Greek Imperial Medallions

Abstract

True medallions, in the sense in which the Roman bronze medallions proper have been defined, were unknown to the classical and Hellenistic Greeks. We have no evidence that their governments ever adopted, the practice of striking special coin-like pieces for distribution to selected individuals on special or solemn occasions. When they struck coins of unusually large size, such as the 50-litra Demareteia, to take the most obvious example, they appear to have done so because sudden wealth—that of Carthage, in Gelon's case—had come their way and lured them into ostentatious and reckless coining. In spite of their abnormal size these pieces formed part of the regular coinage and share their commemorative types with smaller pieces of the same series : they were essentially media of exchange; and neither in style nor content do they display that special character which distinguishes the majority of Roman money-medallions, or multiples in the precious metals, from the ordinary gold and silver currency. It was to commemorate his victory over Demetrius, probably in 167 b.c., and the annexation to Bactria of the Indus country that Eucratides minted his vast gold pieces of 20 Attic staters, known from the example in the Bibliothéque Nationale, Paris—the most hybristic display of opulence ever perpetrated by a minting authority in ancient times.