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The Earliest Preserved Greek Map: A New Ionian Coin Type

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

A. E. M. Johnston
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Extract

Because our knowledge of ancient cartography is extremely limited, owing to the lack of surviving examples, the discovery of an accurate and competent map as the reverse type of a rare series of coins dating from the fourth century B.C. is of enormous significance. For this is the earliest Greek map to come down to us in any form and the first physical relief map known. Hitherto we have had to rely on the descriptions of maps in the ancient authors as our sole source of information about early Ionian cartography, whereas now we have an actual example. One would not normally expect to find a map as a coin type; most ancient maps were presumably drawn on vellum or papyrus. Even today, with much more sophisticated techniques of engraving, maps are very rarely found on coins, although they are common on postage stamps. Babelon, Head and Imhoof-Blumer were consequently not likely to consider this solution in trying to decipher the reverse type in their discussion of this series around the turn of the century; the map has so far remained unrecognised.

Appropriately the coins are from Ionia, the home of Thales and Anaximander, the early geographers. Only 35 examples of this series of Rhodian-weight tetradrachms and 6 of the bronze of the same type have been traced (plates X–XI). The obverse type is the figure of the Persian king, running or kneeling right, wearing the kidaris and candys, and holding a bow in his left hand and a spear in his right. The reverse is a rectangular incuse with irregular raised areas and is usually heavily stippled. The style of the reverse changes considerably, but the type is recognisable throughout as a map depicting the physical relief of the hinterland of Ephesus, an area of approximately 90 square miles (plate IX). It is unique both as a coin type and as a map.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 87 , November 1967 , pp. 86 - 94
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1967

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References

The author wishes to thank Kenneth Jenkins and Colin Kraay for their assistance, together with the Cabinets of Paris and Berlin. She also acknowledges a particular debt of gratitude to Professor T. V. Buttrey for his patient help and encouragement. The map on Plate IX is reproduced by kind permission of the Controller, HMSO.

1 E.g. Brazil 1945, 2 cruzeiros; Formosa 1949, various denominations; Greece 1963, 30 drachmas.

2 The exact definition of the Rhodian standard is not clear: Babelon, (Traité i 500)Google Scholar gives the tetradrachm weight as 13.00 gm., but he is willing to accept our series and the Ephesian bee/stag issues as Rhodian, although their medians are much higher. Head, B. V. (Historia Numorum, [2nd ed. 1911] 962)Google Scholar gives the range 15.88–14.90 gm., which is too high, but he too accepts these coins as Rhodian. He does mention the possibility of the series being struck to the Phoenician standard, which overlaps with the Rhodian, but the other evidence suggests that the series must be Rhodian rather than Phoenician.

3 Head, B. V., The Coinage of Lydia and Persia (1877) 48–49Google Scholar; BMC Ionia (1890) 323–4.

4 Head, , ‘The Earliest Graeco-Bactrian and Graeco-Indian Coins’ in Numismatic Chronicle, 4th Series, vi (1906) 5–6.Google Scholar

5 Cunningham, Alexander, Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal (1881) 169–74.Google Scholar

6 Schlumberger, Daniel, ‘L'Argent Grec dans l'Empire Achéménide,’ 47, in Curiel, Raoul and Schlumberger, Daniel, Trésors Monétaires d'Afghanistan (Mémoires de la Délégation Française en Afghanistan xiv [1953]).Google Scholar

7 Babelon, , Traité ii 2, 137.Google Scholar

8 Sestini, , Lettere e Dissertazione Numismatiche (Livorno 1779) iii 146Google Scholar, nos. 7, 8, 9.

9 Imhoof-Blumer, , ‘Zur Griechischen und Römischen Münzkunde’ in Revue Suisse de Numismatique xiii (1906) 272 n.Google Scholar

10 BMC Ionia 323 n.

11 Traité ii 2, 130.

12 Traité plates lxxxviii, xci and cvii. Schwabacher, (Charites [1957] 27–32)Google Scholar has questioned the identification of the portraits.

13 Head's idea that Pythagorēs was himself a satrap can be discounted for the same reason.

14 AR Hunterian ii 328 no. 10; SNG von Aulock no. 1834.

AE Imhoof-Blumer, , Kleinasiatische Münzen i 50Google Scholar; Paris (Babelon, , Traité ii 2, 1107Google Scholar).

15 Head, , ‘Coinage of Ephesus, Addenda and Corrigenda’ in Numismatic Chronicle, 3rd Series, i (1881) 13–15.Google Scholar

16 Attributed by Babelon to Evagoras II of Cyprus, , Traité ii 2, 162 no. 117, pl. xciGoogle Scholar, 7, but more probably of Carian origin.

17 Babelon, , Traité plates cxviii–cxxi; cvi; cvii.Google Scholar

18 See footnote 21.

19 Babelon, : ‘Monnaies des Satrapes,’ Revue Numismatique 3rd Series, x (1892) 416.Google Scholar

20 Arrian, , Anabasis of Alexander i 13–15.Google Scholar

21 Schlumberger's suggestion (op. cit. 58–62) that Alexander was responsible for this series is dubious. The obverse type of the Persian king does not, on the face of it, seem likely to be found under Alexander; though there are instances of Alexander having permitted Persian types to continue, as in Babylon under Mazaios, he also introduced his own types. Babelon, devotes a chapter (Traité ii 2, 478–96)Google Scholar to the issues attributed to Alexander's generals which bear the obverse type of the running king and Greek monograms, but the validity of this attribution remains in doubt. The Greek monograms do not necessarily suggest post-Alexandrian date since local languages were used on the coinage of the Persian empire. Schlumberger presumably considers this series to be similar to the darics and sigloi, with the same obverse and no reverse type and hence believes it to be a continuation of an old type rather than the introduction of a new one, which we can see it to be now that the reverse type has been recognised. Another consideration is the date of operation of the Ephesian mint, which Bellinger, and Thompson, (‘Greek Coins in the Yale Collection, IV: A Hoard of Alexander Drachms’ in Yale Classical Studies xiv [1955])Google Scholar believe to have been closed by Alexander because of the disturbance in the city following his victory. Therefore the coins must have been struck before Alexander arrived, if the attribution to Ephesus is valid.

22 Schlumberger, op. cit. 58.

23 Naster, Paul, Catalogue des Monnaies Grecques, La Collection Lucien de Hirsch (1959) no. 1528.Google Scholar

24 Babelon, , Traité ii 2, 133.Google Scholar

25 Traité ii 2, 133.

26 Babelon, , Traité plate liv, 17.Google Scholar

27 Seltman, Charles, Greek Coins 2 (1955) plate lxi, 1.Google Scholar

28 Babelon, , Traité plate xiii, 5.Google Scholar

29 Babelon, , Traité plate xxv, 13.Google Scholar

30 British Naval Intelligence—Turkey (1942) i pl. 114.

31 Cary, M., Geographic Background of Greek and Roman History (1949) 151.Google Scholar

32 Nordenskiöld, A. E., Facsimile Atlas to the Early History of Cartography (1889) 35.Google Scholar

33 This totally vertical conception is also to be found on the type of certain drachms of Zancle, which shows the harbour with buildings along the quays as seen from above.

34 Herodotus v 49.