The Spread of Coins in the Hellenistic World
The Spread of Coins in the Hellenistic World Andrew Meadows Although coinage was first ‘invented’ in the archaic Greek period, and spread to a sig- nificant part of the Mediterranean world during the classical period, it remained a mar- ginal element within the economy. At very few cities or mints were coins produced regularly, and the issues of a vast majority of mints were sporadic, small and of coins ill- suited to daily transactions.1 Moreover there existed in the nature of early coinage inher- ent impediments to international use. Thus, while coinage can be said to be a financial innovation of the archaic and classical Greek world, it did not radically change eco- nomic behaviour. Significant changes in the nature and scale of coinage occurred only in the wake of Alexander’s world conquest, during the Hellenistic period. The Hellenistic period runs, as usually defined, from the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC to the Battle of Actium by which Roman superiority over the Greek world was finally established on 2nd September 31 BC. The period is defined by the world conquest of Alexander the Great, and the consequences of the division of his empire upon his death. The name ‘Hellenistic’ derives from the German term for the period, coined by J.G. Droysen in the 1830s in his Geschichte des Hellenismus (First edition, Hamburg 1836–1843). For Droysen, who had previously written a seminal study of Alexander the Great, the period of Hellenismus, was characterised by the Hellenisation of the world that Alexander had conquered. This world had largely been encompassed by the Achaemenid Persian Empire, but had comprised many different cultures in Asia Minor, the Near East, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Iran and beyond.2 1 On scale, see further below, section “Spread and Scale”.
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