with the payment of services by the Successors, whether in the north
Aegean region, or farther east.
The author of the pseudo-AristotelianOeconomicaseems to be rather
preoccupied with the mechanics of revenue-raising and minting, and
rather less concerned than Aristotle himself was with the undesirable
aspects of coinage for the purposes of exchange.^99 Whereas Aristotle
took a rather detached view of exchange, focusing on the ethical dimen-
sions of civic affairs, his anonymous pupil seems to reflect an age, or an
environment, that was much more concerned with the technical aspects
of minting. This is not surprising, considering the enormous transform-
ation that took place in the scale and range of coin production on behalf
of Philip II and Alexander III. These coinages did not just make a very
great impression on contemporaries; they became the dominant regional
and inter-regional media of exchange and some series continued to be
minted long after the deaths of Philip and Alexander. The consistency
and longevity of these issues has made them harder to date with preci-
sion. Philip introduced a bimetallic currency, with gold coins, later
dubbedPhilippeoi(Diod. 16.8.7 cf. Horace,Epist.2.1.232–4), which
were struck on the Attic standard, and were clearly meant for exchange
outside Macedonia, while his silver issues were on the lighter standard,
also used by the Chalkidian League and by other communities in the
north Aegean region and sometimes referred to as‘Thraco-Macedo-
nian’.^100 The series of silver tetradrachms that were issued in far greater
quantities than any previous regal series probably began in 356bc, at any
rate some years into his reign. Most numismatists now accept that
Philip’s gold series did not begin until the 340s, perhaps around 348,
perhaps a little later. Posthumous issues in Philip’s name, using the same
obverse and reverse types, continued to be struck during the reigns of
Philip III Arrhidaeus and Alexander III. The principal coinage in the
name of Alexander the Great (if we leave aside a short-lived series
(^99) Arist.Pol.1.1256b–7b; 1.1259a–b;Nic. Eth.5.8, 1132b–1133b; Picard 1980; Bresson
2005a, 45–7.
(^100) Le Rider, 1977, 354–5; Le Rider 1996, 21. Le Rider’s original attempts to date Philip’s
and Alexander’s series were partially revised by Price in his review of Le Rider’s monograph
of 1977 (Price 1979). A number of deeds of sale from Amphipolis refer to gold staters of
Philip: Hatzopoulos 1996, II, no. 88 (dated 352/350bc= Hatzopoulos 1991, 38–43, no. VII);
BullÉpigr1992, 321, ll. 7–9:‘stat| eron ch(r)yson philippei(o)n| dodek(a) hemist(a)terou’,
when Hermagoras was priest and Spargeus wasepistates; cf. also nos 89–91, with further
references to payment in gold coin. The overall chronology of these references makes clear,
however, that the term applies not to any specific coin issues, but to Macedonian gold coin
in general (Hatzopoulos 1991, 82–7), so no conclusions can be drawn from these references
about the introduction of‘Philippics’; C. C. Lorber, reviewing Le Rider 1996, provides a
survey of the dating controversies,SNR78 (1999) 205–9; cf. Dahmen 2010, 52.
Herdsmen with golden leaves—narratives and spaces 81