Hellenistic Wreathed Coinages of the Aegean: An Introduction
 

Beginning about 166 BCE, Athens and a few Greek cities in the Northern Aegean began to issue a new style of silver coinage on the Attic standard. The coinage, mostly in tetradrachmas but also in minors and bronzes, was from its inception of the finest artistic style. The obverse featured a refined portrait of the titular god or goddess ( Athena, Artemis, Apollo ) of the issuing city, modeled no doubt upon the monumental cult statutes kept in the great temples at Athens, Ephesus, Kyme, etc. The reverse bore a large wreath circling some other symbol of the issuing city. “Wreath” in Greek is stephanos, hence a wreathed or wreath-bearing coinage is also called a “stephanophoric” coinage.

Wreathes on ancient Greek coinage were symbols of victory and this wreathed coinage was no exception. No doubt some important contemporary Panhellenic victory was being celebrated. The obvious event was the very recent victory at Pynda by the Roman general Aemilius Paullus, finally ending 200 years of domination of central Greece by the hated Macedonians. Paullus’ victory was widely hailed as a victory for all of Greece, and Athens was rewarded in 166 BCE with the opening (under her supervision) of a major free trade port at Delos.

The first issuers of stephanophorics were all partners with Athens in this Delian trade confederation, all striking autonomous simultaneous wreathed coinages as interchangeable and equivalent trade issues. Rome no doubt approved, and perhaps subsidized, this new style of coinage in an effort to displace the omni-present Macedonian “Alexanders”, which had been the de facto trade coinage of the Aegean for 200 years.

Ten years after the defeat of Macedonia another war broke out in the western Aegean and Asia Minor. his time Prusias II of Bithynia attacked Pergamon and several autonomous Greek Aegean cities including Kyme and Myrina. With Roman help, Prusias was soon crushed, and in 154 BCE, and as part of the peace settlement, Prusias was obliged to pay a huge indemnity of 100 talents of silver to the Greek cities that he had made war on. This massive infusion of silver into the victorious cities of the Greek Aegean, paid in installments over ten years or so, was undoubtedly the cause and source of the wreathed coinages of Kyme, Myrina, Aigiai, Magnesia, Heracleia and several other cities. Prusias’ silver began the wreathed tetradrachmas we now eagerly collect.

Most historians now agree: the wreathed coinages of these Greek cities celebrated their joint victory over Prusias, continuing both the fine artistic style of the earlier Athenian and other stephanophoric coinages and at the same time disseminating a non-Macedonian motif of trade coinage that Rome favored. Sadly, the wreathed coinage of these Greek cities, beginning in 154 BCE, lasted as long as the large but short-lived indemnity payments that supported it. Most of the issuing cities were not wealthy, and Prusias’ indemnity represented an infusion of silver greater than many years of domestic revenues. The stephanophoric coinages lasted perhaps ten to fifteen years on average, but in smaller cities like Magnesia, maybe only five years. Their short life spans and fine style guaranteed that the stephanophoric coinages would become sought-after rarities.

KYME: The largest issuer of stephanophorics, and one of largest and most properous Greek cities of the Aegean, was Doric Kyme. The history of Kyme is quite interesting and explains the unusual obverse type, the head of Kyme the Amazon. Kyme (Doric, Kyma) was a port on the Kymaios Kolpos ( modern Tchandarli Bay ), the most important Greek city of Æolis. It was founded by the Æolians in about the eleventh or the thirteenth century B.C., according to old traditions, by Pelops on his return from Greece. After defeating Oenomanos and expelling the current inhabitants, he gave to the city the name of Amazon Kyme, after a tribe of female warriors who were believed to be the original inhabitants of the area.

In several Greek myth, Amazons appear as an ancient tribe of female warriors, whose homeland was located in Scythia or Asia or at the outer edges of their known world. The legends appear to have had a nugget of factual basis in the case of women warriors among the Scythians, but the classical Greeks never ceased to be astounded at such role-reversals. Women in classical Greek society were expected to be passive and dependent on males. In modern usage, the word Amazon survives as referring to strong and independent women.

In any case, the stepanophoric tetradrachmas of Kyme sport on their obverse a finely modeled head of the titular goodess, Amazon Kyme. On the reverse, surrounded by a wreath, a spirited horse trots to the right, his left leg arched high in the air. Beneath the horse is the name of the supervising magistrate, for example, KALLIAS. Just beneath the horse’s raised hoof is one-handled cup, significance unknown. Further to right, extending vertically, is the so-called “ethnic”, KYMAION, meaning ( a coin ) of the Kymaions.

Kyme managed twelve issues of stepanophoric tetradrachmas—an issue is defined by the name of the supervising magistrate found on the reverse. Three of these issues were large, averaging over 18 known obverse dies per issues. Several issues were quite small (as the silver ran out?), and required only a few dies. Ten years or less could easily accommodate this whole series. Say from 154 to 145 BCE. Except for the accident of two large modern large finds in Turkey, the tetradrachmas of Kyme would be uncollectible rarities. Even so, it is doubtful if more than 1500 examples of that beautiful coinage survive.