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Corinth, as well as Aegina, competed with Athens in trade. It began to mint coins probably around 500 BC. Several scholars have maintained that the first Corinthian coins belong to the time of the tyrant Cypselus around 620 BC, but there is no certain proof thereupon. The Corinthian stater had equal weight with the Athenian didrachm (8,5 grams) and its third denomination was equal to the tridrachm. It was not cylindrical, like the Aeginetan or the Athenian, but on the contrary it was made of even discs. Corinth had chosen the Pegasus and the first letter of the city's name, the Archaic koppa, as its symbols.
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Eretria and Chalcis, the two biggest cities of Euboea, which were actively involved in colonization, minted coinage in the mid 6th century BC. The tridrachm of Chalcis, which bore the symbol of the tethrippon, a chariot with four horses, had equal weight with the Athenian tetradrachm. The Eretrians on the other hand had adopted as emblems for their coinage the cow and the octopus.
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The cities of Boeotia, of Phocis and of Arcadia constitute examples of federal coinage since the 6th century BC. Boeotian cities adopted the eight-shaped shield as their common emblem. The central mint was situated in Thebes and the role of this coinage was to accentuate Thebes' political hegemony over the rest of the Boeotian cities. For the Phocaeans it was an opportunity to emphasize their independence against the Thessalian tyrants, while in the case of the Arcadians it expressed their attempt to disregard the power and influence of Sparta, especially in the beginning of the 5th century BC. |
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In Northern Greece -a region rich in silver and gold mines in the ancient world- the first city to mint coinage was Acanthus, in Chalcidice, around the end of the 6th century. Its tetradrachms, having as emblem a lion attacking a bull, followed the Attic standard. The first Thracian city that minted coinage was Abdera, a colony of the Ionian city Teos, which had adopted the same emblem -the griffin- with its mother-city. The octadrachms of Abdera were the heaviest ones in the then Greek world and weighed 29-30 grams. |
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In the western world, and particularly in Italy, coinage minting started during the last years of the 6th century BC. Himera and Selinus obtained silver for their coinage probably from Spanish mines. The technique applied originally by the cities of South Italy presents a particularity seen in no other place in the Greek world of that time. The coin consisted of two rather thin metal surfaces, the obverse type, where the main emblem was stamped in relief and the reverse type, where the same emblem was repeated in concave form.
