ABSTRACT
This chapter documents the reasons why the Athenian currency gained at the time the reputation of the leading medium of exchange in economic transactions and why it served as the preeminent reserve and safe haven currency for storing wealth in liquid means of payment. We argue that this achievement was made possible by several technical and policy advantages. Among the former were: (a) the low cost and secure source of procuring silver from the nearby silver mines in Laurion; (b) the economies of scale that were associated with the minting process; and (c) the advances on the one hand in the purification of silver ore, which made Athenian coins lighter and hence easier to use, and in minting coins of standard quality and excellent designs, on the other. As to the policy advantages, among others, we emphasize that Athens: (a) kept the seigniorage low so as to maximize state revenues through the currency’s widest possible diffusion, and (b) introduced a web of currency-safeguarding and propagating institutions, including for example the so-called Coinage Decree, the Decree of Kallias and the Law of Nicophon. In the last section of the chapter, we cover briefly certain currency issues in the context of ancient Greek Federations, drawing on the expectation that the solutions they gave to problems similar to the ones confronted currently in common economic and currency areas, like the European Union (EU) and the Eurozone, may be helpful.
