Greek Coins and Greek History

Abstract

ONE of the most interesting stamp collectors of my acquaintance is fond of explaining that his purpose in collecting is to make money. His collection is worth (and, he suggests, will some day bring him in) many times the amount he has paid for it. This is the only reason why he examines watermarks and perforations with minute care, why he seizes with glee at the Post Office wicket upon an imperfect sheet which has somehow escaped official vigilance. But he has never, to my knowledge, sold a stamp. He laughs with you at the follies of collectors, and yet when he shows you, with Olympian disdain, a fine (and, remember, valuable) example of a folly, behind his air of studied unconcern, his would-be mercenary appraisal, his eyes glow slightly and his voice deepens a little. We all know such collectors-of stamps, coins, first editions, roses, etchings, matchboxes, anything at all. Indeed most of us have succumbed ourselves, somehow, sometime, in some degree. But few of us believe our own excuses: that collecting teaches us history or geography or economics, that it springs from our love of beauty, that it will make us rich. We all suspect, or even think we know, that collecting, however rare, expensive, or beautiful its objects, is trivial. The comparative neglect of Greek coins by historians of Greece' is perhaps partly due to the justifiable suspicion with which we all regard the scientific value of collections. It is also due, to a considerable extent, to the fact that the study of Greek coins is still in its infancy, and a huge amount of detailed work must yet be done before dependable conclusions are available to the historian. Very few series have been published in sufficient detail, on the basis of a sufficient corpus of coins, to make even the comparative dating certain, let alone the historical interpretation of changes in type, in standard, or in fabric. The careful study of hoards, for instance, is surprisingly recent,2 yet the evidence of hoards forms a far sounder basis for chronology than that of style on which earlier scholars3 were largely dependent. Similarly, while the detailed study of die sequences4 will give absolute proof of the comparative dates of the coins of