DOI issue:
Artykuły/Articles
DOI article:Stoyas, Yannis: Wheat-Ears and Owls. Remarks on Thessalian Coins with Countermarks
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.57341#0075
WHEAT-EARS AND OWLS. REMARKS ON THESSALIAN COINS...
a tendency a prima vista to associate the wheat-ear countermarks with the center
and the owl countermarks with the more outer areas of Thessaly should be discarded
as largely unsubstantiated. A valid observation is that the wheat-ear countermarks
clearly outnumber the owl countermarks: 56 to 43, if only counting the pieces with
a single countermark, or 74 to 61, if the pieces combining the two types are also
included.
Having to deal with the wheat parameter, it is worth remembering the remark
that “[agricultural produce, particularly corn, played a significant role alongside coin
in taxation, rents, wages, and credit”.102 This practice was not necessarily connected
with some periodic lack of coinage; the use of com represents a substantial economic
factor to be taken into account in the broader picture, emerging prominently, beyond
the matter of how and to what degree “money use was embedded in the structure
of the economy”103 of the Graeco-Roman world.
There is an innate difficulty in understanding the precise nature of these
countermarked coins, although it may be supposed that this was not the case for
the people who used the pieces in question.104 Pinpointing a suitable instance which
could be linked with these countermarks as a raison d’etre for their application
emerges as a challenging task.105 Towards this direction a more or less plausible
hypothesis could be advanced in connection with a philological testimony by
Philostratos, which involves the sophist Publius Hordeonius Lollianus106 of Ephesos.
Lollianus lived and taught in Athens in the times of Hadrian and Antoninus Pius;
during the reign of the latter, probably in the 140s AD (in connection to epigraphic
evidence),107 besides being the first to hold the chair of rhetoric,108 the sophist
undertook also the office of arparriyo^ s/ri rcov oaAcov. At that time this practically
102 HOWGEGO 1992:29. Based on this view, some emphasis maybe given here to the use ofcom for credit.
103 Ibidem'. 29. This perspective should be regarded within the framework of the old primitivist-modemist
controversy, as well as the substantivist-formalist debate, concerning the character of ancient economies. For
just a couple of overviews on these rather tangled matters see BRESSON 2007: 17-30; MORLEY 2007a: 1-16.
104 As it has been remarked, “(...) in the context in which they were applied the countermarks would have
been common, and easy to recognize and interpret” (see HOWGEGO 1985: 7).
105 Recently a proposal was put forward in the auction catalogue Classical Numismatic Group, Triton XIX,
5 January 2016, lot 112; “BCD comments: (...) We know that in AD 99, Trajan ordered that grain be sent from
Rome to Egypt. It could well be that during that time a compulsory grain donation was enforced on some Thessalian
farmsteads that showed a surplus for the season. This would be a convenient way for the local officials to obtain
the emperor’s favor at no cost to themselves”. The Egyptian famine of AD 99 and Trajan’s shipment to Egypt is
reported by Pliny the Younger (Panegyricus, 31.2-5); see also SMELIK and HEMELRIJK 1984: 1924-1925,
n. 459; GARNSEY 1988: 251. This seems a bit like a long shot, but it is still an interesting suggestion; due to lack
of strong evidence it is questionable though if the said event can fit well with the appearance of the Thessalian
countermarked pieces.
106 Lollianus’ full name (HÓTtkioę 'Op8sróvioę Ao/,/.iavoę ó aoipioTiję) is attested in IG II2 4211.
107 IGF2 1764 Bl (AD 141/2 or 142/3); see AVOTINS 1975: esp. 313, n. 3.
108 It can be assumed that Lollianus had already given private classes in Athens during the reign of Hadrian,
but that he received the public professorship only in the time of Antoninus Pius; HENRICHS 1972: 24, n. 2.
73
a tendency a prima vista to associate the wheat-ear countermarks with the center
and the owl countermarks with the more outer areas of Thessaly should be discarded
as largely unsubstantiated. A valid observation is that the wheat-ear countermarks
clearly outnumber the owl countermarks: 56 to 43, if only counting the pieces with
a single countermark, or 74 to 61, if the pieces combining the two types are also
included.
Having to deal with the wheat parameter, it is worth remembering the remark
that “[agricultural produce, particularly corn, played a significant role alongside coin
in taxation, rents, wages, and credit”.102 This practice was not necessarily connected
with some periodic lack of coinage; the use of com represents a substantial economic
factor to be taken into account in the broader picture, emerging prominently, beyond
the matter of how and to what degree “money use was embedded in the structure
of the economy”103 of the Graeco-Roman world.
There is an innate difficulty in understanding the precise nature of these
countermarked coins, although it may be supposed that this was not the case for
the people who used the pieces in question.104 Pinpointing a suitable instance which
could be linked with these countermarks as a raison d’etre for their application
emerges as a challenging task.105 Towards this direction a more or less plausible
hypothesis could be advanced in connection with a philological testimony by
Philostratos, which involves the sophist Publius Hordeonius Lollianus106 of Ephesos.
Lollianus lived and taught in Athens in the times of Hadrian and Antoninus Pius;
during the reign of the latter, probably in the 140s AD (in connection to epigraphic
evidence),107 besides being the first to hold the chair of rhetoric,108 the sophist
undertook also the office of arparriyo^ s/ri rcov oaAcov. At that time this practically
102 HOWGEGO 1992:29. Based on this view, some emphasis maybe given here to the use ofcom for credit.
103 Ibidem'. 29. This perspective should be regarded within the framework of the old primitivist-modemist
controversy, as well as the substantivist-formalist debate, concerning the character of ancient economies. For
just a couple of overviews on these rather tangled matters see BRESSON 2007: 17-30; MORLEY 2007a: 1-16.
104 As it has been remarked, “(...) in the context in which they were applied the countermarks would have
been common, and easy to recognize and interpret” (see HOWGEGO 1985: 7).
105 Recently a proposal was put forward in the auction catalogue Classical Numismatic Group, Triton XIX,
5 January 2016, lot 112; “BCD comments: (...) We know that in AD 99, Trajan ordered that grain be sent from
Rome to Egypt. It could well be that during that time a compulsory grain donation was enforced on some Thessalian
farmsteads that showed a surplus for the season. This would be a convenient way for the local officials to obtain
the emperor’s favor at no cost to themselves”. The Egyptian famine of AD 99 and Trajan’s shipment to Egypt is
reported by Pliny the Younger (Panegyricus, 31.2-5); see also SMELIK and HEMELRIJK 1984: 1924-1925,
n. 459; GARNSEY 1988: 251. This seems a bit like a long shot, but it is still an interesting suggestion; due to lack
of strong evidence it is questionable though if the said event can fit well with the appearance of the Thessalian
countermarked pieces.
106 Lollianus’ full name (HÓTtkioę 'Op8sróvioę Ao/,/.iavoę ó aoipioTiję) is attested in IG II2 4211.
107 IGF2 1764 Bl (AD 141/2 or 142/3); see AVOTINS 1975: esp. 313, n. 3.
108 It can be assumed that Lollianus had already given private classes in Athens during the reign of Hadrian,
but that he received the public professorship only in the time of Antoninus Pius; HENRICHS 1972: 24, n. 2.
73