Le nombre de chalques dans l'obole dans le monde grec

Abstract

Summary. - Inscriptional and papyrological evidence has shown that the number of chalkoi to the obol differs from one city to another and we can clearly distinguish two different categories of them : cities where the obol is divided in twelve chalkoi (aeginetan system) and cities where the obol is divided in eight obols (attic system). Literary sources and inscriptions as well as the coins themselves reveal that the multiples of chalkoi-frac- tions of the obol that were struck in both systems were fourths and halves of the obol, the number of chalkoi of each differing from one system to another. As long as the « attic » system of the eight chalkoi to the obol is concerned, bronze coins were introduced by the city of Athens only during the 360, fifty years after Corinth and other Greek cities. We can therefore suppose that the « attic » system was created on the model of the « aegine- tic » one. Archelaos of Macedonia, his successors to Alexander the Great and North Greek cities adopted the « aeginetan » system.