Long before coinage or paper currency was invented,
people began trading commodities in standard measure-
ments. Th e most common precurrency gauges of value were
units of grain measured by volume and silver measured by
weight. Th e standard units of weight were the shekel, which
weighed about 0.3 ounces, and the biltu, or talent, which was
the largest measure of weight-based value. One talent of gold
weighed between 50 and 100 pounds, depending on the time
and place. People were conducting exchanges in shekels and
talents during Old Testament times, well before the advent of
coinage in the sixth century b.c.e.
All metals were valuable, even in the days before they
were made into coins. Metals were measured in terms of their
weig ht i n si lver ; e ven gold wa s va lued by it s equ iva lent i n si lver.
Gold was considered the most precious metal and was valued
at eight to 15 times its weight in silver. Next came silver, lead,
copper, and iron aft er its introduction around 1200 b.c.e.
Coins were not invented until about 600 b.c.e. when the
earliest electrum (an alloy of gold and silver found in nature)
coins appeared in a hoard found in the temple of Artemis at
Ephesus on the coast of Asia Minor, dating to the mid-sixth
century b.c.e. But the fi rst silver and gold coins known in the
Near East date to the reign of Croesus, king of Lydia (r. ca.
561–547 b.c.e.), whose fabulous wealth sparked the phrase
“rich as Croesus,” used to this day. Croesus’s capital was
Sardis, and his Croesids, with their opposed lion and bull
heads on one side and deeply impressed square shapes on
the reverse, were staters varying in weight between 1 and 8
grams; there were also smaller denominations representing
one-third, one-sixth, and one-twelth of a stater.
Soon the practice of minting and using coinage spread
throughout Greece and, with Greek colonists, to Sicily, south-
ern Italy, southern France and Spain. But coinage also spread
eastward. In 546 b.c.e. the Persian emperor Cyrus captured
Sardis and took over its mints to produce Persian coins. Dar-
ius I became emperor in 521 b.c.e. and began issuing gold
coins known as Darics. Th ese archer coins depicted an image
of Darius running with a bow and spear. Th e Persian emperor
Xerxes the Great (r. 486–465 b.c.e.) continued to issue Dar-
ics. Darics were famous and desirable in the ancient world
because of their high value; pure gold coins were rare.
Currency became more widely accepted during the Hel-
lenistic Period (323–31 b.c.e.). Seleucid, Attalid, Ptolemaic,
Parthian, and other monarchs established national systems
of coinage, creating single sets of coins that could be used
throughout their kingdoms. Th ey build national mints to
produce all those coins to ensure consistency of weight and
composition. Aft er Alexander the Great conquered the Per-
sian emperor Darius III in 330 b.c.e., Persia and most of the
Mesopotamian region adopted Greek coins or made local, im-
itative issues based on the Attic weight standard. Th ese coins
were predominantly silver. Th e main coins were the drachma
and the tetradrachm. Kingdoms throughout the region, in-
cluding Pontus and Parthia, minted their own silver coins.
Parthian coins of the Hellenistic Period were produced at the
mints in Seleucia. Th ey typically depicted the king’s portrait
on one side and the goddess Tyche or some other deity on the
other, usually in some pose in which the goddess presented
the king his crown. Th e images on coins are an extremely
useful source of information on the ancient world. Persian
satraps, or governors, oft en had their portraits stamped onto
coins. Coins are the only source of portraits of some rulers,
such as the kings of Bactria in modern Pakistan. Other coins
contain religious imagery, such as depictions of gods.All the kingdoms of Asia Minor seemed fabulously
wealthy to their European neighbors to the west, par-
ticularly to the Greeks, who turned this reputation
into several legends that remain well known. The bi-
ographer Plutarch and the poet Virgil describe King
Midas of Phrygia and the famous blessing and curse
that made everything he touched turn to gold. The
historian Herodotus, however, is the main source for
the story of Croesus, whose wealth was an entirely
historical fact, real and visible to the Greeks of the
fi fth and fourth centuries.
Croesus was king of Lydia around 560 B.C.E., rul-
ing his kingdom between the Halys River and the Ae-
gean Sea in Asia Minor. Croesus was believed to be
the wealthiest man ever to live; he was the origin of
the expression “as rich as Croesus.” Before making
major decisions, Croesus liked to consult the oracle
at Delphi so that he could get advice from the god
Apollo. He also liked to send gifts to the temple be-
fore asking questions, perhaps thereby assuring him-
self of a positive reply. Herodotus, writing a century
after Croesus’ reign, provides this list of Croesus’
gifts to the temple: 117 ingots of gold, totaling 240
talents (18,000 pounds) in weight, a lion made of
gold weighing 10 talents (750 pounds), a large bowl
of gold and another of silver, each approximately
500 pounds, and various other gifts. Finally, “along
with these Croesus sent, besides many other offer-
ings of no great distinction, certain round basins of
silver, and a female fi gure fi ve feet high, which the
Delphians assert to be the statue of the woman who
was Croesus’ baker. Moreover, he dedicated his own
wife’s necklaces and girdles.”
Croesus came to a bad end; his kingdom was
taken over by the Persians, and he threw himself (or
someone threw him) onto a pyre to burn alive. His
treasures remained in the temples at Delphi until the
middle of the fourth century, when they were melted
down to pay for a vicious civil war over possession of
the god’s shrine.THE RICHES OF CROESUS
money and coinage: The Middle East 755