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The first who promoted the circulation of coinage were probably the members of aristocracy and they employed it to construct and maintain temples. Later, as construction works increased, the needs in coinage also increased, in order to pay the sculptors and the rest of the artists, but also to buy metals, timber and large tiles.
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The significance of the invention and spread of coinage relates to the normalization of the city's social life, the development and regulation of the state's tax system (fines, taxes, tolls) and the financing of mercenary armies. Special emphasis should be given to its function as state symbol, since minting coins with the symbol of the polis constituted a declaration of its political independence. |
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