Coins, Riches and Lands. Paying for Military Manpower in Antiquity and Early Medieval Times (2025)

Monedas, riquezas y tierras. Reclutamiento de soldados y licenciamiento de veteranos en la Antigüedad y en la Temprana Edad Media /Coins, Riches and Lands. Recruiting Soldiers and Discharging Veterans in Antiquity and Early Medieval Times

The aim of the conference is to advance the study on the topic of military connectivity around the Ancient Mediterranean and Central and Northern Europe from Hellenistic to early Byzantine times. We are also concerned to examine both theoretical and regional approaches regarding the transfer of coins, riches and lands and the building of political bodies and epic tales.

Coin supply and the Roman army revisited: coin finds and military finance in the late-first and second centuries AD. In: M. Reddé (ed.), De l’or pour les braves ! Soldes, armées et circulation monétaire dans le monde romain. Scripta Antiqua 69 (Bordeaux 2014) 161-179.

This paper takes up anew the subject of a paper presented at the 16th Limes Congress in Kerkrade, Netherlands in 1995 on coin supply and the Roman army, looking at how coinage was actually supplied to soldiers from the Augustan to the Antonine periods 1. Here the topic is revisited, looking at new evidence and a number of ideas proposed by other scholars in recent years, putting them into a broader perspective of imperial financial, administrative and strategic policy.

Armies poorly paid in coins (the Anabasis of the Ten-Thousands) and coins for soldiers poorly transformed by the markets (the Hellenistic Thasian-Type tetradrachms) in Ancient Greece

This paper focuses on two counter-examples for which highly valuable coins issued to pay Greek mercenaries were poorly used on the markets. Either – and that is a radical motive indeed – because soldiers were not or poorly paid in coins (as it was the case with the Anabasis of the Ten-Thousands, 401-399 BC), or – and that must not be underestimated as well – because the vast amount of precious coins issued and given to them were brought back in contexts leaving few opportunities to make a monetary use of these coins, which are thus better understood as special purpose money (as with the bulk of the Thasian type tetradrachms struck at the end of the 2nd and the first half of the 1st c. BC).

Monedas y ejércitos pseudo-imperiales en la Galia merovingia / Pseudo-Imperial coins and Pseudo-Imperial armies in Merovingian Gaul

2021

El propósito de esta conferencia es profundizar en el estudio de las conexiones militares en torno al mar Mediterráneo y el centro y norte de Europa, desde los tiempos del clasicismo griego hasta la temprana edad bizantina y musulmana. Interesa también examinar aspectos teóricos y regionales en torno a la transferencia de riquezas (monedas, joyas) y de tierras, así como a la conformación de cuerpos políticos específicos y narraciones épica. The aim of this conference is to advance the study on the topic of military connectivity around the Ancient Mediterranean and Central and Northern Europe, from Classic Greece to early Byzantine and Muslim times. We are also concerned to examine both theoretical and regional approaches to the transfer of riches (coins, jewelry) and lands and the building of specific political bodies and epic tales.

Bought loyalty? Cash distributions in times of large scale troop movements, in A Morillo et al. (eds.), Limes XX. Roman frontier studies. Anejos de Gladius 13 (Madrid): 847-854

Abramzon M. 2024. Purses of Mithridates' Mercenaries From The Cimmerian Bosporus. PROPONTICA, March 2024, 2 (3): 111-132

This article examines the numismatic sources from the Cimmerian Bosporus: hoards representing soldiers’ purses, cases of cash payments for rations, as well as the coinages minted to make these payments during the Mithridatic Wars. Several hoards of a military context came from this time, consisting of coins, which were precisely used for the allowances of soldiers. On the one hand, these hoards provide evidence of the payment made to Mithridates’ mercenaries who served in garrisons in cities and in their chora to protect the grain-producing areas that supplied the king’s army with bread. Such hoards consist of silver or bronze coinages specially minted for military payments in Bosporus. However, except for two cases of wage payment made to the garrison in silver (CH XI, 137, 138), using bronze coins for military payments is characteristic of the Bosporus in the Late Hellenistic period. On the other hand, at least five garrisons in Bosporus, whose existence has been attested due to finds of soldiers’ purses, are in Tyritace (IGCH 1145 = СΗ ΧΙ, 140), Myrmecium (CH XI, 116, 141), Patraeus (CH XI, 142), Phanagoria (CH XI, 145A-B) and the Vyshesteblievskaya 3 settlement, located in the grain-producing area subordinate to Phanagoria. These purses show that during the Mithridatic Wars, mercenaries were paid in Bosporan and Pontic bronze coins of significant denominations, which apparently amounted to less than an obol per day. The purses of mercenaries containing the same amount indicate the approximate level of their pay, equal to 22(?) obols per month. The case of Bosporus demonstrates the success of one of the major innovations of the Hellenistic period – the systematic use of bronze for military payment.

The Origins of Money in the Iron Age Mediterranean World

The Origins of Money in the Iron Age Mediterranean World, 2021

This book shows how money emerged and spread in the eastern Mediterranean, centuries before the invention of coinage. While the invention of coinage in Ancient Lydia around 630 BCE is widely regarded as one of the defining innovations of the ancient world, money itself was never invented. It gained critical weight in the Iron Age (ca. 1200 – 600 BCE) as a social and economic tool, most dominantly in the form of precious metal bullion. This book is the first study to comprehensively engage with the early history of money in the Iron Age Mediterranean, tracing its development in the Levant and the Aegean. Building on a detailed study of precious metal hoards, Elon D. Heymans deploys a wide range of sources, both textual and material, to rethink money's role and origins in the history of the eastern Mediterranean. Color versions of select print images available on the Resources tab (or here: www.cambridge.org/heymans) or in the digital version on Cambridge Core (https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108975322).

Coins and Coinage in the Iberian Early Medieval Documents.

Beyond the Reconquista, 2020

Purses of Mithridates' Mercenaries From The Cimmerian Bosporus Mithridates'in Kimmer Bosporuslu Paralı Askerlerinin Para Keseleri

PROPONTICA, 2024

This article examines the numismatic sources from the Cimmerian Bosporus: hoards representing soldiers' purses, cases of cash payments for rations, as well as the coinages minted to make these payments during the Mithridatic Wars. Several hoards of a military context came from this time, consisting of coins, which were precisely used for the allowances of soldiers. On the one hand, these hoards provide evidence of the payment made to Mithridates' mercenaries who served in garrisons in cities and in their chora to protect the grain-producing areas that supplied the king's army with bread. Such hoards consist of silver or bronze coinages specially minted for military payments in Bosporus. However, except for two cases of wage payment made to the garrison in silver (CH XI, 137, 138), using bronze coins for military payments is characteristic of the Bosporus in the Late Hellenistic period. On the other hand, at least five garrisons in Bosporus, whose existence has been attested due to finds of soldiers' purses, are in Tyritace (IGCH 1145 = СΗ ΧΙ, 140), Myrmecium (CH XI, 116, 141), Patraeus (CH XI, 142), Phanagoria (CH XI, 145A-B) and the Vyshesteblievskaya 3 settlement, located in the grain-producing area subordinate to Phanagoria. These purses show that during the Mithridatic Wars, mercenaries were paid in Bosporan and Pontic bronze coins of significant denominations, which apparently amounted to less than an obol per day. The purses of mercenaries containing the same amount indicate the approximate level of their pay, equal to 22(?) obols per month. The case of Bosporus demonstrates the success of one of the major innovations of the Hellenistic period-the systematic use of bronze for military payment.

Engaging with money in a northern periphery of early modern Europe

This paper which appeared in JSA was co-authored with Vesa-Pekka Herva, and Risto Nurmi While contextual and interpretive approaches to money have recently emerged in archaeology, coins have attracted little serious attention in the post-medieval archaeology of the Western world. The relative neglect of coins as archaeological finds probably derives from an (implicit) assumption that the function and meaning of coins is readily apparent. A close study of coin finds, however, combined with various sources of contextual data, can provide new views on how people understood and engaged with money even in the comparatively recent past, as this paper seeks to illustrate by considering money and coins finds from a northern periphery of early modern Sweden. Economic factors are important for appreciating the significance of coinage and the patterning of the studied coin finds, but this paper proposes that non-monetary uses of coins were more important to the local understanding of money than has previously been recognized. "

Identifying, documenting and understanding the transfer of blocks of minor foreign and obsolete coins in antiquity, for use as money: a note on methodology

Contexts and the Contextualization of Coin Finds. Proceedings of the Sixth International Colloquium of the Swiss Group for the Study of Coin Finds (Geneva, March 5th-7th 2010) (Studies in Numismatics and Monetary History 8), 2019

In recent years, it has become clear that blocks of minor foreign3 and obsolete coin were occasionally transferred across great distances in Antiquity, occasionally across polities, for use as money. The study of imported small change can provide important historical insights, and the presence of particular issues can be invoked to identify patterns of trade and the movement of armies. We are, however, here interested in cases where one cannot explain the presence of such coins as casual losses by travellers, traders and soldiers; booty taken in war; or cash brought by foreign merchants to purchase goods. We focus instead on the rarer case where foreign coins were imported for direct use as money. The interpretation of the relevant evidence is delicate, because the unwarranted identification of the type of block transfers that we discuss in this note can falsify historical understanding as much as the failure to identify them; and so the phenomenon must be approached on a case-by-case basis, with a careful testing of the evidence. We think it useful to discuss systematically criteria that can help isolate such blocks from the more usual sporadic flow of coin between places in the Ancient World.

A coin hoard from the time of the First Crusade, found in the Near-East

Revue numismatique, 2003

The authors will describe 624 coins - with one exception all of them French feudal deniers - that were found in 2000 in the Middle-East. They will examine their meaning for the numismatics of the Crusades. Assuming that the hoard dates from the First Crusade, the authors will, amongst other things, investigate the question whether and to what extent the account of the contemporary chronicler Raymond ď Aguilers about the « official » Crusader's money can be confirmed.

M. P. García-Bellido, L. Callegarin and A. Jiménez (eds.), Barter, Money and Coinage in the Ancient Mediterranean (10th - 1st c. BC). Anejos de Archivo Español de Arqueología 58. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 2011.

2011

Money in Classical Antiquity (2010) Preliminaries

Coinages and economic practices between the 3rd century and the beginning of the 2nd century BC

Kysela, J. et G. Pierrevelcin (coord.), Actes du 42e Colloque international de l’AFEAF, 2020

In the Celtic world, numismatic research has mainly focused on the oppida civilization (late 2nd-1st century BC), a period during which monetarisation of societies was important, the data is abundant, and archaeological contexts are plenty. Focusing on the 3rd century and the beginning of the 2nd century BC, this article deals with early realities, less commonly studied. So far, most approaches have focused either on specific coinages which have been studied separately, or on targeted regions. The novelty of our approach is to understand the phenomenon of the appea- rance of coinage on the scale of Celtic Europe. In order to sketch a transversal view between Gaul and Central Europe, this article is structured in three parts: 1) Chronology. We will look at the difficult dating of the oldest Celtic coins by using new archaeological data and recent studies.1 2) Circulation. A first cartographic approach will be carried out on a European scale to study the circulation of the first Celtic coinages. 3) Uses. We should ask ourselves whether the gradual development in the monetarisation of the Celtic economy, the model that is often proposed, is not too simplistic (Wigg-Wolf 2011). The purpose of this article is not to deliver a comprehensive approach, but to lay the groundwork for common reflection. Our study is made possible by the evolution of knowledge over the last decades, particularly through the development of archaeo- logical excavations and non-destructive elemental analyses that have led to a considerable renewal of our knowledge base.

The City and the Coin in the Ancient and Early Medieval Worlds

Cities have tended throughout history to be the preferred location for the minting and circulation of coins and coinage has in turn generally reflected the importance of many of these cities. This work, a collection of eleven contributions, explores the relationship between cities and coinage during the extended period beginning in the third century BC and continuing up to the tenth century AD. Contents: 1) Ethnic, cultural and civic identities in Ancient Coinage of the Southern Iberian Peninsula (3rd C. BC - 1st C. AD) (Bartolome Mora Serrano and Gonzalo Cruz Andreotti); 2) Cities, drachmae, denarii and the Roman conquest of Hispania (Manuel Gozalbes); 3) The Coinage of C. Annius Luscus (Borja Antela-Bernardez); 4) Garrisons, coins and war stress (89-63 BCE) in Late Hellenistic towns (Toni Naco del Hoyo); 5) Agrippine la Jeune et la monnaie: de la princesse a la 'régente' (Virginie Girod); 6) The Coinage of Carthago Nova and the Roman fleet of Missenum: Imperial triumphs and local deductions (Fernando Lopez Sanchez); 7) Monuments, myth and small change in Buthrotum (Butrint) during the Early Empire (Richard Abdy); 8) Actia Nicopolis. Coinage, currency and civic identity (27 BC-AD 268) (Dario Calomino); 9) The Mint cities of the Kushan Empire (Robert Bracey); 10) Les derniers monnayages d'argent de l'antiquite tardive en Gaule du nord : les argentei au type a la Rome assise de moins de 0.9 g (Philippe Schiesser); 11) Towns and minting in Northern Europe in the Early Middle Ages (Gareth Williams)

Money, art, and the construction of value in the ancient Mediterranean (2012)

One of the most critical developments in the course of Mediterranean history was the invention of coinage. The quest for metals-the very commodities that define our periodization of ancient Greece (Copper Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age)-is not simply an issue of technological innovations, the vicissitudes of supply, or the mechanics of regional networks but a real search for structuring commodities of value that ultimately leads to an economic system of exchange not limited to elites. The culmination is the invention of coinage, which first occurs in western Anatolia and eastern Greece in the cultural milieu of the later seventh and sixth centuries B.C. It is an innovation with global consequences. In searching for the origins of coinage, the specifics of the particular cultural context are of paramount importance. By focusing on the early coinage of several Greek centers, more particularly on the emblems that certain city-states chose for their coinage, images that hark back to prehistoric measures of value-cattle, bronze tripods, grain-this paper challenges long-held assumptions as to the economic underpinnings of coinage. Struck by the state-the polis-these emblems sought to represent a collective identity. By boldly minting their identities on silver coinage, the Greek city-states chose money, the very vehicle of value, to create relations of dominance and to produce social orders that had not existed before.

Monetary Circulation in Palestine during the Byzantine Period (Fifth-Seventh Centuries CE)

2012

Il volume è stato sottoposto -nella forma del doppio anonimato -a peer-review di due esperti, di cui almeno uno esterno allo Scientific Board.

Paying and saving in gold in the Roman army

Journal of Ancient History and Archaeology, 2020

Starting from a recently discovered gold coin, aureus, of Vespasian in the military environment of Războieni-Cetate, Romania (in former Roman Dacia), the present study gathered the evidence of similar finds from the territory of former Roman Dacia. A comparative analysis with the evidence from well-documented sites from other Roman provinces (e.g. Britannia) and from ancient literary sources may lead to the conclusion that the military payments could have been made in gold coin, as well as the military would like to keep/save money in the same metal -easy to carry a highest value. Another aspect revealed by this study is the dating of an archaeological context based on numismatic evidence. The coin under study here together with the historical background of the site where it was found indicate that the coin could have been lost almost 30 years later from the date of minting.

Creating and Contesting Monetary Spaces in the Ancient Mediterranean