Were Ancient Greek coins of different metals but the same denomination worth the same?

For example:

Both of these coins are "octodrachms" = 8 drachmae.

But did they have the same value?

It doesn't seem likely considering there is almost equal amounts of gold & silver in both coins (~27-30g) yet gold was worth more than silver by a factor of 10 or more in those days.

So I'm assuming gold drachmae and silver drachmae were worth different amounts.

Can someone explain how this worked?

Thanks!

 

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The Arsinoe II coin is more commonly referred to as a 'Mnaieion'.

An ordinary soldier in third-century Ptolemaic Egypt was paid 1 drachm per day, thus 30 drachms per month. (The Egyptian month was exactly 30 days long.) The 'Mnaieion' was equal to a soldier’s pay for 100 days.

So (1) 'Mnaieion' = (12.5) AR 'Octodrachms'.

I suppose referring to the AV coin as an 'Octodrachm' seems like something a lazy Numismatist might have done.

I mean try saying 'Mnaieion' 10x fast

 

So I am guessing a 'Mnaieion' would not be spent on common daily purchases but rather on super expensive purchases?

Like maybe buying a slave or a full set of armor (greaves, breastplate, helmet, shield) or a weapon?

Whereas the silver "Octodrachm" was for smaller (but not exactly small since I'm guessing nearly 1oz of silver was still a considerable sum in those days) transactions like buying a pig or some wine?

Does that sound about right?

 

Wayne Sayles gives the following, very general table of daily income and prices in Athens in the 5th to 4th century BC. It is certainly possible to go into much greater scholarly detail, but this might give you an idea of the purchasing power of an Athenian weight standard drachm in classical Greece:


From Wayne Sayles: Ancient Coin Collecting II: Numismatik Art of the Greek World, 2nd ed (Iola: Krause 2007). I recommend buying this book!

An octodrachm thus would have been more than the weekly income of a skilled laborer. It would have bought you about 40 liters of wine, 400 pounds of dried figs, or a pair of shoes. Industrialization has certainly changed the market value of some goods!

 

Man, they must have had figs coming out of their ears in the ancient Mediterranean! 25 kg of figs are far more expensive these days than they were then. These 12.5 kg boxes are the least expensive dried figs I could find in bulk. Two boxes (25 kg) cost $234 and that's just 1/8 the price of a pair of shoes in ancient times!!!

 

To clarify, this is what a silver octodrachm would buy. Gold was valued roughly 16:1 - the coin in the OP would have bought considerably more - 100 sheep has been mentioned in various descriptions I've encountered.

 

Yeah, I never heard why they are not considered tetrastaters or something. The Ptolemaic empire was Greek, so you would think their gold coins would have been in denominations of staters.

 

Those prices are fascinating.

It implies that for the price of 1 horse someone could buy 120 goats.

With 120 goats someone could easily sustain a living by making goat's milk cheese and selling them as meat allowing nature to reproduce the stock.

But that doesn't explain why 2 coins of nearly equal weight are both called "octodrachms" when one is silver and one is gold.

Surely 27 grams of gold was worth more than 30 grams of silver just like today.

 

I believe it was answered that Octodrachm in relation to the gold piece is really a lazy misnomer by some numismatists. It was called a Mnaieion in reality, but like I said I never was able to find out why we do not call them something like a gold tetrastater like we do most similar multiples of gold coins.

 

Yeah it was answered by someone else but I was replying to the other guy.

 

From other postings I have read, there are not many coins from antiquity that had names that were passed down to us. Ancient guys, correct me if I am wrong. Secondly, aren't the two coins you showed from different countries...an American dollar is not worth what a Canadian dollar is worth.

 

I agree. Early Roman and some greek areas, (especially classically greek), are our main areas we know what the coins were called.

Coins are weird. They are so universal in cultures that usually they do not really mention them. Most writing was about science, poetry, history, geography, etc. Normal things related to everyday life usually is not mentioned, if writing from that civilization survives at all.

For most cultures, try to find out recipes for their favorite dishes, what gifts they exchanged, etc. "Boring" everyday life, even if we still have writing from them, simply was not documented. Remember most people were illiterate, and paper was very expensive. It was not viewed worthy of writing down, unlike today where with the internet you can find 100,000 recipes with a click, and find out more than I ever want to know about Kim Kardashian.

 

This is where the flaws come in when we discuss the stability of gold; that gold keeps its buying power through centuries and millennials. A price does just as well reflect the prodictivity and efficiency in a given field. An ounce of gold will buy far more shoes now than back in Athens 400 BC, for example.

Could you pass the figs, please?

 

I'll take some figs. And a piece of salt fish.

 

Not to mention, comparing which shoes? Are we comparing a $10 pair from Walmart or a $1500+ pair of big name shoes?

I find it fascinating that an architect made only twice the wage of an Acropolis laborer. Try hiring an architect at that rate today!

I don't know what they called these coins in ancient times, but I know in some denominations, for example the shekel, the name originally referred to weight rather than value and came from a time before coins of standard denominations were invented. Thus any metal might have the name, but its value would be determined by the metal and its purity.

And yes, I'll take some of those figs, please. Oh, wait, I don't have a drachm on me.

 

Isn't it called an AV octodrachm just because that is what would weight an octodrachm in the Phoenician standard. I do agree that the particular gold coin was called differently.
Obviously AV isn't equal in value as AR. You also had an AR stater and an AV stater.

 

Yes they are both from different areas but both are Greek. Even if one was under control of the Persians.

A US Dollar printed at the San Francisco Mint in California is worth the same as a US Dollar printed at the Philadelphia Mint.

My guess is that it’s a lot like staters where they had gold & silver coins of the same currency but one was worth more than the other.

Like the person above posted.

So 8 silver drachmae was a lower value than 8 gold drachmae.

 

Wanna know what’s even crazier?

In Ancient Rome a mere pound of Imperial Purple Silk cost 150,000 denarius.

Why? Because the Tyrian purple used to make it had to be painstakingly farmed by crushing sea shells of a certain sea snail and it took like 100,000 snails to make a pound of Tyrian purple.

The Romans even had a legend about how it was first discovered when a dog was chewing on a sea snail shell and it turned his tongue purple leading to the discovery of how to make Tyrian purple dye.

The same price as a lion. If you happen to be in the market for one.

 

That's not true, take a cistophoric tetradrachm out of the Pergamene sphere and you got yourself a tridrachm.

 

To put it simply, they are both called "octodracm" because "drachm" is a unit of weight. Value depends not only on the weight but also on the metal.

The reality was much more complex of course with local standards, competing systems, inflation, royal fiat, etc.