Indulgences - Ancient Coins
By Fayez Barakat
HOTEL BEL-AIR VOL II NO.2 1994
Coins. Reach into any pocket or purse
and youre certain to find a few. They are an integral part of daily
life, so ubiquitous that we rarely think about them. Few objects are as
universally employed by human culture. Throughout the world, every civilized
society uses coins as a medium of exchange. Coins serve as a kind of propaganda,
an advertisement for the aims and ambitions of the people who mint them.
Values vary, as do shapes and decoration, but the function is always the
same. It is rare that a useful invention should have endured with so little
alteration in form. In the course of an average day, we might use coins
in a dozen different ways: to make a phone call, feed a parking meter,
buy a newspaper, or tip a waiter. In antiquity, of course, the main purpose
of coinage was to provide equivalent value for goods and services. Comparing
a modern coin to an ancient one, very little has changed. Except for the
uniformity of the minting process, all the major components inscriptions,
and metals are similar. New monetary innovations such as paper
currency, credit cards, and computer banking have reduced the need for
coinage, but nothing has entirely replaced it, even after twenty-five
centuries.
Yet for all these similarities, there is a Romance,
an adventure, about collecting ancient coins which is unlike any other
sensation. Its an elusive concept, but ancient coins have an individual
character, a sense of personal history, that is missing in modern numismatics.
A lot of it has to do with the minting process. In modern mints, machines
stamp coins of uniform size and weight; each penny looks exactly like
the next. The coins may be beautiful, but there is little that sets one
apart from another. From the invention of coinage through Medieval times,
almost all coins were struck by hand. A flan of hot metal was placed on
a stationary obverse side while the reverse die, held by hand, was hammered
from above. While this method produced coins of extraordinary beauty,
it also allowed for an enormous variation from coin to coin. No two ancient
coins are ever exactly alike: their edges are irregular, their diameters
vary according to how the molten metal was struck, weights were only sporadically
uniform, and the human hand allowed for considerable variation in the
angles of striking. Like people themselves, ancient coins have a personal
tale to tell, a unique accounting of their journey through time.
Like most antiquities, coins owe their survival to the
whims of fate and to a conscious effort on the part of their ancient owners
to hide or save them.
In antiquity, banks were virtually unknown. A persons
wealth was usually measured in real terms. While the concepts of credit
and interest were prevalent among the wealthy, the average citizen kept
his money locked up at home. In uncertain times (and there were many in
antiquity) this money might be buried for safekeeping. A person fleeing
the fall of a city couldnt run carrying substantial amounts of precious
metal. If the owner was unable to get back for his coins, they might lie
undisturbed for centuries. Thousands of coins have been discovered in
this fashion, usually packed into jars or boxes and buried under walls
or floors. This is called a "hoard", which usually designates a find of
five coins or more. Sometimes the coins date back to a single period,
and sometimes they span several centuries of history. Value also played
a role in a coins survival: then, as now, gold coins were the rarest
and least likely to be in everyday circulation, while silver and bronze
were quite common. Being present at the discovery of a hoard of ancient
coins is a remarkable experience. Few thrills compare to being the first
person in centuries to hold a newly found coin. One cannot help but wonder
how it came to be there, and who held it last.
Imagination contributes greatly to the romantic aura
of ancient coins. Though it is virtually impossible to tell where any
given coin has been, what it has bought, or whose fingers held it, we
can generally tell when and where it was minted, by which individual or
government, and sometimes, where it has spent the centuries since. Our
imagination fills in the details. In the images and inscriptions that
adorn ancient coins, we read of the rise and fall of empires, the comings
and goings of royalty, and the dreams and ambitions of men. Beneath that
surface is a secondary history, unknown but equally real, having to do
with the vanished lives through which that coin once passed.
Coinage was first invented in Asia Minor around 900
BC Early coins were often crude lumps of metal, stamped perhaps on only
one side with some geometric markings. Numerous cultures, especially in
Greece, quickly refined this technique, adding increasingly elaborate
imagery, so that by 600 BC coins had achieved the status of art.
Some of the most popular coins from Classical Greece
are the silver terradrachme of Athens. In her golden age, the wealth of
Athens derived from the rich lodes of silver mined at Laurium. In antiquity,
Athenian silver was legendary for its purity, weight, and beauty. Typically,
these coins bear the regal image of Athena (goddess of wisdom and war
and patroness of the city) on one side, and an owl and olive branch on
the reverse. These coins might have been used to pay the artisans who
worked on the Parthenon, the actors who performed the plays of Sophocles,
or the commanders of the Athenian fleet. Their elegant beauty still moves
us today.
The coins of nearby Corinth, a city famed for the
luxury of its lifestyle, also bear the head of Athena wearing the warriors
helmet typical of the Corinthian army. On the reverse is the exquisite
image of the winged horse Pegasus in flight. Though this is a reference
to Bellerphon, the mythical founder of Corinth who rode Pegasus, it also
stands as a metaphor for the soaring heights to which the imagination
aspires.
Perhaps no personality in history inspires so much
admiration as Alexander the Great, the young and adventurous Macedonian
king who conquered a vast empire for himself in a dozen short years. The
coinage of Alexander is full of overt beauty and subtle propaganda. It
was minted and distributed over a huge area, ranging from Greece to Egypt
to the borders of India. A typical silver coin of Alexander might depict
the hero-god Hercules, from whom the Macedonian claimed descent, and whose
roving adventures he emulated. The features of Hercules, handsome and
proud, evoke those of the young king himself. On the reverse, the enthroned
images of Zeus, king of the Olympian gods, whom Alexander sometimes claimed
as a father, defines regal power and authority. Such a coin might have
been a months salary for an officer in the Macedonian army, or part
of the pay of an architect who built the new capital at Alexandria. Very
possibly, the person who held it then saw Alexander walk by in triumph,
or even knew him personally. When we hold such a token in our own hands,
we are linked across time to the vanished world.
The dynasties that inherited Alexanders empire
after his death minted coins of extraordinary visual impact. Usually bearing
the portraits of the rulers who commissioned them, they are icons of political
power. The features of these kings, queens, tyrants, and usurpers show
them to be strong, shrewd, and, above all, ambitious. We can often trace
the history of an entire era through what appears on the coins. One remarkable
Syrian queen, Cleopatra Thea, ancestress to the famous Egyptian Cleopatra,
appears on four decades of coinage with no less than three of her husbands
and two of her children, as well as by herself. We see her first as a
shy young princess, married to cement a shaky political alliance, and
trace her metamorphosis into a handsome but authoritarian queen. At one
point, she was simultaneously married to two brothers, both of whom had
claims to the Seleucid throne. She was eventually poisoned by one of her
sons, whom she herself was attempting to kill. Current political maneuvering
seems tame by comparison. We can imagine that those who spent the currency
of Cleopatra Thea watched her adventures with increasing amazement.
In Egypt, the Ptolomico minted superb coins that
expressed their political agenda. Kings and queens frequently appear together,
an indication of their dynastic ambitions and the importance accorded
the royal bloodline. Cleopatra was the last of that dynasty. In spite
of tales of her famous beauty, her coinage shows her to have been rather
plain, with a large nose and heavy chin. Her true charm appears to have
centered around her wit and intelligence, which unlike beauty does not
fade with age. A coin minted by Marc Anthony shows the famous pair on
opposite sides, a unique tribute to their passionate if doomed love affair.
For almost five centuries, Rome ruled an empire that
stretched from England to Egypt, and from Spain to Persia. It is logical
therefore that the greatest number of surviving ancient coins are Roman
in origin. Most of these bear the portraits of emperors and empresses
on the obverse, with a huge variety of slogans, symbols, and commemorative
images on the reverse.
FAYEZ BARAKAT
HerHer
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