Infrastructure and Distribution

in Ancient Economies
Vienna 28 31 October 2014

Evidence for the importation

and monetary use of blocks
of foreign and obsolete
bronze coins
in the ancient world
Suzanne Frey-Kupper

Clive Stannard

Finds of foreign bronze are not very

common:

Athens Agora: 12,842 coins (5th 1st c. BC)

Athens: 9,737 coins
Nearby states: 1,172 coins
Further 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%

We describe five deliberate transfers

of blocks of coins for Monetary use
Across Hellenistic polities and currency systems

Kos to Central Italy

We describe five deliberate transfers

of blocks of coins for Monetary use
Across Hellenistic polities and currency systems

Ebusus to Pompeii

We describe five deliberate transfers

of blocks of coins for Monetary use
Within the Roman Empire

Republican asses to the Rhine

We describe five deliberate transfers

of blocks of coins for Monetary use
Within the Roman Empire
Gallic imitation antoniniani
to North Africa

We describe five deliberate transfers

of blocks of coins for Monetary use
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 occur
when the state cannot supply adequate small coin

Criteria for identifying blocks

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 finds
f. The use of the coins on importation, including
imitations and overstrikes

From Kos to Central Italy

c. 16o BC ?

Ingvaldsen XIX (Stefanaki 35)

XIX/1

XIX/2

Hemi-obols, 210/200 180/170 BC

XXI

Obols, late 190s 180/170 BC

Stefanaki 39

Hemi-obol, 2nd 1/4 2nd c. 170/160 BC

Evidence: specific issues

Shared Magistrates names

Evidence: sheer numbers

Outside Kos & Kalymna, Kos XIX is not

common, except in Italy

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

Evidence: sheer numbers

Finds of Koan bronze,

c. 200-100 BC
Magdalensberg

Lorium
Rome
Minturnae
Pompeii

Nemea

Athens
Kalymna

Didyma
Aphrodisias

Kos

Ashkelon

Series XVI

Series XIX/1
Series XIX/2

Series XXI

Others

Evidence: no two-way flow

Italian coins are very uncommon in Kos,

though the Asklepieion was much visited

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. 215150 BC
5 Roman Republican coins, all but 1 are silver of
the 1st century BC.

Evidence: sheer numbers

Non-numismatic evidence

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

Evidence: use after importation

Conclusions

Elements for dating:

XIX/1 to XIX/2 ratio
Asklepieion: 88%/22%
Italy: 9%:91%
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 Pompeii

and the
Pompeian pseudo-mint

Prototypes of the Pompeian Pseudo-mint

Ebusus
c.214c.195 BC

c.214c.150/130 BC

Massalia
c.150100 BC

130s100 BC

Rome
241235 BC

211208 BC

Athens
c. 224/3198 BC

Evidence: sheer numbers

The imitations should not obscure the

enormous presence of canonical Ebusus
AAPP excavations: 48%
House of Amarantus: 48%
Uci Scavi: 32%
Liri database: 49%
There is no similar Massaliot block
PARP:PS excavations:
4% of all imported coins
1.15% of all coins

Evidence: sheer numbers

Pompeii, coins below the AD 79 destruction level

Evidence: sheer numbers

Finds of Ebusan and pseudo-Ebusan coins

Evidence: specific issues

Issues present in Central Italy (Pompeii

+ Liri) and in Ibiza itself

Evidence: no two-way flow

Museu Arqueolgic dEivissa i Formentera

1 Italian coin in 137 foreign coins
Donacin Martn Maanes: 7,434 local finds
No Italian or pseudo-mint coins
Ahora, tras el examen de ms de 7.000 piezas procedentes
de la donacin Martn Maanes es seguro que las monedas
Campo 1976 grupo XVI deben excluirse de la produccin
de Ebusus, as como las del grupo XVIII, que muestran un
peso ms reducido y un estilo tosco, pues no se ha encontrado
ninguna de ellas
Pere Pau Ripolls

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. 15090/80 BC, is
largely Italic:

Evidence: use after importation

Rome

Evidence: use after importation

Rome

Ebusus

Evidence: use after importation

Evidence: use after importation

Rome

Evidence: use after importation

Rome

Evidence: use after importation

Rome

Ebusus

Evidence: use after importation

Evidence: use after importation

Rome

Evidence: use after importation

Rome

Ebusus

Evidence: use after importation

`
`

Rome

Ebusus

Evidence: use after importation

Athens
`

Dating evidence
Excavations in the House of Ariadne, Pompeii
Massaliot prototype D

Conclusions

Republican asses
to legionary camps
on the Rhine

Circulation of Republican asses

in legionary camps

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 Kraays
observations, with stratigraphic evidence, from
Augusta Raurica, a civic site

Republican asses
in military camps on the Rhine
400
300

Peter 2001,

200

fig. 4
100
0

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Asses of Lyons altar-series / Republican asses
Camps had short lives and were abandoned:
1-3 Augustan camps (Haltern, Kalkrise, Augsburg-Oberhausen)
4-9 Later camps (Lorenzberg, Kaiseraugst, Aislingen,Rheingnheim, Hofheim)

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 dierent

Fewer Republican asses, more Divus Augustus Pater

asses, mostly local productions
The nearly complete absence of legionary countermarks points to non-military supply

Roman aes circulating in c. 40-60 AD

Vindonissa - Augusta Raurica - Aventicum

The asses went to military camps and

spread west, but few reached Aventicum

They fill the gap in supply when the Rome and

Lyon mints were closed:
Rome: AD 4262?
Lyon: From TiberiusAD 64
They were not donatives, because never countermarked
They correspond to dupondii of the 1st c. AD, and
were often halved to make asses

The need for small change: local imitations

Divus Augustus Pater

Claudius, Minerva

Where did they come from?

Asses are rare in Gallia Narbonensis, though

conquered in 123118 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 dierent 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

Debased antoniniani
to North Africa

In Gaul, between AD 260 & 294

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
Aurelians reform failed: Greshams Law
From c. 280 to Diocletians reform (294),
imitations were assembled and hoarded in mass
After 294, segregated hoards attest to changes in
the economy of small change

Central Empire
Pre-reform

Genuine

Gallic Empire

Post-reform

Genuine

Genuine

Imitations

Divo Claudio

Genuine

Imitation

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

The are four groups of hoards

of antoniniani in North Africa
Ocial
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%

North African
hoards of
antoniani in
the late 3rd c.

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

RGZM hoard

unknown location

Divo Claudio

Gozo, Rabbat

Archibishop Pace street

Tetricus I/II

La Ciotat
Wreck

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 (425457).
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 eectively 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

10

Conclusions

 Identifying blocks is dicult, 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, Stazios 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?

Kos
We know:
No military event: they werent booty
No demonetisation: they werent 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?

Ebusus
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?

Successful warfare drove economic

expansion in central Italy, 15050 BC

Central Italy in the mid-2nd c. 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

In Imperial times
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 4262, of Lyon from Tiberius to AD 64,
reduced supply to military camps

 The asses left without contemporary coins

They may have been segregated by moneychangers 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 dicult
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
ocial involvement

 Only under the Flavians and Trajan, and in

the 2nd c. AD, was bronze supply adequate
for the provinces needs, particularly the
armys
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