Dating the drachmas in Solon's laws

Historia - Zeitschrift fur Alte Geschichte

Volumn 61, Issue 2, 2012, Pages 127-158

  Davis, Gil ^a  

^a MACQUARIE UNIVERSITY   (Australia)

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EID: 84862155425     PISSN: 00182311     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
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References (196)

1. The probable reason for Solon's pre-eminence in the literature can be found in the ideological battles of the late-fifth and fourth centuries between democrats and oligarchs in which the former positioned Solon as the father of democracy. The triumph of the democrats is especially notable in the later Atthides of the fourth century BCE when, as F. Jacoby, Atthis: the Local Chronicles of Ancient Athens (Oxford 1949) 154-5, 155 n. 20 noted, Solon was "established as the creator of the laws". For the oligarchs' position compare Ath. Pol. 29.3 which states that in 411 BCE, during the brief government of the oligarchic Four Hundred, a certain Kleitophon suggested "that the commissioners elected (to draft new public safety measures) should also investigate the ancestral laws laid down by Kleisthenes when he was establishing the democracy".
2. J. McInerney, "Politicizing the Past: the Atthis of Kleidemos", CA 13. 1 (1994) 17-37, 33, n. 60 noted: "Solon is mentioned four times in the 75 extant speeches before 356, and 32 times in the 64 extant speeches after 356". Reform of weights, measures and coinage - Andoc. 1.83, Ath. Pol. 10.1-2.
3. I. Linforth, Solon the Athenian (Berkeley 1919) 281 provided a good definition of a heuretes: "It was the universal Greek habit to attribute the great works of the past to definite persons without much regard to probability".
4. The clearest statement of the reasons was in J. Kroll & N. Waggoner, "Dating the Earliest Coins of Athens, Corinth and Aegina", AJA 88 (1984) 325-33.
5. However, doubts were raised as far back as E. Robinson, "Coins from the Ephesian Artemision reconsidered", JHS 71 (1951) 156-167
6. and stated explicitly by C. Kraay, Greek Coins (London 1966) 324, and a c. 545
7. date for the first Athenian coinage was suggested by M. Price & N. Waggoner, The 'Asyut' Hoard (London 1975) 68.
8. P. Rhodes, "Solon and the Numismatists", NC 15 (1975) 1-11.
9. P. Rhodes, A Commentary on the Aristotelian Athenaion Politeia (Oxford 1981) 152-3 and 168.
10. Rhodes' solution was endorsed by Kroll and Waggoner, Dating the Earliest Coins (as in n. 3) 325-33
11. and strongly amplified in J. Kroll, "From Wappenmunzen to Gorgoneia to Owls", ANSMN 26 (1981) 1-32 & plates 1-2
12. J. Kroll, "Silver in Solon's Laws" in R. Ashton and S. Hurler (eds.), Studies in Greek Numismatics in Memory of Martin Jessop Price (London 1998) 225-32
13. J. Kroll, "Observations of monetary instruments in pre-coinage Greece" in M. Balmuth (ed.), Hacksilber to Coinage: New Insights into the Monetary History of the Near East and Greece (New York 2001) 77-91
14. and J. Kroll, "The Monetary Use of Weighed Bullion in Archaic Greece" in W. Harris (ed.), The Monetary Systems of the Greeks and Romans (Oxford 2008) 12-37.
15. Mycenaean exploitation - N. Gale, W. Gentner and G. Wagner, "Mineralogical and geographical Silver Sources of Archaic Greek Coinage" in D. Metcalf and W. Oddy (eds.), Metallurgy in numismatics, Vol. 1, (London 1980) 29, n. 4.
16. Sixth-century mining - see O. Picard, "La découverte des gisements du Laurion et les débuts de la chouette", RBN (2001) 1-10 who demonstrated that mining must have been occurring from around 540 BCE.
17. This is generally accepted based mainly on Gale et al., Silver Sources (as in n. 8).
18. Hdt. 1.64.1 supplemented by Ath. Pol. 15. 2.
19. B. Lavelle, "The Peisistratids and the mines of Thrace", GRBS 33 (1992) 5-23 argued that the Peisistratids could only have derived negligible income from this source because (1) there is no archaeological evidence for an archaic Athenian settlement, (2) Peisistratos still needed contributions from allies, (3) Thucydides did not mention this source of revenue, (4) there is no proof of where the metal for their coinage came from, and (5) the coinage was minimal. I do not believe any of these points is decisive enough to overrule the literary evidence. In particular, the remains of an Athenian settlement could lie undiscovered in many parts of the Strymon region.
20. Notwithstanding Plutarch's rationalising attempt to portray merchants in a good light - cf. Sol. 2. 3-4.
21. Claims have been made that the land was being more intensively cultivated, principally to back theories of the nature of the conflict Solon had to resolve, but the evidence from survey archaeology is unsupportive - see S. Forsdyke, "Land, Labor and Economy in Solonian Athens: breaking the impasse between archaeology and history" in J. Blok and A. Lardinois (eds.), Solon of Athens: New Historical and Philological Approaches (Leiden 2006) 341-2 with references. See the Annexure regarding the statistical chance of surplus or famine.
22. Some ancient testimony supports the notion that early Attic SOS amphoras may have been transported by the Phoenicians (e.g., Pseudo-Skylax, Periplous 112). See M. Aubet, The Phoenicians and the West: Politics, colonies and trade (Cambridge 1993) 287
23. S. Houby-Nielsen, "Attica: a view from the sea" in K. Raaflaub and H. van Wees (eds.), A Companion to Archaic Greece (West Sussex 2009) 198
24. and D. Gill, "Pots and trade: spacefilled or objets d'art?", JHS 111 (1991) 40-42.
25. 'Luxury' is not really an adequate term despite its widespread use in ancient history discourse. I use it in the sense of distinguishing goods of high value relative to their bulk, from 'staples' or 'necessities'. It is a complex issue for which see N. Morley, Trade in classical antiquity (Cambridge 2007) 39-43.
26. L. Foxhall, "Village to city: staples and luxuries? Exchange networks and urbanization", in R. Osborne and B. Cunliffe (Eds.) Mediterranean Urbanization 800-600 BC (Oxford 2005) 240 used the terms 'everyday luxuries', 'semi-luxuries', and 'delicacies' as they describe imports consumed occasionally by non-elites as well as by elites in greater quantities.
27. Gill, Pots and trade (as in n. 14) 29-47 argued from shipwreck evidence that pottery itself was of relatively minor importance in trade and merely accompanied more bulky goods.
28. S. Humphreys, Anthropology and the Greeks (London 1978) 70, 160, 167-9 showed this was the case even in the Homeric texts, notwithstanding examples of aristocrats travelling to finance the acquisition of goods and luxuries for their own use.
29. For a contrary view see D. Tandy, Warriors into Traders: The Power of the Market in Early Greece (Berkeley. Los Angeles 1997) 4
30. and for a balanced summary see C. Reed, Maritime Traders in the Ancient Greek World (Cambridge 2003) 64-5.
31. M. Dietler, Archaeologies of Colonialism: Consumption, Entanglement, and Violence in Ancient Mediterranean France (Berkeley, Los Angeles 2010) 100. I accept that Archaic Greece was "a world of interdependent markets" where "those engaged in trade (were) aware of varying demand for particular commodities in different places"
32. R. Osborne, "Pots, Trade and the Archaic Greek Economy", Antiquity 70 (1996) 31.
33. B. Bravo, "Remarques sur les assises socials, les formes d'organisation et la terminologie du commerce maritime grec à l'époque archaïque", Dialogues d'histoire ancienne 3 (1977) 24-5 made this suggestion. Soion himself is a good example
34. cf. Plut. Sol. 2.1.
35. Financing trade is another possible way in which wealthy people could profit discreetly. However, we have no evidence for bottomry loans before the fourth century, though their existence is inferred by some in the early to mid-fifth century, cf. Reed, Maritime traders (as in n. 16) 40-1.
36. Dietler, Archaeologies (as in n. 17) 142.
37. F. Frost, "The Athenian Military before Cleisthenes", Historia 33 (1984) 283-94 convincingly demonstrated that there was no state army until the citizen hoplite army created by Kleisthenes' reforms, except for the forces maintained by the tyrants. Warfare at the beginning of the century was characterised by thieving raids
38. (cf. Dig. 47. 22.4 =
39. E. Ruschenbusch, Solonos nomoi [Weisbaden 1966] fr. 76a) and border conflicts. Expeditions were manned on a volunteer basis, such as Plutarch's report of Solon's capture of Salamis
40. Athens in the seventh century had been in Camp's word 'quiescent' (J. Camp, The Athenian Agora: Excavations in the Heart of Classical Athens [London 1986] 34). This situation changed dramatically during the sixth century, but at the commencement of the century the process was just beginning. On the Acropolis, there may have been a temple to Athena Polias preceding the 'Bluebeard' temple, and there were possibly other buildings on its east slope - a Bouleuterion and Prytaneion were identified by Thucydides 2.15.2 in an area plausibly identified as an early polls centre
41. see N. Robertson, "The City Centre of Archaic Athens", Hesperia 67 (1998) 283-302. Financing possibly came privately from aristocrats as prestige offerings. We have no evidence for any substantial infrastructure works.
42. Slave trading is generally an archaeologically invisible cargo, but can be inferred from Solon's poems, cf. M. West, Iambi et elegi Graeci ante Alexandrum Cantati II (Oxford 1998) fr. 4.17-25 and 36.8-12.
43. Homeric and archaic slavery is discussed in Humphreys, Anthropology (as in n. 16) 161-4.
44. See G. Stanton, Athenian Politics c. 800-500 BC: a sourcebook (London and New York 1990) 60, n. 1 and 65, n. 1. Methodologically I fully agree with Prof. Stanton (in a comment made to me privately) that we should accept what the ancient sources say unless there is some reason to reject it. However, for the reasons following in this paper, I suspect Plutarch was providing a later explanation, or possibly even recording a law enacted later than Solon.
45. F. Frost, "The Rural Demes of Attica", Politics and the Athenians (Toronto 2005) 14, n. 4
46. (originally in W. Coulson et al. [eds.] The archaeology of Athens and Attica under the democracy [Oxford 1994]).
47. L. Foxhall, Olive Cultivation in Ancient Greece: Seeking the Ancient Economy (Oxford 2007) 16-17. Also see note 34.
48. Osborne, Pots (as in n. 17) 39.
49. All from Dietler, Archaeologies (as in n. 17) 194-6. We know the amphoras were used for wine from the presence of pitch lining their interiors. They cannot have been used for olive oil, because pitch is soluble in oil.
50. There has been a great deal written recently on demand. See especially L. Foxhall, "Cargoes of the Heart's Desire: the Character of Trade in the Archaic Mediterranean World", in N. Fisher and H. Van Wees (eds.), Archaic Greece: New Approaches and New Evidence (London 1998) 295-309.
51. T. Gallant, "Agricultural Systems, Land Tenure, and Reforms of Solon", BSA 77 (1982) 121.
52. T. Webster, Potter and Patron in Classical Athens (London 1972) 2.
53. H. Shapiro, Art and Cult under the Tyrants in Athens (Mainz 1989) 10.
54. Urbanisation - see I. Morris, "The early polis as City and State" in J. Rich and A. Wallace-Hadrill (eds.), City and Country in the Ancient World (London/New York 1991) 25-57;
55. building - see J. Boersma, "Peisistratos: building activity reconsidered" in H. Sancisi-Weerdenburg (ed.), Peisistratos and the Tyranny: a Reappraisal of the Evidence (Amsterdam 2000) 49-56;
56. specialisation - see Osborne, Pots (as in n. 17) 31 who recorded that 96 % of the production of the Nikosthenic workshop went to the Etruscan area. I do not propose to enter into the discussion of how much of the building work was directly attributable to Peisistratos, just to note that it was occurring.
57. For a general summary, see Houby-Nielsen, Attica (as in n. 14) 206-7.
58. R. Descat, "Monnaie multiple et monnaie frappé en Grèce archaïque", RN, 6th series, 157 (2001) 71.
59. See the Annexure. People had been paid in grain and other produce in Egypt for millennia, and this practice would continue into Hellenistic times. Cf. D. Crawford, "Food: tradition and change in Hellenistic Egypt", World Archaeology 11 (1979) 136-46. However, Egypt had long-standing traditions and administrative practices quite different from Mesopotamia and Greece, and the worker payments were within the domestic economy.
60. Kroll, Observations (as in n. 6) 78.
61. Kroll, Weighed Bullion (as in n. 6) 24-35 onceded this, as well as providing details of bullion finds in Magna Grecia, but he pointed to the "asymmetry of Greek vs. NE excavation" (in private correspondence).
62. th-century Greece is accompanied by a corresponding absence of Near Eastern silver imports", especially notable at the major sanctuary sites of Delphi and Olympia where such objects might be expected.
63. Markoe, Metals (as in n. 50) 71.
64. M. Yu Treister, The Role of Metals in Ancient Greek History (Leiden 1996) 63.
65. M. Vickers and D. Gill, Artful Crafts; Ancient Greek Silverware and Pottery (Oxford 1994) 46-51. The exact dating is contested, but unimportant here.
66. Vickers and Gill, Artful Crafts (as in n. 53) 49.
67. The spread of coinage was not uniform or universal. See C. Kraay, "Hoards, small change and the origin of coinage", JHS 84 (1964) 76-91
68. for a general summary, and more recently G. Le Rider, La naissance de la monnaie: Pratiques monitaires de l'Orient ancien (Paris 2001) 71 ff.
69. and H. Kim, "Small change and the moneyed economy", in P. Cartledge, E. Cohen and L. Foxhall (eds.), Money, Labour and Land: Approaches to the Economies of Ancient Greece (London and New York 2002) 44-51.
70. It has usually been stated that Aigina's coinage predated that of Athens. Kroll and Waggoner, Dating (as in n. 3) 335 ff.
71. and T. Figueira, Aegina, Society and Economy (New York 1981) Chapter 2 both suggested a date in the second quarter of the sixth century, but this is now considered to be too early (including by Kroll in private correspondence).
72. K. Sheedy, The Archaic and Early Classical Coinages of the Cyclades (London 2006) 6-10 dated his Phase la of the Aiginetan coinage to c. 555-550 BCE based on counting back issues from the Apadama foundation deposit at Persepolis (now convincingly dated to 515-510 BCE) which contained a Phase 2b silver stater.
73. However, H. Nicolet-Pierre, Numismatique grecque (Paris 2002) 137 argued that there is no conclusive evidence of Aiginetan coinage before the last quarter of the sixth century, and sought to compress the earlier issues into a shorter time span making it roughly contemporary with, or later than the introduction of coinage at Athens.
74. 3) ", AJN Second Series 20 (2008) 53.
75. The authors noted that "[i]n all likelihood, the coinage entered circulation in two contiguous phases, beginning with a sizeable initial issue" - Kim and Kroll, Colophon (as in n. 60) 61. The authors contended that silver bullion use was already well established, and the introduction of coinage extended its use for low value transactions.
76. A summary of Athenian electrum coinage is in J. Jongkees, "Notes on the coinage of Athens", Mnemosyne 12 (1945) 81-117, but much more work needs to be done especially as regards dating. Electrum coinage is part of the 'Early Attic Coin Project' at Macquarie University, Sydney - a comprehensive new study of early Attic coinage down to 480/79 BCE being undertaken by the writer and Dr. Kenneth Sheedy. A sufficient number of the find spots of electrum coins were in Attica for there to be little doubt they were Athenian. The principal types of the owl, bull and wheel reinforce this. Some scholars with very good eyes have identified a Δ on the reverse of the owls. This could be an alpha for Athens (Jongkees, Notes [as above] 94-6 and Kroll, Wappenmünzen [as in n. 6] 8, n. 26), a delta for Delphi
77. (J. Six, "Monnaies grecques inédites et incertaines", NC [1895] 179)
78. or Delos (C. Seltman, Athens: its History and Coinage before the Persian Invasion [Cambridge 1924, reprint Chicago 1974] 81)
79. or no letter at all. Kroll, Wappenmünzen (as in n. 6) 8, n. 26 proposed that it is the same alpha or alpha-tau monogram found on some bronze spearheads on the Acropolis, and as a shield device on later Athenian armour tokens.
80. According to the frequency table of Jongkees, Notes (as in n. 62) 97, the normal weight of a hemihekte was 1.35 grams. It should be noted that for the electrum coins (unlike the silver coins), there is very little weight variation with most examples falling within 5%. The exceptions were the 'eye' and 'flying beetle' types which I suspect were not Athenian.
81. See the article on the relationship of electrum to silver and gold by J. Melville-Jones, "The value of electrum in Greece and Asia" in R. Ashton and S. Hurter (eds.), Studies in Greek Numismatics in Memory of Martin Jessop Price (London 1998) 380-93. He demonstrated that in 409/8 BCE the ratio of electrum to silver was 6.66 to 6.75:1. At its highest, it is unlikely the ratio exceeded 10:1, and by the end of the sixth century, cementation was a well known technique for separating electrum into its main constituent parts.
82. A careful study of provenances is part of the 'Early Attic Coinage Project' - cf. n. 62. The clearest understanding of provenance comes from hoards. The overwhelming majority of Wappenmünzen have been found in Attica or Euboia, with only occasional examples elsewhere
83. Kraay, Hoards (as in n. 57) 80-81 provided a summary. However, it should be noted that Kraay's list included several finds of 'wheels'. I have argued elsewhere
84. (G. Davis, "Where are all the little owls?" in R. Pitt and A. Matthaiou [eds.], Festschrift in honour of Harold Mattingly [forthcoming]), that these may be late sixth to early fifth century in date. Furthermore, the Sakha Hoard (IGCH 1639) found in Egypt which contains the two horse-type Wappenmünzen didrachms probably dates to the early fifth century, and its assortment of coins from very many different poleis and bullion suggests the hoard was valued as bullion.
85. See Davis, Owls (as in n. 67): 79 % of Wappenmünzen were found to be fractions in a survey of all early Attic coins in coin catalogues carried out by the author. It is also amply demonstrated in
86. Seltman, Athens (as in n. 62) - see types B and D, even though his interest in assembling fractions was restricted.
87. The 'Early Attic Coin Project' (cf. n. 62) will also provide a better understanding of the number of dies than currently available using Seltman, Athens (as in n. 62). It is difficult to assess how many coins a single die could strike, even if it were used until it broke.
88. F. de Callataÿ, Quantifications et numismatique antique: choix d'articles 1984-2004 (Belgium 2006) summarised the scholarship and suggested between 10, 000-30, 000 coins per die. We should assume the very earliest dies performed much less well than later ones. For the sake of calculation, 1, 000 didrachms = 0.3 Attic talents = ca. 8.6 kg of silver.
89. A useful summary of the types and the problems with current theories can be found in C. Flament, Le monnayage en argent d'Athènes: De l'époque archaïque à l'époque hellénistique (c. 550 - c. 40 av. J.-C), (Belgium 2007) 9-16.
90. However, I note the point made by Flament, Monnayage (as in n. 71) 16 that "rien n'atteste qu'Athènes, à cette époque, frappait monnaie chaque année".
91. For Peisistratid use of "numerous mercenaries" see Herodotos 1.64.1. Many were from Argos (1.61.4) - one thousand according to Ath. Pol. 17.3. Herodotus 6.39.2 recorded that Miltiades under the Peisistratids in the Chersonese employed five hundred mercenaries. Mercenary use may account for the find of two electrum scarabs at Ephesos which the excavator suggested were Attic from their fabric, weight and type, but "the Euboic standard was in use in many places besides Athens" - see D. Hogarth (ed.), British Museum Excavations at Ephesus, the Archaic Artemisia (London 1908) 87, Nos 81 and 83.1 do not mean to reprise Cook's discredited association of royal Lydian electrum with Asia Minor mercenaries as the reason coinage was invented
92. (R. Cook, "Speculations on the Origin of Coinage", Historia 7 [1958] 259-60). Rather I suggest that the mercenaries known to have been employed by Peisistratos may have wished to be paid in a type of currency more familiar to them, and that mercenaries more generally in the Near East would have been paid in bullion for a long time. Possibly mercenary pay was a source of precious metal back to Greece in the Archaic Period.
93. Herodotos 1.64.1 related that Peisistratos was "drawing increased revenues from both Attica itself and from the region of the river Strymon" (trans. A. Purvis in R. Strassler, [ed.] The Landmark Herodotus: the Histories [New York 2007] 36). Electrum was also mined and panned in the Pangeion region of Thrace and some local cities like Dikaia minted an electrum coinage.
94. Support for a non-Laurion, volcanic origin of the silver used in the Wappenmünzen comes from the metal analysis by H. Nicolet-Pierre, 'Monnaies archaïques d'Athènes sous Pisistrate et les Pisistratides (c. 545 - c. 510). II.
95. Recherches sur la composition méallique des Wappenmünzen, en collaboration avec Jean-Yves Calvez', RN, 6th series 27 (1985) 30-31.
96. R. Hopper, "Observations on the Wappenmünzen" in C. Kraay and G. Jenkins (eds.) Essays in Greek Coinage presented to S. Robinson (Oxford 1968) 16-39 36-7
97. I. Carradice and M. Price, Coinage in the Ancient Greek world (Los Angeles 1988) 22.
98. Some have suggested that the earliest coins were produced by other trusted authorities, such as moneyers, not necessarily the king, cf. A. Furtwängler, "Neue Beobachtungen zur frühesten Münzprägung", Schweizerische Numismatische Rundschau 15 (1986) 153-65.
99. However, this view has little current support. M. Price commented at the end of a paper by R. Wallace, "On the production and exchange of early Anatolian electrum coinages", in Revue des Études Anciennes 91 (1989) 87-96 (p. 95) that "There can be little doubt that the earliest coinage in electrum was valued at an artificial rate in excess of the value as bullion... If that is the case, the exact weight of each piece may not be so significant... Much more important would be the need for the mint workers to produce a particular number of coins from a given amount of metal".
100. Kroll, Silver (as in n. 6) 229 for this and the continuation of the quotation following.
101. G. Van Driel, Elusive Silver: in Search of a Role for a Market in an Agrarian Environment. Aspects of Mesopotamia's Society (Leiden 2002) 273 summarised his extensive evidence by noting: "The land for service system had evolved into a system of taxation in which all sorts of obligations had to be fulfilled by payments of silver". He estimated (p. 320) that "roughly one third of agricultural production plus what the government in all its ramifications received as a landlord" went to the King. The massive payments continued under Persian administration according to Herodotos 3.89-98.
102. A. Bongemaar, "Money in the Neo-Babylonian Institutions", in J. Dercksen (ed.) Trade and finance in Ancient Mesopotamia: Proceedings of the First MOS Symposium (Leiden 1997) 167 and 171.
103. Van Driel, Elusive Silver (as in n. 80) 272.
104. Bongemaar, Money (as in n. 81) 159-174. A shekel of silver roughly constituted a month's pay for the average worker.
105. This information is from K. Radner, "Money in the Neo-Assyrian empire", in J. Dercksen (ed.), Trade and finance in ancient Mesopotamia: proceedings of the First MOS Symposium (Leiden 1997) 129.
106. Aubet, The Phoenicians (as in n. 14) 51 ff.
107. Radner, Money (as in n. 85) 129 noted that "bronze is used as a currency before and during the reign of Adad-nērārī III - who got 3, 000 talents of bronze as tribute from Damascus - and not at all attested afterwards".
108. Adad's reign was 810-782 BCE. F. Fales, "Prices in Neo-Assyrian sources"
109. State archives of Assyria Bulletin 10/1 (1987) 20 suggested that "1 mina of copper corresponded roughly in value to 1 shekel of silver".
110. R. Wallace, "The origin of electrum coinage", AJA 91, 385-397.
111. See P. Vargyas, A history of Babylonian prices in the first millennium BC: 1. Prices of the basic commodities. (Heidelberg 2001) 47 ff.
112. Vargyas, Babylonian prices (as in n. 90) 128, Fig. 39.
113. See Ath. Pol. fr. 2.
114. For a discussion of the treatment of these early kings by the Atthidographers see P. Harding, The Story of Athens: the Fragments of the Local Chronicles of Attika (Abingdon and New York 2008) 39-50.
115. Hyginus, Fabula 274 recorded that Erikhthonios was the first "to bring silver to Athens".
116. Text and translation J. Melville-Jones, Testimonia Numaria: Greek and Latin texts concerning ancient Greek coinage, Volume 1: texts and translations (London 1993) 36-37.
117. Text and translation Melville-Jones, Testimonia Numaria 1 (as in n. 94) 440-43, No. 60. The passage went on to mention an alternative tradition that the ox was a coin of the Delians, which J. Melville-Jones, Testimonia Numaria: Greek and Latin texts concerning ancient Greek coinage, Volume 2: addenda and commentary (London 2007) 287 noted is also incorrect. The Homer quotation refers to II. 6.234-6 when Glaukos exchanged his gold armour with Diomedes for bronze armour.
118. A similar version was picked up by the scholiast to Aristophanes, Birds 1105-8
119. The measures include admittance to full citizenship by property qualification, and fining citizens for not attending the Assembly, rather than paying them to attend as under the democracy. For the latter see Rhodes, Commentary (as in n. 5) 117.
120. R. Wallace, "Aristotelian Politeiai and Athenaion Politeia 4" in R. Rosen and J. Farrell (eds.), Nomodeiktes: Greek studies in honor of Martin Ostwald (Ann Arbor 1993) 269-286 reviewed the arguments for dismissing the chapter and demonstrated that they are not conclusive. He concluded that the chapter, though awkward and possibly derived from different source material from the remainder of the work, was an original component of the Ath. Pol. Regardless of this, the monetary references are anachronistic.
121. Plut. Solon 2.2
122. = West, Iambi (as in n. 27) Solon fr. 24 = Theognis 719-21. Although this fragment is much quoted in the discussion of early silver use with the primacy of silver being stressed, it should be noted that the passage is also attributed to Theognis of Megara. Indeed, the final four lines of the elegy are only found in Theognis (724-8).
123. See S. Morris, Daidalos and the Origins of Greek Art (Princeton, New Jersey 1992) 125-149 for a survey of the exploitation of copper and iron in the bronze and iron ages in the Mediterranean. The suitors in Odyssey 22.57-9 also sought to buy off the wrath of Odysseus for "the value of 20 oxen" repaid in bronze and gold.
124. K. Polanyi, in G. Dalton (ed.), Primitive, Archaic, and Modern Economies: essays of Karl Polanyi (New York 1968) 166-90 coined the term 'special-purpose money' to describe what other writers have called in less politically correct terms 'primitive money', that did not fill all the functions of 'general purpose money'
125. cf. A. Hingston Quiggon, A Survey of Primitive Money (New York and London 1949) 3-4. Bullion could fit this as it had done for centuries before without being coined, but this merely places it in the hierarchy of exchange goods. Other necessary functions for it to be considered true 'money' are to constitute the recognised measure of value, and be the generally accepted means of payment.
126. In the same way, cauldrons and tripods could be "used in Homeric Greece as media of exchange without being used as standards of value" as P. Einzig, Primitive Money (Oxford 1949) 313 pointed out. There has been extensive discussion in the literature on this question.
127. See L. Kurke, Coins, Bodies, Games and Gold: the Politics of Meaning in Archaic Greece (Princeton 1999) 10-11
128. H. Kim, "Archaic Coinage as Evidence for the Use of Money" in A. Meadows and K. Shipton (eds.), Money and its Uses in the Ancient Greek World (Oxford 2001) 7-21
129. R. Seaford, Money and the Early Greek Mind (Cambridge 2004)
130. and Sheedy, Cyclades (as in n. 58) for differing points of view.
131. The poems contain frequent references to wealth, however, J. Lewis, Solon the Thinker: Political Thought in Archaic Athens (London 2006) 97 noted, "The identity of wealth is ambiguous in Solon's fragments; the terms he uses - such as aphenos, ploutos, chrēmata, kteanon, agatha, and olbos - span from physical goods to complex ideas associated with necessity, moral standards, social status and political authority".
132. The verb is generally translated 'to pay' with a monetary connotation. However, the meaning had evolved. In West, Iambi (as in n. 27) Solon fr. 4.16 = equals Thgn. lc it meant 'to take vengeance', and in Homer, II. 4.161 and 18.93 it had a sense of 'to atone'.
133. citing Ruschenbusch, Solonos Nomoi (as in n. 25) F 32, 33.1 note Ruschenbusch F 32a =
134. F 32b = Lysias 10. 6-12 discussed penalties but not these; F33a = F32a;F33b = Lex. Cantabr. 671.7 did indeed prescribe penalties for slander of the dead and the living, but they are 200 drachmas to the State
135. (following the restoration of J. Lipsius, Das attische Recht und Rechtsverfahren [Leipzig 1905] 650, n. 54) and 300 drachmas to the individual. Kroll's suggestion requires emending the text, presumably on the basis that the figures were inflated from Solon's time.
136. The manuscripts have. U. Wilcken, "Zu Solon's Schä tzungsklassen", Hermes 63 (1928) 236-8 suggested an amendment to meaning 'property'. He himself described the suggestion as a 'conjecture' and his argument was based purely on what suited his interpretation of Solon's reforms.
137. M. Gagarin, Early Greek laws (Berkeley, Los Angeles 1986) 71, n. 92 wrote "we should probably retain the ms. reading and assign the fragment to Solon's religious legislation".
138. G. de Ste Croix, Athenian Democratic Origins and Other Essays, D. Harvey and R. Parker (eds.), (Oxford 2004) 45-6 was emphatic in rejecting it. In the absence of a compelling reason, I also prefer to use the text as received.
139. Much the same is true of the rest of the Aegean, for although the Siphnians had been exploiting their mines from earlier in the century, the "peak of their prosperity" when they were the "wealthiest of all the islanders" was c. 524 BCE - Hdt. 3.57.2. I also consider that the extent of their fabulous wealth from mining has been overdramatised by modern commentators. At this financial 'peak', after annual distributions of the profits of the mines to the Siphnians less a tithe to Delphi (Hdt. 3.57.2), the Samians defeated the Siphnians and held them hostage. They succeeded in extorting 100 talents (2, 600 kg of silver) which was a very large sum, but presumably it represented the entire, combined, accumulated, liquid wealth of the polis. By comparison, the Athenians in 483 BCE were to receive 10 drachmas per citizen from their Laurion mines (Hdt. 7.144). If there were say 30, 000 citizens, then 300, 000 drachmas equals 1, 287 kg of silver as the polis' share in one year only.
140. K. Waters, "Solon's "price-equalisation" ", JHS 80 (1960) 185-90.
141. 3 256) c. 440-30 BCE and the Salaminioi calendar (SEG 21, 527) c. 363/2 BCE. This implies Demetrios had a good source, presumably axon 16. However, the problem remains that the silver value of animals is low, whilst the silver value of barley is high.
142. See D. Schaps, The Invention of Coinage and the Monetization of Ancient Greece (Ann Arbor 2004) Appendix 3 for a discussion of the problems and the rejection of Demetrios' reconstruction (p. 239).
143. The solution proposed by K. Freeman, The Life and Work of Solon (London 1926) 59 that a person could count a drachma as being equal to a medimnos if not a landholder seems unnecessary, as it is hard to envisage any situation before or after coinage when one medimnos of barley could not have been acquired. However, the theory was revived and extended by Schaps (p. 238) to defend the equivalence of a sheep, a medimnos and a drachma as a "reasonable thing" payable for a ritual offence depending on one's occupation, but this too seems unlikely and optimistically Utopian. A medimnos of barley might cost a drachma depending on the harvest and time of year purchased, as discussed earlier.
144. G. de Ste Croix, "Some observations on the property rights of Athenian women", The Classical Review N. S. 20 (1970) 238. There is also no explanation as to how the law was to be enforced though presumably it was left to the woman's kurios as no penalty was provided.
145. Ste Croix, Democratic Origins (as in n. 109) 39 pointed this out. The law is from Isaios. 10.10;
146. (cf. Dio Chrys. 74. 9;
147. Harpokr., s.v. hotipaidi; parodied at Ar. Ekkl. 1025 plus schol.). There is, as one reader pointed out, a considerable chronological gap between pre-coinage Athens and Isaios in the fourth century. However, if the law was passed when coinage was regularly used and indeed dokimon, it seems unlikely that a medimnos of barley would be used as the measure of value by the State.
148. R. Wallace, "The date of Solon's reforms", AJAH 8 (1983) 81-95
149. with quotation from page 87. The down-dating was first advanced by C. Hignett, A History of the Athenian Constitution to the End of the Fifth Century B. C. (Oxford 1952) 316-21 and has received considerable support, but I agree with Wallace that the grounds for so doing are weak and unsupported by any ancient testimony.
150. E. Gebhard, "The Beginnings of Panhellenic Games at the Isthmus" in H. Kyrieleis (ed.), Olympia 1875-2000:125 Jahre Deutsche Ausgrabungen (Berlin 2002) 221-37. This would weaken any attempt to use Plutarch's evidence to down-date Solon's archonship.
151. Foxhall, Olive Cultivation (as in n. 30) 17-18. If the provision is genuine, it probably tells us something about the limited area of control of the leaders in the astu of Athens before Peisistratos.
152. The first in fact, though the order in which the axones were inscribed is more likely to relate to subject matter, given my contention that they were recorded later than Solon's time - see G. Davis, "Axones and kurbeis: a new answer to an old problem", Historia 60 (2011) 1-35.
153. There are three early fifth-century laws of Teos and Thasos "where the imprecations are not really primitive but seem to be regarded as a more powerful deterrent than a monetary penalty" (I. Arnaoutoglou, Ancient Greek Laws [London and New York 1998] nos. 7-72).
154. R. Parker, Miasma: Pollution and Purification in Early Greek Religion (New York) 194 noted the offender would suffer public retribution especially if declared atimos but that is too extreme for this case. Perhaps the penalty was applied to the magistrate because he could not curse himself as Professor Kroll suggested to me (in private correspondence). For differing penalties
155. see Z. Papakonstantinou, Lawmaking and Adjudication in Archaic Greece (London 2008) 122-3.
156. This was pointed out by R. Sealey, "Regionalism in archaic Athens", Historia 9 (1960) 157.
157. A feature of Athenian law through to classical times was the difficulty for a plaintiff of enforcing judgement except through self help. The polls might try to assist by boosting the penalty for noncompliance as in the dikē exoules (cf. Dem. 21.44) Annexure Cit. 32, widely considered to be Solonian because it was said to be on an axon - but see Davis, Axones (as in n. 125). It provided (scholion to Il. 21.282): "Ejectment - the full value of a settlement awarded in a lawsuit to be owed to the dēmosion (public), and an equal amount to the individual to whom it was awarded if the unsuccessful party prevented the individual from collecting the award".
158. cf. L. Foxhall, "A View from the Top: Evaluating the Solonian Property Classes", in L. Mitchell and P. Rhodes (eds.) The Development of the Polis in Archaic Greece (London and New York 1997) 131 and n. 97.
159. W, Connor, "Tribes, festivals and processions: civic ceremonial and political manipulation in archaic Greece", JHS 107 (1987) 47 ff. made the interesting suggestion that the grain classification was used by Solon to determine status in the first-fruit offerings presented in agricultural festivals. Central to this proposal is that grain was the measure used irrespective of how the income was derived, enforced by social pressure.
160. Based primarily upon this passage, Ste Croix, Democratic Origins (as in n. 109) 37 ff. proposed that Athens in Solon's time had used a "barley standard".
161. V. Rosivach, "The requirements for the Solonic classes in Aristotle AP 7.4", Hermes 130 (2002) 37, n. 6 pointed out that if "the census ratings really were expressed in moist and dry measures as Aristotle says...we would expect the topmost class to have been called pentakosiomelroi, not pentakosiomedimnoi (which only refers to dry measures) ".
162. The standard does not have to be barley. It could be wheat. However, the Athenians grew approximately four times more barley than wheat, cf. P. Garnsey, "Yield of the land" in B. Wells (ed.), Agriculture in ancient Greece: Proceedings of the Seventh International Symposium at the Swedish Institute at Athens, 16-17 May 1990 (Stockholm 1992) 147-8.
163. Furthermore, krithe forms the smallest unit basic in the weight standard, and it is barley, cf. Theophrastus De Lapidibus 46 (though the passage is not without problems
164. A barley standard is accepted in the convincing discussion by H. van Wees, "Mass and elite in Solon's Athens: the property classes revisited", in J. Blok and A. Lardinois (eds.) Solon of Athens: New Historical and Philological Approaches (Leiden 2006) 351-389.
165. R. Osborne, Classical Landscape with Figures: the Ancient Greek City and Countryside (London 1987) 46 notes that Attica was famous for its high barley yields. I hope to settle the matter in metrological terms in a forthcoming article on Late Archaic Attic weights and measures.
166. cited the study by A. Giovannini, Rome et la circulation monitaire en Grèce au IIe siècle avant Jésus-Christ (Basel 1978) 36-7, 115-18 as providing "a number of evaluations in local Greek monetary units that had become obsolete except as units of account, while the taxes or other payment on the properties were rendered in denarii". However, these were old and familiar coinages, minted and used locally for several centuries.
167. Most discussion continues to be based upon the alternative interpretations of K. Kraft, "Zur Übersetzung und Interpretation von Aristoteles, Athenaion Politeia, Kap. 10", Jahrbuch für Numismatik und Geldgeschichte 10 (1959/60) 21-46
168. and C. Kraay, "An interpretation of Ath. Pol. Ch. 10" in C. Kraay and G. Jenkins (eds.), Essays in Greek Coinage Presented to Stanley Robinson (Oxford 1968) 1-9.
169. See especially the analysis in M. Chambers, "Aristotle on Solon's Reform of Coinage and Weights", California Studies in Classical Antiquity 6 (1973) 1-16. On my view, cf. n. 136.
170. Chambers, Coinage and weights (as in n. 138) 3 with n. 9 explaining why character should be translated as "standard or most commonly used coin".
171. Conventionally translated as Ship-Boards, Ath. Pol. 21.5 regarded them as the administrative units of Attica before the Kleisthenic reforms of 508/7 replaced them with demes, but this may not be correct.
172. Herodotos' evidence concerning the role of the naukrariai in the Kylon affair was implicitly contradicted by Thucydides 1.126.8 who did not mention them in his description of the same incident. The naukrariai may have retained a limited naval role after 508/7. For a compilation of the evidence about naukrariai and their likely evolution from providing local coastal defence using privately owned small ships and horsemen (per Pollux, Onomastikon 8.108) to an institution, see H. Wallinga, "The Athenian naukraroi" in H. Sancisi-Weerdenburg (ed.), Peisistratos and the Tyranny: a Reappraisal of the evidence (Amsterdam 2000) 131-146.
173. For excellent discussions of the issues see Hignett, History (as in n. 122) 68-74, 129-31
174. and P. Harding, Androtion and the Atthis (Oxford 1994) 134-8.
175. As far as I can determine, this was the sole reason for Wilamowitz' attribution (U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Aristoteles undAthen [Berlin 1893] 51 ff.)
176. followed by F. Jacoby, Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker, III b Suppl. texts and notes (Leiden 1954) 147
177. and others. A reader of this paper pointed out that the suggestion was first offered by Dobree a century earlier, cf. D. Holwerda, Scholia in Vespas, Pacem, Aves et Lysistratas 3: Scholia Vetera et recentiora in Aristophanes Aves (Groningen 1991) 1. 1541, ap. crit.
178. A century ago J. Schreiner, De corpore iuris Atheniensium (Bonn 1913) 30 provided examples of laws ascribed to Solon that clearly were first enacted later than Solon. He proved, and it is generally accepted by scholars today, that the phrase "Laws of Solon" as used by the orators simply meant all laws whether or not they were genuinely Solonian in origin.
179. Scholion to Aristophanes, Birds 1541, includes Jacoby, FGrH (as in n. 143) 324 F 36 (Androtion).
180. Translation by Harding, Androtion (as in n. 142) 69 (my question mark and brackets) with discussion pp. 134-8.
181. S. Dow, "The Law Codes of Athens", Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society 71 (1953-7) 3-36 used the term 'ek-rubric' to designate the funding sources in the sacrificial calendars.
182. L. Pearson, The Local Historians of Attica (1942, reprint Michigan 1981) 83 rationalised the evidence by supposing "is a "modern spelling" for ".
183. Dow, Law Codes (as in n. 148) 3-36. I question whether the emendation of the text is warranted given the little that is known about polis finances in this period.
184. The kolakretai were ancient 'financial' magistrates whose name possibly derives from collecting parts of victims of sacrifices (kola means limbs). They lost most of their functions to the apodektai in Kleisthenes' reforms, cf. Harp. s. v. apodektai. The scholiast (Ar. Birds 1541) also mentioned on the authority of Aristophanes the Grammarian that they were "stewards of pay for jury duty" and for the "expenditures on the gods". We have no evidence of their mention in literature after 411 BCE.
185. See E. Carawan, Bryn Mawr Classical Review 98.6.02
186. review of C. Carey, Trials from Classical Athens (London 1997) regarding Lysias' gloss that epiorkein meant 'to swear' which was the opposite of its normal meaning 'to swear falsely'. He noted that Lysias was either wrong, or misinterpreting the intended sense.
187. I thank one of Historia's readers for drawing my attention to this. P. Millett, Lending and Borrowing in Ancient Athens (Cambridge 1991) 79-89 noted that even wealthy Athenians typically did not have much cash on hand to meet large expenses such as liturgies and dowries, yet land was very rarely sold. Despite conspicuous display, families were often poorer than popularly believed, and wealth was chronically unstable across generations. Lysias 19 provides a good example of all these things. Of special interest is Lys. 19.24-6 where it was proposed that a gold cup be lent as security for a loan of sixteen minas and redeemed at twenty (equals four minas interest), because the lender of the cup did not have sufficient cash to meet the requirements of a Hierarchy.
188. Harp. s. v. obolostatai = Melville-Jones, Testimonia 1 (as in n. 94) number 784, is one of a number of such glosses. The derogatory connotation presumably arose from the very small amounts involved.
189. th which was still worth approximately 3 obols - too much for small purchases.
190. As Professor Kroll pointed out to me in private correspondence, Peisistratos was not alone in this understanding. It was presumably shared by many members of the power elite in the Aegean at that time. For instance, a fragment of Alkaios mentions a payment by the Lydians to Greeks of 2, 000 staters to attack a city in the early sixth century (Melville Jones, Testimonia 2 [as in n. 97] number A41). Peisistratos simply put this knowledge to effective use in raising his army.
191. Boersma, Peisistratos (as in n. 43) 53 noted, "Building activities that are usually agreed to have a connection with the tyranny start after 528 when the Peisistratids began to compete with the building projects of the other tyrants". There was also building by leading families especially on the Acropolis. Athens presumably had a stock of silver accumulated over an extended period which only becomes visible in the sources in the time of Peisistratos. However, I see minting being directly related to supply and therefore providing indirect proof of the earlier scarcity of silver.
192. I do not agree with the suggestion made by T. Cornell, The Beginnings of Rome (London 1995) 397
193. P. Vargyas, Babylonian Prices (as in n. 90). The study was based on the astronomical texts kept by the Babylonians recording the prices of basic commodities for half a millenium.
194. For Attic measures I have used the curreatly accepted volume as given in A. Moreno, Feeding the Democracy (Oxford 2007) Appendix 1. However, I will argue in a forthcoming paper that the Attic medimnos weighed somewhat less than this.
195. 2 1672, 283). Also in the 320s, from Demosthenes 42.20 and 31 (Against Pheinippos), one can deduce a price of 6 drachmas per medimnos. This corroborates the substantial reduction in value of silver over two hundred years. See the discussion of Lysias 22 on the subject of grain profiteering in G. Stanton, "Retail Pricing of grain in Athens", Hermes 113 (1985) 121-3.
196. Moreno, Feeding the Democracy (as in n. 166) 27 noted in his detailed study of the subject: "Because the average annual rainfall level is 400 mm, very close to the minimum amount required by the most important staples, Attica suffered from a permanent and considerable risk of crop failure".