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<p>[QUOTE="NewStyleKing, post: 4511713, member: 106483"]THE BROADER BACKGROUND</p><p>I have suggested that there was a Great Transformation in coin design in the second quarter of the second century BC, and that by consideration of specific types against their specific civic historical background, we can begin to ‘read’these coinages and the messages that their issuers sought to convey. But, if this reading is correct, we cannot deny that this was, at the same time, a movement that was bigger than the individual city. Although their preoccupations were local, these coinages form part of a much broader shift in civic self-representation that is observable in other areas such as the appearance of gods to groups of citizens, the development of cults and attendant festivals and, we might add, the requests for recognition of Asylia that frequently accompanied the announcement of such festivals on the international stage. In this sense, therefore, it is important that we view this ‘Great Transformation’ in coin design against a broader background than merely coinage.But here we return to the tension noted earlier between local and general explanations for iconographic choices. In this context we must consider the question that has been posed by the editors of this volume about issuers and audience, intent and reception. The types I have been discussing were local, polis-driven, and at that level capable of explanation at the local level, but in seeking to explain these choices we cannot ignore the more general phenomenon: the fact that it occurred in multiple cities at more or less the same time. Two major interrelated questions (at least) require answer: first, why now, in and shortly after the 160s BC? And, second why did</p><p>coinage respond in this particular way?These questions are susceptible to two types of answer. On the one hand we may appeal to general historical circumstances. A broad change in the political environment was taking place in Greece and Asia Minor in the 170s and 160s BC.Traditional models of monarchy were disappearing; Rome was arriving; and cities were becoming independent, some for the first time in living memory. As Polybius famously put it, “In the 149th Olympiad (184-180 BC) a greater number of embassies came to Rome from Greece than had ever been seen before”.</p><p>31</p><p> We may explain the growth of civic cults, and their fierce promotion by the cities they graced as the result of a peer-polity interaction of a particularly competitive kind.In this environment kings, leagues, other cities and perhaps, above all, Romans had to be convinced of the antiquity, venerability and Panhellenic importance of a city’s festival. Against this background we can read the Transformation of coinage as part of this promotional activity. On this somewhat modernistic interpretation, the issuers of the new iconography were the cities qua cities, and the audience was external.But I am personally reluctant to reduce Greek religious expression to such entirely instrumental interpretation. Epiphanies were not invented; belief in a local deity was not a matter of choice or convenience. The local cult was part of local identity and the recognition of that cult through ritual acts and service was part of what bound the</p><p> polis together. In this sense we might view the issuers of these coins as the communal whole of the city, but the audience as being the same communal whole. The designs chosen served as communal self-reinforcement in a period of communal crisis of identity.Another form of explanation that we may pursue is numismatic, and can be appreciated most clearly if we turn to one aspect of the Great Transformation that I have not yet outlined: a significant number of the cities we have surveyed had in fact recently issued Attic weight coinage before the Great Transformation,but they had done so in the form of posthumous Alexanders or Lysimachi. So, for example, Cyzicus, Lampsakos, Parion, Alexandria Troas, Tenedos, Kyme,Myrina, Mytilene, Klazomenai, Kolophon, Lebedos, Magnesia, Miletos, Priene,Smyrna, Teos, Samos, Alabanda, Knidos, Kos and Phaselis.</p><p>32</p><p> But by the mid 150s all of these coinages had ceased, to be replaced by the new, civic types.Here once more, we return to our tension between the local and the general.These posthumous royal coinages had been Hellenic coinages, wherein local identity had been suppressed in favour of universal acceptability. Types were chosen on the basis of the economic message they conveyed. The extraordinary feature of the second century post-Transformation issues is that economically they were no different from the Alexanders they followed, either in intent or,apparently, behaviour. They were Attic weight coins, and circulated far beyond their cities of issue.</p><p>33</p><p> So they were both epichoric in design and Hellenic in nature. What seems to have happened is that the issuers of these coins were now free to ignore one audience for their coins, and concentrate on another.So we have to ask why these cities abandoned such convenient ‘Hellenic’designs in favour of their new esoteric, locally motivated types. And how did coinage come to be the place for the expression of such local religious concerns?[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>
[QUOTE="NewStyleKing, post: 4511713, member: 106483"]THE BROADER BACKGROUND I have suggested that there was a Great Transformation in coin design in the second quarter of the second century BC, and that by consideration of specific types against their specific civic historical background, we can begin to ‘read’these coinages and the messages that their issuers sought to convey. But, if this reading is correct, we cannot deny that this was, at the same time, a movement that was bigger than the individual city. Although their preoccupations were local, these coinages form part of a much broader shift in civic self-representation that is observable in other areas such as the appearance of gods to groups of citizens, the development of cults and attendant festivals and, we might add, the requests for recognition of Asylia that frequently accompanied the announcement of such festivals on the international stage. In this sense, therefore, it is important that we view this ‘Great Transformation’ in coin design against a broader background than merely coinage.But here we return to the tension noted earlier between local and general explanations for iconographic choices. In this context we must consider the question that has been posed by the editors of this volume about issuers and audience, intent and reception. The types I have been discussing were local, polis-driven, and at that level capable of explanation at the local level, but in seeking to explain these choices we cannot ignore the more general phenomenon: the fact that it occurred in multiple cities at more or less the same time. Two major interrelated questions (at least) require answer: first, why now, in and shortly after the 160s BC? And, second why did coinage respond in this particular way?These questions are susceptible to two types of answer. On the one hand we may appeal to general historical circumstances. A broad change in the political environment was taking place in Greece and Asia Minor in the 170s and 160s BC.Traditional models of monarchy were disappearing; Rome was arriving; and cities were becoming independent, some for the first time in living memory. As Polybius famously put it, “In the 149th Olympiad (184-180 BC) a greater number of embassies came to Rome from Greece than had ever been seen before”. 31 We may explain the growth of civic cults, and their fierce promotion by the cities they graced as the result of a peer-polity interaction of a particularly competitive kind.In this environment kings, leagues, other cities and perhaps, above all, Romans had to be convinced of the antiquity, venerability and Panhellenic importance of a city’s festival. Against this background we can read the Transformation of coinage as part of this promotional activity. On this somewhat modernistic interpretation, the issuers of the new iconography were the cities qua cities, and the audience was external.But I am personally reluctant to reduce Greek religious expression to such entirely instrumental interpretation. Epiphanies were not invented; belief in a local deity was not a matter of choice or convenience. The local cult was part of local identity and the recognition of that cult through ritual acts and service was part of what bound the polis together. In this sense we might view the issuers of these coins as the communal whole of the city, but the audience as being the same communal whole. The designs chosen served as communal self-reinforcement in a period of communal crisis of identity.Another form of explanation that we may pursue is numismatic, and can be appreciated most clearly if we turn to one aspect of the Great Transformation that I have not yet outlined: a significant number of the cities we have surveyed had in fact recently issued Attic weight coinage before the Great Transformation,but they had done so in the form of posthumous Alexanders or Lysimachi. So, for example, Cyzicus, Lampsakos, Parion, Alexandria Troas, Tenedos, Kyme,Myrina, Mytilene, Klazomenai, Kolophon, Lebedos, Magnesia, Miletos, Priene,Smyrna, Teos, Samos, Alabanda, Knidos, Kos and Phaselis. 32 But by the mid 150s all of these coinages had ceased, to be replaced by the new, civic types.Here once more, we return to our tension between the local and the general.These posthumous royal coinages had been Hellenic coinages, wherein local identity had been suppressed in favour of universal acceptability. Types were chosen on the basis of the economic message they conveyed. The extraordinary feature of the second century post-Transformation issues is that economically they were no different from the Alexanders they followed, either in intent or,apparently, behaviour. They were Attic weight coins, and circulated far beyond their cities of issue. 33 So they were both epichoric in design and Hellenic in nature. What seems to have happened is that the issuers of these coins were now free to ignore one audience for their coins, and concentrate on another.So we have to ask why these cities abandoned such convenient ‘Hellenic’designs in favour of their new esoteric, locally motivated types. And how did coinage come to be the place for the expression of such local religious concerns?[/QUOTE]
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