INTRODUCTION

According to Moses Finley, the great number of weight standards and individual coin designs used throughout the Mediterranean impeded proper circulation of money, and in particular coinage. The fact that states showed little interest in removing these boundaries demonstrated that local rather than broader economic principles guided their monetary policies. What is more, the economic impact of coined money remained limited because of the political boundaries created by local weight standards and coin designs.

We know, however, that many cities adopted common weights and measures, or made their coinages more easily exchangeable by using the same weight standard for their principle coin. Every precious metal monetary system is based on a principal unit of weight (normally slightly lighter than the unit of metal weight itself). There is also a standard coin (stater) which represents a specific number of these units. In Greek poleis, for example, the stater could represent two, three or four drachmas of a different size. It is highly significant, therefore, that the Athenians in the sixth century seem to have changed their metal-weight system from the Aiginetan standard to one that scholars identify with the island of Euboia (Arist. Ath. Pol. 10.3). The change was not related to coinage, for coins were not minted in Athens at the time of Solon to whom the change was attributed in the fourth century bc. It did, however, affect the monetary units on the basis of which monetary exchange was conducted.