CHOOSING AND CHANGING MONETARy STANDARDS 105
reflects local economic patterns.^206 During the Hellenistic period their coin-
ages could be exchanged with some profit with the various international cur-
rencies on the Attic standard.
Asia Minor
The main innovation in Asia Minor before the arrival of Alexander III was
the adoption of the Chian standard by a large number of cities. The finan-
cial support provided by Chios to the Spartans is attested by Thucydides
(8.101.1). A number of coinages on the Chian standard were issued by cities
that supported Lysander during the last years of the Ionian war. These are the
well-known ΣΥΝ coinages depicting a baby Heracles strangling snakes on the
reverse and civic types on the obverse.^207 The ΣΥΝ staters were tridrachms
on the Chian standard and double sigloi on the Persian. This ‘was particularly
significant to Lysander, on account of the huge subsidies he received from
Cyrus from 406 onwards.’^208 Thus, the production of Chian weight coinage
started from a ‘strong nucleus of major Greek cities,’ spread to the Hecatomnid
dynasty in the early fourth century BCE and then to the majority of Greek
cities in Thrace, Bithynia, Mysia, Troas, Aeolis, Ionia and Caria, but also in
Paphlagonia and maybe Lydia. Silver on this standard was also struck by satraps
and subordinates of the Great King for use in military payments.^209
Although the Chian standard began to be adopted for military and politicalreasons, one cannot explain the spread of the new standard in the same way.
The cities of Asia Minor were all subjects of the Great King after 387 BCE
but were free to develop their own monetary policy. The cities that adopted
the Chian standard in this period appear to be linked by trade and not by
political ties. As has been recently shown, this was the standard that was also
adopted by the islands of Rhodes and Cos, as well as by a number of cities in
Thrace such as Thasos, Ainos and Byzantium.^210 These cities were not subjects
of the Persian king and had no political links with the cities of Asia Minor.
The monetary union of Byzantium in Thrace and Calchedon in Bithynia on
the opposite coast points also to an explanation involving trade and joint com-
mercial activity.^211 These two cities, which were both Megarian colonies and
were situated at the entrance to the Black Sea, issued their silver coinages on
the same standard and with very similar types from the end of the fifth century
BCE. The adoption of the Chian standard by many mints that issued coinages
during the fourth century BCE is best explained by large-scale transactions for
long-distance trade.
It was during the last decades of the fourth century BCE that the Persianweight standard was adopted by a number of mints: Amisus and Trapezous
of Pontus, Astacus, Calchedon, Cios and Heraclea Pontica in Bithynia.^212
Lampsacus adopted the full Persian standard for its gold and silver coinages.