Evidence for the importation and monetary use of blocks of foreign and obsolete coins in the ancient...

Evidence for the importation and monetary use of blocks

of foreign and obsolete bronze coins

in the ancient world

Suzanne Frey-Kupper Clive Stannard

Infrastructure and Distribution in Ancient EconomiesVienna 28 – 31 October 2014

• Athens Agora: 12,842 coins (5th – 1st c. BC)Athens: 9,737 coinsNearby states: 1,172 coinsFurther afield: 761 = 6.3%

• Morgantina: 8,711 coins, less Rome or later coins, Sicily, Rhegion and Carthage, 132 coins = 1.53%

• Monte Iato: 1, 178 coins, less Rome or later coins, Sicily, Rhegion and Carthage, 14 coins = 1.19%

Finds of foreign bronze are not very common:

We describe five deliberate transfers of blocks of coins for Monetary use

Across Hellenistic polities and currency systems

Kos to Central Italy


Across Hellenistic polities and currency systems

Ebusus to Pompeii

Within the Roman Empire


Republican asses to the Rhine

Within the Roman Empire


Gallic imitation antoniniani to North Africa

Sri Lankan imitations of Roman bronze

Syria (?) to Sri Lanka


The coins we discuss invite explanation• As an epiphenomenon of intense trade(Military explanations discounted)

• Or as a case where bronze coin was used to transfer value in trade

We argue that the coins were deliberately acquired for monetary use in the importing context

When:• Purchase + transport > metal + minting,

it is cheaper to mint at end use• This is independent of fiduciary value at

import• A dearth of small change raises its utility

value.So:

• Foreign blocks are often accompanied or followed by imitative coinages

Characteristically, imports and imitations occurwhen the state cannot supply adequate small coin

a. The sheer numbers of relevant coins in the receiving area, checked against their relative frequency elsewhere

b. The presence of only a specific issue, without the preceding or following issues

c. The sudden presence of specific issues in late stratigraphic contexts or hoards

d. Lack of evidence of a two-way flow of coins e. Comparison with non-numismatic findsf. The use of the coins on importation, including

imitations and overstrikes

Criteria for identifying blocks

From Kos to Central Italy

c. 16o BC ?

Ingvaldsen XIX (Stefanaki 35)XIX/1 – ΚΟΙΟΝ XIX/2 – ΚΟΙΩΝ

XXI Stefanaki 39

Hemi-obols, 210/200 – 180/170 BC

Obols, late 190s – 180/170 BC Hemi-obol, 2nd 1/4 2nd c. – 170/160 BC

Shared Magistrates’ namesEvidence: specific issues

• Athens Agora: 4 of 16,557 coins• Italy: 55+ coins of Kos XIX, 2 only of XXI

• Rome, Tiber: 13 of 122 coins• “Sottosuolo”: well represented• Campidoglio old excavations from Rome:

3 of c. 400 coins

Outside Kos & Kalymna, Kos XIX is not common, except in Italy

Evidence: sheer numbers

Finds of Koan bronze, c. 200-100 BC


Series XIX/1 ΚΩΙΟΝSeries XIX/2 ΚΩΙΩΝ

Series XVI ΚΩΙΟΝ Series XXI ΚΩΙΩΝ Others

Lorium

MinturnaeRome

Pompeii

Magdalensberg

Kos

Athens

Ashkelon

AphrodisiasNemea

Didyma

Kalymna

Evidence: no two-way flow

• In the Kos Museum, of 270 foreign Greek coins, almost all Hellenistic bronze, there are only:• 1 Metapontion, of the first quarter of the

3rd century – mid-3rd century BC

• 2 Rhegion, of c. 215–150 BC

• 5 Roman Republican coins, all but 1 are silver of the 1st century BC.

Italian coins are very uncommon in Kos, though the Asklepieion was much visited

• Kos was famous for “sea-water” wine• As early as 160 BC, Cato the Elder gives a recipe

for vinum coum• The large-scale trade in Koan wine to Italy only

began to be important after c. 130 BC• Kos had a Roman colony in the late 2nd and

early 1st century BC, negotiatores, involved with Koan wine and silk, but later than the period of the export of Kos XIX

• The little evidence we have does not support the picture of a flourishing trade between Kos and Italy at this early date

Non-numismatic evidence

Evidence: use after importation

Conclusions

Elements for dating:• XIX/1 to XIX/2 ratio

• Italy: 9%:91% Asklepieion: 88%/22%• There are 7 of 12 magistrates in 37 legible coins

in Italy, mainly XIX/2• So, the block is towards the end of the issue

• The overstrikes copy RRC 235/1 of c. 137 BC• The block left between 180/170 and 140 BC

Place of arrival uncertain, certainly Latium, perhaps Minturnae, perhaps Rome; the evidence is poor

From Ebusus to Pompeiiand the

Pompeian pseudo-mint

Prototypes of the Pompeian Pseudo-mintEbusus

Massalia

Rome

Athens

c.214–c.195 BC c.214–c.150/130 BC

c.150–100 BC 130s–100 BC

211–208 BC241–235 BC

c. 224/3–198 BC

• AAPP excavations: 48%• House of Amarantus: 48%• Uffici Scavi: 32%• Liri database: 49%

The imitations should not obscure the enormous presence of canonical Ebusus

There is no similar Massaliot block• PARP:PS excavations:

• 4% of all imported coins • 1.15% of all coins


Pompeii, coins below the AD 79 destruction levelEvidence: sheer numbers

Finds of Ebusan and pseudo-Ebusan coinsEvidence: sheer numbers

Issues present in Central Italy (Pompeii + Liri) and in Ibiza itself

Evidence: specific issues

Museu Arqueològic d’Eivissa i Formentera• 1 Italian coin in 137 foreign coins

Donación Martín Mañanes: 7,434 local finds• No Italian or pseudo-mint coins

“Ahora, tras el examen de más de 7.000 piezas procedentes de la donación Martín Mañanes es seguro que las monedas Campo 1976 grupo XVI deben excluirse de la producción de Ebusus, así como las del grupo XVIII, que muestran un peso más reducido y un estilo tosco, pues no se ha encontrado ninguna de ellas”

Pere Pau Ripollès

Evidence: no two-way flow

Non-numismatic evidence

Ebusan trade was part of the western Punic circuit• Its ceramics are extremely rare in Italy• Most trade went to Catalonia, or the Balearics

This is despite direct Italic trade to Spain• The Isla Pedrosa wreck, c. 140/130 BC, carried

Campanian A pottery, coins of Naples, Rome and the Narbonnaise, and “Italo-Baetic” struck lead

• Pottery at Cabrera de Mar, c. 150–90/80 BC, is largely Italic:

Evidence: use after importationΜασσαλία

Evidence: use after importationΜασσαλία Rome

Μασσαλία Rome Ebusus Evidence: use after importation

Evidence: use after importationΜασσαλία Rome

Μασσαλία Rome Evidence: use after importationEbusus

Μασσαλία Rome Evidence: use after importation

``

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Evidence: use after importationΜασσαλία Rome Ebusus

Athens

``

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Evidence: use after importationΜασσαλία Rome Ebusus

Dating evidenceConclusions

• Excavations in the House of Ariadne, Pompeii• Massaliot prototype D

Republican asses to legionary camps

on the Rhine

• Colin Kraay, in his study of Vindonissa, first suggested the importation of Republican asses• These are present in the part of the camp not

incorporated before 25/30 AD

• And present in military camps occupied after Tiberius

• Markus Peter 2001 confirmed Kraay’s observations, with stratigraphic evidence, from Augusta Raurica, a civic site

Circulation of Republican asses in legionary camps

0

100

200

300

400

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Republican asses in military camps on the Rhine

Peter 2001, fig. 4

Camps had short lives and were abandoned: 1-3 Augustan camps (Haltern, Kalkrise, Augsburg-Oberhausen) 4-9 Later camps (Lorenzberg, Kaiseraugst, Aislingen,Rheingönheim, Hofheim)

Asses of Lyon’s altar-series / Republican asses

Circulation of Republican asses in Switzerland

Military camp Civic site: colony Civic site: vicus

Not only military contexts: a context of 40/50 AD in the vicus Petinesca

Aventicum and Loussona are very different• Fewer Republican asses, more Divus Augustus Pater

asses, mostly local productions• The nearly complete absence of legionary counter-

marks points to non-military supply

Roman aes circulating in c. 40-60 ADVindonissa - Augusta Raurica - Aventicum

• They fill the gap in supply when the Rome and Lyon mints were closed:• Rome: AD 42–62?• Lyon: From Tiberius–AD 64

• They were not donatives, because never counter- marked

• They correspond to dupondii of the 1st c. AD, and were often halved to make asses

The asses went to military camps and spread west, but few reached Aventicum

The need for small change: local imitations

Divus Augustus Pater Claudius, Minerva

• Asses are rare in Gallia Narbonensis, though conquered in 123–118 BC

• Py: Of 20,079 coins from Provence; only 1.5% Republican asses (Massaliot bronze: 9,732 coins)• Most are early, none from early Imperial strata• There is a different pattern of halving

• In Italy, they seem to have circulated up to Tiberius, after the massive strikes of Augustus and Tiberius

• They probably came from Italy

Where did they come from?

Debased antoniniani to North Africa

• Debased antoniniani of the Central and Gallic Empires — under Claudius Gothicus, 2% silver — were accompanied by imitations, and tolerated, even encouraged

• In the last quarter of the third century AD, masses of imitations were made

• Aurelian’s reform failed: Gresham’s Law• From c. 280 to Diocletian’s reform (294),

imitations were assembled and hoarded in mass• After 294, segregated hoards attest to changes in

the economy of small change

In Gaul, between AD 260 & 294

Divo Claudio

Central Empire Gallic EmpirePre-reform Post-reform

Genuine Genuine Genuine Imitations

ImitationGenuine

• The imitations are very common in North Africa• French scholars suggest they were cried down

under Probus• Others think they were used until the 4th c.• Were blocks deliberately imported, for use as

coin? The La Ciotat wreck has 40 kg., tens of thousands, of coins

Official Divo Gallic Emperors Claudio Emperors

AD 270-274 30-50% 50-70% -AD 270-274/275 30-50% 50-70% c. 2%AD 275>280 max. 6% 80-90% 5-18% End 3rd/early 4th - 23-45% 50-75%

The are four groups of hoards of antoniniani in North Africa

North Africanhoards ofantoniani in the late 3rd c.

RGZM hoard

unknown location

“Divo Claudio”

Gozo, Rabbat

Archibishop Pace street

“Tetricus I/II”

North African Imitations, late 3rd/early 4th c.

La CiotatWreck

Late Roman aes to India and Sri Lanka

• Many late Roman coins are found in southern India and Sri Lanka, and imitated in the Kingdom of Ruhuna (southern Sri Lanka)

• Walburg identifies two blocks:• One reached Malabar, near Cochin, about

425/430, closing with coins of Theodosius II and Valentinian III (425–457).

• Some of these travelled through the Ghats to Madurai, then to Ruhuna

• A second, with coins of Marcian (450-457) and Leo (457-474), did not reach Sri Lanka

• The coins come largely from Syria, probably through the Red Sea port of Adulis.

• They they were effectively scrap, after progressive devaluation of aes, in terms of gold, in decrees of 396, 438 and 455: c. 8 kg of aes = 1 solidus

• Later trade with Sri Lanka, bypassing India, brought Auksumite, and late 5th c. North African “proto-Vandalic” coins with a cross

• In Ruhuna, Roman coins, and the post-450 imitations, were used as “special purpose money” in temple and commercial contexts

Sri Lankan imitations of Roman bronze

1 2 3

4 5 6

8 97

10

Conclusions

• Identifying blocks is difficult, but crucial for understanding the political and economic context, at export and on import

• It needs case-by-case testing of the evidence. False identification falsifies historical understanding, as much as the failure to identify blocks

• If we fail to recognise blocks, the large numbers of coins may tempt historians to propose unfounded reasons for their presence

For example, Stazio’s attempts to explain Ebusan bronze coin at Pompeii through trade• He struggled to make sense of Ebusan coin in

the purse-hoard. • He supposed that Roman colonisation of

Spain, and massive Campanian wine and oil exports, gave Ebusus an intermediary role

• He recognised and struggled with the strange numismatic data: why, of all Spanish mints, was only Ebusus so common? He built an argument to explain this.

• He assumed first that that Rome allowed conquered polities — Ebusus, in particular — to continue to coin

• Then concluded that Rome had deliberately promoted the use of Ebusan coin, in order to occupy the presumed central role of the island in Carthaginian commerce, before the supply of Roman coin became adequate to replace it

• If correct, these would have been facts of historical importance

If a block is identified:• Who are the actors, on both sides, and who

initiated the transfer?• Did they know the end use of the coins, or

was that a later decision?• Was it one transfer, or a series of transfers?• Was the transfer direct, or did it go through

some intermediary destination?

How were the coins acquired?• By coercion, as booty?• Purchased, once demonetised? cf:

• Late Roman Bronze in India and Sri Lanka

• Numidian and Carthaginian coins in Croatia and Bosnia

• Acquired at fiduciary value? But:• Would a seller accept less than fiduciary?• Would a buyer pay more than metal?

We know:• No military event: they weren’t booty• No demonetisation: they weren’t scrap

Who gathered together the block?• Traders? (improbable numbers)• Money-changers, or the state? (who might have had such numbers)

Who put them into circulation?• Magistrates? Money-changers?

Kos

The date is crucial: • Quintus Caecilius Metellus conquered the Balearics in 123 BC. The block is probably too early

Exactly the same questions as at Kos• No sign that they were booty or scrap

If bought:• Would sellers sell below fiduciary value?• Would purchasers pay over metal value?

Ebusus

Successful warfare drove economic expansion in central Italy, 150–50 BC

• Rapidly increasing market transactions• A chronic, unmet need for small change in

Central Italy — Rome, colonies and allies — well before Rome stopped striking bronze

• Local remedial solutions, throughout the 2nd and 1st c. BC

• Block importations• Pseudo-mints and informal coinages• Pragmatic use of old and foreign coin

Central Italy in the mid-2nd c. BC

• Block transfers were a western phenomenon• Eastern cities continued to strike• Republican asses probably fell away with

Tiberius’ huge issues• The probable closure the Roman mint from

AD 42–62, of Lyon from Tiberius to AD 64, reduced supply to military camps

In Imperial times

• The asses left without contemporary coins• They may have been segregated by money-

changers in Italy, and traded at a discount• If received at full value, this could have

pumped them north• Their transfer was probably a pragmatic

solution, by low level army administrators• There were probably more than one transfer

• In the 3rd c., coinage became decentralised, and supply in Gaul more difficult

• There was a vast mass of imitations• Some think they were cried down under

Probus, and sent to Africa• It is more probably that, with the

introduction of the nummus, they became less useful, and there was some commercial advantage in shipping them to Africa

• Though large scale, there is no evidence of official involvement

• Only under the Flavians and Trajan, and in the 2nd c. AD, was bronze supply adequate for the provinces’ needs, particularly the army’s

• The Administration became extremely powerful and centralised. For example:• From Vespasian on, witnesses to military

diplomas, who before could have resided anywhere, had to reside in Rome

Thank you

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