ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the rise of currency within the less developed economy of the Seleucid Empire. It estimates the level of monetization within the European Union (EU) and the Seleucid realm. To understand the use of coins in the Seleucid Empire, a few words on the introduction of coinage in human history are necessary. Within the Euro Zone, in 2002 a total number of notes and coins were introduced that were, at least in theory, required given the size of the economy. The bronze coinage, the fiduciary coinage par excellence in antiquity, appeared as an innovation of the Greek city–states of Magna Graecia and Sicily around the last quarter of the fifth century bc. The chapter concludes with the finding that, using the Fisher equation, the difference in the Seleucid and EU gross domestic product per capita is roughly equal, with the difference in deep monetization times the difference in the velocity of money, thus lending credence to the estimates.
