Head, Barclay V.: Historia numorum: a manual of Greek numismatics (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1887)

AEGINA.

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AEGINA.
The island of Aegina was the first State in European Greece to adopt
the use of money. Ancient tradition, which ascribed to Pheidon, king
of Argos, the credit of having been the first to strike coins in this island,
is fully borne out by the archaic appearance of the oldest staters of the
Tortoise type. Unfortunately there is much doubt about the date of
Pheidon. Weissenborn, Hermann, and Curtius bring him down to the
first half of the seventh century, while Clinton, on the other hand, places
him a century earlier. As for the earliest Aeginetic coins there can be
little doubt that they belong to the first half of the seventh century, and
in so far as they may be taken as evidence, they bear out the opinion of
Weissenborn and Curtius. The principal ancient writers who mention
Pheidon as having struck coins in Aegina, or the Aeginetans as having
been the first to strike money, are—Ephorus in Strabo, viii. p. 358 ;
Aelian, Ear. Iiist., 12. 20 ; and the Parian Chronicle, Boeckh, C. I. G.
2374, V. 45 (T’eidwr 6 ’Apyetos eSjj/zeucre ra pArpa ..... koL avecyKtvatre, Kat
v6p.t,apa apyvpovv ev Alylvy enolgaev'). Cf. also Etym. Alagn. s. V. o/3eXicr-
kos—, navratv np&ros <t>ei8a>u ’ApyGos vogt-aga eKofev Iv Alycvp. Why
Aegina rather than Argos was chosen by Pheidon as his place of mintage
is not difficult to understand, when we remember that from very early
times down to its conquest by Athens in b.c. 456 Aegina was one of the
greatest commercial states of Greece, while Argos was to some extent
removed from the main current of the stream of trade which flowed
through the Saronic gulf to and from the isthmus of Corinth.
Whether the Aeginetic standard was derived from the Phoenician, as
the weights of some of the heaviest Aeginetic coins have led me else-
where (Ancient Systems of Weight, Journal of the Institute of Bankers, 1879)
to suggest, or from Egypt, with which country the Aeginetans were in
close relations (Herod., ii. 178), is and will probably remain doubtful;
but the fact that the tortoise, a creature sacred to Aphrodite (the
Phoenician Astarte, the protector of trade as well as the goddess of
the sea), was chosen as the coin-type, lends much probability to the
theory first advanced by E. Curtius (A^m. Chron., 1870), that Pheidon’s
mint was connected with the Temple of Aphrodite, which overlooked the
great harbour of Aegina.
The coinage of Aegina, like that of Athens, exhibits great uniformity
of type, a uniformity which characterizes it as an international, and no
mere local, currency. Throughout Peloponnesus the coinage of Aegina
was, down to the time of the Peloponnesian war, the only universally
recognized medium of exchange. This is implied by several passages in
ancient authors, e. g. Pollux, ix. 74> T° ^A^ottovvtiitlmv vopcapa
rimes rfiovv KaXelv (1. KaXetcr^ai) ano rov rvn(aparos; Hesychius,
yeXcoPT] vop.iapa TleXonowricrLaKov.
By the Athenians the Aeginetic drachm was called, in contradistinc-
tion to their own drachm, 77 nayfla 8paypf (Poll., ix. 76). Hesychius also
says, \enras Kai. Trayetas ZaXewKos ep po/zois ras 8paypas, Aenras pen ras
effoKovs, nayei.as 8e ras n\eov lyovaas : and nayetr] 8paypp ro bibpaypov
’AyacoL.
From the weights of some exceptionally heavy specimens we gather
that the Aeginetic stater originally weighed over 200 grs., and in the
Bibliotheque nationale, Paris, is an unique electrum stater, obv. Tortoise,