Mundell & The Birth of Coinage
The first piece I drew from is The Birth of Coinage by Robert Mundell which moves away from a strictly economy-centric view and attempts to answer WHY coins appeared, WHAT their purpose was, HOW was their value traded, and other similar "social' questions.
Coins
Works
Coins are something we take for granted, not merely as currency but as a major precursor to modern forms of money. They bridged the worlds of commodity money and "currency," and form an important backbone to the economy. Coinage often survives where other more commonplace objects disappear, and therefore they offer us a glimpse into their world and insight into ancient economies, political relationships, trade, and everyday life.
There are two texts I used heavily when looking at this project. The first is a piece by Robert Mundell, a well-respected and noble prize winning Economist, who wrote a piece looking at the birth of coinage, and the second text is the only source I could find specifically on Athenian emergency coinage made during the Peloponnesian War. I also hope to look at the ideas of Moses Finley, who argues that "ancient" economies were based more on ideology.
The emergency stater
The emergency stater of Athens is a coin, produced during the throes of the Peloponnesian War. It was minted in 406 BCE, a mere two years before Athens fell to Sparta. It is made of gold and features the profile of Athena on one side and the image of an owl on the other. The coin is the sum of centuries of development. Its weight, image, and use are all the product of previous work done by earlier Greek thinkers
Coins cont.
The development of money can not be looked at as simply a means to make barter easier. The use of commodity money certainly had use within small trade, however the coin was more than a mere precious piece of metal. Its shape was not arbitrary, there was something valuable about a small, round piece that could bear the stamp of city-state. Why then did the Coin come about, in relation to trade within the Hellenistic world, and what does it say about the emergency stater?
The Function of Coinage
The second text is by Wesley Thompson and examines the exact function of the emergency coinage that were produced during the Peloponnesian War. He examines the context of the War as a means to explain the two mintage's produced during this period.