Coins in Greek Literature

-Zahra Kosrovi

Ancient coins are perhaps the most enigmatic of archeological remains. As intrinsically mobile objects, they are often found far away from their original context both in distance and in time. They cannot be dated by scientific or technological methods. In and of themselves, coins can only tell us so much about their many functions throughout history. Fortunately, there are many mentions of coins in the extant texts of ancient Greece from which we can begin to create a context for the study of old money. While antiquity has left us no comprehensive treatise on the developments in the use of coinage, even literary references which are incidental or passing can illuminate the study of ancient coinage immensely. The following are a few examples of literary references to coins, taken from a range of periods and genres, each of which gives us a unique perspective on some aspect of coinage in the ancient world.

The earliest mention of coins in Greek literature is in Herodotus' Histories, which was written down circa 425 BCE. Herodotus attributes the invention of coinage to the Lydians in the time of king Croesus:

Apart from this practice of having their female children work as prostitutes, Lydian customs are not very different from Greek ones. They were the first people we know of to strike gold and silver coins and use them, and so they were also the first to retail goods (I.94)

There is disagreement as to whether or not archeological evidence supports Herodotus' claim. Nevertheless, it is clear that fifth-century Greeks themselves considered the use of coinage to have originated not in their own land, but in Asia Minor. This is significant given Herodotus' general portrayal of the Lydians: as a people they were tyrannical and given to Asiatic fopperies which the Greeks associated with femininity. The immediate context of Herodotus's history of coins is particularly striking, as occurs within a short list of the specific differences between Lydians and Greeks. This list includes prostitution and games, and while the former is not a particularly seemly aspect of culture, it is unclear whether or not Herodotus means for us to form any particular opinion about coins through association. What does seem fairly certain is that Herodotus feels it necessary, for whatever reason, to make a point of separating the development of coinage from the development of Greek culture on the mainland.

In addition to the geographical location of the invention of coins, Literary sources can give us insight into the ways in which the Greeks, at various times, explained the reasons for the origin of coinage. Aristotle's Politics, composed in the mid-fourth century BCE, compares a coin-based economy to the older system of barter:

The other form of exchange grew, as might have been inferred, out of this one [i.e. barter]. When the inhabitants of one country became more dependent on those of another, they imported what they needed, and exported what they had too much of, money necessarily came into use. For the various necessities of life are not easily carried about, and hence men agreed to employ in their dealing with one another something which was intrinsically useful and easily applicable to the purposes of life. (1257a30-35)

Given the archeological evidence surrounding the earliest Greek coins, it is not at all clear that their primary function was to facilitate retail trade. Aristotle is writing as a political theorist, and the fact that this explanation for the development of coinage seems most logical to him tells us more about the capacity in which coins were considered most useful during his own time. What is perhaps most interesting about this passage is that, in comparing coinage to the barter, Aristotle makes a connection between a monetary system and increased civilization. Whereas in Herodotus coinage was something associated with foreigners and tyrannical governments, the Politics displays the sense among fourth-century Athenians that coinage was a symbol of their advancement as a society.

Ancient literature can give us answers to some questions we might not have thought even to ask. For example, Aristophanes' Birds:

Pisthetairos: Right. The Kites were the kings of Hellas. And it was during their reign that the custom began in Greece of falling flat on your face whenever you saw a Kite.

Euelpides: You know, I once spotted a Kite and went down on the ground so damn hard I swallowed my money and two of my teeth. I damn near starved (500-04)

Euelpides' comment brings to light the question of how the ancient Greeks actually carried their coins. The Greeks did not have pockets in their garments, and it seems that when they went shopping they carried small change in their mouths. In her commentary on the Birds, Nan Dunbar suggests that this was a standard practice in Athens, and that it was possibly a precaution against theft. However, the Birds is a comedy, and Aristophanes rarely includes details such as these without many layers of intended humor. It is possible that the carrying of coins in the mouth signifies a particularly cowardly sort of person, which would make the joke of falling prostrate in front of a kite all the more funny.

Hopefully, the above selections have given the reader a sense of both the diversity of perspectives and the variety of information which ancient literature adds to the study of the history of coinage. For a more complet discussion of coins in ancient literature, please see Leslie Kurke's Coins, Bodies, Games,and Gold (Princeton University Press, 1999).

WORKS CITED

Herodotus, The Histories, trans. Robin Waterfield (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998) 44

Aristotle, The Politics, trans. Stephen Everson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996) 22-23

Aristophanes, The Birds, trans. William Arrowsmith (New York: Meridian, 1961, 1994) 225