“Yes, ready money is Aladdin’s lamp.”—BYRON.
[Sidenote: Tyranny and coinage both said to be of Lydian origin.]
In an enquiry into the connexions between the new form of government and
the new form of wealth that both arose at the opening of the classical
epoch Lydia has a special interest and importance for the reason that
both coinage and tyranny are said on good authority to have been of
Lydian origin. Considering how much Lydia was then in the background of
the Greek world this fact by itself is suggestive. It becomes important
to determine the dates, and connexions if any, of the first Lydian
tyrant and the first Lydian coins. It should be said at once that no
Lydian ruler has been credited with the invention of coinage, and that
no very definite conclusions can be drawn from the available material.
The evidence is however sufficiently suggestive to repay a careful
examination.
[Illustration: Fig. 19. Coins of (_a_) Gyges (?), (_b_) Croesus.]
[Sidenote: Date of the earliest coins.]
Both the date and the place of the final evolution of a metal coinage
are the subject of much dispute. Among writers of a generation or more
ago the question of date was mainly a matter of speculation as to how
long an interval was required between the earliest silver coins with a
type in relief on both sides, which on grounds of style, epigraphy, and
circumstances of find can be dated with fair accuracy to about the
middle of the sixth century, and the primitive electrum pieces punched
on one side and striated on the other (fig. 19. _a_) that probably
belong to the earliest issues of Lydia. Most of the leading numismatists
allowed some three or four generations and assigned the earliest coins
to the earlier part of the seventh century[665]. But more recently facts
have come to light which point to the possibility of an earlier and
perhaps a considerably earlier date. A round dump of silver weighing
3·654 grammes was found by Sir Arthur Evans at Knossos in a stratum that
cannot, he says, be dated later than the twelfth century B.C., and two
similar dumps of gold weighing 4·723 and 4·678 grammes along with a
third of elongated shape weighing 8·601 were found during the British
Museum excavations at Enkomi in Cyprus, a site which according to Evans
must be dated equally early[666]. These few Cretan and Cyprian dumps are
no argument against the mass of material which points to a great
numismatic development at a date not so very far removed from 700 B.C.
But they do shift the balance of probability backward and make a date in
the eighth century as likely as one in the seventh. The same conclusion
is suggested by the recent British excavations of the famous temple of
Artemis at Ephesus[667]. There, below the temple erected in the days of
Croesus and to which he contributed the sculptured column now in the
British Museum, the excavators found remains of three earlier
structures. While clearing out these early buildings they found 87
electrum coins. Twenty of these were extracted from between the slabs of
the earliest of the three buildings, five (including four of the lion
type) were extracted from underneath the foundations of the second
building, and all low down within the area of these three early
structures. The total evidence points to all the 87 coins being not
later than the time of the first of the three buildings, _i.e._ well
before the time of Croesus. The series begins with the striated type
(above fig. 19. _a_) that is generally regarded as the most primitive of
all, while far the commonest type (42 coins) is the lion’s head of the
style usually attributed to Alyattes[668].
From the latest building to the earliest coin means a considerable
period, and may well take us back into the eighth century. General
historical considerations are however against going back too far into
the eighth century. It was only in the course of that century that
brigandage and piracy gave place to trade and commerce and the first
traces can be discovered of the great renaissance that led to Classical
Greece. If the earliest coins were struck by Lydia they are more likely
to have been issued in the second half of the century than the first,
since the establishment of the second Assyrian empire in 745 B.C.
probably gave a great impetus to Lydian trade. This, however, is
assuming the claims of Lydia to the “invention.” They have been
frequently challenged and before proceeding it is necessary briefly to
examine them.
[Sidenote: The evidence for attributing them to Lydia.]
The Lydians are only one of several peoples and cities that were
credited by the ancients with the invention of coinage. This uncertainty
was inevitable. Coinage was not invented but evolved[669]. But it is
probable that in the final stage of the evolution some one state was a
little ahead of the rest, and put in this form the Lydians have a good
claim to the invention. They have in their favour our two best and
oldest witnesses, Xenophanes and Herodotus[670], the latter of whom
recognized their outstanding position as traders and plainly sees in it
the explanation of their leading position in the evolution of coined
money[671]. The facts as far as we know them bear these authorities out.
Lydia contains Mt Tmolus and Mt Sipylus and the river Pactolus, the main
sources of the supply of the metal in which the most primitive coins
were struck. It was probably just about this period that the Lydian
electrum mines began to be worked[672] and the electrum of Sardis gained
the fame it still enjoyed in the days of Sophocles[673]. The kings of
Lydia from the beginning of the seventh century onward were famous for
their wealth[674]. The touch-stone used by the ancients for testing the
precious metals came likewise from Mt Tmolus, and was called “Lydian
stone[675].” Furthermore, the Lydians occupied a unique position for
purposes of trade. Sardis, their capital, was the place where the great
trade-route from the further East, the “royal road,” as Herodotus calls
it[676], branched out to reach the various Greek cities on the
coast[677].
In the face of this evidence it is hardly necessary to examine in detail
the arguments of the modern sceptics who have disputed Lydia’s claim. In
many cases they start from the baseless assumption that so remarkable an
invention cannot but be due to the quick-witted Greeks[678]. True, the
earliest electrum coins are said to have been found mostly along the
Eastern shore of the Aegean, but it does not follow that that is where
they were all struck. Gold pieces were common enough in Greece in the
first half of the fourth century B.C., but they had nearly all been
struck in Persia. 30,000 Darics (fig. 8) were distributed among the
Greeks by the Great King’s agents in one single year[679]. The two
staters of gold that each of the Delphians received from King
Croesus[680] were undoubtedly Crœseids[681].
Again, the modern market for ancient coins has been largely restricted
to the coast. Because a coin was bought in Smyrna it does not follow
that it was found there. Of Sardis itself we still know too little to
speak with any assurance[682]. But the absence of finds, even at Sardis,
would not be decisive, since on Radet’s theory the Lydian coinage was
intended mainly for export, just as appears later to have been the case
with the silver tetradrachms of Smyrna, Myrina, Cyme, Lebedos, Magnesia
ad Maeandrum and Heraclea Ioniae, which are rarely found near their
place of origin, but with few exceptions are brought from different
parts of Syria[683].
More serious are the criticisms which do not altogether reject
Xenophanes, but explain him away by means of an interpretation of
Herodotus I. 94 first put forward by J. P. Six and later developed by
Babelon[684]. Six maintained that when Herodotus there states that the
Lydians were the first to strike and use coins of gold and silver, the
reference is to the concurrent issue of coins in the two separate
metals, or, in other words, to the coinage of Croesus (fig. 19. _b_),
who is generally admitted to have been the first to give up electrum in
favour of separate issues of gold and silver. But though it is true that
“coins of gold and silver” cannot mean “coins of electrum,” it by no
means follows that Herodotus is referring to the beginnings not of
coinage but of bimetallism. Babelon is right in insisting on the exact
words used by Herodotus, but in his interpretation of them he takes
perhaps too little account of the type of fact usually recorded by the
historian. Which is Herodotus more likely to give us? An inaccurate
version of a fundamental fact like the invention of coined money? Or a
pedantically accurate statement about an experiment in bimetallism that
was after all of quite secondary importance? Other things being equal we
should surely always prefer the interpretation which gives us the
former, and there is nothing to prevent us from doing so in the present
case. Assume that Xenophanes means what he says and that his statement
represents the prevalent tradition, and it is easy to see how Herodotus
came to use the precise words that he did.
“The Lydians,” he begins, “were the first to strike and use coins.” We
must remember who it was that he was writing for. His readers would be
found mainly in the free cities of European Greece. Down to the days
when he ended his history these European Greeks had coined almost
exclusively in silver. On the other hand the coinage of Lydia and the
other Persian satrapies of Asia Minor consisted of Darics of gold and
shekels of silver, and people in those parts doubtless remembered that
this coinage in the two metals went back to the days of the Lydian
kings. It is a fundamental principle with our historian never to omit
any fact that he can possibly insert. In this case an extra fact can be
inserted in three words, χρυσοῦ καὶ ἀργύρου, and almost inevitably the
words go in. Possibly he had forgotten for the moment the primitive
pieces of electrum: it is equally possible that accuracy was sacrificed
to fulness of information. Another way of meeting Babelon’s difficulty
is suggested by Babelon’s own article. It is generally assumed that the
first coins struck in Asia Minor were all of electrum, and that electrum
later gave way to gold and silver. But Babelon[685] quotes an example of
what is generally regarded as the earliest Lydian electrum type (_ob._
striated, _rev._ three small stamps as on silver spoons) that appears
from its specific gravity to contain 98 per cent. silver and weighs
10·81 grammes. This latter is the unit of the so-called Babylonian
standard, which is employed almost exclusively for silver, the only
exception being a gold issue of Croesus. It is true that the coin has a
yellow tint, and that it may contain more than 2 per cent. gold, if the
light specific gravity is due partly to the presence of copper[686].
There are cases too of what seem to be unquestionable electrum coins
with a very low percentage of gold, _e.g._ _Brit. Mus. Cat. Coins of
Ionia_, p. 47, nos. 2, 3, Ephesian thirds of the normal Phoenician
standard, one with only 14 per cent. gold to judge by the specific
gravity, the other actually with only 5 per cent. But the combined
evidence of weight and specific gravity gives strong support to
Babelon’s view that the coin must have been intended to pass as
silver[687]. Babelon assigns this piece to Miletus, but on no sufficient
grounds. As he himself points out[688], the weight is exactly that of
the silver coins of Croesus, a weight which in Ionia prevailed only at
Colophon and Erythrae in the fifth century and at Miletus in the
third[689], and in these three cases was borrowed from the Persian
siglos (shekel), which latter was the direct successor of the silver
coins of Croesus. The earliest silver coins assigned by Head to Miletus
are struck on the Aeginetan standard (185 grains)[690]. In short, if it
seems probable that this piece is silver, _a fortiori_ is it probable
that it is Lydian, and if, as the evidence all tends to show, this is
the case, the importance of the piece at once becomes obvious. It means
that from the earliest period of their coinage the Lydians struck not
only in electrum but also in silver. Now for Herodotus electrum was only
a variety of gold. His name for it is “white gold” (λευκὸς χρυσός), and
he appears to regard it as gold of a particular quality, just as
Bonacossi does the gold of China when he describes it as “pâle, mou et
ductile[691].”
When therefore Herodotus speaks of the Lydians as the first to coin in
gold and silver he may well mean white gold and silver and be referring,
like Xenophanes, to the original “invention” of coined money. But even
if Babelon is right, there is still no decisive reason why we should not
ascribe to the Lydians the original “invention” as well as the first
bimetallic development. Thus Xenophanes and Herodotus may be regarded as
pointing to Lydia as the first country to strike coins, and after all
they were in a fairly good position for ascertaining the facts[692].
Certainty is perhaps hardly attainable. But that does not justify a
completely sceptical attitude. It is the reverse of scientific to treat
an epoch illuminated by many half lights as though it was one of total
darkness. The safest course in such a case is to operate with
probabilities.
[Sidenote: The origin of the title tyrant.]
The claim of Lydia to have been the original home of tyranny is based on
similar evidence that needs to be similarly used. The earliest authority
for it is Euphorion (third century B.C.), who says that the first ruler
to be called tyrant was Gyges, who began to reign in the XVIIIth
Olympiad (708–704 B.C.)[693]. The statement has been doubted as being
perhaps only an inference from Homer and Archilochus drawn by later
writers[694]. Homer does not use the word τύραννος. It first appears in
Archilochus, and apparently the tyrant that Archilochus had in mind was
his contemporary[695] Gyges:
I care not for golden Gyges....
I long not for a great tyranny[696].
But even if only an inference from this source the statement may still
be of some value. The word tyrant is not Greek and may be Lydian[697]. A
new title does not necessarily imply a new form of government; but if
there is independent evidence for thinking that a new form of government
arose just at this time, then that evidence will be corroborated by the
appearance of a new title; and if that title has a particular local
origin, it becomes of particular interest to examine the history of the
rulers of the region where the change arose.
As our evidence leaves it uncertain whether Gyges was the first ruler of
his kind to arise in Lydia or merely the first to find a prominent place
in Greek literature and as further we find unusual steps for securing
the throne attributed to Lydian rulers of about the middle of the eighth
century it will be well to begin at this earlier date.
[Sidenote: How Spermos and Ardys became kings of Lydia.]
According to the story told by Nicolaus Damascenus[698], Damonno, the
wife of Cadys, whose reign is ascribed to the middle of the eighth
century[699], after her royal husband’s death won over by her wealth a
large number of Lydians, expelled her brother-in-law Ardys, and then
married her lover Spermos and proclaimed him king. When banished by
Spermos and Damonno, Ardys goes into business at Cyme as a
waggon-builder (ἁμαξοπηγῶν) and is keeping a hotel (πανδοκεύων) there
when called back to the throne of Sardis. He is brought back by a
tavern-keeper or retail trader (κάπηλος) named Thyessos[700], who as his
reward asked and received that this inn or shop (καπηλεῖον) should be
exempt from paying dues (ἀτελές) and after a time became rich from his
shop-keeping (καπηλεύειν) and as a result established near it a market
and a shrine of Hermes[701]. The part played in this story by innkeepers
may, at first sight, seem odd. But as pointed out by Radet[702] in
discussing the word κάπηλος, innkeeper was probably synonymous with
merchant in the days of Ardys (766–730 B.C.)[703], when Lydia was
already becoming a great highway of commerce between Further Asia and
the Aegean[704]. The Lydian merchants of the period must have seen the
advantage of providing food and shelter for the members of the caravans
with whom they traded. Waggon-building, which was one of the occupations
of the banished Ardys[705], is part of the same activity, connected with
the famous road that did as much to make the fortunes of ancient Lydia
as railways will some day do to revive them in the future.
If the narrative of Nicolaus is to be believed, then, as recognized some
time ago by Gelzer[706], the Lydian leaders of the period appear as
great merchants and men of business, and more than that, it is as such
that the rulers secure the throne, and a not unnatural inference is that
it was the spread of this new type of merchant prince from Lydia
Westward over the Greek world that caused the spread at the same time of
the Lydian title. There is nothing improbable in the assumption that
Lydian history of this period was preserved in a fairly authentic form.
True our extant authorities are late and their sources uncertain, and
the story of Spermos has perhaps an excessive resemblance to that of
Gyges and the wife of his predecessor Candaules[707]. In both cases the
usurper marries the wife of his predecessor and owes to her his throne.
The close relations between Ardys and the Greek Cyme recall those
between the house of Gyges and the tyrant house of Melas at Ephesus,
which latter is very plausibly explained by Radet[708] as based on their
common business interests. But these resemblances do not prove that the
two narratives are not both true. The two queens may have responded in
the same way to similar semi-matriarchal surroundings, and the two
princes have found similar solutions for the same commercial problem. If
the Damonno Ardys story is not history we have no Lydian history of that
age. But even so it is of value as reflecting conditions that prevailed
at the beginning of the seventh century and possibly went back to the
period to which the story is ascribed.
Chronologically we ought next to deal with Gyges himself. Unfortunately
his history, and more particularly the part that tells how he won the
throne, has been much obscured by legend. We shall examine it with a
better prospect of disinterring the facts if first we review certain
later incidents of Lydian history.
[Sidenote: Later rulers of Lydia.]
The century that followed Gyges is for this purpose not very
illuminating. A great part of it is taken up with the national struggle
against the Cimmerian invaders. The kings of the house of Gyges appear
to have led this struggle well, and as a natural result their power was
seldom called into question. It is only before the accession of Croesus,
the last king of the line, that active steps appear to have been
necessary to secure the throne. The reason was not any anti-monarchic
movement, but rivalry between two sons or possibly grandsons of the old
and perhaps senile King Alyattes. None the less, the steps taken by the
rivals are not without significance. [Sidenote: Financial dealings of
Croesus before he became king.] The story is told[709] that shortly
before Alyattes’ death Croesus, the subsequently successful rival, had
borrowed largely from a very rich man[710] in Ephesus in order to appear
before the old king with a levy. Before resorting to the rich Ephesian,
Croesus had appealed to a certain “Sadyattes the merchant, the richest
man in Lydia,” who had refused to lend to him for the reason, as it
subsequently turned out, that he was backing the other candidate for the
throne, Croesus’ half-brother, the half-Greek Pantaleon[711]. Croesus’
poverty, we are informed, was due to spendthrift habits. But it is
doubtful whether his lavishness at this period was simply youthful
dissipation, and not rather part of a systematic policy.
Only a few years later Peisistratus of Athens “rooted his tyranny” on
revenues from mines. Reasons have been given above[712] for thinking
that he was already endeavouring to do so. May not Croesus have been
pursuing a similar course? Later in his career, when he wanted to win
the special favour of Delphi, “he sent to Pytho, ascertained the number
of Delphians, and presented each one of them with two staters of
gold[713].” The staters of Croesus (above fig. 19. _b_) were among the
most famous coins of antiquity[714]. Reference is made in the _Mirabiles
Auscultationes_ to gold mines that he worked[715]. His wealth was
proverbial[716]. Most of it he inherited from his predecessor[717]: but
the wise old Alyattes knew that it was the root of his power and clung
to it till his death. For the rivals it is a question who can secure it
first and in the meanwhile carry on best without it. Both try to borrow
on a princely scale, and to judge by the issue Croesus was the more
successful. “As a result of that proceeding he got the upper hand of his
calumniators[718].” He became king, and his government is described by
Radet[719] as “une puissante monarchie régnant par la force de l’or.”
This is all conjecture, but it is borne out alike by Croesus’ own
behaviour and by the advice to Cyrus that is put into his mouth after he
has become the captive and the counsellor of the Persian king.
The first thing that Croesus did after securing the throne was to put
Sadyattes to death and to confiscate his possessions[720]. By itself
this might be taken simply as part of something corresponding to a
normal process of attainder. But the Sadyattes incident must be read in
the light of the advice that Croesus is represented as having
subsequently given to Cyrus, the gist of which is that Cyrus is to
beware above all things of the richest of his subjects[721]. [Sidenote:
Croesus bids Cyrus to suspect a rival in the richest of his subjects.]
The speech is of course pure fiction: so too is very possibly the whole
story of the intimacy between Croesus and his conqueror[722]. But all
the same Croesus is Herodotus’ embodiment of the wise and experienced
ruler of the sixth century, the century during which the historian’s
father was born only a little way from the borders of Croesus’ kingdom.
If in the pages of Herodotus he is made to regard wealth as the basis of
political power, it must be because the historian believed such to have
been in fact the case. Of the evidence that may have led him, and with
good reason, to this belief, one item may have been derived from the
colossal tomb of Croesus’ predecessor Alyattes, which according to the
account given by Herodotus was constructed by the tradesmen and artizans
and prostitutes (οἱ ἀγοραῖοι ἄνθρωποι καὶ οἱ χειρώνακτες καὶ αἱ
ἐνεργαζόμεναι παιδίσκαι)[723]. [Sidenote: The tomb of Croesus’ father
had been erected by tradesmen, artizans, and “working girls.”]
Presumably these were the classes who had most benefited or at least
been most affected by Alyattes’ rule, and on whose support he had mainly
depended[724]. The largest part of the tomb is said by Herodotus to have
been built by the “working girls” (= prostitutes) but too much attention
need not be paid to this typical instance of Herodotean “malignity.”
Strabo’s report that the tomb was said by some to be that of a harlot
(πόρνης) is equally suspicious. It may possibly have arisen from the
obscene symbols that appeared on various parts of the monument,
including its summit. Possibly the builders of the tomb got mistaken for
its occupant. The reverse process is less likely, as it leaves the
tradesmen and artizans unaccounted for[725].
[Sidenote: Revolt from Cyrus of Pactyes who had all the gold from
Sardis.]
In conformity with the policy that Herodotus puts into the mouth of
Croesus, Cyrus was careful before he returned from Lydia to Persia to
separate the political and financial power in his new conquest:
Sardis he entrusted to Tabalos, a Persian gentleman, but the gold
both of Croesus and the other Lydians he gave to Pactyes, a man of
Lydia, to look after (κομίζειν).... But when Cyrus had marched away
from Sardis, Pactyes caused the Lydians to revolt from Tabalos and
Cyrus, and going down to the sea, as was but natural since he had
all the gold from Sardis, he proceeded to hire mercenaries and
persuaded the population by the sea to join his expedition[726].
[Sidenote: Xerxes and the rich Lydian Pythes.]
In the days of Xerxes the richest of all the Lydians was Pythes the son
of Atys. After Xerxes himself, Pythes was the richest man known to the
Persians of that day. His wealth amounted to 2000 talents of silver and
3,993,000 golden Darics[727]. He held some sort of rule under the Great
King at Kelainai in Phrygia and owed his enormous wealth to his mines,
in which the citizens of his dominions were forced to labour. When
Xerxes reached Kelainai on his way to invade Greece, Pythes offered to
present the whole of this immense sum to the king[728]. So stupendous a
present requires a special explanation. It is not like “the gold plane
tree and the vine” that Pythes had given earlier to King Darius. It
looks as if he had suddenly discovered with intense alarm that Xerxes,
like Cyrus before him, feared nothing so much as a man of extraordinary
wealth, and as if this present was a desperate attempt to disarm the
Great King’s suspicions. The father of Pythes bore the same name as one
of the sons of Croesus, and Pythes himself has been thought by some
modern scholars to have been the grandson of Croesus[729]. The name
Pytheus (Pythes) might be due to Croesus’ relations with Delphi[730].
The evidence so far adduced has pointed to the following conclusions:
metal coinage reached its final evolution in Lydia, probably in the
second half of the eighth century B.C.; the title tyrant reached Greece
from Lydia probably early in the seventh century; from the middle of the
eighth century down to the end of the age of the tyrants all the rulers
or would-be rulers of Lydia of whom we have any relevant information
regarded money as the basis of political power. [Sidenote: Radet
suggests that the first coins were struck by the first tyrants,] In the
face of these facts it is not surprising that Radet, the scholar who has
devoted most attention in recent years to this period of Lydian history,
should have expressed the opinion that the earliest tyrants were also
the first coiners[731].
The rest of this chapter will be devoted to examining and very
tentatively developing this suggestion.
Radet attributed the earliest coins to Gyges and imagined them as having
been struck when Gyges was already on the throne[732]. He wrote however
before Enkomi, Knossos, and Ephesus had suggested the possibility of an
earlier date for the earliest coins, and he does not consider the
possibility that it may have been quite as much a case of the coins
making the tyrant as the tyrant making the coins. No certainty is to be
looked for on this point, but for arriving at the greatest available
probability it will be well for a moment to turn to the brilliant and
convincing account of the last stages in the evolution of metal coinage
published by Lenormant and developed by Babelon. Lenormant’s account of
the circumstances in which stamped pieces of precious metal of definite
weight first came into circulation cannot be given better than in his
own words:
[Sidenote: Lenormant that they were private issues.]
Pour la commodité du commerce, auquel ils servent d’instrument
habituel d’échange, on donne à ces lingots des poids exacts ... de ½
à 10 taels en or, de ½ à 100 taels en argent. Mais leur circulation
et leur acceptation n’ont aucun caractère légal et obligatoire.
L’autorité publique n’a point à y intervenir et ne leur donne aucune
garantie. Ces lingots ne portent aucune empreinte si ce n’est en
certains cas un poinçonnement individuel, simple marque d’origine et
de fabrique, qui quelquefois inspire assez de confiance pour
dispenser de la vérification du titre du métal, lorsque c’est celle
d’un négociant assez honorablement connu. La facilité avec laquelle
on accepte le lingot à tel ou tel poinçon tient donc entièrement au
crédit personnel de celui qui l’a marqué[733].
The passage just quoted describes not a theory of Lenormant’s but the
actual practice of the Chinese empire[734]. A similar currency of ingots
stamped by merchants or bankers has been used in many other parts of the
world, _e.g._ Japan[735], Java[736], India[737] and Russia[738].
Reversions to the practice of private coinage have been frequent in
America[739]; “for a long time the copper currency of England consisted
mainly of tradesmen’s tokens,” used largely by manufacturers to pay the
wages of their workpeople[740]. The earliest coins of Asia Minor are
regarded by the French savants as private issues of a similar kind to
those just quoted. The small stamps of which several often appear on an
early electrum coin (_e.g._ above fig. 19. _a_ right) are regarded by
them as marks or countermarks of bankers or merchants. Babelon[741]
points out that these stamps cannot be identified as the types of towns
or kings; that in one case no less than six of them are found on a
single coin[742]; and that they continue to be put on to the state
coinage of Darius. The case for Lydia therefore rests largely on
analogies, and analogies can never be quite conclusive. Some even of
these must be used with caution, _e.g._ those from Russia and
Merovingian France, where it is difficult to be sure that they do not
represent a stage of decadence rather than development. But decadence is
often another name for reversion to type, and some of the instances
already quoted, _e.g._ those from China and India, are sufficiently
remote to be safely trusted. The total effect of the evidence marshalled
by Lenormant and Babelon is impressive, and certainly no other view
offers so satisfactory an explanation of the distinguishing features of
the earliest Greek coins. Their view has already won partial
acceptance[743]. There are of course gaps in the evidence, notably as to
the circumstances of the nationalization of the coinage. But this is not
very surprising if, as the stories of Damonno and Ardys suggest, it was
in a succession of financial struggles for the throne that the control
of the mint came gradually to be synonymous with the kingship. When the
two were finally equated is a matter of conjecture. The chief part in
the process may perhaps have been played by the tradesman king Ardys,
but on the whole it seems likely that it was Gyges who completed the
evolution of metal coinage by making it the prerogative of the state
after he had first used it to obtain the supreme power. [Sidenote:
Gyges.] His career falls early enough to make this possible[744], and
the gold of Gyges attained proverbial fame[745].
Herodotus indeed seems to discountenance the view that Gyges was ever a
merchant or banker, since he describes him as serving as a guardsman
αἰχμοφόρος, δορυφόρος under his predecessor Candaules[746]. But
Schubert[747] is probably right in putting only a limited confidence in
this part of our account of his career, which he shows to have been
derived from Delphi. He even suggests[748] that Gyges had bought up
Delphi before, with a view to his accession, just as Croesus endeavoured
to purchase the favour of Apollo before his attempted conquest of
Persia[749]. If there is any truth in this plausible suggestion, then
the guardsman part of the story may well have been a half-truth
emphasized to hide Gyges’ commercial antecedents, and Gyges may have
secured the throne mainly through his wealth.
It is true that Gyges as tyrant fought against the Cimmerians who at
this time were sweeping over Asia Minor, and that later in his reign he
rebelled against Assyria[750]. From time to time he invaded the Greek
cities on the coast. He may even have taken military measures to secure
the throne, if, as Radet argues[751], his accession meant the overthrow
of a Maeonian domination and the substitution for it of a Lydian. All
this however is no proof of particular militarism. The wars against the
Cimmerians were defensive. The revolt from Assyria was an indirect
result of the Cimmerian wars. If Gyges took the aggressive against the
Greeks[752], his motive was probably commercial. He wanted “to secure
for the Lydian caravans a free and sure outlet for their goods[753].”
These Greek wars were seldom carried to extremes[754]. As regards the
fighting by which he is said to have seized the throne, note that his
troops, in part at least, were Carian mercenaries[755].
Immediately after establishing himself by these violent means Gyges
“sent for his various friends and enemies. Those whom he thought would
oppose him he did away with; but to the rest he gave presents and made
them mercenaries[756].”
[Sidenote: The ring of Gyges]
A confirmation of this same view as to the origin of Gyges’ power is
possibly to be found in the story of Gyges and his ring. In this famous
story, as told by Plato[757], Gyges was a shepherd who discovered in the
earth a magic gold ring, which gave him the power of invisibility and
enabled him to enter the palace, slay the king, and procure his own
accession. As happens so often when a story of the order of the _Arabian
Nights_ is applied to a historical personage, the immediate problem is
to discover not the origin of the story, but the points about the
historical character that caused the story in question to get attached
to him. We may begin by dismissing the shepherding, since Gyges belonged
to an ancient and princely family[758].
The fact or facts that caused Gyges to be associated with the story
probably had some connexion with the magic ring and its discovery in the
earth. It has for instance been suggested that the real magic of the
ring of Gyges lay in the signet that serves as a passport and reveals or
conceals a man’s identity according to the way he wears it. Radet[759]
pictures Gyges as a sort of major domo to Candaules, and the ring as the
emblem of his power. Explanations of this kind are not without
plausibility; they are right in taking notice of the signet[760]; but
they ignore one essential detail of the story namely the marvellous
discovery of the ring, nor do they go to the root of the matter, if, as
the story plainly implies, the ring of Gyges is to be equated with the
real source of his power. From this last point of view it becomes
probable that Radet has come very much nearer the truth in another
passage, where he says: “Gygès et ses successeurs ont possédé un
merveilleux talisman: la science économique[761].” [Sidenote: explained
by Radet as “la science économique.”] There is a point about the ring
story that tells strongly in favour of some explanation on the lines of
this second suggestion of Radet’s. The hero of the story is not always
Gyges: in Pliny[762] it is Midas the king of Phrygia who was overthrown
by the Cimmerians a generation before they overthrew Gyges[763]. It is
of course possible that Pliny is merely making a mistake about the name.
But it is equally possible that a genuine tradition attributed the ring
to Midas. Midas has much else in common with Gyges and the points of
resemblance deserve to be noticed. His kingdom, like that of Gyges, was
famous for its precious metals[764]. Like Lydia it occupied an important
part of the great caravan route[765]. Midas was the golden king still
more than Gyges. His touch turned all things into gold until he was
freed from this disastrous power by bathing in the Pactolus, the river
from which the Lydians got so much of their electrum[766]. According to
one account coins were first struck by “Demodike of Cyme, daughter of
Agamemnon king of the Cymaeans, after her marriage with Midas the
Phrygian[767].” Midas, like Gyges, sent rich presents (bribes?) to
Delphi[768]. In short the great point of resemblance which Midas bears
to Gyges lies in his enormous wealth and the ways in which he appears to
have acquired and used it[769]. It may be that this implied the
possession of the magic ring[770].
[Sidenote: With the story of the finding of the ring cp. stories of
finds in mining districts.]
The circumstances of the find recall two anecdotes in the _Mirabiles
Auscultationes_[771], located the one in Paionia the other in Pieria, in
which, as in the Gyges story, we have the rains, the chasms, the find of
gold and the taking of it to the palace. In at least one of the two
cases the find is treasure trove, like the ring of Gyges. But the point
to be noticed is that both Paionia and Pieria are in the famous mining
district that played so great a part in the history of Athens and
Macedonia. Considering the fame of the mines of Lydia it is natural to
ask whether they did not play their part in the evolution of the story
of the ring. Stories of men buried in the mines of Lydia did actually
exist. One of them, told in the _Mirabiles Auscultationes_, shows that
in Lydia, as in the region of Mt Pangaion and the river Strymon, chasms
containing skeletons and gold were not unlikely to be mine shafts, and
the power secured by their discoverer to be simply the power of suddenly
and perhaps secretly acquired wealth.
As to the date at which Tmolus was first mined nothing is known except
that the workings were disused in the days of Strabo[772]. It may well
have been worked from the earliest days of Gyges if, as is probable, he
mined at Pergamus and further afield[773]. Lydians mining in those
regions would hardly be neglecting mines so near their own capital, the
more so as they would be directed to them by following the golden stream
of the Pactolus[774].
In the face of these facts it is tempting to go one step further than
Radet when he explains Gyges’ talisman as economic science. [Sidenote:
Rings as money.] We are reminded of Byron’s description of the most
potent of talismans:
Yes, ready money is Aladdin’s lamp[775].
Gyges, it is true, discovered a ring, not a lamp, but the particular
form of his talisman only adds point to the Byronic interpretation. Till
somewhere about the time of the story rings were probably ready money in
the literal sense of the phrase[776]. In many parts of the world before
the introduction of a regular stamped coinage trade had been conducted
largely by means of rings of specific weight[777].
Much of the evidence for this use takes us back well into the second
millennium. Some of the localities where it is known to have prevailed
earliest were connected with Lydia at this time. Egypt was the ally of
Gyges, the Hittites were the predecessors of the Lydians in the land of
Lydia. Troy probably formed part of Gyges’ dominions[778]. The book of
Genesis specifically associates ring money with caravans[779]. It is
therefore probable that rings circulated in Lydia itself until they were
supplanted by the new stamped coins, which may have owed their shape to
its convenience for stamping. [Sidenote: With Gyges’ ring cp. perhaps
Pheidon’s spits, the Attic obol and drachma, and the Roman as.] In
Argos, according to a tradition which is defended in the next chapter,
the stamped coinage was preceded by a currency of metal spits (below,
fig. 21): if the tradition is to be trusted, these spits remained
permanently associated with the name of the tyrant who displaced them by
coined money. Have we a parallel in the case of the Gyges story? Is its
hero the inventor of the new stamped coinage and has his name become
associated with the rings that he displaced? It is perfectly possible
that the new coins were at first regarded as so many rings’ worth of
precious metal. The name νόμισμα implies that the stamped coin had won
general acceptance; it would of course be quite appropriate to a
currency in rings or kettles or cows; but there is no evidence of its
use previous to the introduction of a stamped metal coinage, and it was
probably the general acceptance of this latter that gave rise to the
word. To call the earliest Lydian coins rings (δακτύλιοι) would be
precisely like calling the earliest coins of Athens spits (ὀβελοί) or
bundles of spits (δραχμαί) or the earliest coins of Rome bars (asses).
If obol and drachma and as survived while δακτύλιος did not, the fact is
sufficiently accounted for by the histories of Athens, Rome, and Lydia.
[Sidenote: But if so, why is the ring a seal ring?]
The explanation just offered of the ring of Gyges omits one detail that
is essential to the story as told by Plato. Plato’s ring is a signet
ring, and it is the seal (σφραγίς) that does the magic. Babelon holds
that the seal makers (δακτυλιογλύφοι) of the period were probably also
the coin strikers. But if we are to follow one of our own leading
numismatists, G. Macdonald, the connexion between seal and coin was
closer than this. Originally, according to him[780], coins were simply
pieces of sealed metal.
[Sidenote: “Coins are pieces of sealed metal.”]
The minting of money in its most primitive form was simply the
placing of a seal on lumps of electrum that had previously been
weighed and adjusted to a fixed standard: the excessive rarity of
coins that have only a striated surface on the obverse proves that
this primitive stage was of short duration[781].
Greek seals were normally attached to rings[782]. The definition of a
coin as a piece of sealed metal was started by Burgon, who used it as an
argument for the religious character of coin types and described the
seal as “the impress of the symbol of the tutelar divinity of the
city[783].” Macdonald very rightly rejects the theory, so widely current
before the appearance of Ridgeway’s _Metallic Currency_, that all coin
types had a religious origin. But he himself proceeds to hang on to the
seal theory views of his own that are equally untenable, at least in the
sweeping form in which he states them. He assumes that the seal must be
always that of a state or king or magistrate, and that the device is
usually heraldic. The latter point does not concern us here[784]: the
former does, since it is incompatible with the views of Babelon and
Lenormant that the earliest coins were not state issues. But the seal
theory does not depend on the nature either of the seals or of the
sealers. There is no reason why we should not accept Babelon and
Lenormant on the private character of the earliest coins simultaneously
with Burgon and Macdonald on the character of the first coin types as
being simply seals. Indeed some of the evidence collected by Macdonald
positively suggests that we should. In the fifth and fourth centuries
B.C. at Athens public property was stamped with the public seal, τῷ
δημοσίῳ σημάντρῳ[785]. The same practice was followed in the fifth
century at Samos[786], and perhaps at Syracuse[787]. This use of public
seals to stamp public property suggests corresponding private seals
similarly used. At this point the literary evidence fails us, but
archaeological documents come to our aid.
Metal was not the only material that the ancients stamped in this way.
Wine jars, bricks, and tiles were similarly stamped. Thousands of these
stamps have come down to us, and many of them bear city symbols and a
magistrate’s name. But they often bear also the name of the maker, and
the Danish scholar Nilsson[788], who has made a thorough study of them,
is inclined to regard them as essentially the seals of private
manufacturers. The magistrate’s name may merely indicate the date: the
state symbol may mean that the state was the consignee, or that the
manufacturer enjoyed some sort of state protection, or was subjected to
state taxation and control.
If then such was the history of the stamp as applied to bricks and wine
jars, we have a further reason for thinking that stamps as applied to
the precious metals may have originally been put on them by private
owners. May we not here have the true explanation of the marvellous seal
of Gyges’ ring? May not the owner of this ring have been the first
person to use his signet for stamping coins of metal, and may not this
fact be the origin of the stories about its marvellous powers?
Whether this person was Gyges is another question. His claim to the ring
is not beyond dispute. We have seen already that it is sometimes
attributed to Midas. Even in the story as told by Plato the MSS. make
the hero “the ancestor of Gyges,” not Gyges himself, and the fact that
in other writers and elsewhere in the _Republic_[789] the ring is called
the ring of Gyges is not in itself decisive. Both the ring and its magic
powers may have passed from hand to hand. But if the evidence and
opinions that have been adduced in this chapter have any value, our
interpretation of the ring story does not depend on establishing Gyges
as the original owner.
Let us now revert for a moment to the illuminating theory of Babelon
that the striking of coins was at first a private undertaking of
merchants or miners or bankers, and that the final step in the evolution
of a gold and silver coinage was reached only when this business of
stamping and issuing the pieces was taken over by the state. We are
entirely without record of the actual transference that the theory
implies. Babelon assumes that the government created the monopoly. This
chapter suggests a modification of Babelon’s view in one important
point, namely that it was not the government that made the monopoly, but
the monopoly that made the government. As in the case of Babelon’s own
main thesis, we are forced to trust largely to analogies. But the
analogies are striking, and they strike in two directions. We have first
the commercial or financial antecedents of the rulers of this period
both in Lydia and in various Greek states: and secondly we have the
history of later Lydian rulers and aspirants to the throne, notably
Croesus and Sadyattes, Cyrus and Pactyes, Xerxes and Pythes. The moral
of their stories is that no ruler could feel safe at Sardis until he had
secured some sort of financial supremacy. When we further consider that
Gyges was famous for his gold[790], and that his gold and his tyranny
are spoken of by Archilochus, probably in the same breath, then apart
from speculative interpretations of the story of the ring, there is at
least a clear possibility that the monopolist policy of Croesus and his
successors goes back at least to Gyges and perhaps even a generation or
so earlier, to some such ruler as Ardys or Spermos, and that it was the
monopoly in stamped pieces of electrum that brought the first tyrant to
the king’s palace and placed him on the throne[791].