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The Circulation of Coinage in Roman Corinth

Dilectio Nummorum - 2000

Most Recent Update: 22 February 2000

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Dilectio Nummorum is an on-line information exchange for the benefit of the classical numismatic hobby.  We seek to publish herein brief research and topical articles, news digests, and book reviews of potential interest to collectors and students of ancient and medieval coins.  In general, contributions should be no more than about 1,000 words. Contributions may be sent by e-mail as text files or attached Word files.  Photographs must be converted to JPEG format.

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The Circulation of Coinage in Roman Corinth

The excavations at Corinth have yielded tens of thousands of coins. The vast majority of those dating to the Principate are bronze or copper coins which seem to have been lost in the course of normal commerce, whether dropped in the street or misplaced by the owner. From a sample of 280 coins covering the period from Augustus through Caracalla, only 2.19% were silver, and the rest were bronze or copper.⁽¹⁾ For the sake of comparison, from a similar sample covering the 4th through the 2nd centuries B.C., the percentage of silver coins was 2.09%.⁽²⁾

Aside from the coinage updates in the annual excavation reports for Corinth, there have been several detailed reviews of the coinage published.⁽³⁾ Although these reports, by their very nature, are for the most part tabular listings of types, several analytical findings have been presented concerning the coinage of the early Roman Imperial era. Most notable is the fact that the Pegasus/Trident bronzes of the late Hellenistic era almost certainly circulated after the city's refoundation as Colonia Laus lulia Corinthiensis in 44 B.C.; these coins were most likely brought into the city from other locales in the Peloponnesos, where they had probably circulated more or less continuously since the destruction of Corinth in 146 B.C.⁽⁴⁾ Another interesting implication of the numismatic record for Corinth, specifically a surge in the loss rate for coins issued under the Severans, is that the area of the Athena Trench and the Theater underwent some unknown event of considerable importance in ca. AD. 205. Although this event might have been a building program, it has been suggested that the most likely cause of such a loss pattern was a disaster affecting the entire city.⁽⁵⁾

The most striking feature of the coinage dating to the Principate is the great diversity and volume of non-Corinthian coinage that apparently circulated within the city. Because of irregularities in the method of recording coin finds, it is difficult to present a consolidated statistical overview of the Corinthian coinage. Consider, however, the following profile of a sample of coins from the 1934-39 excavations, dating from the refounding of the city in 44 B.C. to the beginning of Diocletian's reign in AD. 284:⁽⁶⁾

The presence of non-Corinthian coinage is even more prevalent in the profile of a sample of coins excavated in 1925-2:⁽⁷⁾

In both of these samples, Corinthian coinage accounts for only about two-thirds of the coinage recovered on the site.

The remainder of the coins are Roman issues, and a variety of coins from other cities, mostly on the Greek mainland. Did all of these "foreign" coins circulate, or were they merely useless residue in the owner's purse, and thus more prone to loss. Both the sheer volume of the non-Corinthian coinage, as well as the remarkable similarity in the percentage of non-Corinthian coins lost between the two samples (35.9% versus 34%), suggest that the "foreign" coins did indeed circulate in the Corinthian economy. Was it thus possible for foreign traders and visitors to circumvent the services of the money-changers, and spend their own city's coinage or Roman coinage in Corinth? There are several possible explanations of this pattern of coin loss:

• There may have been a general shortage of token coinage in Corinth, encouraging the use of any specie available.

• The availability of exchange facilities may have encouraged local merchants to accept foreign coinage, perhaps at a discount, in the knowledge that it could be converted to local specie.

• The market for token coinage may have been such that the provenance of small change was less important than its potential to function as a counter in small transactions.

If non-local coinage circulated at other sites as well in the Roman East, the compilations of coin finds from those sites may reveal certain useful information regarding the flow of money within the economy. To begin, the gross percentage of Roman and other non-local coinage among site finds may indicate the general extent of foreign exchange that occurred at the site. This knowledge, it would seem, has a direct application in measuring me economic activity and the interregional trade that occurred at a site. For instance, although I am lacking comparative data, it seems that Corinth's 34-35% rate of non-local coin losses implies the existence of a vigorous foreign component in the city.

Moreover, it is possible to use coin losses to trace the outlines of monetary exchange among a complex of sites by comparing their loss rates of local and non-local coins. This process involves reducing the loss data for each site to a comparable loss rate per 1,000 coins, using the formula developed by John Casey.⁽⁸⁾ The site data for Corinth, using the Hesperia 10 sample of coins dating from Augustus through Carinus, is as follows:

As we might expect, Rome, Central Greece and the Peloponnesos are heavily represented in the site losses for Corinth. More surprising, however, is the relative paucity of coins from Thessaly and North West Greece, especially when compared to the generous representation of coins from such distant places as Egypt. Whether these loss rates correlate with other indicators of economic activity, such as pottery, is a subject for future research.

Dave Van Meter

Notes

1. John Collis, "A Functionalist Approach to Pre-Roman Coinage," in John Casey and Richard Reese, eds., Coins and the Archaeologist (London, 1988), pp. 8-9.

2. The source of this data John D. Macissac, "Corinth: Coins, 1925-26, The Theater District and the Roman Villa," Hesperia 56 (1987), pp. 97-157.

3. See Josephine M. Harris, "Coins Found at Corinth," Hesperia 10 (1942), pp. 143-162; John D. Macissac, "Corinth: Coins, 1925-26, The Theater District and the Roman Villa," Hesperia 56 (1987), pp. 97-157; and Joan E. Fisher, "Coins: Corinth Excavations, 1977, Forum Southwest," Hesperia 53 (1984), pp. 217-250.

4. Macissac, pp. 98-99.

5. The source of this data is Harris, op. cit.

6. The source of this data is Harris, op. cit. These figures exclude all uncertain or unidentifiable coins, as well as coins that were hoarded (62 Roman, 3 Greek). These figures also exclude the Pegasus/Trident coins that may have been found in a Roman context.

7. The source of this data is Macissac, op. cit. The range of coins represented is Augustus through Caracalla.

8. (coins per issuer/period of time covered) x (1,000/total coins for site). When considering token bronze coins, the period of time covered should be as broad as possible, owing to the frequently extended circulation of these issues. See Casey, "The Interpretation of Romano-British Site Finds," in Casey and Reese, eds., Coins and the Archaeologist, p. 41.

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