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By
ALFRED R. BELLINGER
NUMISMATIC STUDIES
No. ii
NEW YORK
1963
BY
NEW YORK
NUMISMATIC STUDIES
No. ii
CONTENTS
Preface v
Abbreviations vii
Bibliography 114
PREFACE
The study of Alexander's coinage has been pursued for a long time and has
of the study of Alexander and a part which omits or only slightly illumines the
most famous aspects of that famous man. Yet the coins have some things to
show which the texts pass over in silence and their evidence is as yet far from
exhausted. The prodigious number of coins still in existence which bear his
name and types has made it natural that a large part of the interest of those
who have dealt with them should be devoted to trying to determine where they
were struck and when. Much has been accomplished in this primary task of
arrangement but much is still to be done. And beyond this question is the more
fundamental one of what part the coinage played in the total functioning of
Alexander's empire. We need to know not only where the coins were struck and
when but by whose agency, in what quantity, with what purpose and to what
effect. These pages raise and discuss some facets of the problem. They are
essays only and far from a definitive treatment. In some cases they are pre-
and sometimes new evidence has accumulated during the time the book was
being composed. I must beg the reader's indulgence on the plea that what I am
trying to do is not to settle questions so much as to raise them in the hope that
they may ultimately be settled by the combined efforts of many with new
material at their command and with different points of view which may sup-
plement or invalidate my own. I have set down the phenomena that seemed
its imitations. If the essays should attract new students to the Alexandrine
coinage and somewhat advance the understanding of the experts they will,
The book has been a pleasure to write. It was begun and finished at the
Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, for me certainly the ideal place
for such a composition. The thought of my colleagues there and in the American
Numismatic Society will always color these essays with the happiest memories.
ABBREVIATIONS
BCH
BMC
Beloch
CAR
CIA
CIG
Cohen
Demetrius
Demanhur
ESM
Gaebler
HN
IG
JHS
JIAN
JRS
Kyparissia
MN
Myriandros
NC
NNM
NZ
Noe
OGIS
Olympia
REG
RN
RIC
Reattribution
SNG
Sicyon
Sylloge
Tarsos
Traite
WSM
ZfN
Antioch'.is III.
Inscriptiones Graecae.
Numismatic Chronicle.
Numismatische Zeitschrift.
Revue numismatique.
They are the king's money. Not in the way that the laws are the king's laws:
abstractions of which he is the responsible source with the same relations to all
men. Nor in the way that his sword and horse are the king's: by personal,
absolute right, capable of being modified only by himself through gift or loan.
Without the king's act, entirely without his knowledge, a man may acquire
title to coins exactly as he can to any other piece of property. Doubtless the
king could take them away from him, as he could take away his cattle or his
house or his wife. Legally a man's money is no more vulnerable than any of his
other possessions. There may have been a time when coins were the property
suggestion has been made that they were not originally intended for currency,
but for payment of the Lydian king's mercenaries and that circulation was an
by which the secondary function absorbed the primary one.3 It must have
been early, for the silver of the Greek cities was surely intended as currency
from the beginning. In any case, by Alexander's time all thought of personal
connection between the king and his money had long since been forgotten.
To one of his subjects the genitive on gold and silver must have meant that
the coins were struck by authority of the king, from his metal and that they
were the medium by which his government paid his obligations and received
his dues. They would be legal tender wherever his power extended, for both
Their bullion value was supposed to equal their nominal value: a silver
tetradrachm was taken to be four drachmae of silver. Yet, if that had been
1 The earliest issues have the name only without the title. At some mints, e.g., Sidon and Ake,
the title is not used at all. Its adoption is not simultaneous in the cities where it occurs and it
evidently has no constitutional significance, for sometimes an issue with the title will be succeeded
by one without (e.g., E. T. Newell, Myriandros-Alexandria Kat'isson, New York, 1920, p. 33,
nos. 21, 22). The order and placing of the words vary.
8 Scholars writing about currency will remember with pleasure the dictum of Aristotle that
the theory of finance is a liberal study but the practice is not. Politics I,4. 1. He had no doubt
that philosophers could be rich if they wanted to but "that is not what they are interested in."
1,4.5.
strictly true, the whole expense of manufacture would have been borne by the
king. Originally that may have been so. A man who was accustomed to receive
his pay in electrum by weight (and by metal content if that was determined)
would hardly be satisfied with a less amount simply because it bore a device
when there were still unmarked dumps in circulation of full weight. There must
have been some critical point at which the cost of manufacture was transferred
from the minting authority to the user and there is no way of telling when that
came, but it was before Alexander. His tetradrachms were in competition with
of the state. She certainly would not consciously lose by the process, and the
simplest way to break even was to reduce the weight of each coin a little so
that the part subtracted should be metal equal to the cost of manufacture.
That is presumably what Athens did and what Alexander did also.4 How much
the deduction was we do not know. The tetradrachm was supposed to weigh
17.62 grams.5 Four drachmae of silver must have weighed somewhat more,
but while the coins themselves conform to standard very well, such other
weights as are preserved are not nearly so uniform, so that the attempt to find
No doubt it was all governed by law and the difference a matter of record. We
know, from a much later period, what precautions the Athenians] took to keep
their weights and standards true; we know also that they were perfectly
acquainted with a coin weight which was different from the commercial
4 The term "seigniorage" is an anachronism, but we are driven to employ it because we do not
know what word the Greeks used. The amount of seigniorage in mediaeval and modem times
might be enough not only to cover costs but to provide a revenue for the sovereign (the Bureau of
the Mint of the United States is reported to have made a profit of over $45,000,000 in 1957). But
that is under conditions where the coinage does not have to compete with others whose bullion
content is higher. Leaving out of consideration all other Greek coinages, Athens and Alexander
were alike in the intention that their coins should be accepted widely and if they were to invade
territory accustomed to an economy of barter it must be because their bullion value was only
slightly lower than their face value. Athens presents the conditions where it would be easiest to
calculate the expense of striking, and where that expense would be least: invariable types and
the use of each die until it was worn out. The Alexander coinage was almost as simple: the types
were invariable but the varying symbols on the reverse meant that occasionally, at the end of an
official's term, there may have been reverse dies which were not worn out but which must be
5 A. S. Hemmy, "The Weight-standards of Ancient Greece and Persia," Iraq 1938, pp. 65-81,
gives a statistical analysis of a number of series and calculates standards of which the following
are of importance to us: Persian daric 8.43 grams, siglos 8.52 grams or 8.26 grams (two standards);
Philip gold stater 8.68 grams, tetradrachm 14.70 grams; Alexander stater 8.66 grams, tetradrachm
17.62 grams.
weight.6 If the Macedonian citizens were aware that the government was
issuing coins of less than full weight they probably cared very little. The
conveniences of a money economy were worth much more than the amount
involved.
The king's money was struck in three metals and in a variety of denomin-
Gold Stater
Rev. Winged Nike standing left, holding wreath in right hand, stylis in
left PLATE I, 5
Silver Tetradrachm
Rev. Zeus seated left on throne, eagle on outstretched right hand, with
Bronze Unit
All these normally bear symbols on the reverse which distinguish the mints
The types of the gold have occasioned much comment. They are new to the
details. Percy Gardner represented this point of view:7 the types of Philip's
of other scholars, however, has not been so easily satisfied, and a considerable
literature has grown up about the identification of Pallas and Nike. In 1847
1st century B.C. August Boeckh has an elaborate commentary on this in Staatshaushaltung der
Athener, 3rd ed., pp. 318-332, which was accepted by all subsequent writers until Louis Robert,
tudes de Numismatique grecque, Paris, 1951, pp. 105-135, proved that lTE9avT|96pou Spaxucrf
which had caused much learned discussion were coins of the Athenian New Style. It was un-
fortunately not part of Robert's plan to deal with the arithmetical aspects of the inscription which
make nonsense as it appears in IG. (Indeed, he added a small item of confusion by printing SKOT&V
"Der athenische VolksbeschluB iiber MaB und Gewicht," Hermes 1916, pp. 121-144, has taken
heroic means to make sense, inserting two lines which we must assume the Abbe Fourmont missed
in making the copy which is now our only witness to the text.
Charles Lenormant8 deduced from comparison of the staters with the heads
of Athena on vases and the later bronze coins of Athens that the goddess was
Athena Promachus, Pheidias' heroic bronze statue which stood on the Acropolis
Ernest Babelon10 was quite willing to accept this and Charles Seltman11
is hardly safe,13 but the other suggestions that have been made are not persua-
sive.
original the ancient Palladium of Pella. This is met by Lederer16 with the
objection that Alexander's coins had and were intended to have an ecumenical
importance and an obscure local deity would not suit his purpose at all.17 It
may be added that when Pallas appears on the obverse of Pella's own coins18 it
is in the form of Athena Parthenus in obvious imitation of the New Style silver
of Athens.19
8 "Lettre a M. J. de Witte sur trois nouvaux Vases historiques," Annali dell' Institute
I. 28.2.
18 Gisela Richter, The Sculpture and Sculptors of the Greeks, New Haven, 1930. It is true that
Behrendt Pick, in discussing much later representations of a bust of Athena ("Die 'Promachos' des
Athenische Abteilung 1931, pp. 9-74) says (p. 61) "One can think of no original for a head in
Corinthian helmet at Athens except the Promachos"; but to appeal to this for support of the
identification involves a petitio principii: what proves that the original of Alexander's Pallas was
at Athens?
14 NZ 1871, pp. 52 f.
17 This is not to deny that the type might have had local significance in various places, but
18 Hugo Gaebler, Die antiken Munzen von Makedonia und Paionia, II, Berlin, 1935, PI. XVIII,
26; XIX, 4.
19 There is a fighting Athena on the reverse of a late bronze of Pella which is one example of
a type introduced by Seleucus I. How insecure is the ground for identifying this as Athena Alkis
or Alkidemos is made clear by Leon Lacroix, Les Reproductions de Statues sur les Monnaies grec-
lieved that the type was Pallas "des monnaies de Corinthe"20 in which he was
ne" may have resulted from a decision of the Council of Corinth and who could
not believe that relations between Athens and Alexander were such as to make
his borrowing a device from her possible. This is a good example of an attempt
come to be accepted as a fact. But here there is evidence, and one only has to
compare the heads of Athena on the coins of Corinth (PLATE II, 1) and of
Alexander to see instantly that it is impossible that the latter should be derived
from the former. If Alexander's goddess had been supposed to be the same
person as that on the Corinthian silver she would have been made to look the
same. What other way would there have been for men to recognize her?
is Athena of Ilium and that it was not until after his visit to Ilium that Alex-
ander began to strike his own types on gold.23 Kleiner's work is a connected
grounds, his suggestion is a weak one. Athena Ilias, as she is known to us from
many coins (PLATE II, 2,3), was a deity of very special appearance: she wore a
polos, over her shoulder she held a filleted spear, and in her other hand was a
distaff; that is, she was an Anatolian deity with more oriental than Greek
features. If Alexander had had her in mind he could have produced a head
with a polos. Now it is true, as Kleiner says, that on later coins of Ilium the
head of Athena has other forms, one of which is like that on the staters. But
the first coins have on the reverse the cult statue of Athena Ilias; on the
obverse a head of Athena with a round Attic helmet (PLATE II, 3). These were
issued under Lysimachus; the head in Corinthian helmet comes later under
Seleucus I, again with Athena Ilias as a reverse type. To assume that there
gratuitous; there were two forms of Athena known earlier on the coins and one
of them is clearly named Athena Ilias on the 2nd century silver24 (PLATE II, 2).
20 "Le Stylis, Attribut naval sur les Monnaies," Melanges numismatiques, 4, Paris, 1912, p. 213.
23 This theory had already been advanced by Esprit Marie Cousinery, Voyage dans la Mace-
A user who knew both Athena Promachus and Athena Ilias must conclude
that Alexander's type referred to the former and not to the latter.25 An Athenian
model for the obverse of the gold is therefore still the most likely.26
The reverse is quite as worthy of remark. Nike has a long and interesting
career on ancient coins, but none of her previous appearances has any connec-
tion with Macedonia. This in itself raises no difficulty, and when the object in
Nike's left hand was thought to be the frame for the erection of a trophy, it
entitled if any man ever was. But it was early noticed that the object assumed
a great variety of forms and Babelon presently showed that it was, in fact,
on the stern of a Greek ship. The naval significance was accepted by Ernst
Assmann28 who asserted however that what was represented was actually a
Phoenician standard, borne on the admiral's ship. Some part of his argument
was met by G. F. Hill in the same number of the Zeitschrift fur Numismatikw
25 Indeed, Kleiner in a later passage (pp. 31 f.) seems to me to compromise his position
strangely: Harpalus the treasurer must have been influential in the choice of types; Harpalus
may have become acquainted with Athens on his first mysterious flight to Megara in 333 and he
was inclined to benevolence toward Athens by the celebrated Athenian hetairai Pythionike and
Glykera; he was therefore probably responsible for the Athenian character of the gold types.
"Durch Harpalos wird es auch am ehesten moglich, die Goldstatere mit Athen in Zusammenhang
26 There is an interesting detail of the obverse type. The bowl of the helmet of Athena, when
it is decorated, may carry one of four different kinds of ornament which have been discussed by
G. F. Hill ("Alexander the Great and the Persian Lion-Gryphon," JHS 1923, pp. 156-161). The
first, and much the commonest, is a serpent in which Lederer saw a symbol of Athena (ZfN 1922,
p. 195). The second is a remarkable animal with straight wings, the body of a lion and the head
of a bird. This type of gryphon belongs to the period after Alexander's death and to Asia Minor,
Phoenicia and Babylon. A rarer variant has the head of a lion, which is sometimes horned, with
curved wings. "The lion-gryphon" says Hill, "was conceived by the Greek as the enemy par
excellence of the Persian." It appears at Ace-Ptolemais and Tarsus, at Sidon (or perhaps Damascus)
and possibly in Cyprus, and its dates suggest that it may have been used for a short time as a
symbol of the destruction of the Persian power. The rarest ornament is a Greek sphinx, used at
Babylon and perhaps elsewhere in the East. If it is symbolic its significance is now lost.
Professor Machteld Mellink of Bryn Mawr whose attention I called to this material points
out that the horned lion-headed griffin occurs by itself in contexts where it is surely apotropaic
and so can hardly be called "the enemy par excellence of the Persians." At the same time it ap-
pears to be unknown outside Persian art so that on Alexander's coins it shows familiarity with
a Persian art form. Of the other animals, all traditional as decorations on Athena's helmet, the
most striking thing is the galloping pose of the bird-headed griffin. But there is no sure explanation
and Babelon also answered him in a discussion much extended from his first
essay30 which proved that the object was not purely Phoenician. Its function,
however, was hardly adequately treated until 1914 when Jean Svoronos31
argued with a wealth of illustration that the stylis was an image of the protect-
advanced in the future, one thing is clear: what Nike holds in her left hand
has a naval significance. That does raise a difficulty, for it is well known that,
at his accession, Alexander had no fleet and therefore no reason to select a type
There are three ways in which this dilemma is met: 1) by assuming that
did not strike this gold at the beginning of his career but at a later time when
it would have been appropriate; 3) by assuming that the stylis was part of the
original on which Alexander's type was based and that he copied it as it was
1) Is by its nature incapable of proof, but certainly not very likely unless
at the beginning of his career he expected to have the help of some other naval
power. We do not know of any plans of his looking to control of the sea.
2) Has been argued more than once. Its acceptance means either that
Alexander struck no gold in the first years of his reign or that he continued to
issue the types of his father (PLATE I,1-3). There is, I think, no defender of
the first alternative now, for it is clear that Alexander cannot have conquered
Asia Minor without money, and the mines of Macedonia were still providing
gold. We may assume that the second alternative is the only one which needs
That is Assmann's theory in the article referred to: in 332 Alexander found
himself in the position of the Phoenician admiral and could adopt his insignia.
332 there had been no sea battles (for the capture of Tyre can hardly be con-
sidered such) whereas the army of the Great King had been defeated at Issus
and one would be inclined to expect that the real victory would be commemo-
rated on any device adopted then rather than a strategic situation which was
Assman is not the first to have put forward the theory that Alexander's
coinage does not begin at the beginning of his reign. It appears as early as
but it advances the doctrine which has had fuller and abler treatment since:
that the first coins struck by Alexander were not those with his own types but
refuser a croire qu'en entrant dans 1'Asie, il ne soit borne a mettre en emission
la monnaie de son pere dans les trois metaux" (pp. 230f.). This is rejected by
earlier and less important treatment, though this will make it necessary to
presente rien d'ideal" he says (p. 236); he finds complete uniformity not only
on the coins struck during Alexander's lifetime but also with the head in
elephant-skin headdress issued by Ptolemy (PLATE II, 4) and that with the
horns of Ammon issued by Lysimachus (PLATE II, 5), which he rightly recogni-
zes as likenesses not of the kings who minted them but of their deified leader.
Of these he gives engravings, but none of the Alexander types to let the reader
judge whether they are of invariable style. He does, indeed, remark that
the flans of the coins of Macedonia after its division by the Romans are
thinner and broader, but there is no indication that he used this or any other
he found the same face on the earliest Macedonian silver and on the spread-flan
tetradrachms which succeeded the collapse of the Seleucid power. His second
conviction is the surprising one that it was the Greek cities, grateful for their
deliverance from the Persians, which selected the types and manufactured the
coins. A modern numismatist would hardly feel called on to refute this but, of
course, if it were true it would mean that the silver types could not have begun
until the cities had been freed. The gold, as already remarked, he thinks was
the conqueror; the Nike of the reverse appears to be no problem to the author.
After the Granicus Alexander could use Persian gold and silver, but he
continued to issue his father's types "soit par respect pour sa memoire, soit a
cause du credit que ces monnaies avaient acquis partout ou le nom de Philippe
etait parvenu. Ce que nous le prouve c'est la grande quantite de ces pieces
qu'on ne cesse de decouvrir dans toute 1'Asie" (p. 231). This last remark is the
between the gold and silver. The gold of Philip achieved a great success as an
international medium and its popularity was such that it certainly was issued
which they occur. There are 19 such hoards listed by Noe:34 they come from
Bulgaria, Romania, Greece, Asia Minor, Cyprus, Syria, Egypt, Italy and
Sicily.35 Philip's silver, on the other hand, had a more restricted territory.
Among the barbarians of the north it was well received, so that from the mint
of Amphipolis these types also were issued posthumously.36 The great number
testimony to the success of the originals in that direction. But if the crossing to
Asia and the early campaigns there were financed with Philip's silver as well as
his gold, which is essential to Cousinery's theory, the hoards containing his
silver should be conspicuous in Asia Minor. There are 24 such hoards, and they
come from Bulgaria, Romania, Greece and Sicily.37 It cannot be said that there
is any lack of evidence from the territory with which we are concerned. From
Asia Minor, the adjacent islands, and north Syria Noe's list has 140 hoards,
and of these there are no less than 17 which contain silver of Alexander.38 And
not one silver coin of Philip! This is surely enough to justify us in asking "If
Kleiner deals with Alexander's coinage as a whole, which nobody had done
since Miiller. He has a familiarity with the literary sources which numismatists
in general would do very well to match. He has supported his thesis with great
also numismatists should be better acquainted than they are. It is quite im-
possible to do justice to the work in any resume since it is a large body of related
details but, though I feel called upon to disagree with him, I should like to do
inaugurated at the festival at Tyre in the spring of 331 after Alexander's return
33 Margaret Thompson and A. R. Bellinger, "A Hoard of Alexander Drachms," Yak Classical
Studies, XIV, 1955, pp. 3-45, the conspectus of the Alexander mints of Lampsakos, Abydos,
Teos, Kolophon, Magnesia and Sardis (pp. 13, 16, 18, 20, 23, 27).
34 Sydney P. Noe, A Bibliography of Greek Coin Hoards, 2nd ed. (NNM 78), New York, 1937.
36 Bulgaria, 526, 980; Romania, 46, 624; Greece, 267, 339, 455; Asia Minor 637, 841; Cyprus,
600; Syria, 133, 882; Egypt, 89, 322, 430; Italy, 1045; Sicily, 170, 1093, 1098.
37 Bulgaria, 38,192, 446, 447, 481, 526, 866, 980; Romania, 286; Greece, 49, 69, 339, 461, 466,
533. 592. 595, 669, 783, 834, 844; Sicily, 21, 170, 1164.
38 20, 29, 30, 31, 40, 51, 67, 79, 82, 475, 488, 603, 846, 925, 926, 991, 1033.
return from his flight to Megara, was reinstated as treasurer. It is, of course, an
attractive idea that so large and important a system should have been planned
in advance and put into operation all at once, and the second visit to Tyre
does not rely on this appropriateness alone. Like others, he maintains the im-
(pp. 12, 20, 21); he denies that Pallas is a probable deity for him to have
honored in the earliest years of his reign, before his visit to Troy (pp. 18, 19);
celebrate the freeing of the Greeks, gold pieces were struck with the portrait
of Flamininus on the obverse, and on the reverse, with the inscription T. QVINCTI,
an imitation of Alexander's Nike with a palm substituted for the stylis (PLATE
as an equivalent for Alexander the Liberator. But he believes that if this type
had been employed by Alexander at the beginning of his reign it would have
if it had been introduced after his freeing of the Greek cities of Asia Minor
have contrary evidence in three places. The first is the absence of Philip's
silver in hoards from Asia Minor, already discussed in connection with Cou-
sinery. The other two are alike. In discussing the Alexander coinage of Tarsus42
and Myriandrus43 Newell shows how directly it was based on the coinage of the
Persian satrap Mazaeus which preceded it. Now Alexander entered Tarsus
September 3, 333 and won the battle of Issus November 12 of the same year.44
If coins were issued from those mints as soon after falling into Alexander's
hands as dies could be cut, obviously the theory that the first appearance of his
39 Arrian III, 6.
40 Gaebler, Die antiken Miinzen von Makedonia und Paionia, II, PI. XXXVI, 17, 18.
41 There is a parallel argument affecting the use of his silver types by Greek cities celebrating
42 Tarsos under Alexander, New York, 1919. The point had been made long before by J. P.
Six, "Le Satrap Mazaios," NC 1884, pp. 97-159. P. 101, "les premieres monnaies d'Alexandre,
frappees en Asie, font immediatement suite a celles de Mazaios;" p. 102, "La done ou finissent les
44 Marcel Dieulafoy, "La Bataille d'lssus, analyse critique d'un travail manuscrit du Com-
types was in the spring of 331 must be abandoned. Newell does not undertake
to prove that the Greek coins follow the Persian ones immediately, though he
certainly believed it.45 But there are only two other possibilities: either the
mints were idle from 333 to 331 or, conformable to Kleiner's general theory,
there were intervening issues bearing Philip's types. In the first case, some
Unless or until these conditions are met, Newell's hypothesis holds the field.46
in Newell's study of the Demanhur Hoard.47 They extend from "circa 336 B.C.
to circa 318 B.C.," the latter being the date of the hoard's burial (p. 135); they
are put in groups A to K. This arrangement the author justifies on pp. 68f.:
"The dates here assigned the various groups of the Amphipolis coinage are,
perhaps, to a certain extent approximate. But even so, they cannot be in error
by much more than a year either way." He points out that important con-
firmation for the dating of the earlier groups comes from a hoard buried at
Kyparissia in 328 or 327.48 Kleiner's theory, which does not affect the date of
five years, reducing the groups from eleven to six. How is it to be done? It may
had, and in important respects.49 There has been much new information made
45 Tarsos, p. 15 "it is interesting to note in how many instances the customs and peculiarities
of a local coinage will reappear on the succeeding issues of Alexander for the same district. This
shows clearly how the personnel, appliances and traditions of a mint were all retained for the
production of the new coin. The coinage of Tarsos is no exception to this rule and the issues bearing
the name and types of Alexander the Great are seen to be the direct successors of the local coins
of the Persian Satraps." Myriandros, p. 31, "This fact immediately suggests that the following
group of Alexander coins, very similar in style and character to his Tarsian issues, was really
struck at Myriandros in immediate succession to the Persic issues of Mazaios emanating from the
46 Reattribution, pp. 27-30. The problem of Sidon and Ake (Newell, The Dated Alexander
Coinage of Sidon and Ake, New Haven, 1916) Kleiner has met by revising Newell's dating (pp.
24-29) which I need not discuss. If the principle is established by Tarsus it is superfluous to argue
other instances, such as Kition and Salamis in Cyprus whose coinage Newell would begin "circa
332" ("Some Cypriote 'Alexanders'" NC 1915, pp. 294-322). But in the case of Sidon Kleiner's
revised date is made impossible by the existence of a Ptolemaic tetradrachm of the year 22 which
cannot have been struck in 311/10 as Kleiner's calculation would make it. (Bellinger "An Alex-
ander Hoard from Byblos" Berytus 1950-1, no. 140; G. K. Jenkins "An Early Ptolemaic Hoard
47 Alexander Hoards II. Demanhur, 1905 (NNM 19), New York, 1923.
48 E. T. Newell, Alexander Hoards I (NNM 3), New York, 1921, pp. 18, 19.
49 In his earlier work, Reattribution, he identified the chief mint as Pella instead of Amphipolis,
concluded that the date of burial was 308 instead of 318, dated the first appearance of "Basileus"
available since his second study and that needs to be worked through; a
particular need is the systematic treatment of the issues of Philip II. But it is
study and unless or until a better arrangement is proposed, we are not justified
Finally, I cannot see that Kleiner has done justice to the evidence of style.
The difference between the earliest Heracles heads from the different mints is
3) Such being the weaknesses of our second possibility, we are left with our
third: namely, that Alexander's Nike is copied from one with which the stylis
that Pallas on the obverse was Athena Promachus, but Babelon made the
suggestion very specific by pointing out51 that Nike with a stylis upon a
he concluded that the two Nikai were related documents of a time of cordiality
between the monarch and the city. Hill defended him against Assmann on
matters of fact, but was not convinced by the suggestion that Alexander had
could not believe that at this time Alexander would have had any reason to
the other way around and that the Nike on the Panathenaic vase was copied
from "les types dsormais historiques des stateres qu' Alexandre venait de
f rapper des son ret our en Macedoine."53 This was dismissed by Lederer as im-
possible because there was not enough time for the coins to have been struck
and become so well known as to invite imitation in the year 336/5 after Alex-
ander's return from the Congress of Corinth.54 On the other hand, he produced
which the type of Nike was accompanied by Nike also as a symbol bearing an
aphlaston and an obscure object which he thought might be a stylis. This un-
precedented use of the same figures as both major and minor device he regarded
50 The arguments used are based rather on the silver coins than on the gold. The date of the
earliest gold at Tarsus is not particularly investigated; it is assumed to begin in 333 (Tarsos,
pp. 22,26), but in the case of Amphipolis there is gold directly connected with the silver series: e.g.,
Miiller 104f. with Demanhur 327-331 (331 B.C.) and Miiller 192f. with Demanhur 254-265 (333/2
B.C.).
issues; Lederer believed that it was the very first die cut for the new king's
gold (and possibly cut in Athens itself). Moreover, he made more specific an
idea that had already been advanced by Babelon. Golden Nikai had been
dedicated in Athens in the latter half of the 5th century, but in the critical days
of 407/6 they had, with one exception, been melted down into money. One was
restored in 374/3 B.C.,55 others by Lycurgus in the late 4th century. In this case
Plutarchian Lives of the Ten Orators (841 D and 852 B) and Pausanias I, 29 both
record the fact that Lycurgus, who was notable for the extent to which he
restored her ancient riches to Athens, had presented to the goddess on the
Acropolis, among other things, golden Nikai. Two inscriptions, IG2 II, 333 and
1493 testify to that fact. Now when the gift was dated in 336, as understood by
possibility, and Lederer (p. 202) definitely holds the coin to be inspired by
those restored statues. One item that makes this attractive is the fact that
the figure is not at all what we should expect from the 4th century, whereas it
nately for the theory in this form, the two inscriptions are now dated 334/3.57
have only to read the speeches of the later Attic orators to find that not all
Athenians were his enemies; doubtless he had more friends than we know, and
perhaps he thought he had more friends than he did. It is obvious that the only
Alexander and Athens in 336.59 If that can be accepted, all difficulties are met.
But we should have the candor to admit that the choice would not have been
As to the obverse type of the silver, we are met with a different kind of
question. The head of young Heracles with a lion's skin covering had ample
65 Dorothy Burr Thompson, "The Golden Nikai Reconsidered," Hesperia 1944, pp. 173-209.
68 "A Golden Nike from the Athenian Agora," Athenian Studies presented to William Scott
59 It might be asked, if relations later deteriorated, why was not the type changed? But this
admits of an easy answer. It is obvious that what Alexander wanted for his new currency was
stability. No event and no sentiment was allowed to affect his types once they had been chosen.
It is possible that there was, in his lifetime, variety in the appearance of the minor denominations,
but there was none in the coins that did the main fiscal work of the empire.
Amyntas III, 389-383, 381-369, Perdiccas III, 364-359 and Philip II, 359-336.60
The legend of the descent of the Macedonian kings from Heracles, whenever
it was invented, had been very useful to their claim to admission among the
first families of the Hellenic world and no reason beyond tradition was needed
for the adoption of the hero's portrait as a device. Kleiner, whose theory re-
quires that the silver as well as the gold should have been inaugurated in 331,
argues that Alexander's interest in Heracles was not conspicuous until the
episode of Tyre, after which his heroic ancestor assumes great importance in
his life,61 but the conclusion is open to the same objections that have already
been discussed in regard to the gold. The simplest explanation is that the new
It is natural that the question should have been repeatedly asked: "is the
Heracles head a portrait of Alexander himself ?" There are really two independ-
effect on the general public, most of whom would not have seen the king at
close enough range to judge) ? Was it the general persuasion that the head was
a likeness of the king (which might be true without any such intent on the part
of the die-engravers)? We have sundry bits of evidence that the second was
obverse has the familiar head in lion's skin with the inscription AAEEANAPOY
TOY (DiAirmOY (PLATE II, y).62 Here Heracles is altogether ignored and the
(to judge by their style and fabric) on the obverse of which there is a Heracles
60 Gaebler, op. cit., Archelaos, hemiobols p. 156, 9, 10, PI. XXIX, 18, 19; Amyntas, hemi-
drachm, p. 159, 3, PI. XXX, 1, bronze, p. 160, 7-11, PI. XXX, 7, 9 (cf. the contemporary bronze
of Pydna, PL XX, 30); Perdiccas, didrachm, p. 161, r, PI. XXX, 14, bronze, pp. 161f., 2-5,
PI. XXX, 15-17; Philip, gold, half stater-eighth stater pp. 163f., 9-16, PI. XXX, 28, didrachm,
p. 166, 26, PI. XXXI, 1, octobol, p. 166, 27, bronze, p. 168, 37-39, 41, PI. XXXI, 10, 14-16, with
61 Op. cit., pp. 11, 12. It should be remarked that his argument relies heavily on the non-
appearance of Heracles in the record of the early years, but surely, considering the nature of the
literary sources, the argumentum ex silentio is very risky. Also, some weight should be given to the
62 Margarete Bieber, "The Portraits of Alexander the Great," Proceedings of the American
head in lion's skin which, considering the town, must be understood as a picture
of Alexander.63
3) A great many bronze coins were issued in Macedonia in the 3rd century
A.D. with the head of Alexander on the obverse identified by the inscription
AAEEANAPOY (PLATE II, 8).M The most favored portrait seems to be one with
but there also appears the head in lion's skin headdress,65 which shows that
of Apollonia.66
slew the Nemean lion, he reports that instead of taenia or crown or royal purple,
they crowned themselves with the skin of a lion's head which they prized more
be seen in the loth century and at so late a date the answer to the second
question is still that the head was commonly supposed to be that of Alexander,
and surely it is not very daring to guess that the same answer would be right
for a much earlier period, even the period of Alexander's own lifetime. But for
The first question may be debated and has been. It is unnecessary to refer
to all the writers who have had their say, since some have nothing new to offer.
A few believed that the head is always intended to be Alexander. We have seen
that this is the position taken, for different reasons by Cousinery and by
64 Gaebler, op. cit., Erste Abteiling., pp. 94-191. The illustrations of this part of the work are
67 Book II, Theme 2. The passage is quoted by the older numismatists, e.g., Joseph Eckhel
68 In 1959 there appeared an article by Kurt Lange, "Zur Frage des Bildnis gehaltes bei
Kopfen auf Miinzen Philips II und Alexanders III, des GroBen, von Makedonien," (Wissenschaft-
liche Abhandlungen des deutschen Numismatikertages inGottingen, 1951, Gottingen, 1959, pp. 27-33)
which accepted Kleiner's theories and sometimes exaggerated them. Lange believes that the
Heracles head was a portrait and was recognized as such, at the time as well as later, but he will
not say that every tetradrachm bears a true portrait, and the numismatic part of his article is
could not be presented so as to convince the eye; nor, indeed, were their own
convictions based on wide and intimate visual acquaintance with the material.
Others have held that the head was never intended as a portrait. Such is
He might have added the passage from Pliny the Elder (H. N. VII. 37. 125):
Idem hie imperator edixit ne quis ipsum alius quam Apelles pingeret, quam
Pyrgoteles scalperet, quam Lysippus ex acre duceret; and the later passage
carving in emerald.70 Even so fortified the argument does not amount to much.
The meaning of the edict (whatever form it took) must have been that the king
was not going to sit for his portrait to any artists except those three. He cannot
have hoped, or desired, to prevent the making of copies and copies of copies
by any who felt so inclined. Indeed we have ancient references to other por-
Most of the discussions have been, of course, parts of more general inquiries
into the portraits of Alexander in all media, but whether other kinds are included
or not, the scholars have taken one of two positions, either denying that there
were any numismatic portraits of Alexander during his lifetime, or admitting that
certain coins might be so considered. The former view has the weighty author-
70 Eckhel does refer to Apuleius, Florida, I. 7. 2, who carelessly repeats Pliny but substitutes
Polycleitus for Lysippus. The weakness of the whole tradition is well exposed by Alfred Emerson,
"The Portraiture of Alexander the Great; a Terracotta Head in Munich," A]A 1886, pp. 408-413,
1887, pp. 234-260. Nevertheless, J. J. Bernoulli (Die erhaltenen Darstdlungen Alexanders des
Grofien, Munich, 1905, p. 28) does not hesitate to subscribe to the theory that the Alexander head
on Lysimachus' coins goes back to an original of Pyrgoteles. I can see no reason for this but
sentiment.
72 Portraitkopfe auf antiken Miinzen hellenischer und hettenisierter Volker, Leipzig, 1885, p. 14.
His opinion cannot be taken as proof. In the same place he asserts that the title BAIIAEQI is
almost without exception posthumous, but this is certainly untrue; the instance cited in n. 1
73 St^ien fiber das Bildnis Alexanders des Grofien, Leipzig, 1903, p. 166, "Alexander hat nie
mit seinem Bilde gepragt, sowenig wie sein Vater Philip." So also Hansjorg Bloesch "Personlich-
keit und Individuality auf antiken Miinzen," Winterthurer Jahrbuch 1960, p. 62.
According to them portraiture was an invention of the Hellenistic age, and the
Both authors look to the issues of Lysimachus (PLATE II, 5) and Ptolemy
(PLATE II, 4) for real evidence as to the appearance of the king their master.
But other scholars are not able to dismiss the differences so lightly and
maintain, with greater or less conviction, that here and there Alexander's own
face does appear under the lion's skin. It is noticeable that the numismatists
are mostly very cautions and show no disposition to cite specific examples.
Muller who, in his time, had studied a much larger body of material than anyone
else, lays down the general principle that the earliest Heracles heads of the
reign are like their predecessors on the coins of previous kings, but that some-
times later, and commonly after 323 a likeness appears, not as a result of any
command of the king but at the choice of the several magistrates or of the
we grant that this is so, the very circumstance that portraiture was introduced
in covert fashion, lurking under the shelter of religion, is highly significant." And
says only, "The silver coins invariably bear the head of the youthful Heracles
ander himself."
There are those, however, who are willing to be more specific. E. Q. Vis-
Ake. G. F. Hill, more daring than his fellow numismatists, publishes "a head
of young Heracles r., with features resembling Alexander's."78 The coin is from
Amathus in Cyprus.
Using Newell's plates as a basis, Kurt Gebauer has a full and careful stylistic
74 Numismatique d'Alexandre le Grand, pp. 12-15. It is strange to have Muller repeating the
tradition of the three approved artists as the reason why the making of his portrait on coins
77 Iconographie grecque, Paris, 1811, Vol. II, Chap. II "Rois de Macedoine," 1 "Alexandra le
78 Historical Greek Coins, London, 1910, p. 103, no. 59, PI. VII (an enlargement of the
obverse is on PI. IX of Select Greek Coins). The mint is not identified by Hill; Newell was at first
uncertain of it (Reattribution, p. 54, no. 258, PI. 30. n) but later assigned it to Amathus "after
typus."79He argues that the first pieces from the mint of Amphipolis (PLATE I,
u) and, to a lesser extent, the first from other mints, show a head which is
perfectly characteristic of the mid-fourth century. Within the next half decade
mints never recover but those of Asia, farther from the artistic dominance of
the homeland, and inheriting the traditions of local schools of art, produce
essentially new portraits. From Sidon in 327 comes a die which he recognizes
as the first true likeness of Alexander on a coin (PLATE II, g), the effect of the
exciting news of his invasion of India upon the imagination of a gifted engraver.
the individual portrait too loses something of its original freshness. Another
essay in portraiture comes from Babylon in 316 (PLATE II, 10), this time
local streams finally merging in the full tide of Hellenistic art. The portraits
which appear on the first silver of Ptolemy and on both silver and gold of
The article has excellent, clear and well-chosen illustrations. Its tone is
logical and temperate and the case it makes is certainly a respectable one. Of
course, the language of aesthetic criticism is hard. There is so much that the
eye perceives that cannot be put into adequate words. And there are so many
times when two beholders will perceive different things as to matters of ex-
pression and emotion. The difficulties are increased when the argument is not
about single substantative works of art but, as here, about items selected as
examples from a large group which has its inner differences as well as its com-
mon characteristics. Perhaps another scholar, working with the same material,
might modify the course of this study and its conclusions. But it does seem to
will be seen that it altogether rejects the idea that the broadcasting of his
portrait was part of Alexander's original plan, or, indeed, that he had any-
had been part of the plan for the imperial coinagethat Alexander had anti-
cipated Ptolemy and Seleucus and Demetrius Poliorcetes in making use of his
money to spread his fame. It has been suggested that he himself had been
anticipated by his father and that the bearded head on Philip's silver was
pp. 1-106.
intended at once for Zeus and for the king.80 But in this case we have no reliable
portraits of Philip preserved for comparison and the unproven possibility can-
Great" leads to a similar result. As none of her predecessors had done, she
of Alexander portraits preserved for us have been created." Her only addition
of another coin of Sidon of about 320 B.C. (PLATE II, 11).81 She would apparently
not object to his theory that the first coin portrait came in 327, though she
does not mention it. But none of her pictures which may derive from originals
earlier than that time has any relation to the head on the first coins from
Amphipolis, Tarsos and Sidon, and of these the series from Amphipolis is surely
Both of these studies assume, as do Miiller and Hill, that the appearance
Sicyon (PLATE II, I2)83 which "shows Alexander's likeness in the traditional
80 Kleiner, op. cit., pp. 39f., notes 12-14, nas a most interesting collection of material about
the portrait of Philip and his assimilation to Zeus. Lange, op. cit., is sure that both the bearded
rider on Philip's reverse and the Zeus head on his obverse are pictures of the king. But his
81 She cites and copies as her fig. 33 Gebauer's PL 3. 17, the coin from Babylon. But she
describes it as "Lifetime, about 324 B.C." I cannot understand why. It is dated, as Gebauer says,
to about 316 by Newell (Alexander Hoards III Andritsaena, New York, 1923, p. 20) and that
83 It is the first tetradrachm according to The Alexander Coinage of Sicyon arranged from Notes
of Edward T. Newell with Comments and Additions by Sydney P. Noe, New York, 1950, p. 12, no.
3, 1. It is instructive for anyone having to work from printed illustrations to compare the life-size
collotype of the coin on Noe's PI. I with the enlargement of the same coin which is Sjoqvist's fig. 2,
to see the effect of difference in lighting. Sjoqvist dates it without argument to 330 B.C. This
simply follows Noe's dating of "330/25 to c. 318 B.C." and that, in turn is based on Newell's
remark (Alexander Hoards: Introduction and Kyparissia Hoard, p. 14) "about 330 B.C.and
certainly by 325 B.C.a large issue of staters and tetradrachms bearing Alexander's types was
instituted at Sicyon." But, in discussing another piece in Group I (Demanhur PI. IV, 1 = Noe 13,
1b) Gebauer, pp.6, 7, says "Es hat mit den Munzen von Amphipolis und Pella eine gewisse
Verhaltenheit und Selbstverstandlichkeit des Ausdruck gemeinsam, der sie gegeniiber asiatischen
Alexander during his own lifetime."It marks," he says, "the first decisive
step in the evolution of an iconography that was totally new to Greek art:
specific traits which make this seem to be an actual individual and not a mere
traditional convention, and he believes that the original is the official portrait
program the result ought to be that from this time on the coins show with
by the various scholars raises a certain uneasiness in the mind of the beholder
and a feeling that we need much more material than even Gebauer has pro-
vided.
There is a certain deceptive pattern in the situation. On the one hand there
are the coins earlier than Alexander with a beardless head of Heracles. These
that they should be portraits of the various rulers who struck them.84 They
must be Heracles alone. On the other hand there are the heads generally agreed
Between are the issues of Alexander himself which should be related to one
extreme or the other. But it is not quite as easy as this, for no one has yet
Indeed, a glance at PI. IX of Hill's Select Greek Coins (Paris, 1927) which shows
whether we may not recognize the later heads because they bear the accessories
they resemble each other. We must never forget that we are dealing with the
Alexander's mints never achieved, and probably never attempted the degree
of uniformity shown in the Athena heads of 5th century Athens. But what is
the proportion between the specimens which show conformity with an official
deny its existence? An enormous task awaits some heroic scholar: analysis
which shall be not selective but inclusive of the dozens of dies of Heracles' head
84 For one thing, e.g., Amyntas uses the unbearded head on his small silver and bronze, a
bearded Heracles head on his large silver; for another, there would be no explanation for the
beardless head on coins of the Mainland Thasians and their successors the citizens of Philippi
(Gaebler, op. cit., PI. XX, 1-9). There are two entirely distinct styles here neither of which could
to see what generalizations can be safely made. It must be done without pre-
provided by Cahn's synopsis of the elements which form style85 but it is a work
For the present let us content ourselves with concluding that a traditional
proved its acceptability in an empire wider than he could have imagined and
that, at some times and in some places, true likenesses of the king and his
commanding personality inspired the hands of his artisans so that men came
The reverse type is invariable in its main features. Zeus is always seated to
the left, he has an himation over his legs but is undraped from the waist up, on
his outstretched right hand he holds an eagle, with his left he leans upon a long
scepter behind him. There are details, with which we shall deal presently, that
vary. He is sometimes called Zeus Olympics.86 Yet there are important differ-
ences from the statue of Zeus that was at Olympia in Alexander's time: the
from giving a title to Alexander's deity. One other identification was put
Nicephorus (a mere slip for Aetophorus) haud dubie est Bottiaeus ille seu cultus
from so great an authority, Muller accepted the name,88 and, in his early work89
to be forgotten: "on the reverse we see Zeus of Bottiaea, who had a famous
temple at Pella and was honored throughout Macedonia." But Bottiaean Zeus
is a very elusive figure indeed. The single ancient mention of him is by Libanius
rather where Antioch was later to be founded)90. Any connection with the
passage worth quoting in full.91 "When Alexander the Great placed upon his
86 E.g., Gardner, A History of Ancient Coinage, 700-300 B.C., Oxford, 1918, p. 426; Seltman,
Greek Coins, p. 205; Newell, Royal Greek Portrait Coins, p. 13, "a dignified representation of the
panhellenic god, par excellence, Olympian Zeus, enthroned and holding scepter and eagle."
89 Reattribution, p. 28.
silver coinage the design of a seated Zeus, it might have been expected that
he would choose for the purpose the great cult-statue at Olympiaand the
point of fact, he did nothing of the sort. He set aside all the improvements
A comparison of his tetradrachms on the one hand with the federal coins of
Arkadia (PLATE II, 13), on the other with the Olympian statue is instructive:
Right hand has eagle Right hand has Nike Right hand has eagle
Left hand has scepter Left hand has scepter Left hand has scepter
only only
Throne has at first Throne has high back Throne has at first
no back no back
harked back to the more ancient and popular type of Zeus Lykaios. After all,
Mount Lykaion too was called Olympos. Yet so immense was the fame of the
Pheidiac figure that tetradrachms issued later in the name and with the
types of Alexander are increasingly influenced by it. The left leg is advanced
instead of the right, and the throne is manifestly assimilated to that of Zeus
the resultant questions, "What motive led him to make the attempt? Why did
he select for his world-wide coinage the old eagle-bearer of Arkadia rather than
But the particular form of Zeus was less important than the fact that, like
Alexander's other devices, he was easy for inhabitants of the various districts
92 Seltman had suggested to him that the model might be the Baal of Tarsos and its selection
an instance of Alexander's internationalism. But, as Cook recognizes (p. 762, n. 2) this conflicts
with the dating of the first Macedonian issues, a question that has already been discussed. It
might also be pointed out that while stylistically Baal on coins of Mazaeus at Tarsus just before
Alexander is very much like Alexander's Zeus from the same mint (Tarsos, passim), the designs
have important differences: on the Mazaeus silver the scepter is in front surmounted by an eagle,
on the Alexanders the scepter is behind and the eagle held on the open hand. Gardner had recog-
nized the differences which Cook lists. The Types of Greek Coins, p. 186, "The Zeus of Alexander's
coins is certainly not an imitation in any close sense of the great Olympian statue of Pheidias, but
the type is probably introduced in honor of the god represented by that statue."
of the empire to accept as their own. Seltman has put the case clearly :93 'Though
introduced in 336 B.C. these types were destined to appeal equally to Greeks and
to see in the obverse type his own god Melqart, the Cilician was to regard the
seated deity as the god Ba'al of Tarsus, and the Babylonian, though he might
not be able to read the Greek name of Alexander, was to look on pictures that
might recall his own Gilgamesh, the lion-slayer, and the figure of Bel-Marduk,
Babylon, the uncanny foresight that the king showed in the selection of these
Cook recorded the fact that the earliest pose, with the legs stiffly parallel,
the right in front of the left, gives place to an easier position, more like that of
Pheidias' figure, with the right leg drawn back and the right foot appearing in
back of the left one (PLATE II, 10, 11). This change does not take place every-
where at the same time, but it is general and is an indication of date rather than
of place. But there are small differences which are useful for a more exact
placing of the issues in their respective mints. Not only does the throne some-
times have a back (as mentioned by Cook) but the back may be decorated with
little Nikai on the top, and the shape of the legs and the placing of the cross-
bars differ. The god is sometimes laureate; sometimes there are long locks on
the nape of his neck, sometimes short ones, sometimes none. There may be a
nothing. Together with these items also goes a constant modification of style
which is in itself sometimes sufficient to prove the relation between reverse dies
But far more important than other minutiae for the reverses of both silver
and gold are the little ancillary figuresthe symbolsor the letters or mono-
grams which, with very few exceptions, occur in the field of the reverse type.
They are not conceived as parts of the main design, as is evident from the fact
that the scales of the type figure and the symbol are quite unrelated. Scholars
were early convinced that symbols, monograms and letters alike were indica-
tions of the place of striking, and great ingenuity was displayed in recognizing
civic devices and deciphering cities' names. Some of the suggestions were good
and have been confirmed by later work with greater resources, though the
be amusing to list the impossible guesses that have been made, but no serious
93 Greek Coins, p. 205. The suggestion mentioned in the foregoing note does not appear in
value would result. Any who are disposed to investigate this chapter in the
history of human error might start with Eckhel's list of his predecessors,94
These early attempts have one common weakness: they do not distinguish
between the first coins and the later ones, some of them very much later. Such
differentiation is among the great merits of what is still the basic work in the
discussed all aspects of the coinage of Alexander, with that of Philip II and
Philip III as well, was added an Atlas wherein is displayed in clear tabular form
all the varieties known to him (1735 for Alexander, 313 for the elder Philip, 142
for the younger) with drawings of the symbols and monograms, indication of
their placing on the coin and of its fabric.96 The fabric was arranged in seven
classes, the increasing breadth and flatness of whose flans was the sign of a
two plates. His discussion of them, on pp. 5-9, 97-104, allows for border-line
cases, and would not now be accepted in all its details, but it added an impor-
tant new instrument for the analysis of the huge number of coins with which
we have to deal.
Miiller treats of symbols and monograms more than once (pp. 35-49, 90-93,
116-122). He began with the conviction that they represented towns or districts
and in his Atlas the main headings are place names, with lists of Incerti for the
various districts, the length of which might have given him some cause for
Incertae Urbes which, on the least reckoning, would amount to 1 1 more. He does
at one point admit that symbols might be those of magistrates,97 but he is sure
that the marks are generally those of towns.98 Of course, additions to his lists
were made, but I think there was no published questioning of his principle
94 Elementa Rei Numariae Veterum sive Josephi Eckhelii Prolegomena Doctrinae Numorum,
Berlin, 1841, pp. 141-172. I would not, of course, suggest that the bad guesses stopped with
Eckhel.
96 It was rightly thought to be worth while to issue a photographic copy of the Atlas in 1957
97 P. 30.
NC 1870, pp. 1-1o: "In Numismatique d'Alexandre I only say (p. 37) that these symbols are in
general to be regarded as city symbolsIt is possible that some of them have been the escutcheons
or signets of magistrates or mint mastersbut I have nowhere found sufficient reason for explain-
one (Miiller100 no. 112, Aenos) with caduceus and bee, the other (Miiller no. 445 a,
Chrysaoris in Caria) with torch and bee; they were both struck with the same
obverse die. "It appears to me, therefore," he said, "as certain as any con-
clusion can be, in a subject where we are necessarily left to inference, that the
two coins in question belong to the same part of the country, and can only be
went. But a much more serious doubt as to the validity ofMuller's method was
raised by von Sallet.101 He found three staters of Philip II with the same
obverse die. Two of them were Miiller no. 88 (Philippi) with K and tripod; the
third, the gold counterpart of Miiller no. 237 (Incerti) with K and a broad hat
but without the tripod. He concluded that these must all have come from the
same mint, and that the mint was not Philippi. The symbols, then, may be
those of magistrates or emissions and not of places. In reviewing this essay with
approval102 Head remarked, "It is becoming every year more and more ap-
parent that the whole edifice rests on a foundation of sand. The symbols,
however much they may resemble municipal devices or coin-types, are, as Dr.
von Sallet clearly shows, merely the signets of the monetary magistrates, and
drastic than Bunbury's essays in revision that it drew a cry of distress from
him.103 Head, he protested, was destroying the whole foundation for a reason-
able arrangement of the Alexander coinage and leaving mere chaos. To this
Head replied in a brief note.104 He granted that Muller's Classes V, VI, and VII,
which were issued by free cities after the death of Alexander, bore symbols,
sometimes accompanied by initial letters, the devices of the cities which struck
them. But, for the earlier coins, he expressed his conviction that three fourths
of the signs were those of magistrates and not of cities. Head's doctrine con-
""On Some Unpublished Coins of Lysimachus," JVC 1869, pp. 1-18, esp. 5f.
100 L. Miiller, Die Miinzen des Thracischen Konigs Lysimachus, Copenhagen, 1858, a pendant
101 A. von Sallet, "Beitrage zur antiken Miinz- und Alterthumskunde," ZfN 1882, pp. 138
to 189, "Die Beizeichen auf den Miinzen Philipps II von Macedonien," pp. 152-154.
103 "Additional Tetradrachms of Alexander the Great," NC 1883, pp. 1-17, esp. 14-17.
105 NC 1906, p. 19 in "The Mint at Babylon: a Rejoinder." Sir Henry Howorth, "Some Coins
attributed to Babylon by Dr. Imhoof-Blumer," NC 1904, pp. 1-38, had made an all-inclusive attack
on the proposed identification which must have seriously disturbed the Swiss scholar, for his
rejoinder appeared in German, NZ1905, pp. 1-8 and translated into English in the article quoted.
identical dies from the Demanhur Hoard that the hypothesis of a large number
There are, to be sure, cases in which true mint marks do appear, and they
are not all confined to the posthumous issues (for example, K or K for Kition in
Cyprus, [$ for Paphos, A for Arados, II for Sidon) but the great majority, as
Head saw, stand not for places but for persons. Who these persons were we do
not know; they had supervision over particular issues, holding office for a term,
which would usually be a year after the regular Greek custom, seeing that the
official standards were maintained and being allowed to put their private marks
on the coins struck under their charge as a subordinate guarantee to the great
The bronze was less common and is much less well known. The types refer
to Heracles, both obverse and reverse, though no one has raised any question
about the portrait. The positions of the bow and club vary, and there are letters
spondences with the symbols on gold and silver are spasmodic and it is likely
that the bronze issues were the care of separate officials. They were certainly
not struck with the frequency and regularity of the gold and silver. The serious
Such are the essential aspects of the major coins which formed the inter-
Gold Distater
These fractions are rare and do not seem to have played an important role.
Silver Decadrachm
This also is rare and was probably confined to a single issue from Babylon.106
Silver Decadrachm
in his right hand, leaning upon a spear with his left. He wears a
the battle against Porus, make it obvious that these are rather medallions than
normal pieces of money. Their weights are proper for ten drachmae, but they
Silver Didrachm
Silver Drachm
plement to the tetradrachms, though their issue seems to have been concentrated
in Asia Minor.109
Silver Hemidrachm
Silver Obol
Silver Hemiobol
107 British Museum Quarterly, 1926, pp. 36 f.; NC 1927, pp. 204-206; SNG Berry Collection
109 Thompson and Bellinger, "A Hoard of Alexander Drachms," Yale Classical Studies XIV,
Imhoof-Blumer believed that this was Alexander's first issue from Mace-
donia, preceding the introduction of his own types.110 Head would attribute
it to an eastern mint, perhaps India, after Alexander's death111 and this was
would seem conclusive. The point is not of much importance for us since the
coins are so rare that they cannot have played any significant part in the
financing of the empire (so far as I know there are none besides the three in the
British Museum).
Silver Drachm
Silver Drachm
Silver Tetrobol
Silver Hemidrachm
Silver Hemidrachm
Silver Diobol
111 "The Earliest Graeco-Bactrian and Graeco-Indian Coins," NC 1906, pp. 1-16, esp. 1-3,
115 Appendix V, "Monnayage d'Etalon pr6sume 'Indien' ou 'Rhodien,'" Raoul Curiel and
Silver Obol
These types may all belong to the early issues of Amphipolis.117 Two other
Silver Hemiobol
Bronze Unit
Bronze Half
Of the whole list the only denominations of real imperial importance are:
human existence would need far more information than we possess, but we
are not without some useful indications of value. The first point to be re-
4.3 grams and was divided into 6 obols. There has been a good deal of discussion
as to why he made the change, and talk of bimetallism which is, I think, suf-
ficiently dealt with by Theodore Reinach who points out that the necessary
did was to follow the example of Athens and strike a silver drachma of the
118 "De la Valeur proportionelle de 1'Or et de 1'Argent dans l'Antiquit6 grecque," RN 1893,
same weight as the gold drachma of which two made the stater. Of the relation
of silver and gold we shall speak presently; the issuance of silver money on the
standard used by Athens was certainly not surprising considering the assured
indeed, believes that his choice was influenced not only by their importance in
Greece but also by their imitations which had become so notable an element
in the currency of Persia. What Alexander wanted to do, he says, was to give
a generally recognized coinage to an empire which did not have one and to
extend the use of coinage to the whole territory.119 This largeness of view,
however, would only have been possible at a time when he could foresee the
eastern extension of his empire. It therefore fits Schlumberger's idea that the
imperial currency does not begin with the beginning of the reign. But with the
difficulties caused by this theory we have already dealt. In any case, Alexander
had silver drachms 20 of which were equal to one gold stater in value.
And what were they worth to their possessors ? Any attempt to answer this
Macedonia itself. In the works of the orators and the comedians there is a con-
siderable amount of economic information about 4th century Athens, and this
has been carefully gathered by August Bockh in his book Die Staatshaushaltung
der Athener.iw There a great deal can be found out about the range of revenues
and expensesrents, dowries, wages, fines, loans, and such matters. But these
caution for the economy of Macedonia or Asia. Nevertheless, there is one figure
so basic that it seems safe to use it. In the latter part of Aristotle's Constitution
of Athens, which deals with the constitution of his own time, section 49 records
the fact that the Council considered the case of paupers, and any who were
received 2 obols a day for food at the public expense. In 4th century Athens,
then, 2 obols a day is the level of bare subsistence. This is borne out by Demos-
thenes' proposal for an expedition against Macedon121 in which the foot soldiers
were to get 2 obols a day which would keep them alive even if they were not
and Athens may well have been more expensive than any town in Macedonia,
but, if we keep that in mind, it is safe to calculate that a silver diobol was about
the minimum that a man could get along on for a day. Then a drachma would
119 Schlumberger, "L"Argent grec dans 1'Empire achemenide" op. cit., p. 27.
120 Third ed., Berlin, 1886. Translated by George Cornewall Lewis as The Public Economy of
This being the scale of values for silver, we need to convert it into gold and
bronze. Since the gold stater (of two gold drachmae) weighed just twice the
silver drachma, the ratio between gold drachma and silver drachma will be
exactly the ratio between the bullion values of the metals. Now the value of
gold and silver will vary according to supply and demand and will vary
has produced a true bimetallism. Since in Greece the standard was silver the
result was an apparent fluctuation in the value of gold only, though sometimes
that in the Persian empire there was a fixed official ratio of i^la: 1 ;123 an
Athenian inscription of 434/3 (IG II2. 352) gives a ratio of about 14: I; two
literary sources of the 4th century show that by then the proportion had sunk
to 11 or 12 : 1.124 In the middle of the 4th century the opening of the mines of
Pangaeus suddenly increased the available gold supply which appears to have
dropped the ratio to 10: I,125 and this seems to have been maintained for a
long time.126 It would be dangerous to suppose that it never varied during the
period of Alexander and his successors,127 but what testimony we have encour-
ages us to assume that 10 : 1 was the usual ratio.One gold stater, then, equalling
122 Xenophon, Ways and Means, IV. 10, "When gold becomes plentiful it becomes cheaper
123 Theodore Reinach, op. cit. (n. 118), pp. 7-9, but cf. Schlumberger, op. cit. (n. 113), p. 16.
For a ratio of 12: 1 in the 5th century, E. S. G. Robinson, "Some Problems in the Late Fifth
125 Reinach, op. cit., pp. 146-149, believes that it was Philip's mining activity and not
Alexander's conquest of the East that was the important moment in the relation of gold to
silver.
126 Reinach cites CIA II. 2. 741 (IG II.2 2.1.1496 col. Ill) of 331/0; CIA II. 237 (an error for
737): IG II.2 2. 1.1492 U. 99-103; Menander (320-292) Parakatatheke (Pollux IX. 76); Herondas
(ca. 247-222) VII, 11. 79, 99. In RN 1902, "Le Rapport de 1'Or a 1'Argent dans les Comptes de
Delphes," pp. 66-68, he calls attention to the same ratio in the accounts of the Naopoioi in the
archonship of Dion. This is important for his thesis as to Pangaean gold, for it was then dated
336/5 and so before Alexander could have had any effect on the gold supply. But Georges Daux
will not date Dion more closely than 336/5-332/1, Fouilles de Delphes III, Fasc. hors S^rie (n. d.),
127 E.g., H. T. Wade-Gery, in publishing a difficult inscription, "The Ratio of Silver to Gold
during the Peloponnesian War: IG I.2 301," NC 1930, pp. 16-38, comes to the conclusion that
raw gold, inside the empire, was conventionally tariffed at 10: 1 although this was below its
market price when a buyer was available, and although before the war it had been 14: 1, IG I.2 355.
A great many fluctuations could fall into the lacunae in our evidence.
It is generally agreed that bronze money was essentially fiduciary: that its
value was not measured by the weight of the metal. This is confirmed, though
pieces of the same denomination. In the Drama Hoard there are 94 bronze
coins of Alexander all well preserved and in about the same condition; 13 of
them weigh over 7 grams, 25 weigh less than 6. It is obvious that there has
be sure, the loss or gain in value would be very small, but if a coin of 4.78 grams
was supposed to be worth the same as one of 8.09 that must be because the
bullion value did not matter. But too much can be made of the indifference.
I may quote the conclusions to which I came in regard to Selucid issues where
"'Everyone will agree that the weighing of the original flans for bronze coins
was less careful than in the case of silver because the bullion value was so much
less. On the other hand, it is too drastic to assume that the bullion value was of
independent of its material, like our paper, is a modern one which cannot fairly
be attributed to Asiatics of the third century B.C. Doubtless the ultimate worth
of the bronze coins was their theoretical ability to be exchanged for precious
metals, and this allowed them to circulate freely in spite of variation in weight
and at a value higher than that of their material. Yet the analogy of silver and
gold must have affected the peasant or soldier user of bronze coins. The per-
on the instinctive conviction that the more metal there is in your coin the
more it is worth."
to their relation with the silver issues, and we must look for other methods of
bronze, based on the hypothesis of equality between the largest bronze and the
single system can be substantiated for all the kings from Seleucus I to Anti-
128 Theodore Reinach, "Du Rapport de Valeur des Metaux moneiaires dans 1'Egypt au
12' The tables in Reinach, op. cit., pp. I57f. give the same kind of variation for Ptolemaic
bronze.
130 The Excavations at Dura-Europos. Final Report VI. The Coins, New Haven, 1949, p. 188.
132 Troy, Supplementary Study 2. The Coins, Princeton, 1961, p. 13, n. 78.
ochus III, and for all their mints, which by no means issue all the same de-
nominations in silver and bronze. But aside from this his values are unsatis-
factory for the period of Alexander. According to his calculations the piece
which he calls the unit would be either J/8 obol or x/16 obol, and therefore l/K or x/96
he prefers the second ratio for the early Seleucid period. On the basis of con-
denomination between the bronze unit and the silver drachma issued frequently
enough to have been in common use, and 48 : 1 seems a wide gap, let alone 96 : 1.
The relation of gold stater to silver drachm was 20 : 1 and, as the tetradrachm
was even commoner than the drachma, there was a ratio of 5 : 1 between the
most available large denominations. Why should the minor ones be separated
by 48 : 1? Yet, as I have pointed out, in the case of Ilium the first local issues
half and quarter, V96 and 1/192 drachma according to Newell's lower reckoning,
Yi92 an(^ Vs84 according to his higher! This surely must be rejected from its in-
herent improbability.
Reinach, who has done us the service of confuting some of the unsuccessful
of Ptolemaic bronze.133 Since from 305 B.C. on the Egyptian standard was
Rhodian and not Attic, his definitions will not apply to Alexander's coins, but
"S'il me fallait" he says "a toute force hasarder a mon tour un systeme de
The obol is, in truth, so prominent in the writers that it seems reasonable that
it should be conspicuous as an actual coin. There is a silver obol but it does not
seem to have been common enough to satisfy the requirement, and it is tempt-
ing to call our bronze piece an obol and so establish a ratio of 6 : 1 between the
minor denominations. The purely factual name chalkous "the bronze piece"
we may safely assume was used of our unit as it had been used of the much-
always be used of a bronze piece which was the only denomination or the
as illustrated by Newell's tables, but for this early period it is almost certain
that the commonest bronze piece would be called chalkous. That, however,
takes us no farther into the question of its value in terms of silver. There we
hindered by evidence from other places or other times,135 for it is clear that a
coin without mark of value or necessary relation to its metal content would be
ity or changed by conditions so that the work done by the unit of one situation
evidence to the contrary, that the bronze unit was an obol and that two of
them made a pauper's dole in the countries where Alexander's authority ran.
136 E. S. G. Robinson has identified the Athenian obol and diobol of 403 B.C. "Some Problems
in the Later Fifth Century Coinage of Athens," MN 1960, p. 12, PI. II, 18, 19. These are much
smaller than Alexander's bronzes, as they are smaller than later Athenian bronze coins whose
denomination we cannot prove, but there is no reason to suppose that the size first used by Athens
From the time of Alexander I, 498-454 B.C. the kings of Macedon had struck
their own coins1 and it was a matter of course that Philip II and Alexander III
should strike theirs. But the size of Philip's output was altogether beyond that
course, the thing that made this possible was that Philip came into control of the
gold and silver of the Pangaean district. When he took over theThasian colony
of Crenides in 3572 he developed the neighboring gold mines until they pro-
duced an income of more than 1,000 talents.3 That undoubtedly took the form
ginning of the kinds of wealth, followed by real estate, movables, cattle and
on credit. This fact, that the Macedonian kings, like the Greek cities, used not
mind. If the thousand talents of income were all gold they would be 300,000
gold staters, since a silver talent, to translate it into its commonest forms,
equalled 1,500 tetradrachms or 300 gold pieces at a ratio of 10 : 1.6 Now though
of money was wealth, Philip does not seem to have accumulated much. None
1 Doris Raymond, Macedonian Regal Coinage to 413 B.C. (NNM 126), New York, 1953.
2 Diodorus XVI, 3. 7.
3 Diodorus XVI, 8. 6. "A thousand talents" means gold to the value of 1,000 silver (Attic)
talents. Diodorus specifies gold but Philip certainly got his greatly increased supply of silver from
the Pangaean region. There may therefore have been a thousand talents of gold plus an unspecified
amount of silver. I make the cautious assumption, however, that the thousand talents in fact
4 Diodorus XVI. 8. 7 says that he struck gold pieces used in hiring mercenaries.
gold stater is a didrachm of gold (8.68 grams), a talent = 300 staters at the ratio of 10 : 1 which
we have accepted (above, p. 31) as generally valid for the period of Alexander. Since a talent is a
measure of weight, one gold talent would be worth 10 talents of silver but, unless it is specified
to the contrary, the sources follow the Greek fashion of calculating in talents of silver. Philip's
1,000 talents, therefore, presumably are not talents of gold, but the gold equivalent of 1,000 talents
of silver.
of the kings who preceded him had been able to coin gold7 and there was a time
when Philip had little enough.8 It might be thought that, with such a large
increase of income, he would find himself with a surplus. But Philip's ideas
were larger than those of his predecessors and his plans more costly. Not content
with the old Macedonian army which, so far as it was a citizen body, he might
and devised a military force not only larger but also far more resourceful than
any previously known.10 With this force he won his victories in Europe and
Attalus in 337.n Obviously his military expenses must have been considerable.
Moreover, Philip is reported to have said that he had enlarged his kingdom
more by gold than by arms12 and, if we had no other evidence than the charges
and counter-charges of the orators, we could judge how freely the king's money
was spent in bribery;13 it may well have amounted to a larger outlay than pay
for the troops. And the tradition, whatever its accuracy, represents Philip as
of prejudice, "He was a soldier and could not calculate income and expenditure
at leisure." This must be considered in connection with the reports that Alex-
ander was, at the beginning of his reign, short of funds. In the Life of Alexander
(15.1) Plutarch quotes Aristobulus to the effect that on his crossing to Asia
Alexander had only 70 talents in the war chest; Duris says it was only provision
for 30 days15 while Onesicritus adds that he had a debt of 200 talents besides.
7 Some Thracian cities did, however. Allen B. West, Fifth and Fourth Century Gold Coins from
9 H. W. Parke, Greek Mercenary Soldiers, Oxford, 1933, pp. 158f. "Probably he (Philip) had
little need to spend money on his Macedonian soldiers; it was their recognized duty to follow their
king in the field, and they would require to be provided with subsistence only on long or distant
campaigns. Towards this outlay the Macedonian kings could claim some form of feudal dues
13 As was also Persian gold, then and later. Plutarch, The Fortune or Virtue of Alexander,
I.3.327c. Persian gold in the hands of demagogues everywhere was being used to arm the
Peloponnesus.
16 In the essay on The Fortune or Virtue of Alexander II. 11, the 30 days' provisions are given
on the authority of Phylarchus. These two calculations cannot be made to coincide. If the total
Still more lurid accounts of his financial distress are attributed to Alexander
(X. 11) he said that he had inherited from his father 60 talents and a debt of
500, while the sober Arrian gives the most extreme account of all (VII. 9.6):
his assets from his father were a few gold and silver cups and less than 60
800 more.16 The words attributed to Alexander himself refer to the exchequer
at the time of his accession, not at the time of his crossing. We should not count
too much on the evidential value of such a speech, but there is nothing to con-
tradict the common testimony that Philip had used up his money.
Plutarch takes the circumstances to show the high adventurous spirit of the
young king and he adds the famous tale of his distributing all the royal property
to his friends, keeping for himself only his hopes, in which Perdiccas gallantly
said he would share, refusing all other benefits. But this romantic story is
of Alexander's army of invasion and Parmenio's advance force was about 40,000 foot and 6,000
horse (G. T. Griffith, The Mercenaries of the Hellenistic World, Cambridge, 1935, p. 12) it could
hardly have been supported for 30 days on 70 talents. There is an unfortunate silence of the
sources on the fundamental matter of the soldiers' daily wage in Alexander's army (Parke, Greek
Mercenary Soldiers, p. 233, n. 1. It may be pointed out that the fragmentary inscription IG II.2
1. 329, which is cited as proving that Alexander was to pay his allies 1 drachma a day, seems
rather to show a payment of 1 drachma to the hypaspistae with some other, and presumably
lesser, amount for the troops in general. Tarn does not appear to have taken account of the in-
scription in his discussion of the hypaspists, Alexander the Great II, pp. 148-154). However, we have
an interesting detailed proposal by Demosthenes (First Philippic, 28 f.) for an expeditionary force
against Philip that was never raised. His calculation allows 2 obols a day for foot soldiers, one
drachma for horse, citizen and mercenary alike. This was put forward as an emergency measure
and, in view of the fact that the pauper's allowance was 2 obols, it is very unlikely that citizen
infantry, let alone mercenaries, could have been induced to serve ordinarily for that wage, which
would have been sufficient only if supplemented with plunder. There is evidence that by the time
of Alexander the ordinary pay of a Greek mercenary was 4 obols a day (Parke, loc. cit.) and per-
haps we may assume that the pay of all privates was the same; in that case the pay of a horseman
would also be double Demosthenes' figure. Now, if we take the later amount, the pay of the foot
for 30 days would be 800,000 drachmae (40,000 X 4 obols X 30 days H- 6), that of the horse
360,000 drachmae (6,000 X 12 obols x 30 days -=- 6). The total would be 193$ talents (1,160,000
.4- 6,000), while even at Demosthenes' figures the sum would be g6f talents with no allowance for
the pay of higher ranks or any other military expense. Seventy talents would not have lasted
3 weeks even at starvation wages. Probably the reports of the king's finances at the beginning of
16 Arrian's words imply that Alexander's own borrowing was to finance the expedition. If the
800 were added to Philip's debt of 500, the total of 1,300 talents would be no excessive burden.
Interest at Athens normally ranged from 12 % to 18 %. If we take the latter figure he would have
a yearly interest of 234 talents to pay and as the mines of Philippi alone yielded 1,000 talents
there should be no difficulty in retiring the debt. It must be observed that he did not say he was
quite impossible to believe in the form in which it is given. It would mean that
any provision at all for the campaign after its very beginning. One serious check
would have left him with an army that he could not support, separated from a
make it seem that he had left nothing for himself, but the record does not
support the legend that he would have given away his soldier's pay and their
safety to make an impression on his friends. Much that Alexander did was
he conceived it his obvious duty to lead his troops in the field and he never
seems to have provided against the risk by arranging for a second in command,
as in the end he died without providing for the succession. If the battle-axe of
Spithridates had cut him down at the Granicus it is hard to see how the
quality in the man that made him take risks beyond reason is a question out-
side the scope of this study. What concerns us is a class of evidence which lies
altogether within reason. Alexander's strategy may have been bold but it was
not hap-hazard. His plans may have been fallible at times, but there were plans,
and among them fiscal plans to provide the money without which the expedition
The records tell us a great deal about the accomplishments of Alexander but
little or nothing of what lay behind them. There is tactical information about
his arrangement of the order of battle, and such an episode as the siege of Tyre
is treated with a detail which includes experiment and failure as well as ulti-
mate success, but operations on a larger scale are treated as though they were
must have been required for the success of the all but incredible progress of his
arms and of this Alexander must have been the master mind. We get a glimpse
of him in his youth questioning the ambassadors of the Persian king not only
about what was that monarch's position in the line of battle, which might have
been prompted by youthful valor and his adventurous spirit, but also about
the size of the Persian forces and the shortest roads for those going inland from
the sea, which was essentially strategic material.17 The ambassadors recognized
these as subjects in which a king should properly be interested, and called him
a Great King in contrast to their own who was only rich. Slight as the incident
is, it suggests that even as a boy he had an idea of the value of military intel-
interesting if we could have even this much light on the preparations for later
stages of his campaign. But it was not the kind of thing that antiquity found
worthy of recording, and Alexander is not the only great ruler whose plans are
work which a king must do. Plutarch18 remarks that kingship, which is the
most perfect and greatest of offices, has the most cares and burdens and oc-
cupations, and he quotes Seleucus as saying, "If people knew what a labor it is
to write and read so many letters, they would not even pick up a crown that
had been thrown away." We must imagine, then, what the record fails to show:
an Alexander busy with many things less than heroic, but essential for all that.
It was recognized in the 4th century that finance was a special study.
Aristotle in the Politics (I. 4. 8) lays it down that it is well for statesmen to
understand money, since states often need money like households, but in greater
doubtless having in mind the Athenian statesman Eubulus whom Plutarch19 cites
did not deal at all with foreign affairs or the military but concerned himself
only with finance and increasing the revenue. There was even some specialized
literature: Aeneas whose Tactica appears to have been written shortly after
360 B.C. also wrote a treatise on military finance.20 An interesting, though too
tion which comprises Chapter I we read "There are four kinds of economy:
is plain that in the opinion of the author, which can hardly have been con-
tradicted by the practice of his day, the coining of money is altogether in the
18a Major-General J. F. C. Fuller's book The Generalship of Alexander the Great, Rutgers,
1960 is strangely silent on the question of expenses. The author appears to believe that
Alexander's coining began only after the capture of the treasure of Persepolis (pp. 112, 273 f.)
and what he has to say about finance is concerned with trade only. There is no mention of pay
Leyden, 1933. His belief is that the author was a Peripatetic, writing for students with a political
futureeven the possibility of a satrapy before them; the book is a unit, not an epitome, written
between 325 and 305 B.C. since no illustrations are later than Alexander, while the royal economy
and the satrapal refer to a single kingdom, i.e., the date is earlier than the kingships of Antigonus,
hands of the sovereign; the powers of a satrap may be great but they do not
necessary for the Persian practice of the 4th century, however. The striking
of Mysia presumed to do that it was because he was in revolt against the king
and intended to declare himself independent.22 But with silver the matter is
different. The Cilician silver bearing the names of the satraps Tiribazus, Pharna-
constituent of the Persian currencyso much more important than the royal
could strike only by grace of the Great King. Babelon24 maintains that no
satrap was permitted to strike qua satrap, the power being always temporary
and always in connection with the command of troops. But since on the pre-
vious page he has admitted that the client kings coined with considerable
overlord, and since there is no way of relating each satrapal issue to a military
event, and no explanation of the fact that this military money was issued in
the name of the satrap and not of the king, we may believe that the restriction
was perhaps a theoretical but not a practical one, and that the problem of silver
coinage was generally left to the satrap's judgment. That is not the case with
, and when the name of a subordinate appears on a coin struck for Alexander
governor as to a mint official, but in general the empire of Alexander and the
Our author does not discuss the relations of royal currency with that of a
city state lying within the royal dominion, yet that situation was a common
one in Asia Minor under Persian kings and Macedonian kings as well. Daniel
Schlumberger has recently shown26 that, while the Persian king's gold was a
monopoly, his silver was only one of several kinds that circulated in his own
land. Alexander came into no vacuum of currency when he brought his money
22 HN, p. 597. But see the gold piece attributed to Mazaeus by E. S. G. Robinson, NC 1948,
p. 59. Gold coinage other than royal, some sporadic, some regular (e.g. Lampsacus), occurs with
24 Perses achemenides, Paris, 1893, p. XXIII. He follows the opinion of Lenormant and
Waddington.
extend the use of silver money as such (and not as bullion) to the entire terri-
tory of that empire." The intention was never entirely carried out, partly, of
course, because of the shortness of his life, but, aside from that, it is not likely
that the plan itself was ever so complete as to contemplate the retirement of
the great variety of silver that was already in use. Whatever the theory, the
fact was that there was a supplementary coinage from the cities28 which some-
what complicated the Oeconomica's simple conception of the king as the only
supplier of money.
But the king had to decide, as the text says, what kind of money should be
made and when, and whether the coins should be of greater or less value. The
author realized that the king would not be fulfilling his proper duty if he merely
directed that all bullion should forthwith be converted into coin, leaving the
details to the master of the mint. What was the nature of his decision and by
what considerations was it affected? Van Groningen argues that it was the
king's business to see that the official ratio of gold to silver was maintained.29
He must therefore issue sufficient quantity of each to keep the values from
Persian king who is under consideration, who struck only darics of 8.336 grams
or sigloi of 5.56 grams. If his date for the work be accepted (between 325 and
305) there was no Persian king at the time it was written. Moreover his hypo-
thesis, which in any case credits the monarch with an unlikely degree of eco-
nomic sagacity, is less plausible for the Persian king than for a Hellenistic one.
The Persian king could doubtless dictate how much gold should be minted, but
he could neither dictate nor foresee how much silver was to go into circulation,
for the major part of the silver was provided by the cities.30 Ptolemy was in far
better position to control the money market than any king of Persia. Never-
27 Ibid., p. 27.
28 There were certainly times when the king's contribution to the currency of a region was the
minor one, that of the cities the major. The tetrobols of Perdiccas II make a poor show in com-
parison with the great tetradrachms of Abdera, Acanthus, Aenus, Amphipolis, Maronea and
Mende. There was no king before Alexander whose silver had the scope of the Athenian.
29 It was understood that when gold is plentiful it becomes cheaper and makes silver dearer.
30 The easy assumption that Persia had a bimetallic currency in the modern senseaccepted
even by West ("The Early Diplomacy of Philip II of Macedon Illustrated by His Coins," NC1923,
p. 173, n. 7) when he is arguing against a bimetallic currency for Philipis based on the sup-
position that the siglos had the same dominant function in Asia as the dark. Schlumberger has
theless, whether he was much or little concerned with preserving the ratio
between metals, the king must decide how much gold must be coined and how
Philip had used the mints of Pella and Amphipolis for gold and silver;
perhaps also that of Philippi for bronze.31 Miiller believed that his coins came
from a large number of other towns as well. Some of his identifications have
been proved wrong; other have to do with the posthumous tetradrachms and
staters; it may be that other mints of Philip will eventually be confirmed, but
certainly none to compare with the two great Macedonian cities and, on the
basis of our present information, we can only safely assume that at Alexander's
accession he found Pella and Amphipolis in operation for the precious metals.
His decision in regard to them will have been very simple. With the exchequer
low he undoubtedly required new coin as fast as he could get it. What pro-
His sources of supply were well placed for his first needs: in the spring of 335
I.1. 4-6. 11, which occupied him until the Theban revolt brought him back to
Greece in the fall of that year. His purpose was to discipline the barbarians on
Philip's death. He marched from Amphipolis to the Ister, crossed it and beat
the Getae in battle, then turned westward against the Agriani and Paeones
he returned to Greece with all speed. His work in the north seems to have been
thoroughly done, in spite of the interruption, for the barbarians gave him no
further trouble, even after he had crossed to Asia. There is no mention of the
It is very unlikely that the expedition resulted in the opening of new mints,
Pelagonia (nos. 205-215) but some of these have been identified as coming
from Amphipolis, others from Tarsus, and it is now clear that this territory
was supplied with silver by the mint of Damastion which operated until 325
B.C., to be continued by the latest coins of Pelagia and the kings of Paeonia
Arrian speaks of booty;33 the first after Alexander's victory over the Thracians
when he sent it to the cities on the coast in charge of Lysanias and Philotas;
82 John M. F. May, The Coinage of Damastion, Oxford, 1939, pp. 28, 160, 187; HN, pp. 236!.
33 I. 2. 1;4. 4.
43
the second when that from the conquered Getae was taken back (presumably
again to the coast cities) by Meleager and Philip. The only way we have of
forming any idea of what it would amount to is to realize that Alexander would
not in each case have detached two officers for escort duty unless the prize were
Map 1
34 The four are listed in Helmut Berve, Das Alexanderreich auf prosopographischer Grundlage,
Munich, 1926, II. Lysanias no. 479, Meleager no. 494, Philip no. 775, Philotas no. 802. The second
but it does not seem likely that two barbarian tribes could be the source of
11oo talents, when the sack of Thebes produced only 440.36 The expedition may
have paid for itself. It is probable that if he did borrow an extra 800 talents
At the outset of his great enterprise his source of money, like his father's, was
the two Macedonian cities (Map 1). But now there was a difference. Under Philip
Pella had been the premier mint; under Alexander it was Amphipolis.37 The
result was a distinction in the functions fulfilled by the two cities, which Newell
respective situations the Pella mint now came to be used more for supplying
local demand, the Amphipolis mint for foreign commerce. It is a fact that while
the writer has records of the latter's issues being strongly represented in hoards
from European Greece, Asia Minor, Egypt, Syria, Babylonia, and Persia, the
Pella coins seldom turn up in finds made outside of Europe and then only in
small numbers. In the European hoards, however, they are not uncommon. It
is furthermore to be noted that such specimens of the Pella mint as did occur at
Demanhur are all beautifully preserved, the majority hardly circulated at all.
It is evident that they had not travelled much from hand to hand after leaving
particularly of the early issues, must by their appearance have circulated a good
deal before they were finally consigned to the ground." Here, then, is an
ticular places in the imperial currency. The tetradrachms of Pella went west
and south, those of Amphipolis went to the soldiers in Anatolia and had seen
p. 56.
36 Gustave Glotz, Pierre Roussel, Robert Cohen, Histoire grecque Vol. IV, Part 1, Paris, 1938,
37 Demanhur, p. 73. Newell never published the reasons which made him change his first
opinion that the bulk of the Demanhur Hoard was the output of Pella, as he said in Reattribution.
It was not for lack of thought on the matter. In Demanhur, p. 67, he says, "A continuous and
detailed study of the numerous later coinages of the same mint appears to prove conclusively that
it was located in Amphipolis and not in Pella. At present it is not advisable to enter upon a
necessarily lengthy discussion of the pros and cons, since this would demand the study of hundreds
of coins not in the Demanhur Hoard and thus take us outside the limits originally set for this
article." Unfortunately he found no later occasion to record his reasons; the difference between
the mints is regarded as fixed in The Coinages of Demetrius Poliorcetes, Oxford, 1927. The attribu-
tions may be taken as probable though their demonstration must await publication of the series
38 Demanhur, pp. 73 f. See also Bellinger, "An Alexander Hoard from Byblos," Berytus X,
1950/1, pp. 48 f.
In the spring of 334 the cavalry and most of the infantry went with Par-
menio across the straits from Sestus to Abydus.39 The latter city had probably
been in Macedonian hands since Philip's expeditionary force three years be-
fore.40 Through it Philip must have introduced his gold, though apparently not
his silver.41 Whether or nor he intended it, the effect was to supplant the Asiatic
issue of gold from Lampsacus and electrum from Cyzicus, Phocaea and My-
tilene.42 Babelon is of the opinion that the use of electrum was encouraged by
the hegemony of Athens which also made her owls the standard large silver
on the coast of Asia Minor in the 5th and 4th centuries.43 If that is true, Alex-
ander made no attempt to change the character of the silver in use; the large
money will have been Athenian tetradrachms, the small silver being produced
by the individual cities. A notable instance is Abydus itself which issued coins
Since the names of 28 magistrates are known it must have been a considerable
39 Arrian I. 11. 6.
40 It is stated as a fact by Babelon, Traitt, Part II, Vol. 2, p. 1324, that Philip's forces had
crossed from Sestus to Abydus. He does not cite his source and I suspect that he is only deducing
from the fact that Philip's army had never been withdrawn and therefore must have controlled
some place in Asia Minor, and that Alexander's crossing was unopposed. Indeed, Alexander was so
confident that it would not be opposed that he did not even accompany the main body but went
off on a romantic expedition of his own to Troy. It is incredible that a general of the ability of
Memnon should allow the Macedonians to cross the Hellespont without a bridge head to make
them safe. It is indeed remarkable that Philip's expedition was allowed to cross but we have only
the bare fact recorded. It may have been a surprise, or the Persian force in Asia Minor may have
42 Babelon, Traite, Part II, Vol. 2, pp. 1377-1380 (Lampsacus) "Leur Emission commence
au dbut du IVe steclepour se ralentir vers 350 devant la diffusion des stateres d'or de Philippe;"
pp. 1395 f. (Cyzicus) "II est probable que des cette 6poque (that of Philip) la frappe de la monnaie
d'electrum s'est singuli^rement ralentie, mais elle ne cessa pas totalement;" pp. 1163, 1194
43 Op. cit., pp. 1167f. Unfortunately we have no confirmatory evidence from hoards of the
use of Athenian money in the north of Asia Minor just before Philipnot that the evidence is
contrary, but that there are no hoards recorded of the right time and location. Robinson is willing
to allow the great importance of the Athenian owls in Asia Minor in the 5th century but doubts
44 Babelon, op. cit., pp. 1329-1332. Here we are faced with the difficulty of accurate dating.
Wroth, BMC Troas.Aeolis andLesbos, p. xli, says "This series may, on grounds of style, be attributed
to circa B.C. 320 to 280." Without disputing the calculation based on style, Babelon moves the series
back to 340-300. Twenty years is surely not a great difference when one is dating by style in the
4th century, but for our purpose the difference is critical. According to one system Abydus began
her large output of silver before Philip's invasion of Asia and continued it through the life of
Antigonus I; according to the other it did not begin until after Alexander's death and continued
I am not sure that the valiant effort of numismatists to give a name to every
standard that they find has contributed as much light as they have evidently
3.73-3.74 grams. The difference from the Abydus type is considerable, and the
title does not help to explain why the lighter coins were used at Abydus. It
certainly cannot have been because the Persian is of the same weight as the
"Persic drachm." For one thing, the sigloi were by no means of outstanding
importance in the currency of Asia Minor; for another, if she had wanted to
connect her currency to the sigloi Abydus would have struck "Persic drachms"
which she did not. She struck 2/3 drachmas which was surely inventing un-
necessary trouble if there was anything "Persic" in her intent. The conspicuous
thing about the coins of Abydus is that they are not easily related to any
adjacent. Mytilene also struck "Persic" weights, though with a larger propor-
tion of didrachms and fewer tetrobols. Otherwise Abydus was isolated.46 The
neighboring town of Lampsacus struck still smaller silver (obols, diobols and
The Rhodian standard had more adherents than the Persic in Asia Minor,
according to the received opinion, but the fact is that we need a great deal
more data before any safe conclusion can be reached. And even after the
weighing and counting has been carefully done it is not likely that any pattern
through the life of Seleucus I. I follow Babelon because he is the later (and, I think, the better)
authority and also because his dates seem to me to accord better with historical probability.
Among the phenomena following the death of Alexander I find it hard to believe that there was
any long continued show of independence by cities in Asia. Some such outburst as occasioned the
Lamian War in mainland Greece is easy to imagine, but for Abydus to begin an issue of autono-
mous coins which persisted through the terms of at least 28 officials seems very unlikely. Never-
theless, probability is not proof and the use of Abydus as evidence for the procedure of Alexander
in Asia involves a petitio principii. But neither date avoids the difficulty of simultaneous issue
of autonomous coins on one standard and drachms of Alexander on another. Thompson and
Bellinger, p. 9. Bikerman has nothing to say about Abydus in his sweeping denial that the Asiatic
cities retained the right of coinage. "Alexandre le Grand et les Villes d'Asie," REG 1934, p. 349.
Ehrenberg, admitting that because of the uncertainty of the chronology "our notions are bound
to remain rather vague" comes to the opposite conclusion that "the great majority of the cities
continued autonomous coining of silver and copper under Alexander." Alexander and the Greeks,
46 The small silver of Abydus might, without much difficulty, be reckoned as V5 of an Attic
tetradrachm, but that is an idea likelier to occur to an American than to an ancient Greek.
will emerge which would be tolerable to modern ideas.47 The towns issued
their own small change for local use with little or no regard to the practice of
their neighbors. When different currencies were dealt with it must have been
was too busy with more immediate duties to act upon it. Between the spring
of 334 and the spring of 333 he occupied, either peaceably or by force, a great
Magnesia, Colophon, Miletus, Phaselis, Aspendus and Side. In no case is there any
sign of his using their mints to strike his own types (Map 1) .49 Doubtless he made
47 One thing that might abate the chaos would be accurate dating so that we should know
which issues were really simultaneous. Unfortunately if that is ever to be achieved it must be far
in the future.
48 A notable instance of the control of local value by convention is the variation in price of
gold coins at Delphi between 335 and 328. Sylloge I, 251, n. 15 and 253, n. 14. J. G. Milne was
eminent in his defense of the thesis that, in domestic transactions, the amount of bullion in a coin
was of less importance than its face value. (Cf. "The Monetary Reform of Solon," JHS 1930,
pp. 179-185; The Melos Hoard 0/1907 (NNM 62), 1934). The power of the sovereign to set a value
to a coin which should not be affected by variation in the price of metal is of course dependent on
the degree of control which he had over the metal available, and probably not many would be
tempted to apply the principle, as Milne did, to Pheidon and the very beginning of coinage (Greek
and Roman Coins, London, 1939, pp. 81f., n. X. 2). But he had been impressed by the lack of
uniformity in Greek coin weights and was inclined to echo the complaint of Sir George Macdonald
that the instrument of metrology "has indeed broken short in our hands" ("Fifty Years of Greek
Numismatics," Transactions of the International Numismatic Congress, London, 1938, pp. 3-16).
Macdonald reviews the enthusiastic hopes of the metrologists and the vigorous reaction to them
with reference to his studies in the coinage of Crete, where indeed the weights cannot be got to
make any sense. But it is going too far to assert, because this situation obtains in one area, that
Greek money is all token money except for a few issues such as the Athenian, coined with inter-
national trade specifically in view. There is too great a majority of cases in which the standards
are adhered to, though these are often obscured by the fact that we have not enough data to be
statistically safe. If value really had no relation to metal content there would be nothing to
prevent a drastic and universal reduction in weight of all coins not intended to go abroad. The
enigma of Crete would be only half solved, for though we might have an explanation for the light
coins, we should have none for the heavy. We may continue to believe that, as a rule, silver coins
were worth their weight, with exceptions, some of which we can understand and some of which
we cannot. One thing we can understand is that convenience might demand a conventional
adjustment of values to save the nuisance of perpetual weighing. If there were large quantities
in question the scales were undoubtedly resorted to as they still are in the East, but when a few
small pieces of Abydus had to be exchanged for small silver of Lampsacus it was doubtless done
by agreement. Still, we should not exaggerate an Asiatic's impatience with weighing or belittle his
49 On the theory that the coinage of Ilium goes back to Alexander's visit, see Bellinger, "The
use of what local currency was available; contributions from the cities would
have come to him in their own coin or from such stores of gold and electrum as
they had accumulated. It is generally assumed that he collected the taxes that
had been paid to the Persians from the satrapies; this is specially attested for
Hellespontine Phrygia and the Aeolian and Ionian cities and there is nothing
to suggest that the practice was not regularly followed.50 In the case of Priene
and in the case of Ephesus, where there had been rioting and danger of civil
war, Alexander directed that they should contribute such taxes as they had
paid to the Persians to rebuilding the temple of Artemis, which had burned
down.52 Both exceptions show that he was not in desperate need of money. I do
not know the basis of Tarn's dictum "till after Issus he was in financial straits and
the taxes from the king's land were his only source of revenue."53 The case of
Ephesus is particularly interesting because that was the one mint city which fell
into his hands north of the Taurus which seems to have had at the time an
output of large silver (in this instance Rhodian tetradrachms) sufficiently great
But when he reached Tarsus in the spring of 333 he found a place which was
altogether suitable for the establishment of a royal mint and this was the first
to be added to those which his father had used. The early Alexandrian coinage
60 Arrian 1.17. 1; 18. 2; Beloch IV, 1, pp. 14f. The word used in regard to the Phrygians is
<p6pos and Beloch believes that the Greek cities, responsible only for contributions to the war
chest from time to time "waren aber sonst steuerfrei." But 96905 is used also in respect to the
Aeolian and Ionian cities, particularly Ephesus. Examples of special contributions are Aspendus
(50 talents), Arrian I. 26. 3. and Soli (200 talents) Arrian II. 5. 5.
53 Alexander the Great I, p. 34.Tarn is perhaps influenced by his desire to believe that Alexander
was as generous to the Greeks as possible. With the question of constitutional and juridical rela-
tions between them we are not concerned. The theory that the cities were freed by Alexander was
challenged by E. Bickermann, "Alexandre le Grand et les Villes d'Asie," REG 1934, pp. 346-374.
His conclusion is that such liberty as they had rested on the unilateral and revocable act of
Alexander. Tarn, op. cit., II, pp. 199-232, protested against this in favor of the earlier theory. In
1938 Victor Ehrenberg published Alexander and the Greeks, of which pp. 1-51 discuss "Alexander
and the liberated Greek Cities" and the constitutional effect of his tendency toward autocracy,
which the author believes to have been constantly increasing. An interesting study of the reality
of the cities' liberty distinguished from its juridical essence is that of A. Ranovich, "Alexander of
Macedon and the Greek Cities of Asia Minor" (in Russian), Vestnik drevnetistorit, 1947, pp. 57-63.
64 Tarsos.
of doing more than recapitulate the essentials. Tarsus under the Persians had
become the capital of the district of Cilicia and North Syria. It had been the
residence of satraps, the latest of whom was Mazaeus, who ruled for their
master but issued large quantities of silver coins which were not the royal sigloi
but double shekels with a theoretical weight of 11.2 grams, bearing Cilician
types and, more remarkable still, the satraps' names (PLATE III, 1). There was
military and administrative expenses. The obverse type was a seated Baal
which needed but little modification to become the seated Zeus of Alexander's
reverse, and the extreme similarity of the two figures produced at Tarsus shows
employed the same die-sinker (PLATE III, 2). Of course the size of the flan was
increased since the tetradrachms were 6 grams heavier, but Zeus was not
noticeably larger than Baal had been. The head of Heracles now replaced the
lion and bull and city walls of Mazaeus' reverse and thereby eliminated any-
thing to identify the mint, for, like the products of Pella and Amphipolis, these
were to be imperial coins showing no special mark of their origin. Indeed the
first issues bore not even the sign of a responsible official, or only an incon-
spicuous pellet between the seat and the cross-bars of the throne. At the same
time, or shortly thereafter, a series of gold was initiated. Since the satraps had
not struck gold and there seems to have been no easily accessible supply of the
metal it may be that the staters appeared only after Issus with the capture of
Darius' money which he had left at Damascus. Doubtless much of it was gold
which could be melted down and restruck; Curtius says that the coined money
cannot prove that Alexander did. Newell at one time was inclined to think that
Asiatic currency was the core of what Alexander had to use. "At the time of
in the main, of Persian gold darics and silver sigloi and Athenian tetradrachms.
Two of thesethe gold darics and the Athenian tetradrachmshad for the
last hundred and fifty years enjoyed a world-wide circulation and were well
paigns, from the battle of the Granicus to the invasion of India, for the pay of his
troops he relied principally upon the fabulous hoards of wealth which had been
stored away by the Persian monarchs and which now fell into his hands."
the Persian treasure would have been coined money. It is questionable how far
this point of view is justified at the time with which we are now dealing. There is,
as we shall see, evidence that he used Persian money later on, and he was willing
just seen that he probably was content to use the local issues of Asia Minor
at least as supplements to his own. But there was a period of two or three years
after his occupation of Tarsus notable for the opening of new mints to produce
his money. Between the summer of 333 and 330 fall the first issues of Tarsus,
as well as Sardes,63 Damascus64 and Babylon65 (Map 2). It seems very unlikely
that so remarkable a concentration should not have had as its purpose the
ogy and intent which fascinate the participants without always convincing the
observers. So far as our evidence goes, the decision what coins to strike, when
says it should be. The anonymous author knows that the king cannot do every-
87 Tarn, op. cit., II, pp. 237 f. cannot believe that there was an Alexandria earlier than the
one in Egypt, and presents an hypothesis that it was founded after Gaugamela by command of
Alexander but not by his act in presence. It does not matter to us at what point the city also
known as Myriandrus received the conqueror's name but I do not believe that the argument is a
very good one that some ancient writer must have mentioned the foundation if it had occurred
immediately after Issus. The city had been important enough to have its own Persian issues and
without any doubt those of Alexander at once succeeded (E. T. Newell, Myriandros). It might be
remarked that Tarn has difficulty (pp. 239f.) with another Alexandria: Alexandria Troas. The
tradition is (Strabo, XIII. 26) that the city was founded by Antigonus by the synoecism of the
surrounding towns and named after himself; that when Lysimachus acquired it he refounded
it and renamed it Alexandria. This Tarn will not credit, "It is impossible to believe" he says, "that
one Successor, just once, used the Alexander-name.There is only one explanation. Alexander must
have promised to found a city therebut he did not live to do it." But in Alexander's time a
city in that place would have made no sense at all. The whole thing is a characteristic Hellenistic
performance (Louis Robert, Etudes de Numismatique grecque, Paris, 1951, pp. 5-13). If Alexander
had in mind the founding of any Alexandria before the one in Egypt, Myriandrus would have
59 G. F. Hill, "Notes on the Alexander Coins of Phoenicia," Nomisma 1909, pp. 2-5; Deman-
65 F. Imhoof-Blumer, "Die Miinzstatte Babylon zur Zeit der makedonischer Satrapen und
satraps and Alexander, who retained the Persian organization just as far as
he could,66 had his own satrapsso called even when they were Macedonians
and we hear a good deal about their powers and duties.There were special
officers in charge of finance, which was the most conspicuous difference be-
tween the old administration and the new. Berve has pointed out that in the
early days of the invasion the central royal treasury and the war treasury were
one67 and the finance officers were imperial and not local officials. On the most
sources, which Berve has fully recorded,68 but nowhere is there the slightest
especially when it had to be done from a distance, and obviously someone must
have supplied him with the information on which the decisions were based.
But the modern system of delegation of duties did not present itself to antiq-
could be properly brought to the attention of the sovereign, and the scraps
that are left of Alexander's correspondence suggest that it would have showed
the same kind of picture.70 If, then, we conclude that arrangements for minting
contrary) can we discover anything about his motives without getting involved
in historical fiction?
68 Op. cit., II, pp. 75-80. Cf. A. Andreades, "Antimene de Rhodes et Cldomene de Naucratis,"
68 This does not mean that there were no cases of delegation, for the coins with satraps' names
(below, pp. 62- 66) are such cases. But there was no individual to whom Alexander entrusted authority
for a whole class of functions, no single person, that is, who was allowed to regulate the currency
as a whole. The king did not decide every detail but there was no detail that he might not decide,
and when others were allowed to act in their own names the I units of their authority were clearly
understood.
70 Athenaeus, XIII. 6071-608a. A letter from Parmenio to Alexander after the capture of
Darius' baggage at Damascus detailing the number of concubines and slaves with their special
skills. XI. 781 f-782a and 784a. Letters concerning the Persian booty with valuations and lists of
table service. XIV. 65gf-66oa is a letter to Alexander urging him to buy a cook from his mother.
How one would like to know more of the letter from Cleomenes that spoke of ten thousand
smoked coot, five thousand thrushes and ten thousand smoked quail! IX. 393c. It may seem
absurd that the sovereign's time should be imposed on with such trifles, but the alternative of a
bureaucracy had its own drawbacks. The late Roman empire found by experience how dis-
Of course there is no need to prove that he had to have money; the central
question is why did he have to have money with his own types? Newell, after
suggesting that he might have got along with what was already in circulation,
adds71 "Even so, it seems but natural that he would issue coins bearing his own
name and types to take the place, as soon as possible, of a coinage belonging to
having all the new money Alexandrine while the old issues wore out or were melt-
ed down or buried by private owners? Or was the old currency called in by the
and Datames seem to have melted down the silver of their predecessor Tiribazus
to issue their own coins.72 There is no way of telling certainly whether Alexander
did the same thing but in any case the new money was to be his. In the cases
of Tarsus and Myriandrus, the metropoleis of Cilicia and North Syria, this
meant putting an end to issues in the name of the Persian satrap Mazaeus and
by gold also. This needs no elaborate explanation. Whether or not the Persian
empire was "fast vanishing" its control over this district was at an end.
But not all the cases were as simple as this. Perhaps the next mint to begin
operations for the conqueror was Aradus which was ruled by a king named
Gerostratus whose son Straton met Alexander on his march south along the
Syrian coast and surrendered the city to him.73 Now Aradus had its own
coinage whose types were purely local and had nothing to do with the Persians.
siege of Tyre,74 and there would have been nothing surprising in that service
being rewarded by the continuance of the right of coinage. But Aradus at once
began to strike tedradrachms with the head of Heracles and seated Zeus, like
those of Tarsus and Myriandrus with one notable difference: their origin is
clearly marked, first by the Aramaic letters used on the autonomous coins,
then by an A and finally by the monogram A.75 A similar course was taken by
Sidon whose king, another Straton, surrendered reluctantly and was therefore
replaced.76 Thereupon the double shekels, some of which had been issued by the
76 Demanhur, pp. 11gf. The autonomous coins are marked with the Aramaic equivalent of
KB, MA. HN gives the reader a clue as to why this should signify Aradus: a stands for the word
Alexander's tetradrachms and staters which at first bore the town's Aramaic
initial, later I or 2M.77 Slightly different is the case of Byblus, for there Ainel
(whom Arrian calls Enylos)78 having delivered the city and joined Alexander's
fleet, as did the king of Aradus, was rewardedif it was a rewardby having
the first two letters of his name "is; used on the tetradrachms instead of the
name of the city, and the later issues bear the monogram f? for his successor
Adramelek. Now these three cities all had coinages of their own and there was
nothing to prevent Alexander from allowing them to continue now that they
were his allies, as he had apparently done with the coinages north of the Taurus.
To be sure, the double shekels of Mazaeus from Sidon would need to be replaced
as had his shekels from Tarsus, but no objection of that sort could be made to
Similar treatment was accorded to the kings of Cyprus. They had not been
as prompt to surrender as the mainlanders, but they joined him with their
fleets at Sidon and he was willing to forgive their previous service to the Per-
tetradrachms and those from Citium are clearly identified by the monogram K.
Salamis, however, used first a bow, then a rudder as symbol on its silver and
only the bronze is unmistakably marked IA. Paphos also, which may have
begun a little later prefers her characteristic device of a dove to a literal identi-
fication.80 About these emissions Newell uses what seems to me strange language.
On the mainland, he says, "every city which had thrown open its gates without
a struggle to Alexander was accorded local autonomy, and, where a mint had
previously existed, was allowed to continue coining; with the proviso, however,
that the issues should henceforth conform in types, weights, and denomina-
tions with the regular coinage of the empire. As a result, such cities as Aradus,
Byblus, Sidon and Ake coined as they never had before, even in their most
prosperous days.It would therefore be strange if, in return for their sub-
mission and the invaluable services of their fleets, Alexander should have
deprived the kings of Cyprus of the immemorial right of coinage, or even have
curtailed it in any vital way."81 Newell's mind at the moment was on identi-
fication and not explanation or he could hardly have written in that way. Can
there be any more vital curtailment imagined of the right of coinage of the
77 The group of staters and distaters with symbols but no letters which Newell originally
assigned to Sidon (Sidon and Ake, pp. 71.) he was later inclined to transfer in whole or in part to
80 Newell reports only one coin at Marion and it is impossible to say whether or not its thunder-
81 "Some Cypriote Alexanders," pp. 298f. See Schlumberger's comment, pp. 27f., n. 5.
king of Citium than that he should have to discontinue his own currency to
produce silver with alien types and the name Alexander on which only the
monogram of his city suggested that he had anything to do with the affair ?82
Is it not obvious that the Cypriote kings and the Phoenician kings were not
"Arados, Byblos, Sidon and Ake coined as they never had before" and this is
certainly true.83 Where did all the metal come from, not only the greatly in-
creased output of silver but the gold of Tarsus and Sidon and Ake?
there was a vitally important campaign before him, required much moneyhis
should now make such efforts to provide his own money when he had opened
no new mints in Asia Minor, there are likely answers at hand. For one thing the
the straits so that her gold was replacing the gold and electrum of the other
metal. For another, north of the Taurus Alexander was to some extent among
friends. Whatever the realities behind the professed purpose of freeing the
Greek cities, he had come there as the leader of a Greek League as well as a
king of Macedon; the Greek cities understood his position and in the majority
of cases were willing to accept it. He had driven the Persians out of the country
and though they still had friends there, there was no prospect of their combining
to make head against him. If the Greek coins of the cities circulated as a minor
supplement to the Greek coins of Alexander it was not likely that any harm
would come of it and no harm did. But south of the Taurus he was in alien
territory. He had not come there to free anybody but to conquer. The Cilicians,
the Syrians and the Phoenicians had no reason for prejudice in his favor; if he
was to be as acceptable as the king of the Persians he must make his place.
82 He may have had nothing to do with it whatever. After the siege of Tyre, according to Duris
(Athenaeus IV. 167 c) Alexander gave a property to Pnytagoras which had belonged to "Pygma-
lion" of Citium. Hill (BMC Cyprus, pp. xlf.) concludes, perhaps rashly, that Pymathion of
Citium is intended and that Alexander had deposed him. All Pymathion's coins are gold and there
is a gap in his activity between the siege of Tyre and the death of Alexander.
83 It is generally supposed that Ake had never coined before (BMC Phoenicia, p. Ixxvii, "The
numismatic history of the city begins with Alexander the Great"), but C. Lambert in publishing
"A Hoard of Phoenician Coins Found on the Site of Ake" (The Quarterly of the Department of
Antiquities in Palestine, 1931, pp. 10-20), makes a very strong case for transferring to that city
two groups of Tyrian types: Group II, BMC, pp. 229f., nos. 11-18 and Group IV, pp. 231 f.,
nos. 25-42. He suggests that "coins of Group IV may have been issued for local requirements
concurrently with coins of Alexander's types struck at Acre." The group would begin shortly
Tarsus and the cities that received him after Issus were acknowledging what
they thought to be the greater power. Tyre and Gaza held the contrary view
and were destroyed for their mistake. It was vital to him that he be recognized
as the master in all parts of his new territory and therefore all the mints were
set to work to manufacture one of the most effective kinds of manifesto known
to antiquity: his name and types on the coins. This was done quite without
regard for the normal financial needs of the district; the much increased
activity of the coast mints did not mean a sudden era of prosperity and com-
mercial activity. It was their contribution to the conqueror's needs, and since
no new mines were being opened it is only reasonable to assume that the neces-
sary extra bullion came from the melting down of the king's treasure. There
was no overstriking involved, the weights of both gold and silver pieces in
previous use being different from the weights by which they were supplanted.
We shall therefore never have the kind of proof that comes from detecting an
earlier type beneath the later ones. None the less, we have sufficient reason for
believing that in the period succeeding the battle of Issus Alexander did not
intend to continue the local coinages of the district but to replace them with his
own, and one probable means to take would be to melt down and restrike.83*
achieved. In the first place, the pre-Alexandrine coins did not all disappear. In
the hoard from Galilee buried about 319/8M and one found at Byblus buried
tetradrachms.86 Later events showed that there was still a place for the earlier
no means made the country independent of coins from the north. In the
Demanhur Hoard there were 1582 pieces from the mint of Amphipolis, 1526
from the mints of Tarsus, Myriandrus, the cities of Cyprus, Aradus, Byblus,
Sidon and Ake all combined. And the situation is even more impressive than
this appears for a much higher proportion of the coins of Amphipolis were struck
during Alexander's lifetime than is the case with the southern mints.87 Before
Gaugamela, then, there would probably have been more Macedonian Alexanders
84 J. Baramki, "A Hoard of Silver Coins of Sidon and Alexander from Khirbet el Kerak,"
86 The same is true of the hoards of Jdita, Noe, A Bibliography of Greek Coin Hoards, ed. 2
(NNM 78), New York, 1937, 512 and Qasr Naba, Noe 846; the latter has also small silver of other
kinds. It must be confessed that this is not very impressive evidence for the continuance of non-
Alexandrine issues.
87 "An Alexander Hoard from Byblos," p. 48. Cf. Demanhur, pp. 150f
to be seen in Syria than Syrian and Cilician ones. This must have been the
result not of choice but of the much greater productivity of the Macedonian
of the East he should open a mint at Damascus.88 In writing to Hill about the
possibility of assigning to that mint some of the gold which he had previously
Demanhur, however, he dates the first series of silver circa 332-330; that is he
believed that the mint was organized soon after the capture of the city by
Parmenio following the victory of Issus. That would mean that Parmenio's
action was not a mere raid to get the king's baggage, but an occupation of a
vital point protecting Alexander's flank and broadening his territory, as did
the campaign in Antilebanon during the siege of Tyre. This is likely enough in
itself, though no ancient author discusses it. Damascus was a new step since
it had never had a mint;89 doubtless artisans were brought there from the
coast. The complicated marks with pellets, which are hard to reduce to a system,
may be evidence of a factory not yet well organized. The mint is clearly marked
with the letters AA, to which later series add the city's device of the forepart
of a ram. It is not easy to find a consistent policy in the use or omission of mint
marks. Apparently the greatest mints: Pella, Amphipolis, Tarsus, Babylon and
Alexandria dispense with them, but by no means all the lesser ones invariably
use them and Newell's feeling that the difference was between imperial and
Babylon would seem an obvious place for the minting of Persian coins and
indeed Newell says it "had probably possessed a mint under the Persian
kings,"90 but there is no proof of it. Babelon's great work Les Perses achemenides
does not raise the question at all and Hill, after discussing the difficulties of
attempt to identify the mints at which coins were struck until the very difficult
problem of the mints of Alexander's coinage in the East has been more or less
Tarsus or, of original creation, like Damascus. In either case the city which
was intended to be the capital of the whole empire began to contribute its share
80 Demanhur, p. 140.
The coins were long in being recognized precisely because there was no re-
cognizable mint mark. An article of Six in 1884 pointed the way,92 to be followed
attribution was indignantly rejected by Sir Henry Howorth94 and many who
did not rush into print must have shared his dismay in the shaking of the
but the evidence was against Howorth and no one doubts any more. His
minting was in the old tradition and was mistaken, and yet his dissatisfaction
was not without reason, for the matter was more complex than the location of
a new place of origin for the gold and silver with Macedonian types. The fact
is that the great victory at Gaugamela opened a new epoch whose nature is
The first step was not revolutionary and it may, indeed, have preceded the
Sardes (Map 1).95 There is doubtful evidence that the city may have coined for
the Persians,96 but it was not issuing any local types. There is no reason why it
should not have been used by Alexander at any moment after its capture in 334
but, as we have seen, there was at that time no attempt to supplement the
emission of Amphipolis for use in Asia. Why the situation should have changed
by 331 we cannot say, but there is one important difference between the func-
tion of Sardes and that of the earlier Asiatic mints. She was used not so much
for tetradrachms, which had been the principal product of the Macedonian and
southern cities, as for gold and drachmae. In this she was a pattern for the
other towns of Asia Minor presently to be put into operation: Magnesia (330),
Lampsacus (329), Abydus, Colophon and Miletus (325), Teos (324). A reason
for this which comes to mind at once is that the pre-Alexandrine coinage of
Asia Minor had been to a large extent gold, or electrum, and small silver.
93 F. Imhoof-Blumer, "Die Miinzstatte Babylon zur Zeit der makedonischer Satrapen und
96 Newell was convinced (Demanhur, p. 91). Head (BMC, Lydia, p. xcvii) had not been:
"Whether the Persians, after the conquest of Lydia, struck any darics or sigloi at Sardes is very
doubtful." But Milne ("A Hoard of Persian Sigloi," NC 1916, pp. 1-12) suggests that sigloi
with a little lion's head on the reverse might be from Sardes, which Hill (BMC, Arabia,
p. cxxxv) regarded as a "very plausible suggestion." The symbol would be appropriate but there
hardly seem to be enough known to represent the output of what ought to have been an
important mint.
Presumably, therefore, the country liked and would use small silver. But there
would be an advantage in having all the small silver on a single standard, and
this may have been a belated provision of uniformity in place of the pre-existing
confusion.97 Presumably the gold was intended to fill the void caused by the
and Mytilene, and the metal which used to go into those types was now diverted
to the seven towns to be made into Alexander staters (above p. 45). There can
be no doubt that there was a plan for the special use of these towns, but again
mints such as might have resulted from decisions made by Alexander one at a
time but such as could hardly have resulted from any laying out of the plan
in detail at the beginning. It is quite out of the question, however, that this
pattern can have been achieved by accident through the independent action
of the cities themselves, or that they should have acted in concert without
reference to the sovereign whose types they proposed to strike. An eighth city,
Ephesus, was added to the group laterprobably after 294and a few other
places made minor contributions of drachmae in the 3rd century. The omission
of Ephesus from the original list was doubtless the result of the confusion at the
time of her capture which may have crippled her for some time to come.98 Not
only was the supply of drachmae adequate for Alexander's lifetime but, the
fashion having once been set, the mints of Asia Minor continued to be the
source of most of the drachmae throughout the empire into the latter half of the
3rd century. What was the proportionate manufacture of gold we do not yet
A second innovation was more radical. It was the opening of a mint at Sicyon
for tetradrachms, staters, and a surprising number of distaters (Map 1).100 There
is good reason to believe that it began operations in 330/29. Newell said "about
bearing Alexander types was instituted at Sicyon."101 Noe does not debate the
question but gives "330/25 to c. 318 B.C." as the limits of Group I. The lower
limit is provided by the burial date of the Demanhur Hoard in which speci-
mens of all the varieties of tetradrachms were found. But the group cannot
have lasted so long. Sicyon was allied with Athens against Antipater in the
Lamian War of 323/2 and cannot at that time have been striking royal Mace-
98 Arrian I.17.10-13.
99 On all the Alexandrine mints of Asia Minor see Thompson and Bellinger, passim.
donian types.102 The last issue may have been coined in 323 before the beginning
of the war but that is the latest possible date. Now there is evidence of 8
issues103 if one makes the usual assumption that each variety of symbol means
the product of a single year. That would bring the beginning to 330/29, which
would satisfy historical probability very well. For the purpose of the establish-
ment of the mint is clear: it was to assist in the hiring of Peloponnesian merce-
naries. In the fall of 334, between the beginning of the siege of Halicarnassus
and the campaign in Lycia, Alexander had sent Cleander to the Peloponnesus
to collect soldiers.104 In his mention of the matter Curtius says "Cleandro cum
and it was better to send the necessary funds with Cleander. But if there had
were a mint nearby where money could be issued as it was needed. That should
have been apparent as early as Oleander's first trip. But would not the opening
of a royal mint in Greece be a serious affront to the spirit, if not to the letter,
loz The suggestion (Sicyon, p. 26) that these coins may have been "some of the sinews of the
Lamian war" is surely mistaken. Rebellion against Antipater would have been the occasion of the
103 Noe's arrangement would provide 8 issues distinguished by their symbols or by style:
1. Boy with outstretched arms alone (distater no. 1, stater no. 2, tetradrachm no. 3).
3. Thunderbolt and A (distater nos. 6, 7supposing A and A to be the samestater no. 8).
6. Boy alone, different style from 1 (stater no. 12, tetradrachms nos. 13, 14distinguished
Of these, 1, 3 and 6 are large issues. In 1 there are 8 reverse dies used for the tetradrachms,
though only one each for distater and stater. In 3 there are 18 reverse dies used for the distaters,
1 for the stater. In 6 there are 9 reverses used for the tetradrachms. The others are all small, each
using only a single reverse die, except that there are 2 for tetradrachm no. 4 and 2 for distater
no. 9. There is, however, no reason for combining any of the minor issues, and combining 1 and 6,
where the difference is one of style alone, would still leave 7 issues.
Since the terminal date is 323/2, that would put the beginning not later than 330/29. The
latest issue (presumably 8) might have come in 323 before the outbreak of the Lamian war. The
earliest could not be before the battle of Megalopolis in the fall of 331, and therefore an issue
before 330 would be hardly possible. If we are to provide a year for each of Noe's varieties, there-
104 Arrian I. 24. 2; Curtius III. 1.1. Cleander came back with 4,000 Greek mercenaries during
any provision about coining by members of the League, but there is no evidence
that there was any interference with that ancient right of the cities. The large
time, and we have one sure instance of a city initiating an autonomous coinage
were struck from about 337 to 334 for the rebuilding of the temple.105 In time
Macedonian coins did find their way into the Greek cities106 but not because
there was any effort, at this early period, of the Macedonians to replace civic
issues by royal ones. Alexander might well have hesitated to set up his own
mint in the territory of his Greek allies. But consideration for his Greek allies
certainly waned as his phenomenal successes gave him less and less need for
relying on their good will. After Gaugamela things might be done that would
not have been done in 334. Moreover there was a consideration which was more
strength was so considerable that Agis took the offensive in 331 and pressed
Antipater hard until, in the fall of that year, the battle of Megalopolis crushed
the Spartan power.107 After that there was no anti-Macedonian force to resist
an intrusion of royal power or to make the minting and storing of gold in the
The extension of Alexander's activities into the territories of the free cities
of Asia Minor and Greece, if a new departure, was not a surprising one. The
career of the satrap Mazaeus may perhaps deserve a closer scrutiny than it
generally gets.108 He became Satrap of Cilicia about 361 and in this capacity
he struck silver at Tarsus with his name but without title.109 From 351-344 he
was one of the commanders against the rebel king of Sidon. In 351 or later he
became Satrap of Northern Syria and Cilicia, and in this capacity until 333 he
struck silver with his name and title (PLATE III, 1).110 At the same time he
106 Diogenes Laertius VII. 18. Zeno said of the polished discourses of the learned that they
were like the silver of Alexander, pleasant to the eye and well marked but none the better for that.
The other kind of discourse he likened to the Attic tetradrachms, carelessly cut and clumsy but
often able to demolish ornamented speeches. Evidently in Zeno's time there were Alexanders
circulating in Athens along with the Old Style Attic tetradrachmsand Zeno didn't like them.
107 Alexander sent money to Antipater for the war against Sparta after the capture of Susa.
108 It is extensively treated by J. P. Six, "Le Satrap Mazaios;" see also Babelon, Traite II. 2,
pp. 445-460; BMC, Lycaonia, etc., pp. Ixxxi-lxxxiii; BMC, Phoenicia, pp. xcvi-xcix; Cohen,
Histoire grecque IV. 1, p. 13, n. 22, pp. 97, 99, 103f., 129.
issued coins with his name but not his title from Myriandrus ;ul from circa
343-333 he issued coins of Sidonian types with his name112 and there are
imitation Athenian tetradrachms with his name, probably for use in Palestine.113
Arsames who deserted Tarsus; he was killed at the battle of Issus.114 Where
Mazaeus was we do not know, but his coins seem to have continued through
the uneasy term of his successor who had fought at the Granicus and whose
subsequent perils had left him no time for civilian activities.115 Mazaeus next
and pressed Parmenio so hard that Alexander had to halt his pursuit of Darius
to assist him. Hearing of the king's flight, however, Mazaeus broke off the
engagement and led the remnants of his troops to Babylon.117 For 30 years he
had been an important andso far as the record showsa loyal general and
Babylon without resistance. Curtius (V. 1. 17) makes it clear that the act was
a very convenient one for Alexander. "Gratus adventus eius regi fuit; quippe
magni operis obsidio futura erat tam munitae urbis." He took the precaution
made him welcome. Perhaps the town had been indefensible in spite of what
Curtius says, perhaps it was clear to Mazaeus that his king could never make
another stand. Yet it is hard to avoid the suspicion that the surrender had
been bargained for and that there was a price involved. The suspicion is deepened
like the later treatment of Porus: "Alexander was honoring a worthy oppo-
district into the hands of an enemy simply because he had been "a worthy
dorus of Amphipolis was made commander of the troops left with Mazaeus and
115 Babelon supposed him to have instituted the series of unsigned staters with the head of
Athena (Traite, pp. 461-468, nos. 719-733) but Newell shows (Tarsos, pp. 42-47) that these were
Asclepiodorus was made collector of the taxes.119 There was a further unique
aspect of the new satrap's position, however. He at once began to issue silver
of which was Baaltars, as the inscription showed, and on the other, a lion with
It is this which most deeply shocked Howorth. "Prima facie" he says, "it
seems incredible that Alexander should have permitted one of his satraps, and
that a Persian...to issue coins in the satrap's own name." The Cilician Baal
unintelligible to the Greeks, the only people who would use the coins.121
Howorth was defending a doomed thesis, but more attention should have
been paid to the facts against which he protested. Attempts to explain this
unprecedented concession have been far from convincing. Six, who was the
first to face the problem, could only urge that Alexander, about to set out for
the Far East "ne s'est pas, certainment, occup6 des types ou des legends de
monnaies destinies aux populations indigenes." But the idea that this was a
very time that the lion staters were beginning to appear Babylon joined the
could have attended to one series if he could provide for the other. Some
special reason must be found for this striking exception to the regular rule that
satraps could not coin in their own names. Most of the historians, if they record
the fact at all, do so without comment. Tarn123 and Cohen124 avoid the central
point: "he was the only satrap permitted to coin, doubtless for the convenience
lui laisse le privilege de battre monnaie." Money issued at Babylon might well
assist trade, but why this money and why the name Mazaeus? In his answer to
explanation. "Alexander's efforts to make the utmost allowance for the orien-
120 The weights of these coins create a problem with which Newell has dealt at some length
in ESM, pp. 105 f. It seems clear that the first ones were intended to be on the Attic standard,
but they soon became so much lighter as to fall to the weight of three sigloi, as Imhoof-Blumer
saw, NC 1906, p. 23, n. 10. But Newell rightly pointed out that they cannot have been meant to
be "triple sigloi" for their fractions are didrachms, drachms, hemidrachms and obols, which is
tal point of view is well known. For the silver, the types of the Kilikian satrapal
issues of Mazaeus, Baaltars in the guise of Zeus and the lion were retained.On
the first silver issue struck at Babylon Mazaeus continued not only the coin
types of the Kilikian satrapy, but also, in accordance with the usual practice,
their inscriptions, which records his own name and that of the god represented,
the latter being intended to promulgate the figure of Baaltars still little known
in the far east, i.e., the figure of that particular Baal of all the countless Baalim
who had to be identified with the Greek Zeus of contemporary imperial issues.
Before the end of his short term of office (330-328) the satrap Mazaeus appears
to have been induced to give up these inscriptions, and from this date on until
306 the satrapal coins remain anepigraphic" (PLATE III, 4). As to the types,
against the attribution to Babylon lies in the fact that the coins with the name
objection is that, although issued at Babylon, this was a satrapal coinage in-
tended chiefly for the payment of troops, many of whom may have been raised
in Cilicia by Mazaeus and brought by him to the East." This does indeed
propose a reason for the selection of types. But can it have been necessary to
if they demanded western types, why the lion alone (which was the type of
Myriandrus) instead of the familiar lion and bull or lion and deer of Tarsus?
And would it not be important to give them the double shekels to which they
characteristic of his policy from this point on and not of that which guided him
before Gaugamela. Why otherwise the replacement of local issues by his own
types? When all is said there is as yet no explanation of the satrap's name on
the silver of his new office. But how much is explained by the hypothesis that
the price of the bloodless surrender of Babylon was the confirming to Mazaeus
of his title and privileges! When Imhoof-Blumer speaks of the "usual practice"
Persian satraps in Cilicia. If Mazaeus was allowed to continue that, then his
position as Satrap of Cilicia under Darius. But, whatever were his rights in the
matter of coining in his earlier office, it is not likely that he now arrogated to
himself that power of decision which the Oeconomica restricts to the sovereign.
function was not financial and we may be very sure that the number and kinds
of coins to be struck were decided by higher authority than his. The phrase
"the Satrap Mazaeus appears to have been induced to give up these inscriptions"
mously consenting.127 If the special privilege was ended before the satrap's death
in 328 it is hardly likely to have been done in so courtly a fashion. The reason
for suggesting it is that there are anepigraphic lion staters which seem to come
so early in the series that Imhoof-Blumer would assign them to the first satrap.
But that is not proven. The staters with Mazaeus' name are very rare but
serpent, with K. If they follow the normal Greek practice of a different symbol
every year all the years of Mazaeus' satrapy would be accounted for.
Whatever the intent behind the origin of the lion staters, and their divisions,
they did serve an economic function for they continued to be issued from Baby-
lon into, and perhaps through, the reign of Seleucus I and, in lesser numbers,
from Susa129 and Ecbatana130 in the same reign. This is not easy to account for.
They were by then so much under weight for Attic tetradrachms that they
must have been at a disadvantage compared with the full weight coins of
Alexandrine type being struck at the same time. Yet, if this were intended for
would have been made to fit the Persian system, which they do not. (Paren-
thetically it must be pointed out that we are by no means sure that the inhabi-
tants of Babylonia did have any preference for sigloi).131 One is tempted to
think of coins only locally valid where a discrepancy between face value and
bullion value could be ignored by the sovereign, and Newell132 has very tenta-
tively suggested a connection between the lion staters and the temple of Bel.
He recognizes the difficulty created by the lion issues of Susa and Ecbatana
and can only hazard a guess that "if the temple at Babylon could issue 'temple
money' so too, presumably, could the hardly less important and famous temples
187 Ulrich Wilcken, Alexander the Great, New York, 1932, p. 141, whatever his source, believes
that it was a temporary arrangement. "As an exceptional measurewhich was soon cancelled
131 The hoard from Mesopotamia published by Robinson, "A Silversmith's Hoard from
Mesopotamia," Iraq, 1950, pp. 44-51, contained 7 sigloi, compared with 6 Athenian coins and
10 more from western mints. Noe 1109 from the Tigris seems to have been exclusively Greek
correspondence in fabric between the lion staters and the much later Jewish
shekels of the First Revoltalso temple money. Though I have nothing better
that Alexander made his offerings to Bel-Marduk and directed the recon-
struction of his temple133 but there cannot have been any intended connection
between that act and the first lion staters on which the god is specifically named
not Marduk but Baaltars. One must suppose either that the Babylonians could
not read the inscription (which is likely enough) or that the correspondence was
not thought of until the appearance of the anepigraphic staters. It is true that
Baaltars and Marduk were of sufficiently similar nature so that the seated god
could be taken for either one of them. But that is patently not true of Artemis-
lion staters' success had been real religious association it is surprising that it
should have disappeared so quickly. Only in Babylon can they have possibly
lasted beyond the reign of Seleucus I and there only until 275 at the latest,
I cannot solve the enigma but, at the moment, the point of importance is that
the length of life of the experimental currency was enough to make it plain that
it was acceptable to the community and it is only fair to suppose that Alexander
and Mazaeus had reasonable grounds for supposing that it would be acceptable.
Mazaeus is not the only satrap to turn up on coins in Babylonia, but the
second instance has to do with a very different class of coins: the imitation of
Athenian owls. At the end of the 5th century it could be said that the owls of
Athens were the international currency par excellence, and even down to
Alexander's time they held their place as one of the principal elements of the
currency of the East, though now they were joined by satrapal silver and that
of the cities of the Syrian coast.136 The appearance of these latter issues begins
at the time of the Peloponnesian war when the supply of owls was much
Athenian coins. Early hoards, such as those of Caboul and Malayer published
to the coins of all the other cities together, but the 4th century owls do not
seem to be included. Instead, one gets imitations.137 Now one kind of imitation,
135 "The Coins from the Treasure of the Oxus," MN 1962, pp. 51-67.
137 One imitation with AIT instead of AGE was in the Caboul Hoard (Schlumberger, p. 36,
no. 64); another had been in the Oxus Hoard (Gardner, NC 1880, p. 191).
said to amount to a "very large group" is the type of owl bearing in Aramaic
5).138 These are mysterious coins, the only explanation for which is that put
forward by Newell. After Issus Mazaces had been sent as Persian satrap to Egypt
where he kept order until the arrival of the Macedonian army, and where he
issued tetradrachms with Athenian types and bronzes with the head of a satrap
and a galley, both classes bearing his name in Aramaic.139 Being too weak to
resist, he received Alexander in friendly fashion into the country and the
cities,140 handing over 800 talents and the royal furniture.141 Berve thinks it
likely that he found a place at Alexander's court142 but the sources have nothing
more to say about him. The evidence for his connection with Babylonia is
or district as a reward for his ready surrender of Egypt." His owls then would
be an exact parallel to Mazaeus' lion staters except that we do not know what
position Mazaces could have held which would entitle him to this distinction.
Nor do we know the location of the mint. Newell gives good reasons for not
putting it at Babylon, yet he can only suggest Uruk or Opis, neither of which
has any special claim to consideration. Yet if there are many things puzzling
about these coins their purpose is more evident than that of Mazaeus' issues.
They can hardly have been intended primarily for use in Babylonia, even
though they turn up there. The imperial mint was producing Macedonian
tetradrachms and lion staters as well, and that surely ought to have satisfied
the demand. But if one wanted to mint silver for general circulation in the East
imitation owls would be the obvious thing to strike. Of course, this cannot have
been a private venture of Mazaces. It must have been part of a plan that had
imperial approval and prima facie the plan was to supply familiar types for
But these two classes of silver were not the only innovation connected with
the capture of Babylonia. "Demanding explanation also" says Newell, "is the
fact that for many years double and (more rarely) single gold darics of Achae-
minid type were coined alongside the lion staters. These gold coins seem, almost
138 Newell, Miscellanea Numismatic a, Cyrene to India (NNM 82), 1938, pp. 82-88. Schlum-
berger, p. 20, n. 6, accepts the attribution as certain. Six, NC 1884, pp. 141-143 had read the name
as Mazaros and assigned his no. 3 to the Companion whom Alexander installed as commander of
139 Newell, op. cit., pp. 72-75. His predecessor Sabaces had also struck imitation owls with
his name and signed bronzes with a lion and a Persian archer, op. cit., pp. 62-72.
invariably, to turn up in eastern Iran and Bactria and not in Babylonia. But as
most of the specimens of which we possess any record at all have come from
the single great Treasure of the Oxus,' this seeming fact may be illusory. That
both double darics and lion staters were mostly coined at Babylon is certain."143
the Great"144 are at once distinguishable from earlier Persian gold by their
appearance (PLATE III, 6). Though the conventional figure of the king in
kneeling or running position is preserved, the face, with its straight nose, is a
Hellenized version of the Persian monarch. The relief is higher and the incuse
lines or curves that tend to form a pattern (cf. BMC Arabia, PI. XX, 1-13).
obverse. There are no double darics which do not have some or all of these
What is the unit to which it belongsthe rarer single gold daric ? There are few
darics with letters or monograms like those of the doubles145 and none with
quite the same wavy patterns on the reverse. There are, however, some which
show a similar pattern and which also have high relief and a Hellenized por-
trait (BMC Arabia, PI. XXV, 21-25). As to these, Hill is cautious. He calls
attention to the likeness of the two denominations, but catalogues the darics
with the Persian Empire instead of with the Alexandrine Empire of the East.
They must, he says "belong to the last Persian king, Darius III,146 and in the
catalogue they appear under the caption 'Darius III' Babylon." There are a
few sigloi like them. Only one is illustrated (PI. XXV, 26) but it certainly
shows a portrait unlike the earlier sigloi. Hill's arrangement would mean that
under Darius III there was a marked artistic change in the coins issued at
Babylon affecting both darics and sigloi, and that Alexander used and developed
the new style in the same city for the making of a denomination of his own, the
double daric, though he did not strike either single darics or sigloi. The sudden
143 The capital work is F. Imhoof-Blumer, "Die Miinzstatte Babylon," NZ 1895, pp. 1-22.
Except for the protest of Sir Henry Howorth, promptly answered, there has been no dissent.
However, the concession implied in Newell's phrase "mostly coined at Babylon" had been more
clearly expressed by Hill, BMC, Arabia, p. cxli, n. 1. "It may perhaps be admitted that some of
the coins were issued at other mints in the Eastern portion of Alexander's conquests;" e.g., pp.
178f., nos. 8-13. "the following are for the most part of ruder workmanship, and were perhaps
and the suggestion might be ventured as an alternative that these darics and
sigloi are also coins of Alexander but from a different mint, which would ex-
That these are indeed from Babylon is the general persuasion, but it can
hardly be called proven. The piece with M in the field (BMC, p. 176, no. 2) may
with [*i on a double daric (BMC, p. 177, no. 5). But OA or Ol are on both the
gold which Hill labels "Usually attributed to the mint of Babylon" and that
of which he says "The following are for the most part of ruder workmanship,
and were perhaps made farther East than Babylon." The idea that all these
strange issues were the product of Mazaeus is tempting147 but it will need more
darics there is very little said about the reason for it. Unlike the lion staters these
from beginning to end are on a different standard from the Attic and there must
have been a particular reason for the premeditated confusion of two gold coins
one of which was not quite twice the weight of the other. It seems inescapable
that the invention of the double daric rests on the intention to use the daric,
and perhaps the darics which Hill assigns to Darius III are actually the units
of Alexander. But there were others available. Diodorus says that the capture
of Susa brought in 40,000 talents of uncoined gold and silver and 9,000 talents
of darics; that of Persepolis, 120,000 talents reckoning the gold at its value in
silver.148 We have seen reason to believe that the treasure captured at Damascus
147 Babelon, Les Perses achlmenides, p. xx, "De toute necessite, on doit conclure qu'Alexandre,
en laissant au satrap perse Mazaios ses droits monetaireslui permit de continuer non seulement
1'emission de ses tetradrachmes d'argent aux types de Baaltars et du lion, mais encore celle des
dariques et des doubles dariques." Babelon says nothing about the sigloi which Hill associates with
the darics. Can there have been the simultaneous issue from the same mint of Alexandrine
lie XVII. 66. 1; 71. 1. He is the only one who makes special reference to darics. The authors
vary in the amounts they give, but the differences are not extreme. They all reckon in silver
talents (dtpyuplou ToXavra talentum argenti) though Diodorus alone is specific: els dpyvptou A6yov
SUSA PERSEPOLIS
uncoined
9,000 tal.
of darics
69
Map 2
40,000 tal.
coined
This is not serious variation. The chief question is, was any of the treasure in the form of coin?
I do not believe that Plutarch's VOU(CTUOTOS is of any importance. In view of Curtius' explicit phrase
non signati forma sed rudi pondere, and Diodorus' Aor'mou ypvaov Kocl dpyupoO we must suppose
there was bullion, which is likely even without testimony. But Diodorus is so clear in his anti-
thesis between the bullion and the dvvocKiax'Xia TdXavra xP"00" x0?010^0 SapeiKibv UXOITOC as
to make it certain that he believed there to have been both bullion and coin. It is less likely that
his source invented the darics than that the source of Arrian and Curtius made up a round number
was melted down and reissued with Alexander's own types, but we do not find
the same conditions here. There is no activity in local mints. Indeed, it is a fact
of the greatest importance that there is no mint for Alexander coins in the East
except Babylon. The map will show the surprising lack of proportion which
multiplies the western mints and leaves nothing but Babylon to supply the
funds for the long and costly campaign east of the two rivers (Map 3). The army
cannot have been without coin. Even though they were going into country
where an economy of barter may have prevailed widely, the Greek and Mace-
donian soldiery cannot have been induced to forego their accustomed pay from
the summer of 330 to that of 325. Yet the record, which contains two mutinies,
has no suggestion of the kind of difficulty about pay so common with ancient
armies. The cancellation of debts which followed the marriages at Susa149 was,
to be sure, a phenomenon of the return to familiar civilization, but how did the
army incur debts of 20,000 talents if they had been operating on payments in
kind? The reorganization which provided for "ten stater men" between the
ordinary soldiers and the "double pay men" is reported150 without any intim-
ation that pay was being reintroduced. If Alexander had founded his eastern
cities (particularly the military colonies)151 without money could the Greek
historians possibly have avoided comment on it? There is no escape from the
fact that the army must have had money in the East and the necessary con-
clusion seems to be that it was transported from Babylon, the nearest source.
But that surely presents an enormous problem of transport. The system of the
Ecbatana and Bactra, with another which may have been at Hecatompylus or
Artacoana, and the contents of the Oxus Hoard show that the mint of Bactra
supplied the needs of that district as it was intended to do.152 Why should
Alexander rely on so remote a city as Babylon which, moreover, had its own
150 Arrian VII. 23. 3. 4. Griffith, Mercenaries of the Hellenistic World, p. 300 believes that
pay was intermitted during the Indian campaign on two grounds: first, "It is difficult to think that
Alexander carried vast sums of money about with him during his Indian campaign" and second
"when he returned from India and discharged 10,000 Macedonian veterans, he had arrears of pay
to make up" (Arrian VII. 12. 1). The difficulty as to transport is a serious one, but not so serious
in India where he had the rivers to use as in the mountains of Bactria. And there is nothing to
suggest that the arrears in pay were of long standing. They may have been only in connection with
the march back from India. Griffith is hardly justified in saying "in fact it is certain that he did
not pay pna66s regularly by the month." In any case, this concerns only one element of expense.
Map 3
But did he? It is instructive to look at what happened to the treasure from
Susa and Persepolis. The bulk of it was so great that Plutarch says153 it re-
quired 10,000 pairs of mules and 5,000 camels to move it. Curtius says154 that
the baggage and a large part of the army was left at Persepolis in charge of
Parmenio and Craterus. But it was not to stay there. We know from Arrian155
that Parmenio was ordered to take the treasure to the citadel in Ecbatana and
deliver it to Harpalus who had a guard of 6,000 Macedonians plus a few auxil-
iary troops. The mention of Harpalus is puzzling. We do not know how or when
in the next section Arrian tells us that Cleitus, who had been left sick in Susa,
was ordered to proceed to Ecbatana, take the Macedonian guard of the treasure
and march against the Parthyaeans. Then who was left to guard the treasure?
Something has certainly dropped out of the account. Fortunately we know the
main fact. At the time of Parmenio's execution in the fall of 330 he was Satrap
of Media and guardian of the king's treasure whose total Diodorus gives as
180,000 talents;156 Justin says 190,000.157 Clearly this was Alexander's capital
for the financing of the campaign in Afghanistan and India. But it was not
taken to Babylon at all. Now it has been suggested what Harpalus was doing
154 V. 6. 11.
W7 XII. 1.1.
on the theory that Harpalus, as treasurer, had control over minting, which
there is nothing to support. But there is a more serious difficulty than the
theoretical one. If Harpalus put 180,000 talents into coins what are they? In
discussing the Seleucid mint of Ecbatana, Newell says,159 "There need be less
surprise that a mint was opened by the Greeks at Ecbatana than that the
mint should have commenced to function so late. At least, the earliest coins
antedate the reign of Seleucus. There do exist a few earlier pieces which may
have been coined there." But "a few pieces" will not solve our dilemma. From
this enormous treasure must have come a series at least comparable in size to
that of Babylon. But there is no such series. There are still small groups whose
attribution is doubtful but the product of the great mints is known, and there
is nothing left over to assign to Ecbatana. Its output must have disappeared.
Unless its output was darics. To prove that would need the assembly of
much more evidence than is now available. The gold already published as
presumably Alexandrine is not enough in bulk to fill the need. But I think no
search for darics has ever been undertaken with this in mind. Such a search
might prove disappointing, but the possibility ought to be kept open that the
eastern appearance and by darics and sigloi whose place of origin may have
been Ecbatana. To the circumstantial evidence already cited one more item is
Even this much proven would leave us with baffling questions. The
miles nearer the eastern campaigns but it is still far enough in all conscience.
There are several possibilities, none of them very comfortable. There may
have been mints still further east which contributed their share to the expenses
of the campaign. This would mean reducing still further the number that we
could credit to Ecbatana. There may have been other treasures containing
coin in the East of which we have no record. Money already in circulation may
have been confiscated and used for the army. Eastern cities, perhaps his own
foundations, may have been used as advance treasuries for the accumulation
158 Berve, Das Alexanderreich II, pp. 76f. "wo unter seiner Oberleitung in den nachsten Jahren
sich die Ausmunzung der Achaimenidenschatze vollzogen haben wird." Evidently he thinks that
Harpalus was independent of Parmenio and continued his duties as mintmaster after the satrap's
execution.
coin must have been carried to the army and though bullion would have been
less bulky it would have been just as heavy. But it would seem that the most
inconvenient arrangement would be for the mint to forward its current pro-
got their funds when mints were close by. For a big and remote army that
would have meant keeping the transport trains on the road constantly with
a large body of men of necessity detailed for guard duty. But obviously the
conversion into coin of enough metal for a campaign of 5 years' duration could
be that if Ecbatana minted darics it minted sigloi as well, but here there is a
still smaller group (BMC Arabia, p. 160, nos. 88-91) which there is reason to
slight was the importance of the siglos in the total currency of the Persian
empire. Still, in Alexander's time it had some importance or no late ones would
have been struck at all. But these few sigloi and the imitations of Mazaces are
the only silver we have found so far which has the appearance of being designed
for use in the East. Could that and the late darics and double darics have been
This would be the place to give an account of the king's income and expenses
income and expenses given by Beloch (IV. 1., pp. 41-43) in which the cost of
the army is put at 7,000 talents a year. The uncertainty of the figures is illus-
trated by the eclectic confidence given to the sources. Justin XIII. 1. 9 gives
specific figures for the time of Alexander's death: erant enim in thesauris L
milia talentum et in annuo vectigali ac tributo tricena milia. The first sum is
accepted, the second rejected on the grounds that Herodotus III. 90-95 gives
the yearly tribute of Darius I as 14,560 talents (10,000 "ohne den indischen
while Antigonus at the height of his power in 315, when he controlled nearly
all the Asiatic satrapies, had an income of only 11,000 talents (Diodorus
XIX. 56. 5). Beloch therefore reduces Justin's 30,000 talents to 15,000. Various
extraordinary sums such as that for Hephaestion's funeral, and gifts to the
army are accepted, but the total of 12,000 talents "contra decus regiumtumu-
lumque" as Justin puts it, on which Justin (XII. 12. 12) and Diodorus (XVII.
115. 5) agree, is rejected because even the funeral of a Roman emperor cost no
more than 400 talents. If we accept Beloch's figure of 7,000 talents for the
yearly cost of the army we must do so with the realization that it is no more
than a good guess. The most recent and most thorough study of Alexander's
Book II, Part I, 'H 6r)uoa(a oixovoula TOU jieyaXou 'AAs^cxvSpou, Athens, 1930.
He thinks that Beloch's 7,000 is too low a figure (p. 21), but his calculations
hypotheses for data. Both authors agree that Alexander's expenses exceeded
his income.
Let us for the moment accept 7,000 talents as a reasonable military budget
and, using very much simplified figures (since there is no possibility of ex-
actitude) see what the consequences would be. If Diodorus is right and there
were 9,000 talents of darics in Susa, then the first year would be paid for with-
talents. Suppose we say that Alexander would be provided for from the death
of Darius to the summer of 329. He must then make provision for 2 years'
campaigning, from the summer of 329 to that of 327 when he entered India
and an entirely new set of conditions. He would have needed 14,000 talents
for the army, which the treasure at Ecbatana was well able to provide. Let us
assume that 10,000 talents is to be in the form of double darics and (to make
things as simple as possible) let us assume that the double daric equals the
distater and that 150 of them go to the talent.160 That would mean minting
preserved to represent that number originally struck ? There is one recent study
which has at least some degree of control for its calculation of survival rate:
survival rates have usually been in the region of 1 in 5,000" admits that "that
figure may not be far from the average of all Greek coins." Let us adopt it with
no illusions.162 It would mean that of the original 1,500,000 double darics, 300
160 This involves a considerable discrepancy since, according to Hemmy, Iraq 1938, p. 70,
two of Alexander's staters would weigh 17.32 grams, the double daric only 16.80. But the degree
of other uncertainties is so great that we need not hesitate to consult our convenience to this
extent.
162 E. S. G. Robinson, "Some Problems in the Later Fifth Century Coinage of Athens,"
MN 1960, p. 12, making his own calculation of the survival rate of Athenian gold, concludes that
it was "something like one part in 4,000""perhaps more" he writes me, "certainly not less." He
considers that more gold went into jewelry than silver so that the survival rates of the two metals
would be unlike. The difference between 5,000 and 4,000 is a palliative, but I do not feel that it
can cure our difficulty. Since this was written Margaret Thompson's great work on the Athenian
should have survived. If we assume that 2,000 talents consisted of silver (the
other 2,000 being accounted for by the surplus darics) and that the silver was
imitation Athenian tetradrachms at 1,500 to the talent, there would have been
3,000,000 struck, of which 600 should have survived. If one follows more
closely the proportions of Seleucid coinage the amount of gold will be much
decreased and the silver correspondingly increased, but the Seleucids had no
great reservoirs of gold to make into money. I will not affront the reader by
pointing out what a tissue of uncertainties we have here. Everyone must decide
for himself whether such procedure can do any good at all. I may express my
own feeling that, no matter how you calculate, there do not seem to be enough
coins to meet the requirements. There has been no gathering of either double
darics or imitation owls, but I find it hard to believe that a census would
approach the necessary figures. It seems to me that there must have been
supplements from more Persian coins, from the Alexander coinage, or from
other series. It is unlikely that the country itself offered large amounts of
plunder.
that have been often attributed to India: varieties of imitation owls, small
coins with Athena's head and an eagle, drachms and the famous tetradrachms
with the head of Zeus and an eagle, these last with the name of Alexander
(PLATE I, 12).163 The old attribution is disposed of, finally, one hopes, by an
specimens are acquired in India, their place of origin is across the mountains
in Afghanistan. These, then, might have helped to fill the need, but their
8 tetradrachms, 6 drachms and a hemidrachm, but the only pieces surely early
enough to belong to this period were one stater of Amphipolis and one late
daric. The silver was all of 324 or later. The Oxus Hoard, which ought to be
New Style Silver has appeared with calculations that in that series the survival rate might be as
low as 1: 2625, as high as 1: 395. Her conclusion (p. 709) "There is no such thing as a general
survival rate which can be applied indiscriminately to various issues of Greek coinage" is certainly
just and reduces still further the possible evidential value of the figures used by me.
193 B. V. Head, "The Earliest Greco-Bactrian and Greco-Indian Coins," NC 1906, pp. 1-16.
164 "Xhe Eastern Satrap Sophytes," NC 1943, pp. 60-72. The eastern imitations have been
treated in A. K. Narain, The Indo-Greeks, Oxford, 1957, p. 4. He raises the interesting question
whether the Bactrian users of Greek coins may not have been Greeks from the settlements to the
north-west of India to which both Greek and Indian sources testify (pp. 1 f.).
very enlightening, fails us entirely. Of the 100 odd tetradrachms and 100 odd
drachms said to have been included, only one was sufficiently described to be
identified, and that turns out to be a coin of Seleucus I from Ecbatana, ESM,
p. 166, no. 454. We have no way of knowing the date of the others nor, if we
knew, could we tell whether they came into the country with Alexander or
evidence goes, the coins of Alexander himself played no part of any importance
There remains the possibility that he had more Persian coins and used them,
records the gift to the king of Taxila of 1,000 talents, which he says was in coin,
and the great displeasure of Alexander's friends. The same incident occurs in
Taxila, presented Alexander with sundry gifts and 80 talents signati argenti.169
Alexander was gratified but returned the offering and instead gave Omphis
1,000 talents ex praeda quam vehebat, gold and silver vessels, Persian robes
and 30 horses. This is an odd episode. What did Omphis expect to buy with so
between two kings meeting to form an alliance but the 1,000 talents, even if
Plutarch was not right about its being coin, would be much more credible if it
were to insure the cooperation of the forces of Taxila than if it were a mere
gesture of vanity, as both the authors seem to take it to be. For what it is worth,
the incident shows Alexander as actually carrying his treasure in his baggage
166 It is perhaps worth mentioning that "Plutarch," Lives of the Ten Orators, 846 A, says,
apparently on the authority of Philochorus, that Demosthenes accepted a bribe of 1,000 darics
from Harpalus. No one else mentions the unit of the bribe. It is conceivable that some of the
5,000 talents with which Harpalus is said to have absconded (Diodorus XVII. 108. 6) was in
darics.
168 John Allan, "The Beginnings of Coinage in India," Transactions of the International
Numismatic Congress, 1936, London, 1938, pp. 387-392, believes that what is meant is the small
silver bars with punched design, of the weight of two sigloi. Some of them were found at Taxila
with a siglos, a tetradrachm and drachm of Alexander and a tetradrachm of Philip III, and Allan
regards them as the earliest Indian coins. I doubt, however, whether argentum signatum "is
clearly more than bullion and yet something that to the Western mind was not exactly coin." The
same phrase is used to describe the money brought by Orsines, Satrap of Pasargada, Curtius
X.1. 24.
and as having enough so that he could part with a large sum before the con-
Curtius says170 that after the defeat of Porus and the founding of Nicaea and
Bucephala Alexander gave each of the leaders a crown and 1,000 aureia
literary tradition. The coins themselves, however, are more helpful. First there
India.173 Second there is the scarcity of Persian gold and the comparative
coins of double, half and quarter siglos weight175 which seems to have formed
the basic currency of the northwest district to which Alexander first came.
Macdonald explains the infrequency of Persian gold in India by the fact that
there was so much gold there that the ratio with silver was only 8: 1. This
struck at 10: 1. Alexander may, therefore, have planned to use silver only,
though in this case he would have had little need to import specie. India is
here, as in Persia, the conqueror will have been able to look forward to the
capture of enough bullion to finance his campaign. It certainly was not financed
This digression into the perplexities of the East has led us far from the
main course of our study, but it could hardly be neglected. No matter how the
details are finally settled, the general picture is clear. Before Gaugamela the
empire had two monetary zones: Greece and Asia Minor (Map 2) where the
170IX. 1. 6.
171IV. 26.1:27.3.
173 I am indebted to Dr. R. B. Whitehead, whose experience and recollections are conclusive
in this matter. He cites some coins with Alexander's name collected in the Punjab, reported
without details by Charles J. Rodgers (Coin Collecting in Northern India, Allahabad, 1894,
p. 19), and Sir John Marshall's siglos, Alexander tetradrachm and drachm and Philip III tetra-
drachm, the insignificant fruit of his 20 years of excavation at Taxila (Taxila, Cambridge, 1951,
Vol. II, p. 795). I recall that Newell once told me that he had just received an Alexander found
in India, the first in his experience, but I never knew the details.
174 George Macdonald, "Ancient Persian Coins in India," Cambridge History of India, Vol. I,
176 John Allan, Catalogue of the Indian Coins in the British Museum. Ancient India, London,
176 A. H. Lloyd, "Hoarding of the Precious Metals in India," Transactions of the International
imperial types joined or dominated but did not extinguish the local currencies;
Cilicia and Syria (Map 3) where the local currencies were replaced by the
a whole. But after Gaugamela a third zone is added, of Mesopotamia and the
East (Map 4) in which the preexisting confusion is not merely tolerated but
of uniformity is laid aside. In part this was doubtless the result of difficulties
greater in the East than in the West: the continuous warfare, the strange and
remote terrain, the alien mores of the people. But it also resulted from a changed
state of mind, for there are two phenomena in the West, one beginning about
327 during Alexander's absence in the East, the other in 324 after his return.
The first is the institution at Tarsus of a series of silver staters of Persian weight
and Cilician type without any reference to Alexander, for the use of Issus,
Mallus, Soli and Tarsus itself (PLATE III, 7, 8).177 The other is the coining, in
the mints of Asia Minor, of gold staters with the name and type of Philip II.178
conditions. Both must have been designed to gratify the sentiment of those
All this is perfectly appropriate to the historical situation. Until the final
gain, but much to lose. Whenever his resolution was taken that he himself was
to be the Great King, it became imperative for him to assert his prestige and
177 Tarsos, pp. 16-22. The enigmatic second series of staters (PLATE III, 8), ibid., whatever
its explanation, adds to the effect of the first. The significance of both these series will need to be
reconsidered in view of the recent discovery of a specimen on which, instead of the usual B,
there appears the name of Balacrus, Alexander's satrap of Cilicia. Babelon had suggested this
meaning for B which Newell (Tarsos, p. 18) had denied. Howorth made the same suggestion in
his article "A Note on Some Coins Generally Attributed to Mazaios, the Satrap of Cilicia and
Syria," JVC 1902, pp. 83 f. The owner of the new piece, Herr von Aulock, has kindly sent me
photographs of his interesting discovery, which he is about to publish. It would not be proper to
anticipate the publication, but it may be remarked that while the new coin proves that Series II
of Persic staters (Tarsos, pp. 42-47) was instituted before the death of Balacrus in 328 it does not
settle the question whether the B which sometimes appears on Series I (ibid. p. 17, d-f) is the
mark of the same official, still less whether he is the B who shares with A the issue of the early
Tarsiote Alexanders (ibid. p. 9). On the initial date will depend the solution to the question
whether the signed lion staters of Mazaeus from Babylon were without precedent, as assumed in
the present study, or whether Alexander had already allowed another satrap to put his name
on a coin. In any case, the privilege seems to have been of short duration.
his power. Asiatics were to be taught that the imperial structure which they
foreigner, supported by foreign gods, who was no mere raider, but had come
among them to conquer, to occupy and to organize. Heracles and Zeus and the
name of Alexander were to become as familiar to them as the gods of their own
country and the odd little monarch with bow and spear. But when the empire
was won, when he was in fact the Great King himself, what did it matter any
longer? Then came the experiments with the amalgamation of races, the
charging against Porus, but, on the other, a divine king in Persian dress, wield-
But, if there was confusion in the East and breach of precedent in the West,
it must not be thought that the general system was weakened, much less
abandoned, after Gaugamela. The old mints continued to strike their con-
ventional coins, the latest organized of the great mints, Alexandria, beginning
to operate about 326.179 About that time also there was a marked, though un-
quality showed signs of slackening, and there must have been few west of
furnished him with the resources of war and peace over a vast territory whose
178 Demanhur, pp. 144-147. A violent contrast to the orthodoxy of the old mints cannot be
entirely passed over. Didrachms of very strange appearance, some of which have the name
"Alexander" in Aramaic characters are assigned by Six (NC 1878, pp. 103-118) to Hierapolis in
Syria and to the period from 315-301. Later (NC 1884, p. 113) he was inclined to believe that
those with Alexander's name may have been struck in his own lifetime. I am not competent to
deal with the linguistic and paleographical problems involved, but I believe that no one would
assign, on the grounds of appearance, the first four coins of PI. VI of the former article to the end
of the 4th century B.C. Even that, however, is more likely than that a series so barbaric should
have been begun under Alexander and in his name. The condition of the High Priest of Hierapolis
was doubtless unique, but he was not so far from Cilicia that his city would have been totally
unaware of numismatic propriety. Babelon (Perses achemenides, pp. LI-LIV) though he suggests
that the place of issue might be Comana instead of Hierapolis, accepts the theory that we have
to do with Alexander the Great and not a dynast of that name, since the types are imitations of
those of Mazaeus. But the style of imitation is quite uncharacteristic of the time, and the appear-
ance of Alexander as dynast or High Priest signing coins of a petty state with types totally un-
related to his own is without parallel and without probability. I would invite the Orientalists to
consider the possibility that the Alexander of Six' nos. 1 and 2 is a High Priest, like Abd-Hadad
of nos. 4 and 5 and that the whole series belongs to a much later time.
ed to other currencies or to none. Trade had carried the daric and the owl far
and wide, but the army and the civil power carried the gold Athena and the
government, the coinage of Alexander made a record no less brilliant than his
Could its success have continued? Would it have served the whole estab-
lished empire which he planned? No question which must assume the con-
tinued life and health of Alexander can have a satisfying answer, but here, as
in other cases, one must doubt if he could have maintained what he created.
There is no reason to suspect that he was an economist more gifted than his
generation. It is the common belief that his expenses outran his income. Doubt-
less the mines of Macedonia seemed inexhaustible; inexhaustible also the huge
Persian treasure. With its capture begin the tales of extravagances which, in
the end, were sure to impoverish the royal power. If he could have learned in
Babylon, when there was nothing more to conquer, to match his expenses to
his needs as successfully as he seems to have done while he was winning Asia
Minor, his financial structure might have stood for generations. But who was
The death of Alexander left his empire without a leader and there was
great difficulty in choosing one. Some were for retaining the kingship in the
half-brother. Others felt that the family of Alexander himself was the proper
source of royal power and hoped for an heir in the child which Roxane was
expecting. The factions were vehement and almost came to blows, yet to the
wiser minds it must have been apparent that the true question was not who
was to have the name of king but who was to control the armies and the
finances of the empire. The generals could not know, any more than we know
now whether it was possible that the vast realm which they had conquered
could be ruled as a unit, but even those who doubted most had no plan for
division except the appeal to arms. But civil war was to the liking of no one
and so it was essential that the formal question as to the kingship should be
to Philip and he was declared king with the proviso that if Roxane's child
should be a son he was to share the royal title. Roxane's child, as it turned out,
was a son; he was duly named Alexander and war was for the time averted.
Perdiccas and Craterus divided the ill-defined powers and duties of guardian
and regent. Many of the necessary arrangements of which we are not told must
have been made by them and it may have been they who decided that, as
money must continue to be struck, the familiar types should be retained but
that some of the coins should bear the name of Philip, and this plan was put
that the premier mint of Amphipolis never used Philip's name. It is not easy
to see why this should have been so. The Macedonians had been Philip's
supporters in the contest as to the succession and Antipater, who was regent
with Olympias, that fervent partisan of her grandson and foe of his co-ruler,
which should have put Antipater in Philip's party if partisanship was impor-
Philip from Pella in about 318.x At that time there is indeed evidence of a
1 Demanhur 1637 with the same symbols as the Alexander issue, 1635. The coin is in the British
Museum and seems to be unique. It is an odd piece with BAZIAEIiZ upside down in the exergue.
division in the country. Cassander was making head against the duly appointed
Epirus. It may be that Eurydice had enough influence in Pella to have it strike
in her husband's name, but not enough to prevent the same magistrate from
striking in that of Alexander. But this does not explain why the omission
should have been made in the beginning when Babylon was using both names.2
Perhaps there will ultimately be found adequate political explanations for the
other places where Philip's name was not used, such as Miletus, Damascus and
This does not prevent the unhappy Philip, burdened with illegitimacy, an
importance. Since his brief career began in 323 and ended in 317 his coins, of
course, must fall between those limits, and consequently also the coins with
the name of Alexander and symbols identical with Philip's which is a very
2 Ibid., 4526-4609. This is the only mint that gives the impression of having coined more for
3 The few pertinent facts about Philip are to be found in Diodorus XVITI, XIX, sometimes
323 The infantry supported him for the kingship. He was made king and his name changed
322 Perdiccas took him on campaign to Cappodocia (16. 1). After the defeat of Ariarathes
321 After the death of Perdiccas, Pithon and Arrhidaeus were elected regents and guardians
of the kings (36. 7). At the conference of Triparadeisos, because of the interference of
Eurydice, the guardians resigned and Antipater was elected in their place (39. 1-4). He
319 On his death bed Antipater appointed Polyperchon regent and guardian (48. 4). Poly-
perchon invited Olympias to return from Epirus to take charge of Alexander's son until
he should be of age (49. 4, 57. 3). Eumenes in Asia supported the kings against Anti-
318 On Eumenes' advice Olympias decided to stay in Epirus (58.2-4). Polyperchon supported
Eumenes by authority of the kings (58. 1, 59. 3, 62. 1, 2). Polyperchon and the kings
were in Phocis. When Cassander came to the Piraeus Polyperchon moved into Attica
but presently left part of the army with his son Alexander while he went to the Pelopon-
317 Eurydice assumed the regency (XIX. 11. 1) (and transferred the command from Poly-
perchon to Cassander. Justin XIV. 5.1-3). Polyperchon, in alliance with Aeacides of Epirus
brought Olympias with Alexander's son back to the kingdom (11. 2). Eurydice's army
deserted her at sight of Olympias; Philip and Eurydice were captured and killed (11. 2-7).
We may suppose that Eurydice's activity caused the change of affairs between 318 and 317.
At once after the settlement of the question about the kingship the satrapies
were dealt out, and there was a second distribution in 321 at the conference of
Triparadeisus. From the point of view of the control of mint cities the result
was very strangely proportioned. A full discussion of the satrapies will be found
in Berve's Alexanderreich I, pp. 221-290, but since not all of them contained
mint cities we may abbreviate the lists to deal only with those which did. (I give
Amphipolis
Pella
Sicyon
Lampsacus
Abydus
Sardes
Teos
Colophon
Caria. Asander
Magnesia
Miletus
Side
Tarsus
In the earlier year both the kings were with Polyperchon in Phocis. He apparently did not take
them with him to the Peloponnesus, where his failure to capture Megalopolis injured his reputation
and induced most of the Greek states to desert him for his rival Cassander. It will have been at
this time that Eurydice (who may have come back to Macedonia in 321 with the kings) achieved
her coup d'etat which must have been accompanied by the return of Philip to Macedonia and the
flight of Alexander to his grandmother in Epirus. (Miss Macurdy believes that Roxane and Alex-
ander IV stayed in Macedonia, Grace H. Macurdy, "Roxane and Alexander IV in Epirus," JHS
1932, 256-261). The role of Polyperchon is not quite clear. He generally speaks and acts in the
name of "the kings," making no distinction between them, but when he invited Olympias to
return to Macedonia to take care of "Alexander's son" he can hardly have believed that the
result would be to Philip's advantage. For a long time he did not persuade her that it would be to
hers either. There are two strange reappearances of Philip's name: on a tetradrachm of Marathus
struck about 301, WSM, p. 195, no. 1241; and on a stater from an uncertain mint which must be
even later in date, WSM, p. 373, no. 1688, Seyrig, "Parion au 3e Siecle," Centennial Publication
Syria. Laomedon
Myriandrus
Damascus
Aradus
Byblus
Berytus
Sidon
Ake
Egypt. Ptolemy
Alexandria
Babylon
Ecbatana
during the struggles of the Successors. The boundaries of the satrapies would
be maintained as they had been in Alexander's time and it may be that the
entrusting of important provinces to men not of the first importance was caused
greater men. The fact that there was obviously no attempt to provide an equal
distribution of mints can only mean that the unity of the empire was still so
fundamental in the minds of the generals that it was taken for granted that all
money was still the kings' money, only now at the disposal of the regent. There
are positive indications that this was true. In 321, after the murder of Perdiccas,
his brother-in-law Attalus sailed to Tyre and there recovered 800 talents from
Archelaiis, the captain of the garrison, which Perdiccas had given him for safe-
the satrap. In 319 Antigonus committed what was regarded as a clear act of
rebellion when he captured and appropriated 600 talents which were being
conveyed by ship from Cilicia to the kings in Macedonia.5 And in the next year,
he sent letters in the name of the kings to the generals in Cilicia and the
treasurers to pay Eumenes 500 talents and any more that he might require.6
Eumenes and promised to protect them if they failed to carry out instructions,
5 Ibid., 52. 7.
6 Ibid., 58. 1; 59. 3. Plutarch, Eumenes 13. 1 says that the letter came from Polyperchon
ed. Ptolemy was apparently the first to conceive of making a part of the empire
his own domain, though perhaps the idea had come as soon to Lysimachus,
fighting to organize the still unconquered elements of Thrace. After his re-
permanent possession of the East. And in the spring of that same year when
Cassander had put Olympias to death, though he was the only one with any
title to be considered the guardian of the young Alexander, he showed his true
purpose by having the boy imprisoned with his mother Roxane. In 310 by
Against these separatist forces the regents had fought, Perdiccas with more
than a little personal ambition involved, Antipater with loyal devotion to the
royal house, Polyperchon with good intentions, doubtless, but with little practi-
cal sense and with diminishing effectiveness. But there was another opponent
of the separatists: Antigonus, and he was moved not by sentiment but by the
determination to keep the empire together for himself. This ambition was
shared and inherited by his son Demetrius, and the greatest episode of the
closing of the 4th century and the opening of the 3rd is the account of the
The interplay of all these individuals meant constant change in the control
of territory and in the condition of the cities. Though the mints may have
struck coins originally for the use of all parts of the empire alikesubject
always to the element of conveniencethere must have come a time when for
Antigonus to capture a mint meant for him to capture additional revenue. The
activity of the Asia Minor mints in 310 and 309 seems to be part of his program,8
and perhaps some of the constant friction between the Ptolemies and their
neighbors was caused by desire to control the mint-cities of the Syrian coast.
the period just after Alexander's death. That must be worked out a city at a
time, a labor which has hardly begun as yet, though many issues have been
on Demetrius and the Seleucids have obiter dicta about the preceding Alexander
coins and so have publications of sundry hoards, but we are still in the dark
as to such a matter as the closing of the mint at Damascus, its date and cause.
Much meticulous work with individual series is necessary before we can write
Nevertheless, there are some things that can be said as to the practice of
the different Successors, for there are only a few of them of any numismatic
importance. In the realm of Antipater, as one would expect, nothing was ever
minted except the old types, and that was true of the realm in the hands of Poly-
perchon. Since they regarded the empire as the kings' estate, it could be financed
only by the kings' money. Cassander held to the convention so far as gold and
silver were concerned, but he did issue bronze with the head of Heracles and a
lion with his own name.9 Antigonus also used only the Alexander types; the
coins bearing the legend Antigonus or King Antigonus belong to his grandson
long as the old man lived his son Demetrius, if he is to be regarded as an in-
dependent minting authority, followed the father's example. The first breach
of tradition was that of Ptolemy about 320 when he substituted for the head
jutting tusks and uplifted trunk (PLATE II, 4). This is the deified Alexander:
above his cheek may be seen the ram's horn of his divine father Zeus Ammon.
A few years later there was a more extreme innovation. The deified head
remained but the familiar seated Zeus was replaced by an Athena with helmet,
aegis, shield and thunderbolt. The earliest coins of this type bore the inscription
one which gave place again to the conventional AAEEANAPOY. So far there had
been no overt show of independence, but a step was taken which actually made
for more independence than a change of type could. Ptolemy abandoned the
weight (15.50 grams) and so cut Egypt off from the international currency of
his rivals. Then, after the death of Alexander IV in 310 had left no legitimate
monarch, Antigonus and Demetrius, Seleucus and Lysimachus took the title
of king in 306/5 and 305/4, and Ptolemy joined them, now introducing his own
portrait on the obverse and using as his reverse the eagle which had been on
Zeus' hand. This became the standard Ptolemaic type and the Alexander
originally controlled no mint11 and it was not until 308 that he provided him-
HN, p. 228.
11 The early currency of Lysimachus is still a mystery. He cannot possibly have been without
money from 323 to 308. He certainly used the Alexander types but as yet no city has been identified
where he could have struck them. He may simply have had some arrangement with Antipater
which allowed him to use the output of Amphipolis. It does seem odd that in 319 the kings, for
whose needs the Macedonian mines ought to have been ample, should have to import money from
Cilicia (above, n. 5). But an amicable division of coin between Lysimachus and Cassander does
self with a suitable capital by building the city of Lysimacheia near Cardia in
mark: the forepart of a lion, which was his own device; and his own name now
Heracles head with a portrait of the divinized Alexander, again with the horns
of Ammon but without the elephant skin (PLATE II, 5). It is one of the most
Nike and leaning on her shield. The title is that of King Lysimachus, and with
that he was content; his portrait never appeared on his coins, and since he had
no heir his types would have died with him except that, like those of Alexander,
they had caught the fancy of the cities and were imitated long after his death.
When the disaster of Ipsus had ended Antigonus' plans and ambitions
Demetrius was left to gather the remnants of his father's great empire and, from
the cities still in his control, he issued notice of his continued command of the
sea: the magnificent tetradrachms bearing his name and showing Nike with a
trumpet on a prow and Poseidon standing with menacing trident. Later there
were two series with Demetrius' own portrait, one with Poseidon seated, the
The first change introduced by Seleucus was the substitution of his own
name for that of Alexander after 306 when he took the title of king. This was at
Seleucia-on-the-Tigris about 305.13 It became common about 300 and was the
regular type for gold and silver in the West, though the bronze shows consider-
actually issued by Philetaerus and his governor and were followed by a re-
version to Alexander's type and name, and then to Alexander's type with
Seleucus' name.14 In the East two other types were used for silver: the head
and trophy.16 It is interesting that the king confined the use of his own portrait
to his eastern mints, and even there it did not entirely displace the older design
to the Alexander type with Seleucus' name after both of the others had been
used17 and at Ecbatana Alexander's name appears in the latter half of Seleucus'
reign.18 By the end of that reign, however, the Alexander types had been
abandoned.19
lesser powers than the dynasts of whom we have spoken. One is the case of a
to have the name NIKOKAEOYZ inscribed on the mane of the lion headdress in
letters so tiny that they are not visible on a photograph and are frequently only
from 323, immediately after Alexander's death, to 320, which would allow for
that the Paphian king was a bit intoxicated by the feeling of liberty caused by
the news from Babylon, but not so confident as to let his state of mind be
escaped notice, or was indulged, or was punished. But none of his fellow kings
copied his experiment. There are letters on coins of Salamis which may perhaps
have stood for the names of the kings Nicocreon and Menelaus22 but those cases
were undoubtedly official and were far less explicit. A similar license had been
addition to the usual inscription, has the name AHTEIIOY, under the arm of
Zeus (PLATE III, 9). E. S. G. Robinson, publishing the specimen in the British
18 ESM, p. 177, nos. 485f., p. 178, no. 491, p. 179, nos. 494f.
19 The case is not so clear for Demetrius. There are instances in Newell's catalogue where
Alexanders in gold and silver appear to follow the introduction of Demetrius' own types, Deme-
trius, p. 25, no. 19, p. 66, no. 59. But these might come at the beginning of their respective groups
instead of at the end. The same is true of the tetradrachms from an uncertain mint, p. 74, no. 63.
Newell suggests, to be sure, that some Alexanders were struck at Sicyon, Demetrius, p. 146 and
Noe believes that they are to be recognized in his Group III, Sicyon, pp. 28 f., but this can hardly
be regarded as proved.
20 There is an enlarged drawing in Newell, "Nikokles, King of Paphos," NC 1919, pp. 64f . and
an enlarged photograph used as a frontispiece for Sawyer Me A. Mosser, The Endicott Gift of
23 Above, p. 53.
after the defeat of Eumenes, and there can be no doubt that this is the same
man. There was a mint in operation at Susa by 31y/625 striking coins with the
names of Alexander and Philip, and sometime between that date and 312 when
Seleucus recovered the territory this piece must have been struck. Though it is
Who was Aspeisas that the East should accept his money? But he was more
importance in the realm that had been Alexander's. One wonders whether he
knew of the case of Nicocles and declined to use such a mixture of display and
types unchanged.
The third instance is even more surprising. It is the issuance by Areus king
of the Peloponnesian League in 280 and again in the Chremonidean war until
he fell in battle at Corinth. Beloch28 supposes that the act of striking his own
and self-confidence which resulted from his victory over Pyrrhus in 272. No
Spartan king for a long time had been so powerful, and it is easy to assume that
his emulation of royal power of which Athenaeus speaks29 falls in this period.
It might be a time suitable for the introduction of the silver with his own
portrait,30 if that is indeed struck by him, but the use of his name on the Alex-
ander type would be much more appropriate to the years 306-304 when the
Successors whom he considered his rivals were taking the title of king. We know
nothing of what he was doing from his accession in 309 to his first campaign
in 280, and this may have been a kind of announcement that he also was one
of the Successors, with Greece for his province. But at any juncture it is
26 A similar case, under Alexander, is that of Balacrus of Cilicia, above, The King's Finances,
n. 177.
27 One specimen in Berlin. ZfN 1875, pp. 126,285; BMC, Peloponnesus, p. xlvii. There is now
IV. 1, p. 587.
rv. 142. b.
astonishing to have the types of Alexander used by a king of the one Greek
evident that after the change of standard, the silver of Egypt was isolated from
the rest of the Hellenistic world,32 but what about the money of the other
Successors? How much of their product remained in their own territory? How
much was at the disposition of their rivals? I ventured remarks on this subject
a few years ago33 suggesting that there might be evidence for the development
of separate monetary districts. I did not have much material to go on, and
collection, of which he saw 507 pieces, begins with a 5th century Attic owl and
the mint of Amphipolis (60 being of the series with A and race torch from the
beginning of the 3rd century) ;35 23 more are imitations of Amphipolis. There
are only 2 from Tarsus and 7 from Babylon. Such a proportion could not
possibly have been anticipated. Surely the mint of Babylon could have supplied
money to Basra (it did in fact supply 1 1 lion staters) without anyone getting
coins from Macedonia! Yet though at present we are at a loss, the accumulation
rency in the early Hellenistic world. We are not without some indications. We
know that the kings were not as rich as Alexander had been.36 We know that
they issued much less gold and much more bronze. We know that they modified
had never struck for Alexander, and the Seleucids pushed eastward to Bactria
itself (Map 4), showing that whatever were the dispositions of Alexander there
31 On psychological grounds this is harder to explain than the use of Alexander types on the
Hoards IV Olympia (NNM 39), 1929; Oscar E. Ravel, "Corinthian Hoard from Chiliomodi,"
Transactions of the International Numismatic Congress, 1936, pp. 98-108; David M. Robinson,
35 The assignment of this series to Uranopolis in SNG Copenhagen is an error. It comes just
before the issues of Demetrius from Amphipolis in 294, Demetrius, p. 102, notes 1-3.
36 Antigonus was assiduous in his search for funds. When somebody said "Alexander wasn't
like that" he replied "Of course not. He was reaping Asia. I am gathering straw." Plutarch,
they could not be made permanent. But these were phenomena that lie beyond
After the death of Demetrius no one had any illusions about the possibility
of keeping the empire together, and even before that, at the death of Cassander
in 297 or of his sons in 294, the uniform types as a symbol of imperial unity had
been abandoned. It would seem that Heracles and the seated Zeus had come
to the end of their career. But in fact they reappear, not in the service of the
kings but in that of the cities. Indeed, their use now is a sign of independence
of the kings.37 These issues as related phenomena have had the benefit so far of
only one serious study: Henri Seyrig's article "Parion au 3e Siecle avant notre
machus coined after 281 on both sides of the Propontis and on the Thracian
coasts. There are two distinct periods to which the Alexanders belong, clearly
Seyrig's summary. "We have in Seleucid Asia two kinds of money. At Sardes
the types are royal, the name of the ruling sovereign is habitual; civic symbols
are absent, the issue is continuous, the likeness of the coins to those of the
eastern mints reveals the imperial centralization. In the other towns, on the
contrary, the pieces have the traditional types of Alexander the Great, the
name of the ruling sovereign is absent, the use of civic symbols is habitual, the
issues are of limited importance. In other words, the coins of Sardes testify to
immediate royal control while those of the other towns show no trace of it. The
fact is that Sardes, the ancient capital, was left by Alexander under its Lydian
laws and depended directly on the royal authority, while the other towns were
Greek cities. The coins show, therefore, that the administrative capital in the
first half of the 3rd century was still subject, while Seleucus had given the Greek
After the death of Antiochus I, however, the royal power encroached on this
sovereignty, whatever its nature, and royal types reappear in various cities.
This was the situation until the death of Antiochus Hierax in 229/8. There
of Alexander type tetradrachms with low relief and very large flans. I illustrate
37 It is this use of types as a declaration of independence which Kleiner feels would have been
sentimentally unlikely, if not impossible, if they were associated in the minds of the users with the
early days of Alexander and the destruction of Thebes. But the Greek world had been using Alex-
ander's types for a great many years without any sign of hurt susceptibilities.
38 Centennial Publication of the American Numismatic Society, New York, 1958, pp. 603-625.
one such from the mint of Myrina, Miiller 934 (PLATE III, 10). On these, as on
the earlier series, the symbols and monograms identify the issuing town, and
they must be regarded as civic, not as royal issues. I have endeavored to put
limited importance," and that would seem to be still more true of the later
ones. They are, in fact, analogous to the civic types, also struck on large flans,
and I need not repeat the argument here. It is clear how wide a difference there
is between these rare pieces and the great Macedonian issues which, more than
There is no study comparable to Seyrig's for other districts and I will not
Coins are known, for example, certainly attributable to Miletus, Miiller 1043
(PLATE III, u) and to Rhodes, Miiller 1160 (PLATE III, 12). These evidently
contemporary series are confidently dated in the old catalogues to the period
after the battle of Magnesia 190 B.C.42 But Head supposes that all the Alex-
Newell43 puts Miiller 1054 "about the first quarter of the third century B.C."
and Seyrig44 thinks that most of the posthumous Alexanders ceased at the
battle of Magnesia and that their attribution to the second century is very
go as late as 171 B.C.,45 and the series from Odessus in Thrace belongs to the 1st
century B.C.46 Some comparative work is obviously called for here. The
the Olympia Hoard Newell called attention to the presence of some of those
rare varieties and offered comments on them which were intended as only
given us new information about that mint without altogether settling the
40 Troy. The Coins. Supplementary Monograph No. 2, Princeton, 1961, pp. 82, 92 f.
*3 Demetrius, p. 59.
46 HN, p. 789.
46 Behrendt Pick and Kurt Regling, Die Antiken Miinzen von Dacien und Moesien, Berlin,
three Alexanders from that city, contributing a few more details of uncertainty.49
Hellenistic Greece and try to discover whether the Alexanders belong to con-
nected episodes or to independent ones and how they relate to the autonomous
coinage.
The need for more systematic study of the posthumous Alexanders is really
part of a much larger one: the need for more attention to the relation of one
Greek mint with another. The study of Greek issues city by city has, of course,
been a first necessity and has not yet been completed by any means. Never-
theless, the independence of Greek towns, important as it is, must not obscure
the fact that their careers were parallel and that the fiscal fabric of antiquity
far transcends the concern of these essays which is only a single aspect of a
king into a period so long succeeding his death we may as well acknowledge
that we are moved by sentiment as well as by science, and perhaps the best
illustration that can be found of his place in the imagination of later generations
is the fact that from 92 to 88 B.C. the Roman governors of a conquered Mace-
donia could find no fitter type for the coins they struck than the head of Alex-
chronological framework for the years while Alexander's types were being issued
by the Conqueror and his successors, and to mention some of the events which
a history of the period, which would include much material foreign to this
History; Karl Julius Beloch, Griechische Geschichte, ed. 2, Vols. III-IV, Berlin,
1924-1927; Gustave Glotz, Pierre Roussel and Robert Cohen, Histoire grecque,
M. L. W. Laistner, A History of the Greek World from 479 to 323 B.C., London,
1936, and M. Gary, A History of the Greek World from 323 to 146 B.C., 2nd ed.
these works, though many have appeared since their publication which must
Under each entry I have set a reference to the ancient source. In the
interests of brevity I have generally given one reference only, though the event
may be attested in a number of places, since it is the fact and not its inter-
pretation which is important to us; when there are more references than one it
is because the second provides some important information which the first does
not. The commonest ancient Greek chronological system is the list of epony-
mous archons of Athens. I have used the archon years, indicating closer dating
Sicily whose Greek Bibliotheca Historica, in 40 books, was written under Caesar
and Augustus. Books XVII-XX, which deal with our period, are preserved
complete. The work is invaluable but very fallible; the author used good sources
and used them assiduously, but his power of organization was not equal to the
of the difficulties, and in XX. 43. 7 he makes apology for history which cannot
took office in January) and Attic archons (who took office in July) has led to
great confusion which the ingenuity of modern scholarship has not wholly
fortunately fairly harmonious for this periodas best I could, and have not
indicated the places where I depart from his chronology. Nor have I called
attention to his errors as to consuls and archons. To have argued the justifica-
tion for these deviations would have occupied a quite unreasonable amount
of space, and might not have been convincing in the end.1 The chronology here
Alexander written by Arrian in Greek in the 2nd century A.D. His subject was
more limited than that of Diodorus and his historical sense better, and most of
what we need to know is in his pages. His special study of India is printed as
Book VIII of the Loeb Anabasis by E. Iliff Robson: Vol. I, 1954; Vol. II, 1949.
Jacoby's Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker II, Berlin, 1929, no. 156.
(no more published), London and New York, 1920, XCII, pp. 159-167.
reliable data of importance not given by the two preceding authors, and is not
cited here. More useful are two other Greek works: the Parallel Lives of Plut-
notable Greeks and Romans written in the 1st and 2nd centuries A.D. They
are ethical in purpose and do not confine themselves to the use of impeccable
sources, but the lives of Alexander, Eumenes and Demetrius preserve some
significant facts not given elsewhere. Strabo published his monumental Geo-
The sparse references to other authors and to inscriptions should not mislead
the reader into supposing that the scattered evidence for this period is slight.
It will be seen that our main authorities are far later than their subjects
and though that has little importance for this study, for general historical
purposes it is important to know where they got their information and how
they used it. A characteristically brilliant analysis of the sources for Alexander
1 Beloch IV. 1, p. 134, n. "Natiirlich gibt es immer Leute, denen der Buchstabe hoher steht,
pp. 1-133, while Beloch's much briefer "Quellen und Literatur," Vol. IV,
Part 2, pp. 1-19, deals also, to some extent, with modern works as well as with
ancient. Lionel Pearson's book, The Lost Histories of Alexander the Great,
appeared too late for me to use extensively, will be found to contain a great
The composition of the listthe decision which items to include and which
the kind has already been done in the "Zeittafeln" of Beloch, Vol. Ill, Part 2,
pp. 450-464 and Vol. IV, Part 2, pp. 623-639, which I have found very helpful,
but those were not devised to serve our special need. Since we are concerned
with the striking of coins, the basic question is: who was in control of a certain
such-and-such a place but did not operate a mint there. When we know the
history and fortunes so far as the sources give us information, which is not as
complete as one could wish. There are others, to be sure, not yet exactly
located, as to which there is perhaps more to be known than we realize, and future
scholars may wish that this or that piece of information had been included.
But it is not my purpose here to record every mention of every place that has
or may have connection with a mint. I am trying to give more general guidance,
and since the decision that an item is worth citing must be a subjective one,
I cannot hope that the reader's judgment will always coincide with mine. I have
omitted, with entire confidence, all reference to Italy, Sicily, and to Cyrene
after its first surrender to Alexander. I have omitted, with less feeling of
certainty, affairs in Epirus, Aetolia and the barbarian countries of Asia lying
outside the empire. I do not believe that any of these produced Alexander
coins during the period treatedbut I may turn out to have been mistaken.
Since others besides Alexander struck his types and name it has been
necessary to carry the entries down beyond the date of his death. But as
posthumous Alexanders appear very much later I have had to set a terminus,
and the one selected has been the battle of Ipsus in 301 B.C. when Antigonus
died, who was that one of Alexander's marshals who clung most tenaciously
to the hope of himself controlling all the empire, and who never issued gold or
silver except with the traditional types and names. Later revivals, by younger
rulers, are brief and intermittent phenomena for which a complete chronology
is not so necessary. The list might have been continued to the death of Cassander
in 297, for Cassander also never issued his own types in the noble metals, but
the portion of Diodorus which is complete ends with the 2oth book, just before
97
Ipsus, and thereafter the materials for an outline are even less satisfactory than
before. It has seemed wise to deal with later issues separately without trying
The abbreviations used are A for Arrian, D for Diodorus, P for Plutarch,
S for Strabo.
365/5
336/5
Elpines archon
Birth of Alexander
P. Alexander 3. 3 6 Hekatombaion
Spring 335
335/4
Pythodelos archon
Accession of Alexander
Alexander about 20
ship
A. I. 1.2
Euainetos archon
A. I. 7. 1-1o. 6
Attic
2. Metageitnion
3. Boedromion
4. Pyanopsion
5. Maimakterion
6. Posideion
7. Gamelion
8. Anthesterion
9. Elaphebolion
10. Mounychion
11. Thargelion
12. Skirophorion
Macedonian
2. Apellaios
3. Audenaios
4. Peritios
5. Lystros
6. Xanthikos
7. Artemisios
8. Daisies
9. Panemos
10. Loos
11. Gorpiaios
12. Hyperberetaios
Alexander at Ilium
A. I. 11. 7-12. 5
Hermotos
Priapus surrendered
A. I. 12. 7
A. I. 17. 1
Surrender of Sardis
A. I. 17.3
Capture of Ephesus
year
A. I. 18. 1
A. I. 18. 1
Capture of Miletus
A. I. 18. 3-19. 6
334/3
3 This stay, not otherwise attested, but agreeing with Arrian's date for the death of Darius,
creates a difficulty by allowing Alexander too little time to reach the Hindu Kush. C. A. Robinson,
The Ephemerides of Alexander's Expedition, Providence. 1932, Appendix: "When did Alexander
reach the Hindu Kush"? disposed of the problem by making Alexander leave Persis in March
instead of in May. D. G. Hogarth, Philip and Alexander of Macedon, London, 1897, Appendix,
A. I. 20. 2
A. I. 20. 2
A. I. 23. 7
A. I. 24. 4
A. I. 24. 5. Mid-winter
Surrender of Phaselis
A. I. 24. 5
Capture of Perga
A. I. 26. 1
Surrender of Aspendus
Capture of Side
A. I. 26. 4, 5
Siege of Termessus
A. I. 27. 5-28. I
Capture of Sagalassus
A. I. 28. 2-8
Surrender of Celaenae
A. I. 29. 1, 2
A. I. 29. 3, 4
A. II. 4. 1
pp. 288-305, settles it by supposing that he spent a winter in Drangiana (unrecorded) and that
the two winter quarters recorded for Bactria were really one. W. W. Tarn, Cambridge Ancient
History VI, p. 390, concludes that he did not go into winter quarters at all in 330/29. Since the
question is of little importance for the present purpose, I repeat the dates in the sources without
7-
A. II. 4. 2
A. II. 4. 4
A. II. 4. 5, 6
Occupation of Anchialus
A. II. 5. 2
Occupation of Soli
A. II. 5. 5
A. II. 5. 6
A. II. 5. 7
Occupation of Mallus
A. II. 5. 9
mercenaries
A. II. 11. 10
March to Phoenicia
A. II. 13.7
A. II. 13. 7, 8
A. II. 15.6
Surrender of Sidon
A. II. 20. 3
A. II. 20. 4, 5
Invasion of Egypt
A. III. 1. 1-5
Founding of Alexandria
A. III. 2. 1,2
Submission of Cyrene
D. XVII. 49. 2
A. III. 7. 1. Hekatombaion
A. III. 7.5
A. III. 7. 6
error)
D. XVII. 63
Surrender of Babylon
A.III. 16.3,4
D. XVII. 64. 4
Surrender of Susa
Conquest of Persis
Conquest of Paraetacae
A. III. 19. 2
Arrival at Ecbatana
A. III. 19.5
Conquest of Hyrcania
A. III. 19. 7
March to Rhagae
A. III. 20.2
March to Zadracarta
A. III. 25. 1, 2
A. III. 25. 3
A. III. 25. 5, 6
Pliny, Natural History VI, 92, 93. The date is not given
A. III. 28. 1
A. III. 28. 1
Mid Nov. 330 Through the Paropamisadae to the Caucasus (Hindu Rush)
Foundation of Alexandria
A. III.28. 4
A. III. 29. 1
Capture of Bessus
103
329/8
Winter 329/8
328/7
Winter 328/7
Spring 327
Summer 327
327/6
A. IV. 1. 3:4. 1
Pliny N. H. VI. 49
Kephisophon archon
A. IV. 4. 1-9
A. IV. 5. 2-6. 5
A. IV. 7. 1
Campaign in Sogdiana
Euthykritos archon
Campaign in Sogdiana
A. IV. 18. 2
A. IV. 19. 5
Hegemon archon
A. IV, 24.1-30. 9
S. XV. 1. 17
A. V. 7. 1-8. 3
A.V. 8.3
weather in S. XV. 1. 17
A. V. 19.4
A. V. 20. 1-24. 8
A. V. 24. 4-8
A. V.28.1-4
A. V. 29.1-3
A. VI. 3. 1-5
Hogarth, p. 293
A. VI. 6. 1-11.2
D. XVII. 99. 5
A. VI. 17. 5
Hogarth, p. 294, n. 1
A. VI. 21.3
20
A. VI. 27. 2
A. VI. 28. 5
Arrival at Pasagardae
Arrival at Persepolis
Arrival at Susa
A. VII. 4. 1
Flight of Harpalus
A. VII. 5. 6
Mutiny at Opis
A. VII. 8. 1-11.9
Stay in Ecbatana
A. VII. 14. 1
A. VII. 15.1-3
Arrival at Babylon
A. VII. 16. 5
1o6
323/2
Aug. 323
March 322
322/1
Aug. 6, 322
Death of Alexander
erides
Kephisodoros archon
cas regent
D. XVIII. 3. 1-5
Justin XIII. 2. 5
pression
D. XVIII. 4. 8; 7. 1-9
D. XVIII. 8. 1
D. XVIII. 9. 1-n. 5
Reinforcement of Antipater
D. XVIII. 14. 4, 5
D. XVIII. 15.1-7
Philokles archon
D. XVIII. 17.1-5
107
. 18
Spring 321
321/0
Winter 321/0
320/19
319/8
D. XVIII. 18. 5, 6
D. XVIII. 21. 9
Archippos archon
D. XVIII. 37. 3, 4
D. XVIII. 39. 7
P. Eumenes 8. 4
Neachmos archon
P. Eumenes g. 2
D. XVIII. 41. 1
Apollodoros archon
D. XVIII. 48. 4, 5
D. XVIII. 43. 1, 2
D. XVIII. 52. 5, 8
D. XVIII. 61. 4, 5
D. XVIII. 68. 1
D. XVIII. 69. 3, 4
D. XVIII. 74. 1
D. XVIII. 73. 1, 2
D. XIX. 17. 2
cene
solstice
D. XIX. 44. 4
Founding of Cassandreia
D. XIX. 52. 2
Rebuilding of Thebes
Antigonus
D. XIX. 57. 2
summer"
D. XIX. 59. 2
D. XIX. 61. 3
D. XIX. 61. 5
Counter-edict by Ptolemy
D. XIX. 62. 1
11o
314/3
Winter 314/3
313/2
Winter 313/2
Spring 312
D. XIX. 64. 4
Nikodoros archon
Demetrius in Syria
D. XIX. 69. 1, 2
D. XIX. 69. 2
Scythians
nesus
D. XIX. 74. 1, 2
Theophrastos archon
general Ptolemaeus
D. XIX. 77. 7
of winter quarters
sion 1
Munychion 2
D. XIX. 105. 1
Founding of Seleucia-on-the-Tigris
D. XIX. 105. 2
S. XIII. 1.33
PP.5f.
D. XX. 28. 2, 3
D. XX. 28. 4
Founding of Lysimacheia
D. XX. 29. 1
D. XX. 37. 2
D. XX. 37. 2
P. Demetrius 8. 3. Thargelion 25
Founding of Antigoneia-on-the-Orontes
D. XX. 47. 5
D. XX. 53. 2
D. XX. 83.1-88. 9
and Cassander
D. XX. 53. 3, 4
P. Demetrius 18.1,2 says that Cassander did not use the title
on his letters; his bronze coins bear it, however, HN, p. 228
D. XX. 100. 6
D. XX. 102. 2
D. XX. 103.1-3
P. Demetrius 25. 3
IG. IV. 1, 68
against Antigonus
D. XX. 107. 1
D. XX. 107. 2
D. XX. 111. 3
D. XX. 108. 2, 3
D. XX. 113. 1
BIBLIOGRAPHY
GENERAL WORKS
Ernest Babelon, Traite des Monnaies grecques et romaines. Part II, Vols. 1-4, Paris, 1907,
Hugo Gaebler, Die antiken Miinzen von Makedonia und Paeonia II, Berlin, 1935.
E. T. Newell, The Coinage of the Eastern Seleucid Mints from Seleucus I to Antiochus III,
E. T. Newell, The Coinage of the Western Seleucid Mints from Seleucus I to Antiochus III,
MINTS
Abdera
Abydus
Acanthus
Muller, p. 138.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 115
Acroathon
Miiller, p. 141.
Aegae
Miiller, p. 310.
Aegina
Ake
G. F. Hill, "Notes on the Alexandrine Coinage of Phoenicia" Nomisma IV, 1909, pp. 1-15.
G. K. Jenkins, "An Early Ptolemaic Hoard from Phacous" MN 1960, pp. 27f.
C. F. Lehmann, "Der erste syrische Krieg und die Weltlage um 275-272 v. Christ" Klio
Aldbanda
Alexandria in Egypt
Alexandria Troas
WSM, p. 340. Cf. Seyrig, "Parion au 3e Siecle avant notre Ere," p. 622 and n. 82.
Amathus
Amphipolis
Demetrius, p. 102.
Antiock in Caria
Antioch in Pisidia
Aphytis
Apollonia on Athos
Miiller, p. 141.
Apollonia in Thrace
Miiller, p. 180.
A pter a
Miiller, p. 230.
Aradus
J. G. Milne, "The Coinage of Aradus in the Hellenistic Period" Iraq V, 1938, pp. 12-21.
WSM, p. 192.
Argos
Sicyon, p. 35.
Ascalon
C. F. Lehmann, "Der erste syrische Krieg und die Weltlage um 275-272 v. Christ," pp.
Aspendus
Assus
Astypalaea
Miiller, p. 261.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 117
Atarnea
Miiller, p. 238.
Athens
Attuda
Azotus
Miiller, p. 308.
Babylon
F. Imhoof-Blumer, "Die Miinzstatte Babylon zur Zeit der Makedonischer Satrapen und
Berytus
Muller, p. 310.
Botrys
Byblus
Muller, p. 310.
Muller, p. 310.
Cabyle
pp. 23-45.
Calchedon
Kurt Regling, "Neue Konigstetradrachmen von Istros und Kallatis" Klio 1929, p. 298.
Callatis
Kurt Regling, "Neue Konigstetradrachmen von Istros und Kallatis," pp. 292-302.
Cardia
Carne
Carrhae
WSM, pp. 40 f.
Chalcis
Muller, p. 210.
Demetrius, p. 139, n. 4.
Chios
pp. 242-258.
P. Gardner, "The Financial History of Ancient Chios" JHS 1920, pp. 160-173.
Thompson-Bellinger, p. 40.
Cilicia
Citium
Clazomenae
Cnidus
Coela
BIBLIOGRAPHY 119
Colone
Muller, p. 237.
Colophon
Commagene
Muller, p. 286.
Cos
Crithote
Muller, p. 162.
Curium
D. H. Cox, Coins from the Excavations at Curium, 1932-1953, New York, 1959, pp. 3, 90f.
Cydonia
Cyme
Cyprus
D. Pierides, "On the Coins of Nicocreon, one of the Kings of Cyprus" NC 1869, pp. 19-24.
E. J. Seltman, "Rare Gold Staters with Types of Alexander III" NZ 1913, p. 209. Cf.
Cyrene
Cyzicus
Damascus
Dionysopolis
Muller, p. 171.
Dioscurides
Dium in Pieria
Ecbatana
Ephesus
Epidaurus
Erythrae
Euboea
Thompson-Bellinger, p. 42.
Heraclea in Ionia
Heraclea Pontica
Heraclea Sintica
Heracleum in Pieria
Hierapolis-Bambyce
Histiaea
India
B. V. Head, "The Earliest Graeco-Bactrian and Graeco-Indian Coins" NC 1906, pp. 1-16.
A. von Sallet, "Die Nachfolger Alexanders d. G. in Baktrien und Indien" ZfN 6, p. 285.
Istros
Kurt Regling, "Neue Konigstetradrachmen von Istros und Kallatis," pp. 292-302.
Itanus
Miiller, p. 229.
Joppa
Miiller, p. 307.
Lamia
Miiller, p. 187.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 121
Lampsacus
Agnes Baldwin Brett, "The Gold Staters of Lampsakos" American Journal of Numismatics
Muller, p. 235.
Laodicea-ad-Mare
Laodicea in Thrace
Muller, p. 146.
Larissa in Troad
Limyra
Muller, p. 276.
Locris
Muller, p. 208.
Lysimacheia
Thompson-Bellinger, p. 42.
Lyttos
Muller, p. 229.
Thompson-Bellinger, pp. 23 f.
Magnesia in Thessaly
Mallns
Marathus
Marium
Maronea
Megalopolis
Melitaea
Mende
Muller, p. 144.
Mesembria
Percy Gardner, "Greek Coins acquired by the British Museum" NC 1886, p. 251.
Methymna
Muller, p. 242.
Midaeum
Miletus
Thompson-Bellinger, pp. 25 f.
Mylasa
Askidil Akarca Les Monnaies qrecques de Mylasa, Paris, 1959, pp. 55-59.
Myra
Muller, p. 275.
Myriandrus
Myriandros.
Myrina
Mytilene
Thompson-Bellinger, pp. 39 f.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 123
Nagidus
Nisyrus
Odesstis
B. Pick and Kurt Regling, Die Antiken Miinzen von Dacien und Moesien, Berlin, 1910, pp.
529-540.
Paltus
Muller, p. 298.
Paphos
Parium
H. Seyrig, "Parion au 36 Siecle avant notre Ere" Centennial Publication of the American
Pelagonia
Muller, p. 146.
Pella
Perga
G. Le Rider, Monnaies d Legende grecque et Monnaies des Rois d'fclymatde, Paris, 1960,
p. 25, n. 2.
Pergamum
WSM, p. 317.
Perinthus
Phalasarna
Muller, p. 231.
Pharsalus
Phaselis
Philadelphia
Philippi
PhilomeUum
Phocaea
Phocis
Miiller, p. 209.
Phoenicia
pp. 321-354.
Priene
Miiller, p. 249.
Rhodes
des with some Observations on the Rhodian symbol and other matters connected with
Miiller, p. 260.
Salamis
Salymbria
Samos
Miiller, p. 254.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 125
Samothrace
Sardes
Scione
Muller, p. 143.
Scythopolis
ESM, p. 14.
Sestus
Sicyon
George Finlay, "Thoughts about the Coinage of the Achaean League" NC 1868, pp. 21-35.
G. K. Jenkins, "Recent Acquisitions of Greek Coins by the British Museum" NC 1959, p.31.
Sicyon.
E. J. Seltman, "An unpublished Gold Stater of Sikyon" JIAN 1912, pp. 177-180.
Side
Thompson-Bellinger, p. 41.
Sidon
C. F. Lehmann, "Der erste syrische Krieg und die Weltlage um 275-272 v. Christ," pp.
Sigeum
MiUler, p. 235.
Sillyum
Muller, p. 270.
Sinope
Smyrna
Soli
Sozusa
Stratonos Pyrgos
Muller, p. 306.
Susa
Sycaminum
Synnada
Tarsus
Muller, p. 280.
Tarsos.
Demetrius, p. 48.
Temnos
Tenedos
F. Lenormant, "Note sur deux ateliers mone"taires d'Alexandre le Grand" RN 1863, pp.
169-175.
Muller, p. 255.
Thompson-Bellinger, p. 39.
Teas
Percy Gardner, "Greek Coins acquired by the British Museum" NC 1886, p. 151.
Muller, p. 246.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 127
Terone
Miiller, p. 142.
Thebes
Therma
Thessalonica
Muller, p. 146.
Thrace
Thompson-Bellinger, p. 42.
Traelium
Tricca
Tyre
Demetrius, pp. 44 f.
pp. 239-251.
H. Seyrig, "Sur une pre"tendue ere Tyrienne" Antiquites syriennes 1957, pp. 93-98.
Uranopolis
Xanthns
Muller, p. 275.
HOARDS
1765 J. Pellerin, Latakia Hoard Mdlange de diverses Medailles Vol. I, Paris, pp. 104-140.
Alexander the Great, discovered near Patras in 1850" NC, pp. 29-37.
1908 A. J. B. Wace, "A Hoard of Hellenistic Coins" Annual of the British School at Athens,
pp. 149-158.
1932 C. Lambert, "A Hoard of Phoenician Coins found on the Site of Ake" The Quarterly
pp. 115-121.
1948 E. S. G. Robinson, "Greek Coins acquired by the British Museum" NC, pp. 43-59.
1950 E. S. G. Robinson, "A 'Silversmith's Hoard' from Mesopotamia" Iraq, pp. 44-51.
1950/51 A. R. Bellinger, "An Alexander Hoard from Byblos" Berytus, pp. 37-49.
1953 D. H. Cox, A Third Century Hoard of Tetradrachms from Gordion. Museum Mono-
pp. H-34.
1955 Margaret Thompson and A. R. Bellinger, "Greek Coins in the Yale Collection IV:
1956 W. P. Wallace, The Euboean League and its Coinage (NNM 134), pp. 50-52, 59-61.
1958 P. R. Franke, "Zur Geschichte des Antigonos Gonatas und der Oitaioi. Ein Schatz-
1960 G. K. Jenkins, "An Early Ptolemaic Hoard from Phacous" MN, pp. 17-37.
R. P. Austin and M. N. Tod, "Athens and the Satraps' Revolt" JHS 1944, pp. 98-100.
E. Babelon, "Les Monnaies des Satrapes dans 1'Empire des Perses Achemenides" RN 1892,
BIBLIOGRAPHY 129
O. Blau, "Aramaische Legenden auf Munzen athenischen Geprags" NZ 1872, pp. 181-184.
O. Blau, "Die achaemenideschen Feldzugmeister und ihre Munzen" NZ 1879, pp. I-52.
H. Droysen, "Die Munzen der persischen Satrapen in Kleinasien" ZfN 1875, pp. 309-319.
Percy Gardner, "New Greek Coins of Bactria and India" NC 1887, pp. 177-184.
1935.
B. V. Head, The Coinage of Lydia and Persia from the Earliest Times to the Fall of the
G. F. Hill, "Greek Coins acquired by the British Museum" NC 1921, pp. 161-178.
G. F. Hill, "Notes on the Imperial Persian Coinage" JHS 1919, pp. 116-129.
H. Howorth, "A Note on some Coins generally attributed to Mazaios, the Satrap of Cilicia
1954, pp. 15 f.
M. A. Levy, "Die aremaische Legende auf einer Drachme athenischen Geprags" NZ 1871,
pp. 433 f.
H. de Luynes, Essai sur la Numismatique des Satrapies et de la Phtnice sous les Rois
E. T. Newell, Miscellanea Numismatica, Cyrene to India (NNM 82), pp. 62-75, 82-88.
pp. 134-151.
derived from Greek Sources" Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 1904, pp. 673-675.
pp. 115-121.
pp. 43-59.
J. Rouvier, "Numismatique des Villes de la Phenice" JIAN 1901, pp. 35-63; 1902,
1868 E. H. Bunbury, "On some unpublished Tetradrachms of Alexander the Great" NC,
pp. 309-320.
1870 Baron de Prokesch-Osten, "Inedita meiner Sammlung 1870" NZ, pp. 268-270.
1871 Baron de Prokesch-Osten, "Suite des Monnaies inedites d'or et d'argent d'Alexandre
1883 E. H. Bunbury, "Additional Tetradrachms of Alexander the Great" NC, pp. 1-17.
1886 P. Gardner, "Greek Coins acquired by the British Museum" NC, pp. 249-264.
1890 W. Wroth, "Greek Coins acquired by the British Museum" NC, pp. 311-329.
1894 ATC, p. 3. 2.
1897 G. F. Hill, "Notes on Additions to the Greek Coins in the British Museum 1887-1896"
pp. 305 f.
1913 E. J. Seltman, "Rare Gold Coins with Types of Alexander III" NZ, pp. 203-210.
1919 NC, p. 8.
All coins are in the collection of The American Numismatic Society except PLATE I:
9-10 (British Museum), 12-13 (British Museum); PLATE II: 6 (Paris), 7 (British Museum)
PLATE I, PAGE
4. Alexander. Distater. 26
5. Alexander. Stater. 3
6. Alexander. Stater. 26
7. Alexander. J Stater. 26
8. Alexander. J Stater. 26
9. Alexander. J Stater. 26
132
2. Ilium. Tetradrachm.
4. Ptolemy. Tetradrachm.
5. Lysimachus. Tetradrachm.
8. Macedonia. Bronze.
28
29
29
29
3,29
29
8, 17, 86
8, 17, 87
10
14
15
18
18,23
I9>23
19
22
49, 60
49
62
63
66
67
78
78
88
92
92
92
93
PLATES
15 16 17 18
|I
Ill
INDIAN.', i.