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The Financial History of Ancient Chios

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Extract

There is at present an unfortunate hiatus between the study of Greek history and the science of Greek coins. The historians, if we except Holm have not had familiarity with Greek coins, and the numismatists have seldom gone into larger questions; they have mostly been occupied with minute details, which no doubt in their way are important. Yet coins give the investigator most exact and trustworthy information; and in matters of commerce and finance are first-hand authorities. My History of Ancient Coinage was meant to do something towards filling the hiatus; but much remains to be done.

At present I propose to treat briefly of the financial history of Chios as exhibited in the coins. I select that city for two reasons. In the first place the importance and wealth of the city, and its close connection with the main stream of Greek history, give it a claim to preference. In the second place the coins of Chios have been so fully and satisfactorily treated of by numismatists that I need not enumerate or discuss them in detail.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1920

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References

1 Num. Chrou. 1915, 1916. Compare MissBaldwin, Agnes in the Journal of the American Numismatic Society for 1914Google Scholar, and the great treatises of Head and Babelon.

2 Nat. Hist. xxxvi. 12. This distich I would ventare to restore as follows:—

or

If this restoration be correct, we may not ority add two new poets to Parnassus, at the rate of one line apiece, but also recover what is perhaps the oldest of poetical advertisements.

3 N.H. xxxvi. 11.

4 viii. 105.

5 xiv. 668.

6 American Journal of Numismatics, 1914, vol. xlviii, p. 55.

7 Proc. Brit. Acad. 1908, p. 119; Journ. Hell. Stud. 1911, p. 151. Mr.Jameson, R. arrived independently at similar views (Rer. Numism. 1911Google Scholar). Mr. Svoronos has disputed the attribution, and attempted to transfer the whole set of coins to eities of Macedon, and Thrace, (L'Hellénisme Primitif de la Macédoine., p. 211Google Scholar). This assignment seems to me impossible; but I am glad to see that Mr. Svoronos accepts the date of B.C. 500.

8 Mavrogordato, Period IV.

9 Gardner, , History o Ancient Coinage p. 238Google Scholar.

10 Mavrogordato, Period V. No. 9.

11 Thuc viii. 107.

12 p. 237.

13 Journ. Hell. Stud. xxxiv, p. 276.

14 Thus in my History of Ancient Coinage, pp. 289, 290, I abstained from following up the subject.

15 History of Anc. Coinage, p. 298. The Persian tetrobol should weigh about 58 grains and so be a little lighter than the Chian drachm of 60 grains.

16 I have tried to prove the equivalence of the Persian daric and the Cyzicene, stater in my History, p. 241Google Scholar. But some good authorities, such as Mr. J. P. Six, will not allow it.

17 Mr.West, Allen B. in the American Classical Philology for 1914Google Scholar gives reasons for thinking that the league was reconstituted about B.C. 432. Compare my History of Ancient Coinage, p. 281.

18 Nomisma, No. 3.

19 Thuc. ii. 9.

20 Thuc. iv. 51.

21 Hist. of Anc. Coinage, p. 251.

22 Nomisma, Part IX.

23 Bull. Corr. Hell. xxi. 287.

24 Xeno hon, , Hellen, iv. 8Google Scholar; Diodorus, xiv. 84.