From Where did the Metal for Coins Come?

-Matthew Nisinson

Where did ancient societies get the metals for their coins? A number of different methods were used. Mining was of course the most important means of acquiring the materials for coins. However, not every city had access to mines. How then did the cities without ready access to mines acquire the metals they needed to make coins? We will look at a number of different examples of how cities got around a lack of mineral resources.

Athens was rich in silver from the beginning, having fairly sizable deposits in Laurium and access to other silver rich areas, which were productive for shorter periods of time (Thompson, New Style Silver Coinage of Athens p636). However, this was not the case throughout Greece. Crete, for example, coined in small amounts probably due to the need to import all of her silver. Margaret Thompson suggests that "Crete must have imported her silver; she may well have obtained some at least from Laurium (the Athenian silver mine). Her cities may have melted down old coins of foreign issue for these scanty Cretan strikings" (Thompson, New Style Silver Coinage of Athens p638). This presents one with yet another method of acquiring metal for coins, melting down foreign coins. This is undoubtedly not an easy way of striking coins but it explains how cities like Crete were able to mint coins even without a rich supply of silver. Even Athens did not always have enough silver. According to Thompson, in 132 B.C. Athens found itself in need of additional silver in order to mint enough coins (Thompson, New Style Silver Coinage of Athens p636). Thompson's theory, formed by examining the coin types of this time is that the silver came from Pontus. She believes this because one of the Athenian coin types featured the name of the King of Pontus and the Athenian Magistrate Aristion, who had also selected a drinking Pegasus (the symbol of the King of Pontus) as the type for a separate coin also minted around this time (Thompson, New Style Silver Coinage of Athens p422). The kingdom of Pontus was rich in silver, with its mountains, primarily the Paryadres, being a rich source of metals such as iron, copper and silver (Thompson, New Style Silver Coinage of Athens p636). This wealth is what would have enabled Pontus to supply Athens with the silver it needed to mint coins.

Many of the coins that survive to us today come from one city in the ancient world, Rome. Rome's earliest coinage was exclusively bronze. Because bronze was the metal they had in largest supply. According to A. W. Hands' translation of Francesco Gnecchi's Roman Coins: Elementary Manual gold was "unknown in Italy, moreover silver was a foreign import" (trans. Hands p46). It was not until around 310 B.C. that the first Roman silver money was introduced (class handout, The Adoption of Coins, p9). The earliest date known for gold coins in Rome is the year 217 B.C., however we also know that at the same time Rome's coins were predominantly bronze and that Rome used gold, mainly in the form of small bars for trade, and a good sized part of the Roman public treasury was kept in this medium (transl. Hands 75). This was because coins of one area were not as readily acceptable in other areas and therefore coining the gold would not have increased its value for purposes of foreign trade.

Military campaigns were a source of wealth for Rome, not only by bringing in loot and territory, but also through other methods. Roman soldiers on campaign had to be paid and on some occasions this pay was struck by the Roman commanders during the campaign (Thompson, New Style Silver Coinage of Athens p434). One example of the practice of striking coins to pay soldiers while on campaign comes from Sulla's campaign against Athens, from a hoard found in Italy, called the Abruzzi Hoard. This hoard may have belonged to a soldier who fought under Sulla, and it has a number of coins that serve as evidence for this assumption. It also shows that the soldiers may have been paid with whatever coins Sulla was able to acquire, though this could also be evidence of looting (Thompson, New Style Silver Coinage of Athens p434).

During the time of the Empire, Rome controlled more land and had increasing access to silver and gold bullion. As a result, Rome became responsible for supplying most of the territory under it with coins so that by the time of the empire it can be said with some degree of certainty that coins and the metals for coins were backed by Roman authority and supplied by Roman mints, most likely using metal from the nearest available source (Mattingly p182).
In southern Italy there were a good number of Greek colonies, enough that the area came to be known as Magna Graecia (greater Greece). The lot of these cities was closely tied with that of Rome, their most powerful neighbor, and eventually their ruler. One of the important things about these cities was that they possessed productive silver mines, enabling them to coin a good deal of silver and also providing Rome with a nearby source of silver, which Rome acquired through trade and conquest (Hands, Magna Graecia p157).

In classical antiquity, the cities with better access to metals coined more frequently and more easily. However a nation did not have to possess silver rich territory, like Athens, in order to mint coins. Rome flourished using bronze coins for quite some time, and Rhodes was able to acquire the silver needed for its few coins through trade. Coins could be acquired through mining, trade for bullion, melting down of foreign coins and conquest.

Bibliography

Hands, Revd. Alfred Watson. Coins of Magna Graecia. London: Spink & Son Ltd, 1909

Gnecchi, Franceso. Roman Coins: Elementary Manual. Trans. Revd. Alfred Watson Hands. London: Spink & Son Ltd, 1903.

Mattingly, Harold. Roman Coins: From the Earliest Times to the Fall of the Western Empire. London: Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1927.

Thompson, Margaret. New Style Silver Coinage of Athens. New York: The American Numismatic Society, 1961.