Featured A Cistophoric Tetradrachm from a Roman Republican Province

I actually like this coin even though I am a collector of Greek coins. If I would ever get a roman coin, it would be a republic one as I find the imperial ones a bit repetitive artistically. As far as categorisation is concerned, I believe it is done this way to make life easier for dealers and collectors. To be more accurate in a historical sense, you would need to take into account the language, style and thematology used in the coin.

 

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As I understand it the initial ('Greek') Cistophoric issues weighed 3 Attic Drachms but was tariffed at 4 Attic drachms. Since there were there 100 drachms in a Greek mina that gives a reduced drachm weight of maybe 3.27g - well below Augustus' drachm - and a little below Nero's. But maybe the same as the "Rhodes standard" and the Cappadiocian standard recently mentioned elsewhere. That of course because Nero's drachm went 96 to the libra - not 100 to the libra - but also the libra has become 100 drachms in the east because 3/4 x Attic mina = Roman libra.

Confused? - well - read Roman accounts of metrology and you might agree with me that the whole idea of the Roman state behind Roman coin issue was to confuse the population about what was going on. It seems 25 became the new 24.

Maybe take comfort from Rome itself. By the medieval period they had apparently gotten so confused that its pound was c. 340g

That is not the ancient Roman libra of 96 denarii of 3.4g, (c. 327g)

Nor the Eastern reduced attic pound of 100 (reduced) drachms. (c. 327g)

Its 100 Roman denarii.............

Rob T

PS I find Ancient Chinese tax philosophy useful in understanding the real fundamentals of such matters:

"People like to to be given things, but they do not like to give things. Therefore what you must do is give to them openly, and take from the secretly."

Kuan Tzu (Maverick translation)

 

Thanks for your post, interesting coin of Tralles, and thought provoking questions. As my primary focus is the Roman republic, I find these cistophoric tetradrachms interesting and I inevitably get caught up in "incredibly obscure questions".

On page 166 of “Ancient Greek Coins”, GK Jenkins writes: "the so-called ‘cistophoric’ coins of the cities in the Pergamene kingdom, which started at the time of Eumenes II and which are distinguished only by the most uninspiring of all Greek coins designs (the cista mystica and a bow case with writhing snakes)".

I side more with Kleiner who writes: "Among the coinages of the Hellenistic world, the cistophori are perhaps the most remarkable."

Here's my post from last year on one of these coins (also shown by @Jay GT4). With your post, I will add "Roman republican provincials" to the list of coins that I collect It is conveniently simple to classify ancients into Greek, Roman, and other, but clearly there is a bit more complexity than that.

My three four favorite reference books for Cistophori:

• Kleiner, F. S., & Noe, S. P. (1977). The Early Cistophoric Coinage. New York: American Numismatic Society
• W.E. Metcalf “The Later Republican Cistophori” ISBN 978-0-89722-347-8 Hardcover, 184 pages
• Peter Thonemann, Attalid Asia Minor: Money, International Relations, and the State. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2013. xviii, 335
• Pinder (1856). Über die Cistophoren und über die Kaiserlichen Silbermedaillons der römischen Provinz Asia. Berlin: Akademie der Wissenschaften.

Kleiner and Noe note:

"The Tralles cistophori of 128-85 B.C. are not within the scope of this volume, but it should be mentioned that their format is little different from that of Series 42-47, the only change being that the monogram is replaced by a name always reduced to its first four letters ( Plate XXVIII, 12)."​

and Metcalf has a section on Later Roman Republican Cistophori from Tralles.

Although I do not have a Cistophoric Tetradrachm of Tralles, I will add this one that I picked up not long ago. One might be able to guess why this particular coin was of interest.

Ionia, Ephesos, circa 180-67 BC, AR Tetradrachm, Cistophoric standard
Date: NE or CY 55 from formation of the province of Asia 134/133 (80/79 BC) - the end of Sulla's reign in Rome
Obv: Cista mystica with serpent; all within ivy wreath
Rev: Two serpents entwined around bow and bowcase; above, Artemis; to left, NE (date) above EΦE, torch to right
Ref: Kleiner "The Dated Cistophori of Ephesus" 56

 

Good references above. Meadows thinks the Cistaphori started c 166 BC.
The Romans didn't actually get to grips with their present from Mad King Attalos lll until c 4 years later. This allows people like the late Jorge W Muller to change the start date for the Roman Province of Asia and the revolting Aristonikos held things up a bit.

The chronology of Ephesos revisited
Müller, Jörg W. Objekttyp: Article Zeitschrift: Schweizerische numismatische Rundschau = Revue suisse de numismatique = Rivista svizzera di numismatica 1998

Cicero was paid in Cistaphori and didn't like it. Meanwhile Cicero stamped his name on Cistaphori of his province Phyrigia, Loadika "Tullius IMP" pretty damn rare.

 

Understood and agreed. In my novice view, the Chinese figured out Fiat monies WAY before the West.

I oversimplify it by the West used seigniorage, China just stated whatever value on the coin.

 

Perhaps that was the reason for excluding such coins from the Roman Provincial category, but I don't think it would be any more difficult or confusing to classify as "Roman Provincial" the coins issued by Roman provinces under the Republic, than it is to classify as such the coins issued by the same provinces under the Empire. It's not as if things necessarily changed in some fundamental way in those provinces' coinage between 45 and 43 BCE (if you look at RPC's cutoff point of 44 BCE) or between 28 and 26 BCE (if you look at Sear's cutoff point for his Greek Imperial Coinage book). For the cistophori, as I pointed out, the more fundamental change occurred in 133 BCE, when Lydia became a Roman province in the first place, and both the year (calculated with that change in ownership as Year 1), and the name of the current Roman magistrate, were added to the coins.

Also, in asserting that in order to decide whether to classify Roman Provincial the coins issued by Roman provinces under the Republic, one would have to make an individualized determination "tak[ing] into account the language, style and thematology used in the coin," your argument -- as we lawyers, even recently retired ones like me, like to say -- proves too much. Because one could make exactly the same argument about coins issued by Roman provinces under the Empire, particularly the ones without an imperial portrait on the obverse. But no such individualized determination is necessary for provincial coins issued under the Empire, regardless of language, style, or thematology, and it should be no more necessary for provincial coins issued under the Republic.

 

I agree with Kleiner myself! And also found it interesting that Pinder's book -- the only one of the books you list that's available online -- correctly treated such coins as Roman Provincial coins as long ago as 1856, long before all of these categories were apparently fixed in stone.

 

Thanks for the post on this 1998 Jörg Müller article! While, for me, it falls short of being fully convincing that the series should be split into two groups and the first group shifted by ~5 years later, it does raise some good concerns and offers a reminder of how lightly supported by evidence some "facts" can be.

Further reinforced by this interesting article relevant to dated Cistophori:
Rigsby, K. (1979). The Era of the Province of Asia. Phoenix, 33(1), 39-47.

Rigsby starts out clearly with : "What is more disturbing about the era, is that in 134/3 the Province of Asia did not exist". He makes the case that 134/3 BC was a civic era related to the granting of freedom by Attalus III to Ephesus.

Although it is nicer as a red cloth bound book - Kleiner and Noe is also available online, and easier to find in electronic form.

 

Thanks, @Sulla80. I have now read the Müller and Rigsby articles, and went through the Noe/Kleiner book looking at all the references to Tralles. So it seems that even though none of these sources addresses in detail the dating on the cistophoric tetradrachms of Tralles after it became a Roman province, if one applies to Tralles the authors' conclusions about the coins of Ephesos, etc., then the "Year 1" coins of Tralles -- traditionally assigned to 134/133 BCE -- would be pushed forward by about five years. Which would mean that my Year 8 coin should be dated at approximately 122/121 BCE rather than 127/126 or 126/125 BCE. What they say makes sense: it's hard to believe that these cities had the time (or the inclination) to start issuing coins dated by a new Roman era as soon as Attalus's will became public, particularly given the immediate rebellion of Aristonicus. (The issue of whether one accepts Müller's division of the dated coins of Ephesos into two separate groups in order to make sense of the chronology is irrelevant to the coins of Tralles.)

The Noe/Kleiner book, despite stating that "[t]he Tralles cistophori of 128-85 B.C. are not within the scope of this volume," does have one intriguing sentence and footnote specifically addressing the question of when Tralles issued its eight years of dated cistophori, including my coin:

"Series 27-31 are the latest Pergamene emissions in the 1928 hoard and must date to the years just prior to 128 B.C. No Pergamene piece with the civic badge of a serpent staff ( Plate X, 10) was included in that hoard or in the Yeşilhisar or Şahnah hoards of 130-128 B.C. There can be no doubt that the introduction of this device must have occurred after 128 and that the universally accepted date for this change in format (134/133 B.C.) must be rejected. It is now clear that the only city to begin to employ an invariable civic symbol in 134 was Ephesus. However attractive, the traditional view, which associates the Dionysus of Tralles, the flutes of Apameia, etc., with the reorganization of the Attalid cities by the Romans upon the formation of the Province of Asia,14 is negated by the abundant evidence to the contrary.

14
For example BMCLydia cxxxvif. The misdating of the Tralles pieces with ΠTOΛ and dates A to H was corrected by Regling, Frankfurter Münzzeitung 1932, pp. 506-7, 509-10."

Do you have any idea what the correction was, or, if you don't know, whether there's any easy way to find out?

Of course, none of this answers the question of why Tralles stopped issuing dated coins after Year 8, whenever Year 8 may have been. Or affects my separate discussion of whether or not provincial coins issued under the Republic should be categorized as Roman Provincial coins.

 

Yes – I agree up to a point. I suppose I would put my amateur opinion this way - China had a shot at what we might call ‘the full Keynsian’ around 1,900 years before the West.

But there are a lot of grey areas. Most specialists now agree that (say) in late Anglo-Saxon type changing, the state gave out perhaps two new pennies for three old ones on a six year cycle – and that often had nothing to do with weight or quality of metal. If so there was way more fiat value in such Western systems than collectors often assume.

Likewise, I suspect these Eastern Roman satellites we are discussing here were operating somewhat like 20th century soft currency zones, (where bullion values operated somewhat like 20th century black market rates).

Perhaps I should clarify the matter I mentioned concerning the Chinese Gunazi – in case anyone is interested.

That seems to date very early – before 300 BC. The scheme was to fund the state ‘secretly’ - without any overt tax collection at all. It does not matter if seigniorage is charged. All that matters is the state monopolises coin production. The scheme runs like this - at harvest time, grain is cheap – so the government buys a lot and stores it. So at that point the state ‘dumps’ coin into the market at a high price. Later in the year, grain prices rise. The state recovers its coin stock by dumping grain into the market at a high price. Then the cycle starts over.

Rob T

 

I saw your post on the cistophorus over on FB Donna. Of course, we get more intelligent debates here on CT than FB.

 

Indeed. A lot of likes, which is nice, but not one person responded substantively.