name of the king. The early Seleucids regarded the minting of gold and heavy silver as their exclusive privilege and, like Alexander and the Successors, they would not tolerate any competition from the Greek cities of their empire. Some exceptions to this rule are known, but occasional concessions to the cities in this respect, due to special political considerations, only serve to confirm the rule.

One of the most interesting features of the circulation of coins in the Seleucid Empire is revealed by the study of many hoards found in Syria and Mesopotamia on the one hand and in Asia Minor on the other. These hoards, in contrast to some found in the houses of various cities, are a striking illustration of the way in which money circulated throughout the empire, representing as they do the savings of richer people. They show that the bulk of the savings of the inhabitants of the Seleucid Empire consisted, not so much of Seleucid silver and occasionally gold, which do not form a very prominent element of third century hoards, but of issues of Philip, Alexander, and Lysimachus with a certain mixture of coins of the other Successors. Coins of Alexander and Lysimachus are the most prevalent. They are partly issues made during their lifetime, but mostly posthumous issues by various mints outside as well as inside the empire. Besides these coins and the Seleucid gold and silver, coins of the other independent kings of the ellenistic world in the third century, especially the Pergamene rulers, are often found (in small quantities) in these hoards. The only exception is the Ptolemies. In none of the third century hoards outside Greece is Ptolemaic silver or gold found, so far as I know. The Ptolemaic currency was apparently carefully excluded from the Seleucid kingdom.

The character of the hoards, as briefly described above, reflects some important features of the economic life of the third century and in particular of the economic policy of the Seleucids. It appears that the Seleucids — in this respect so different from the Ptolemies — made great efforts to maintain the monetary unity of the Hellenistic world. By a sort of mutual accord all the leading mints of the time kept strictly to one and the same standard — the Attic — and emitted large quantities of international currency in the shape of posthumous Alexanders and Lysimachi. These coins circulated freely all over the Hellenistic world, apparently without restriction — in the Seleucid kingdom, in the Anatolian monarchies, in Greece, and in the Balkan peninsula. The only exception was the Ptolemaic Empire. When the Ptolemies changed their standard to the ‘Phoenician’ and introduced a strict monetary monopoly throughout their empire, they isolated themselves from the rest of the Hellenistic world. No coins of foreign mints or of Attic standard are found in hoards of the third century B.C. discovered in Egypt or in the Ptolemaic dominions, and, as I have already said, no coins of Ptolemaic mints are found in any Syrian or Anatolian hoard. The Hellenistic world of the third century was sharply divided into two spheres of economic activity: the Ptolemaic with its expansion chiefly to the West, and the Seleucid with its mainly Oriental connexions.

The tendency of the Seleucids to maintain unity of currency is attested by another important trait of their monetary policy. The bulk of the coins of Seleucus I in his early years consisted of gold and silver which practically repeated Alexander’s coinage, with the sole difference that the names of Alexander and Philip III were gradually, though not completely, replaced by that of Seleucus. In the last ten years of Seleucus’ rule, however, his coin-types became more diversified and of a more personal character. A reaction against this set in with Antiochus I and II, who again issued large quantities of Seleucus' Alexander coins and even reminted some of the later coins of Seleucus as coins of the Alexander-Seleucus type, thereby stressing the international character of their economic policy and the demand for such a policy inside and outside the kingdom.

The beautiful coinage of the early Bactrian kings — a branch as it were of the Seleucid coinage, with its Attic standard and its various Seleucid types — was destined to become and did become the instrument of the caravan trade of Bactria and India. The almost complete absence of Seleucid coins in the Bactrian and Indian hoards (above, n. 243) and the rare occurrence, in stray finds, of coins minted by the Seleucids after the secession of Bactria is an indication of this. It is not improbable that Seleucid gold and silver which reached Bactria directly or through Parthia was reminted by the Bactrian kings. Besides coins of the heavy Attic standard, mostly tetradrachms, they and their successors in India, especially in the later period, minted a good many coins of a lighter weight for local exchange. Though the use of money was not foreign to India in the pre-Greek period, it was Alexander's conquest of the East and the Greek domination in Bactria and in India that made it a prominent feature of economic life in this part of the civilized world, while Parthia, with its abundant coinage and its many mints in the west and in the east, served as the connecting link between Bactria and the Seleucid Empire. It should be noted that the successors of the Greeks in Bactria and India, the Ye-chi (Kushans) and the Sacae, inherited in this as in many other respects the traditions of their predecessors.

The general orientation of economic relations in the Aegean was in consequence changing, and the change affected in some measure all the States that hitherto had been prominent in trade, especially the Greek cities of the mainland, of the Greek islands, and of Asia Minor. I have endeavoured to show in the preceding pages how it influenced the trend of economic development in Athens, Rhodes, Delos, and Miletus.

Alongside of these — the principal marts and the most prosperous communities of the Aegean world — there were a number of other important cities which had played an active, even a leading, part in the Greek economic system of the pre-Hellenistic period. These were the cities that held the keys of the northern trade, especially the trade with the coasts of the Black Sea. There were six groups of these, which took part in the organization and regulation of the trade: (i) the Hellespontine group, especially Sestus, Abydus, and Lampsacus; (2) the Propontid group, of which Cyzicus was the undisputed leader; (3) the group of the Thracian Bosporus, Byzantium and Calchedon; (4) that of the southern or ‘right-hand’ coast of the Euxine, of which the great commercial cities of Heraclea, Amisus, and Sinope were pre-eminent; (5) that of the western or ‘left-hand’ coast of the Enxine, including Apollonia, Callatis, Odessus, Tomi, and Istrus; and lastly (6) the group of the northern coast of the Euxine and of the Crimea, including Olbia, Panticapaeum and its dependencies, and Chersonesus.

Cyzicus still dominated the commerce of the Propontis. No doubt the famous 'Cyzicenes', pre-eminently the currency of the Euxine trade from the sixth to the fourth century B.C., were no longer minted. Nor do we hear that the 'Cyzicenes' were replaced by other coins minted by the city for the purposes of its foreign trade. This may be explained by its diminishing importance as a clearing-house and centre of banking. We may, on the other hand, attribute the disappearance of the 'Cyzicenes' chiefly to the fact that they had ceased to be of use. There was now an abundance of excellent and reliable coins. First Philip, then Alexander, and finally Lysimachus, had issued such enormous quantities of currency that there was practically no need for Cyzicus to mint her own money for trade purposes. The place of the 'Cyzicenes' was taken by the coinage of Lysimachus, which became the current medium of exchange for the Euxine trade.