Mediterranean area into thefiscal structure of the Roman Empire. These
financial measures, at either end of the chronological range examined
here, were innovative economic mechanisms that had wide-ranging
consequences in the whole region and provide a useful way of separating
what came earlier from what came later.^18 The consequences of coined
money at one end of this time span, and of a new, over-arching system of
raising taxes at the other, were not confined to any one state or group of
states, so it makes sense to look at the effects of money in the region as a
whole.
The development of coinages does not follow a particularly logical
pattern. A plethora of coastal cities, including Mende and Akanthos in
the Chalkidic peninsula, Abdera farther eastwards, and a number of
inland communities in and around Mount Pangaion, were among the
pioneering entities that started minting coins in this area. The regal
coinages seem to have begun later. The process of minting coins repre-
sents one of the ways in which metals, whether‘precious’metals (gold,
electrum, silver), or‘base’ones (principally alloys of copper and iron),
operated within north Aegean societies. Coined money was just one of
the forms in which metals circulated, albeit a form that helped to speed
up transactions. However, this effect of coinage would not have been
appreciated at the time when the earliest series were being minted. So we
need to distinguish between the reasons for the earliest issues, which
were locally rooted, and the later strategies, elaborations, or modifica-
tions, which may have followed from different motives. Some coin series,
notably the electrum staters of Cyzicus and Athenian tetradrachms,
enjoyed a particular international reputation. Cyzicenes are well repre-
sented in Thracian coin hoards; Athenian tetradrachms are not. This
requires some explanation. Perhaps relations between the Odrysian
kings and Athenian representatives were rather more indirect than the
series of formal treaties would have us believe; or mutual payments were
made in bullion and are therefore harder to trace.
It is becoming increasingly apparent that one of the drivers of the
production of money in the Aegean in thefinal decades of the sixth and
the beginning of thefifth centurybcwas the emerging‘arms race’in the
form of naval shipbuilding. Once the Persian kings had established
control over the Levantine seaboard, and could thus dispose of the
Phoenicianfleet as they thoughtfit; and once they had also acquired
(^18) There is a large bibliography on the coinage of the area; Howgego 1995, 46–51, 95–7,
99 – 100, for some introductory remarks; see esp. the contributions to Carradice 1987 and
further, Chs 4 and 5 on coin issues; Cottier et al. 2008 for the‘Customs law’of Asia, esp.
Mitchell 2008, 178–83.
50 Herdsmen with golden leaves—narratives and spaces