Hardly any aspect of modern life appears uninfluenced by the ancient Greece heritage of civilization. From language and literature to customs and habits and arts and sciences, all are rooted in the genius of our Greek ancestors. Old coins from Greece reveal that our modern coin’s look is also a reflection of the ancient Greek coinage. This sparks the hobbyist’s curiosity to look back in time and discover the features of old coins used in ancient Greece.

Beginning of Coin Making

Famous historian Herodotus pointed that the first coins appeared at around 600 BC in Lydia (now Western Turkey), though China, too, is credited with the invention of coin at the same time. The names of these old coins from Lydia are not known, but around 450 BC, the Greek city-states knew common use of coins for commerce.

Evolution of Old Coins in Greece

Before the advent of drachma, the inhabitants of Athens used obol as the standard form of currency. It was not like the modern coin but shaped like a small rod made of iron. Interestingly, an average adult individual’s fist could accommodate a maximum of six obols. This became a rule and six obols were officially announced as one new currency-the drachma (which literrlay means a ‘handful’). The first silver coins were introduced in Aegina Island by Pheidon, president of the Olympic Games of his time. Some of these coins were round, others elongated. These carried a squre depression and the city’s emblem on its two sides. Later, he minted coins with sea-wolf figure.

It was Pheidon again who applied his own numismatic system to values of coins. By this, six obols made a drachma, a hundred drachmas made one Mna, and sixty Mnas made a Talent. The weight and value of the Talent varied from one place to another. Gold, silver, and bronze Talent were used at that time, of which the silver Talent was more popular.

Pheidon aslo offered the coins in Aegina to the goddess Hera at the Temple of Argos. The Numismatic Museum in Athens has preserved these old coins used in offering. The well-known drachma carrying the stamp of the owlhead and made of Laurion silver had been established in Greece by 600 BC. Its weight exceeded four grams. Southern Italy, where the Greeks had settled, received the drachma before long.

The Romans then used bronze bars for payment and they prompted to start using coins at about 300 BC under the influence of drachma. Philip of Macedonia and his son Alexander the Great soon started extensive use of gold and silver coins for paying army and trade. An important change was the replacement of animals’ figures with that of the King, a practice that continues to date.