Archaeology Magazine - May/June 1990 - 90

to that of Thomas R. Martin's Sov.
ereigntyand Coinagein ClassicalGreece
The difference is that Martin is dealing with the independent Greek cities
and confederations of the fourth century b.c. whose sovereignty was read
and whose money was silver as well
as bronze. His study is devoted to
Thessaly, that area of Greece adjoining Macedonia where tribal organization persisted until the unification
of Greece under Philip II of Macedón
which was completed in 338 b.c.
The question at issue is whether the
Greek city or tribe considered coinage an expression of sovereignty or
an economic convenience on which
suitable sentiments could be expressed through visual images. In
particular the question is, were the
mints of Thessaly closed by Philip as
a political act or did they stop producing because the Macedonian
coinage satisfied local needs? Martin
decides for the second alternative
and in so doing gives us a clear picture of what coinage meant to Greek
communities, at least in northern
Greece in the fourth century b.c.
The circulation of money is also
the subject of Michael H. Crawford's
Coinageand Moneyunderthe Roman Republic, Italyand theMediterranean
Economy.
This is not an easy book to read, but
it confronts a fascinating question,
how did the nascent world power of
Rome adapt itself in coinage to the
situations it encountered in its growing domains? The situation in Spain,
for example, was very different from
that on the northern frontier or
Greece, and so was the money that the
Romans found, replaced, and incorporated in the economy of the Roman
Mediterranean. Michael Crawford is
also the author of the now standard
RomanRepublicanCoinage, Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge, 2 vols.,
1974.
Many ancient coins, especially
those of the Greek cities of the fifth
and fourth centuries b.c., those of
Philip II, Alexander, and those of
their successor kings in the Hellenistic period, are great works of miniature art. The finest gallery of such
74 Archaeology

coins belonged to the cities of the
Greek west, southern Italy and Sicily,
some of them signed by their engravers who were clearly artists of
great repute. A splendid display of
the numismatic art of western Greece
has been recently inaugurated at the
Antikenmuseum Basel und Sammlung Ludwig in Switzerland. Although published in German, the
catalog GriechischeMünzen aus GrossundSizilienshould be mengriechenland
tioned as one of the most exhaustive
and fully illustrated publications of
masterpieces of Greek coinage.
Because of the intrinsic value of
ancient coins, many collections are
kept under tight security. In the
United States, the most impressive
display of ancient Greek coins is that
of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
The American Numismatic Society
in New York has a premier collection
and also a fascinatingly arranged display of coinage of the world. Important groups of ancient coins can also
be seen at the Walters Art Gallery,
Baltimore, the Virginia Museum in
Richmond, the Museum of Money of
the National Bank of Detroit, and at
the Hall of Money and Medals of the
Smithsonian Institution in Washington. In Canada, there is an important
exhibition of ancient coinage at the
Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto.
At the heart of Greek numismatics
is the reconstruction of the history
of individual mints and the study
of hoards. One of the masters of
Greek numismatics, the late Colin
M. Kraay, completed The Archaic
CoinageofHimerajust before his death.
It is to Kraay that we are indebted
for the most up-to-date survey of
Greek coins down to the time of
Philip II and Alexander, Archaicand
Classical Greek Coins, University of
California Press, Berkeley and Los
Angeles, 1976. By far the best brief
introduction to the subject, however,
is the 50 pages of N.K. Rutter's Greek
Coinage, a volume of the Shire Archaeology series published by Shire
Publications Ltd., Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, England, in 1983.
The evidence of coin hoards grows

Archaeology Magazine - May/June 1990

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Archaeology Magazine - May/June 1990