A question on Greek coin legends

Over the last 24 years, I have answered a number of questions for a number of people. Now I have one I would appreciate hearing answers from you. It is common knowledge that many Greek and Provincial coins express the name of the city in the genitive plural which translates "of the Athenians" rather than "Athens". Which coins of which city were first to use this genitive plural format? Understand that abbreviations do NOT count for this purpose so ΑΘΕ can not be said to mean 'of the Athenians'. I want it spelled out in all its grammar loving glory.

For example, this bronze of Gordian III shows the reverse legend ΑΔΡΙΑΝΟΠΟΛEΙΤΩΝ (ΩΝ ligate in exergue) so it reads of the Hadrianopolitans (people of Hadrianopolis) rather than just the name of the city.


This question hit me while watching an ANS video on YouTube where the speaker said that ΑΘΕ meant 'of the Athenians' but the ΑΘΕ legend was used many years before most coins had any legend or, at least, more than a letter or two and certainly not something that would get you credit on a Greek grammar test if asked to translate 'of the Athenians'. Gordian III lived about 800 years after the first ΑΘΕ legend coins. At some point the convention began. Where and when during those centuries do we legends spelled out using the genitive plural? Can anyone save me hours of research here?

 

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Greek is all Greek to me, but is POΔION [RODION] on coins of Rhodes in the genitive case? My oldest coin with that legend is an AR didrachm dating to ca. 340-316 BCE. If my guess is correct, that would leapfrog most of your 800-year gap.

 

(two disclaimers before I post: 1) I don't speak Greek and 2) you know a lot more about ancients than I)

I don't know when the convention started, but I can make the following observations from coins I know (and in fact are heading my way).
1) Coins of Uranopolis (300-290 BCE) use ΟΥΡΑΝΙΔΩΠΟΛΕΩΣ
2) Coins of Philippoi (356-345 BCE) use ΦΙΛΙΠΠΩΝ

I'd be curious to know myself the first coins to spell out the city name. Many of the earlier Greek coins I'm familiar with have the name of the magistrate instead of the city.

 

Interesting question. I wish I knew the answer.

The earliest coins in my collection that use it are 'ΝEΑΠΟΛΙΤΩΝ' and 'ΣΥΡΑΚΟΣΙΩΝ' respectively, both from the latter part of the 4th century BC. My Syracuse is an AE with faded legend struck under Agathokles, but staters with the legend ΣΥΡΑΚΟΣΙΩΝ were struck already under Timoleon.

The oldest coins I know of (that I don't own) to use this ending are these from Mende, dated mid 5th BC.:
Auction Lot (cngcoins.com)

and Naxos, from the same period:
Auction Lot (cngcoins.com)

There may well be older examples.

 

I think Donna has me beat.
Though, the oldest in my collection with the ΩΝ is referencing a culture from a millenia before, my coin is at best 140 years newer than hers...

CRETE, KNOSSOS.
AE (2.54 g), approx. 200-67 BC BC: head of the bearded Zeus to the right. Back: Labyrinth between ΚΝΩΣΙ / ΩΝ (I believe this means of. Svoronos, Crete 116.2.00, Lindgren. Nice. Ex BAC Numismatics 2/9/20201

 

Here's an article with a bit more information. The author suggests that this was done from the earliest times when city names appeared on coins, though he doesn't mention the first city to do that.

Also interesting is there are many exceptions, most notable being Tarentum. Another article I found suggests that in the case of Tarentum, Taras refers to the name-giver of the city instead of the inhabitants, and therefore is in the nominative.

 

Scratch that, I've got an "of the Katanians" from as early as 415 BCE:

Sicily, Katane
AR Litra. Circa 415/3-404 BC. Head of Silenos to left, wearing ivy wreath / ΚΑΤΑΝΑΙΩΝ Winged thunderbolt between two shields. Boehringer, Kataneische LI 6-7. Rizzo pl. XIV, 18 var. SNG ANS 1266. 0.71g, 10mm, 6h

 

I am not a historical linguist, really not a linguist of any stripe, but if I understand the question, which city began using the genitive plural, spelled out in ancient Greek, on its coins, wouldn't that be Syracuse? I can't think of anything earlier.

I have tetradrachm from Syracuse, 480 - 475 BC, with the legend ΣYPAKOΣIΩN, which translates to "Of the Syracusans", on the obverse, surrounding Arethusa.



Am I barking up the wrong tree?

 

You may win the prize. I would be surprised if anyone comes up with an earlier example.

 

It has been 53 years since my last Greek class but I (mis)read legends ending in ON as singular so possibly 'of the city' and those with the plural WN (or ΩN depending on which form of omega was current then and there) as meaning 'of the people of the city'. Many of you when to school and later worked in the field related to your studies. I studied Classical Languages and Literature and went in the Army at the suggestion of my draft board. You have no idea how rarely the Army asked me about anything ancient. My only Greek since 1968 has been on coins. One thing I do remember is that the language had a number of dialects and changed over the centuries. My favorite Greek professor had zero use for any Greek after about 300 BC and less than zero for the Greek of the New Testament. I really have no idea what the genitive plural of Syracuse or Syracusans was. I was hoping we had a member here with more experience and better memory.

For the record, 'Greek to me' refers to the idea that Greek is a hard language. I dropped a course in Egyptian Hieroglyphics the first week. Greek was not as easy as Latin but compared to Egyptian.......
A student at my school two years ahead of me did better with hieroglyphics and actually made it his life's work (Minspeak):
https://www.legacy.com/news/celebri...eak-for-nonverbal-peoples-aac-speech-devices/

 

Thanks, but I do think that there are even earlier dates for this type, but they are quite rare. Perhaps another CT member has such an example.

The Syracusans were able to fully write the legend due to the comparative large flans. The Athenians produced there owls on much narrower flans, so, being the clever people that they were abbreviated it "ΑΘΕ" for ΑΘΕΝΑΙΟΝ, a very early version of USA, or UK, if you will. They knew that the acronym would stick, and indeed it did, for over 450 years.

 

Mine has an early attribution



Syracuse
Gelon 485-478 BCE
AR Tet
24mm 16.7g
Slow Biga Victory
Arethusa 4 dolphins , ΣYPAKOΣIΩN
Sear-Greek S 914
Ex Charles Reeve

 

I found this image of a Syracusan tetradrachm, issued between 510 and 500 BC. It is extremely rare.

Image courtesy of the Money Museum.

Here's the link:

https://www.moneymuseum.com/en/coin-catalogue?&id=402

 

I'm going to wager an educated guess (before seeing a few examples already posted ITT); it was likely a Sicilian city.

 

I meant that the type/city may be the earliest, not your specific coin. So far, that seems to be the case .

 

Ah, I see what you're saying. It takes an hour or two for me to process information. I guess that's what I would have made a lousy attorney. All the brilliant arguments would come to me after losing the case.

Still, Alegandron's tetradrachm is somewhat earlier. It has the larger profile of Arethusa that I think typifies the earlier emissions.

I am not a specialist, only a type collector, so my knowledge is, at best, limited.

 

I have never come across any examples with just the city names (apart from ΤΑΡΑΣ). @DonnaML example may have been a potential suspect because of the lack of omega Ω in ΡΟΔΙΟΝ, but @robinjojo 's example also has a regular o instead, so that theory goes out of the window. Also, I would have expected that in that case it would be ΡΟΔΟΝ instead of ΡΟΔΙΟΝ. Let's not forget that Rhodian coins are all about the pun of the island's name and the popular flower also depicted on the coins.

The plot thickens when you take into account the various Greek dialects and their evolution over the centuries. Most of us have just a slight familiarity with the attic standard dialect used more widely in the scholar texts of the Hellenistic age, but things were a lot more complex, especially in archaic times. This basic Wikipedia article gives a taste of the number of dialects spoken in Greece and their territorial influence (some interesting maps in the article and a list of spelling evolution):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attic_Greek

So, in order to answer @dougsmit 's question we may need the help of a linguist after all.

 

I believe I found the answer I was seeking. It appears that sometime around 400BC, Syracuse changed the genitive plural form that ended -ION to the more modern -ΙΩΝ. I have no spelled out silver after the change but do have one bronze (AE21 - Nike sacrificing bull from the period of Roman rule after 212 BC) that shows it roughly at the reverse right.


That does allow the reading 'of the people of Syracuse' for the earlier ΣΥΡΑΚΟΣΙΟΝ coins but those prove nothing about the proper expansion of the Athenian coins over half a century earlier. It is interesting that the Greek word for Athens is found only in the plural suggesting that the city place name was not given but that the reference was to the (plural) people as a group who made up the city. I am way over my head here. It is Greek to me.

Thanks to those who posted. As I recall there are a couple of our CT regulars who have later silver of Syracuse using the omega but the answer to my question seems to be that Syracuse used the ΣΥΡΑΚΟΣΙΟΝ spelling in the mid 5th century. My example shows the O clearly under the point of the bust on the reverse. In researching this I learned that the K in ΣΥΡΑΚΟΣΙΟΝ was preceded by a qoppa on the earliest coins of this basic type. Does anyone have one?


I did find one replica for sale. It is a British Museum electrotype (better than a fake but not an 'ancient' ancient).
https://www.vcoins.com/en/stores/ma...etradrachm__archaic_style/949612/Default.aspx
At €475 for a fake, I doubt I will be buying an original.

Barking? No. Where you erred here was reading the letter omicron as omega. The coin reads ΣΥΡΑΚΟΣΙΟΝ not ΣYPAKOΣIΩN as would be found a century later.

The Money Museum is most certainly an example of the qoppa reading ΣYPAQOΣION made even more interesting by the use of Western form S and R letters rather than the 'normal' Greek Σ and Ρ. Since we are talking about a coin I will never own, I will turn this one down as 'defective' since there is a die crack that ruins the omicron following the qoppa and that qoppa has a weak bottom which I suspect is from a bad choice made by the person who cleaned the coin and did not polish that 'tail' which can be seen under the round and shiny part that looks like an o rather than q. I'd still rather have this 'defective but genuine' coin than the BM electrotype.

If anyone read this post to this point, you may see why I collect ancient coins and why coins being Mint State are not as important to me as coins I find 'interesting'. That is the whole point about ancients as a hobby. You can approach it from any standpoint you prefer. If any of you were looking for a present for me for Christmas, I would not mind a coin like the Money Museum specimen but MS 5/5 5/5 with a more clear qoppa and legend in general. I suspect such a coin would bring over $50k in a fair auction or over $100k in the current market where it would be bought by someone who would never look at it but just the label on its slab. To them, the qoppa would mean nothing.

 

Is the -ION ending with omikron also a genitive plural, like -ΙΩΝ with omega? My (rusty) Ancient Greek says -ION makes a word a neuter singular. So POΔION and ΣYPAQOΣION would be adjectives supposing a not mentioned neutral word, for instance 'nomisma', money. So we have '[money] from Rhodes' or 'Syracusian [money]'. That's different from ΣΥΡΑΚΟΣΙΩΝ '[money] of the Syracusians'.

But no doubt in the past, scholars have devoted thorough studies to these things. Probably German professors from their Golden Age of Philology, the late 19th century. It's only a question of finding the essays, or the handbooks.