Abstracts

Section 1: Greek Economies

Kaja Harter-Uibopuu
Decrees and treaties — the legal framework for the successful flow of goods and money

It has long been recognized that the Greek polis did react to international trade, both on a small and large scale, by providing legal framework whenever deemed necessary. Different needs had to be met and the evidence shows clearly the ability of the city-states to enact legislation or treaties customized to a given situation. Three areas of provisions can be discerned: firstly the granting of benefits as well as honors to individuals or groups as incentives and to support their potential involvement in the local markets; secondly the provision of access to the judicial system of a polis in order to reassure foreigners that the means of dispute settlement would be provided if needed and thirdly the engagement in international disputes in cases where the exchange of goods had been constrained by conflicts between individuals and/or states. All three categories did receive attention in modern scholarship. Apart from providing a short general overview and discussing specific examples, I will concentrate on the question of the responsibility of the polis and its magistrates for the abidance by their own decrees and laws. Sanctions imposed on the breach of the provisions can help us to determine the significance attributed to the decrees and treaties within the polis.

Vincent Gabrielsen
"Mankind's most secure and durable institution": state, credit, trade and capital accumulation in the Classical-Early Hellenistic Aegean

Drawing inspiration from the theoretical insights of the New Institutional Economics, this paper aims at elucidating the positive impact of state institutions on economic activity. In using this approach, the paper is in line with other recent work on the economies of ancient societies. However, while most of these contributions place the emphasis on those state institutions that are primarily related to the judicial system (constitutions, law, lawcourts, weight and measure standards, etc.), the present one will focus on two other fields of state activity, the second of which, at least, is a relatively neglected one. (1) The propensity of imperial exactions (mainly tribute) to stimulate economic activity, particularly trade, and thus to lead to a growth in prosperity over a wider area; the historical example to be adduced here in support of this point is the fifth-century Athenian empire. (2) The establishment by several Aegean states of a new kind of institution that (a) offered private financial investors safe profits, (b) functioned as a major supplier of credit, and (c) facilitated the accumulation of publicly-owned capital, most (or part) of which was used to improve the commercial infrastructure; the historical examples demonstrating this date from late classical-early Hellenistic times and come from several Aegean states, including Athens.

Gerhard Thür / Michele Faraguna
Silver from Laureion: mining and minting

In the first part of the paper, Thür will study how the polis of Athens encouraged private people to engage themselves in prospecting silver ore and in leasing and exploiting the mines. The focus will be on the legal framework, public and private, of ‘producing’ silver. First he will hold with Palme 1987 against Lambert 2010 that IG II2 411 concerns prospecting silver ore and not exploiting agricultural land. The second topic will be the different categories of mines let out to private entrepreneurs (cf. Ath. Pol. 47.2 and the poletai inscriptions; Langdon 1991, Aperghis 1997/98, Faraguna 2006). This results in the question how the auctions of the mines took place and how the polis and the entrepreneurs got their revenues and how the latter financed their business (Dem. or. 37). For the kind of auction some insights will come from a recently published Hyperides speech (Against Timandros; Thür 2008).

In the second part, Faraguna will focus on the aspects of the ‘distribution’ of the extracted silver. Starting from some passages of Xenophon’s Poroi (3.2; 4.7-8) the question will be explored by what legal, administrative and economic processes the silver from the mines was acquired by the polis to produce its coinage and how the coins which the private entrepreneurs retained as profit and expendable cash after meeting rents, taxes and other charges were put into circulation both locally and as export. Different models emphasizing the role of the public economy and/or of private individuals to this effect will be compared (Kroll 2011; Flament 2011).

Aperghis, G. G. 1997/98 “A Reassessment of the Laurion Mining Lease Records,” BICS: 1–20.

Faraguna, M. 2006 “La città di Atene e l’amministrazione delle miniere del Laurion,” in H.-A. Rupprecht (ed.) Symposion 2003, Wien: 161–65.

Flament, Chr. 2011 “Faut-il suivre les chouettes? Réflexions sur la monnaie comme indicateur d’échanges à partir du cas athénien d’époque classique,” in M-C. Marcellesi-O. Picard (eds.), Nomisma. La circulation monetaire dans le monde grec antique, BCH Suppl. 53: 39–51.

Kroll J. 2011 “Minting for Export: Athens, Aegina, and Others,” in M-C. Marcellesi-O. Picard (eds.), Nomisma. La circulation monetaire dans le monde grec antique, BCH Suppl. 53: 27–38.

Lambert, St. 2010 “Athens, Sokles and the Exploitation of an Attic Resource (IG II2 411),” in N. Sekunda (ed.) Ergasteria: Works presented to John Ellis Jones on his 80th Birthday, Gdansk: 114–25.

Palme, B. 1987 “Ein attischer Prospektorenvertrag? IG II2 411,” Tyche 2: 113–39.

Thür, G. 2008 “Zu misthosis und phasis oikou orphanikou in Hypereides, Gegen Timandros,” Acta Ant. Hungarica 48: 125–37.

Wolfgang Fischer-Bossert
Ruling an empire by controlling a coin standard?

As a rule, the archaic and classical Greek city-state had no need of transferring amounts of fresh money to remote parts of the territory. There are exceptions: conquered territories far beyond the border of the state such as the Chalkidike which was won for Athens by Miltiades, and colonies in their first years. Such cases have been debated by numismatists, but usually with the notion that the satellite state might have established a satellite mint. The situation seems to be different for the Attic ‘Empire’, at the latest for the time after the issue of the 1st Coinage Decree (most probably in 425/4 BC). The impact of the decree remains hard to assess as long as the absolute chronology of Aegean coinages of the later 5th century cannot be established independently. There is some evidence that some stipulations of the decree (banning non-Athenian coinage from the Delian League’s realm) were ignored even by loyal members of the league. Therefore this paper will address another potential part of early economic policy: the diffusion of coin standards. The diffusion of the Euboic-Attic, Aeginetan and Corinthian standards will be examined as to whether this was a process purely based upon the needs of trade (and if so, by which conditions), or rather a process promoted by power politics.

Alain Bresson
Money, trade and prices in the Hellenistic economy

This paper will address the question of the role of money in the Hellenistic economy. Numismatists have produced a wealth of evidence on coin production and circulation. What is still lacking is an economic analysis of these phenomenons, in terms of quantity and in terms of the impact of the money supply on prices and on the Hellenistic economy in general. This story opens with the capture by Alexander of the treasures of the Great King in 333-330 BCE. It ends with the capture of the treasure of the Ptolemies by Octavian in 30 BCE. But in between there is the complex history of the money supply and demand of the Hellenistic world that remains to be written. In the third century the Hellenistic world is supposed to have lived on the bonanza represented by the Persian gold and silver. Then the shift of power to Rome and the Western Mediterranean in the second century as well as the contemporaneous huge increase of silver production in the Spanish silver mines are supposed to have solved all difficulties of money supply in the Eastern Mediterranean in this period. A more complex and nuanced story remains to be written. Overall it seems that silver was in rather short supply in the Eastern Mediterranean, which contributes to explain a lot of currency policies that we can observe in the period, like famously that of the closed currency zones. Institutional responses to crises should thus be set on the background of a fundamentally quantitative approach of money supply and money circulation in the Hellenistic world.

Section 2: The Roman Economy

Simon Keay
The Role of Portus in commercial flows between Rome and Mediterranean ports

It can be argued that the centrality of the Mediterranean sea to the Roman Empire is one of the characteristics that sets it apart from other ancient empires. The establishment of control by Rome of all the lands bordering the Mediterranean by the mid 1st century AD promoted a closer integration of flows of people, money, goods and services than had been possible before, or has been achieved subsequently. Crucial to the success of this was the centrality of Rome within the Mediterranean as a whole and its high degree of accessibility to ships from the different provincial ports that bordered its many constituent seas. This was dependent upon a range of factors, such as the directness of maritime connections between Rome and its Mediterranean ports, as well as ship technology and capacity and navigational knowledge. Equally important, however, was the role and function of the ports themselves. Even though many of them have been the subject of important studies in recent years, there is still much to be learned, not least in terms of how they actually worked as centres for the import, export and re-distribution of merchandise.

This paper will attempt to address this question from the perspective of one of the most important of these, the Portus Augusti, which served as the maritime port of Imperial Rome, and which has much to teach us about the economic relationship of Rome to the Mediterranean as a whole. It was established in the mid 1st century AD, enlarged in the early 2nd , and funnelled largely state organized supplies (annona) to Rome continuously until at least the later 5th century AD. The port lies close to the mouth of the Tiber, and was dominated by three very large harbour basins and a dense infrastructure of canals, warehouses and public buildings. It acted as the central element of what has been loosely defined as a “port-system” that incorporated the neighbouring river port at Ostia, commercial installations along both banks of the Tiber at Rome itself and the Tyrrhenian port of Centumcellae (Civitavecchia). The paper begins by reviewing evidence for the movement of ships and cargoes through the complex, taking into account the depth of the basins, the kinds of ships and boats the port could accommodate, the role of the canals and the relationship of these to the Tiber and the local road system, as well as the flows of information that would have been necessary to make all of these function in concert effectively. It then moves on to consider the different kinds of activity that will have taken place at buildings across the port, such as the docking and registration of ships and cargoes, storage and transhipment, and the implications that all of this has for our understanding for the bureaucratization of Roman economic activity. Attention is then focused upon the addressing the following issues: (1) the extent of Portus’ anchorage and storage capacity, (2) how far it was a centre designed to process solely state organized supplies destined for Rome, or whether if it may also have been used for other kinds of cargo, and (3) whether it also acted as a hub for the export and re-distribution of state and non-state cargoes across the Mediterranean basin. Last but not least, it is argued that this port in particular needs not to be considered simply in terms of its commercial and economic roles, but also as a “portscape” and discusses the extent to which its topography was structured to ensure that travellers experienced it as a statement of Imperial power.

Annalisa Marzano
Large-scale fishing and the Roman production and trade in salted fish: some organizational aspects

Abundant archaeological evidence attests to the volume and geographic range of trade that took place in the Roman era, particularly in the last century of the Republic and the first two centuries of the Empire. There is general consensus that the early Roman imperial period was marked by intensification in various sectors: in agricultural production, in the rate of urbanization and building activity, in the volume of ore mined and smelted, and in the volume of maritime trade. Numerous factors contributed to such development: the socio-political conditions, the expansion of infrastructure, and the availability of certain services.

This paper will discuss the production and distribution of one type of foodstuffs which, as shown by the amphora finds, was widely traded in the Roman empire and which, according to some scholars, may have played an important role in the protein intake of the wider population: preserved (mainly salted) fish and fish sauces. Installations for fish salting, which developed in connection to large-scale fishing, are found in many coastal areas of the Roman world and varied in scale from small workshops to “factories”. Unlike later historical periods, however, when often efforts put into fishing were rendered null by the difficulty fishermen encountered in preserving their catches, because of lack of capital and difficulty in acquiring sufficient salt, the same is not true for the Roman period. The reasons for this development are not limited to the political unity and the minor number of custom barriers of the Roman world when compared to Europe in later periods, but include the availability of a range of organizational infrastructure (e.g., business partnerships) and flexible use of the legal framework. The paper will also discuss the effects fishing and fish salting had on a range of subsidiary economic activities and flow of goods.

Claude Domergue
How the Western Mediterranean was supplied with metals towards the end of the Republic, and under the early Empire: fluxes, routes and organization

In the Roman world, the most widely used metals were gold, silver, lead, copper, tin, and iron. They are variously documented. Over the last decades, underground and submarine archaeology have been an appreciable source of documentation, together with, more recently, archaeometry. To-day, we have a fairly good knowledge of the main production areas of the Roman West; those that have "exported" their metals. The trading routes of those metals, particularly lead and copper, are easy to follow. Such is not the case with tin or iron. Now, as for gold and silver, chiefly used for minting purposes, the routes are difficult to trace. This paper intends to set forth the progress of research in this field, with particular emphasis on the trading routes.

Kevin Butcher / Bernhard Woytek
Coin production and coin distribution in the Roman empire in the first and
early second centuries AD: a general framework and some case studies

Up to Diocletian, the Roman empire was not a unified monetary zone: there were imperial coinages in precious metals with Latin legends produced for empire-wide circulation, imperial bronze coinages with Latin legends produced for circulation in Italy and the central and western parts of the empire, as well as many regional and local coinages in silver and bronze (mostly with Greek legends) which abounded in Greece and especially Asia minor and Syria. The existence of the latter group was, of course, a heritage of the Hellenistic past of the Roman East.

The patterns of production and distribution of all of these coinages were constantly in evolution and may be shown to have been quite complex at times. In this paper, we will be looking at the early to high principate in particular. From the central period of the reign of Augustus onwards, a reduction in the number of mints for the imperial coinages is in evidence. Consequently, under the Julio-Claudians large consignments of coinage had to be transported quite long distances in some cases, from the few central mints, to reach their point of destination. Recent work proposes that the period from Nero to Trajan was one in which recycling of older coinage, particularly of silver, was taking place. Under Hadrian, production of imperial silver in the East sets in again - a development which was to ultimately result in a dense network of imperial mints in the third century AD.

As for the provincial coinages, patterns are even more complex. It has been suggested in recent research that, mainly in the period from the Flavians to Trajan, a variety of series destined to circulate in different parts of the Roman East were not struck in the respective areas, but were supplied by Rome or other major mints. This phenomenon may be connected with the phase of recycling noted above. A few case studies illustrating this phenomenon will be presented, for example the coinage bearing types of Caesarea in Cappadocia. Furthermore, apparent difficulties with this hypothesis will be discussed, like the drachm coinage of Trajan showing a Bactrian camel on the reverse.

Suzanne Frey-Kupper / Clive Stannard
Evidence for the importation and monetary use of blocks of foreign and obsolete coin in the Ancient world

Foreign base metal coins have been found at many ancient sites. They are often interpreted as indexes of trade or military movements. In this paper, we discuss four examples of the large-scale transfer of blocks of minor bronze coins—two in Hellenistic and two in Roman Imperial times—where neither trade nor military movement seems indicated.

We describe two large blocks of foreign coin transferred across polities and currency systems in the 2nd century BC, which document an otherwise unidentified phenomenon at this period: the deliberate importation of foreign base metal coins, for monetary use. One block is of Koan coin to central Italy, with facing head of Herakles / club and bow in bow-case (SNG Cop., Caria, nos 677–682; Ingvaldsen 2002, issue XIX; Stefanaki 2012, issue 35), at some stage between 180/170 and 130 BC. The second is of Ebusan coin, particularly with Bes / Bes types (Campo 1976, group XVIII), probably to Pompeii, about 140/130 BC. Once in Italy, the Koan coins were often overstruck with informal local types, and the Ebusan coins were massively imitated.
We document two cases of the movement of non-current coin in the western Empire: the very worn Roman Republican asses that were transferred from Italy to areas north of the Alps, where they turn up in military and in civic contexts, from Tiberius on; and the imitations of antoniniani?mainly of the Gallic Emperors from Postumus to the Tetrici and the Divo Claudio series?that were made in huge numbers in the north-western provinces, and are found in large numbers in later contexts in north Africa.

We suggest a theoretical framework for understanding the movement of bronze coin in general, and present the specific indicators that allow us to identify block transfers. Deliberate transfers of foreign and obsolete or old coin involved actors on both sides of the transfer, where they came from, and where they were received. We try to contextualise both sides of the transfer, that is, who may have gathered them and sent them off, and who may have received them, as well as their function in their new context. We conclude by considering the implications for the understanding of ancient economies and administrations, particularly in terms of the need for, and the supply of, bronze small change.

Thomas Corsten
Negotiatores und lokale Märkte in Kleinasien

Negotiatores sind in Kleinasien reichlich bezeugt. Selbstverständlich war ihre Verteilung über das Land nicht gleichmäßig, hing sie doch von den zu erstehenden Waren ab. Daneben war aber möglicherweise auch die Existenz lokaler Märkte nicht ohne Einfluß auf die Ansiedlung von italischen Händlern. Am Beispiel verschiedener kleinasiatischer Regionen soll daher untersucht werden, wie das Wechselspiel zwischen negotiatores und lokalen Märkten funktionierte, und welche Rolle dabei die Einbettung in das soziale Umfeld ihrer Wahlheimat spielte.

Thomas Kruse
The transport of goods through the Eastern Desert of Egypt

The two harbors of Myos Hormos and Berenike (Troglodytike) at the Red Sea coast which were of eminent importance for the eastern trade were linked with the Nile valley by two desert routes departing from the metropolis of Koptos in Upper Egypt. In the Roman imperial era these routes were developed and protected by a chain of small garrisons (praesidia) and – in the course of the administrative reorganisation of the eastern desert region – placed under the control of the Roman military. The paper will focus on the sources for the transport of goods on the desert routes, in particular from the Nile valley to the Red Sea harbors and to diverse stations on the way respectively. These transports notably concerned staple food like wheat which in the hostile environment of the eastern desert could not be produced in significant quantities to feed the people living in this area, thus the provisioning had to be secured by the Nile valley. We are informed of such transports by numerous inscribed potsherds (ostraka) dating to the 1st and 2nd centuries CE. These ostraka not only provide information about the activity of private transport companies like the firm of Nikanor and his sons which is attested through approximately 100 ostraka covering the period between 18 BCE and 69 CE operating on behalf of private clients and the Roman army as well. On the other hand these documents bear witness to the interrelation between freight carriers and government officials like tax collectors and to the ways and means by which the Roman military exercised control over the traffic of goods and people on the routes crossing the Eastern Desert of Egypt.

Ben Russell
Quarry inscriptions, accounting systems, and the Roman stone trade

This paper will examine the patchy information provided by a range of ancient written sources for the production and supply of stone objects in the Roman Empire. Drawing together evidence from texts, papyri and inscriptions it will consider what these sources reveal about the functioning of both the building industry and art market, in terms of state involvement, the ownership and administration of resources, the employment of contractors, labour requirements and commercial frameworks. While many of these documents are fragmentary or abbreviated they offer an insight into the mechanisms underpinning the stone trade that are especially useful when examined alongside the abundant archaeological evidence. It will be argued that these documents can be used to reconstruct a variety of accounting and production systems at different quarries through the Roman period.
Particular attention will be paid to inscriptions on quarried products and what these reveal about the broader administration of stone extraction and supply. Most of the evidence discussed will be drawn from the major marble quarries of the Roman world but supplementary data from quarries of ordinary building stone will also be highlighted.

Section 3: Ancient Iranian Economies

Michael Alram
Money and coinage in the Achaemenid empire: production and distribution

When Cyrus II, the Great (559-530 BC) conquered Asia Minor and Babylonia, these were the first steps towards the establishment of the Achaemenid Empire, which was to become the first large multinational empire of the ancient world. At this time, coinage as an economic medium was still unfamiliar in Iran. Not even payments in uncoined silver – which are well attested in the Babylonian temple economy, for example – had been customary in the Iranian heartland, in Cyrus’ II. reign. With his victory over the Lydian king Croesus (c. 561-546 BC), Cyrus acquired lands that had been using coinage for over 50 years already: Croesus himself had operated one of the most important coinage reforms in the history of mankind, by switching from an electrum coinage to a coinage of pure gold and silver. Cyrus, who established the administrative centre of his western satrapies in the Lydian capital of Sardis (the mint of the Croeseid coinage), recognized the importance of coinage as a monetary medium and most probably continued to supply the western parts of his empire with coins of Croeseid type. Under Darius I, a comprehensive monetary reform was finally carried out, in which the Persian imperial coinage was created: the famous Achaemenid “archers” in gold (dareikoi) and silver (sigloi) - two coin types which had completely different economic functions. But the vast Achaemenid empire was far from being a homogeneous monetary zone. While in some parts of the empire, a barter and exchange economy continued to flourish, other parts produced varied coinages: In Asia minor, apart from the Achaemenid darics and sigloi, there were special issues of royal coinage from the end of the fifth century BC onward, as well as various issues of satraps and governors (most notably in Cilicia). Coinages of this kind are also attested in Judaea and Samaria and even in Egypt.

This contribution will present a critical overview of the complex structures of production of coinage in the Achaemenid empire and will compare them with evidences for later periods of Iranian economic history.

Robert Rollinger
Between deportation and recruitment: craftsmen and specialists from
the West in Ancient Near Eastern empires (from Neo-Assyrian times
until Alexander III)

The paper will focus on the international contacts between the Aegean and the eastern Mediterranean Worlds from the eighth to the fourth centuries BCE. This implies multiple patterns of exchange and contact where, especially as far as our sources are concerned, specialists and craftsmen played a major role.
An important source for this exchange are cuneiform texts. These exhibit an international and globalized world whose focus and reach does not only include the Eastern shores of the Mediterranean but moves far beyond to the West. Thus, e.g., craftsmen and specialists have been called in for the building of the great royal residences. They appear in royal inscriptians and in administrative tablets as well. Also archaeological record offers strong evidence for the presence of specialized workforces in the construction of monumental buildings. A good example for this development of “internationalization” are the residences of the Teispid and Achaemenid kings in Pasargadae, Susa and Persepolis. Columns with fluting and torus, for instance, and other techniques of stonemasonry, are used in Pasargadae, but also later in Persepolis and elsewhere. Porticoes with columns appear to be inspired by the Greek stoa, although an influence in the opposite direction cannot be ruled out. The bas-reliefs of Persepolis also show the mark of “western” artists. Several fragments of a scratch drawing preserved in the Greek style from Persepolis portray Apollo, Herakles, and Artemis. They represent a familiar motif from Greek vase painting, which seems to represent the struggle between Apollo and Artemis for possession of the tripod. There is similar evidence from Susa for miniature sculpture such as ivory carvings. Moreover, five short Greek inscriptions, which were found in the quarry at Kuh-i Rahmat, near Persepolis demonstrate the presence of these specialists. Greek coins in Persepolis as well as the infiltration of Greek motifs in the Babylonian glyptography of the Achaimenid period are further indications, if not of the presence of Greeks, then of a far too little appreciated dimension of the East-West exchange.

Even though the evidence is, when considered together, still quite sparse, a coherent picture of a broad cultural fusion of “western” and “eastern” worlds emerges. Contacts ranged from Egypt to the Levant and Anatolia and beyond, to include the heartlands of Babylonia, Media, Elam and Persia. Western sources, by painting a picture characterized by stereotypes provide only a one-sided picture. The eastern sources – especially the evidence gleaned from the royal inscriptions – are admittedly also stereotyped. Their archives with their numerous documents, however, as well as the archaeological record with its direct and indirect pointers demonstrate the existence of intense and multifaceted cultural interaction which was able to prevail, largely unaffected by geo-political friction.

Udo Hartmann
Wege durch Parthien – Straßen, Handelsrouten und Kommunikation im Arsakidenreich

In diesem Beitrag werden in einem Überblick unsere Kenntnisse zum Straßennetz und zum Fernhandel im Partherreich zusammengestellt (dabei konzentriere ich mich auf die Zeit des arsakidischen Großreiches vom späten 2. Jahrhundert v. Chr. bis zum frühen 3. Jahrhundert n. Chr.). Neben zahlreichen kleinerer Notizen beschränkt sich das Material im wesentlichen auf zwei Quellen bzw. Quellengattungen: Isidoros von Charax beschreibt in augusteischer Zeit die Königsstraße durch das Partherreich von Zeugma am Euphrat bis Alexandreia in Arachosien im heutigen Afghanistan und notiert auch wichtige Punkte zur Infrastruktur des Partherreiches. Palmyrenische Karawaneninschriften geben sodann Zeugnis über den römischen Fernhandel nach Indien, der durch das Partherreich und über den Persischen Golf führte. Deutlich werden hier vor allem die unterschiedlichen Funktionen und die Ausdifferenzierung von Wegen, gibt es doch zwischen der staatlich unterhaltenen Königsstraße, die vor allem politisch-administrativen Zwecken und der Kommunikation zwischen dem König der Könige und den Satrapen und Vasallenkönigen diente, und den Handelsrouten der Palmyrener durch das Partherreich und seine Vasallen mit ihren Stationen und Umschlagplätzen kaum Überschneidungen. Dagegen wissen wir über die Nutzung, die Strukturen und die ökonomische Bedeutung der sog. „Seidenstraße“ in der Partherzeit nur sehr wenig, da schriftliche Quellen kaum Informationen liefern. Regelmäßige Handelsreisen römischer Händler nach China sollte man auf Grund des bei Ptolemaios überlieferten Berichts des Marinos von Tyros über eine Reise der Händler des Maes Titianos in der frühen Kaiserzeit nach China nicht unterstellen. Wer auf dieser Route den regulären Handelsverkehr zwischen China und dem Römischen Reich organisierte, ist ungewiß. Problematisch ist insbesondere die Rolle der Parther in der Abwicklung dieses Fernhandels über Land: Waren sie Akteure des Fernhandels oder sicherten sie nur die Routen durch das Land? Die Zeugnisse sprechen jedoch eher gegen eine aktive Handelspolitik der Arsakiden und gegen bewußte Eingriffe in die Handelsströme.

Fabrizio Sinisi
Imperial and local: the organization of coin production in the Parthian empire

The aim of this contribution is an appraisal of the organization of coin production during the Parthian period, that is, an assessment of the geographical distribution of areas of production and circulation, and within these of the role of the single mints in connection with specific choices of metals and denominations. This overview will cover not only the Arsacid imperial series, but also currencies within the direct sphere of influence of the Arsacids as well as those in the nearby regions: especially the so-called Sub-Arsacid coinages of Elymais, Mesene, and Persis, which traditionally have been interpreted as the clearest evidence for the fragmentation and the alleged structural weakness of the Arsacid empire due to the common equivalence of coin production and political independence. A different approach will be used here, aiming at providing an integrated picture of imperial, regional and local coinages. Two aspects are of the utmost importance in this respect: the historical developments connected to the crisis in the Seleucid East and the relationship of the Arsacids with the political legacy of the Greek power after the conquest, and the definition of a mainly economic (as opposed to a political) background for the enduring variety of the monetary landscape of the regions ruled by the Arsacids or exposed to their influence.

Nikolaus Schindel
Sasanian mints – where and why

From the beginning of Sasanian coinage under Ardashir I (224–240), coins were produced in different mints. Starting in the late 4th century, abbreviations of the mint names are regularly placed on the coins, thus allowing a general understanding of the distribution of mint places in Sasanian Iran. While after almost a century of intense research most of the readings and interpretations of these signatures can be regarded as very probable, the larger context is not so clear. This paper tries to address a basic question: Why were Sasanian mints located where they were? This topic will be discussed on the basis of an analysis of Sasanian coinage itself within the general framework of the research project “Sylloge Nummorum Sasanidarum”, as well as through a comparison with other coin-issuing states such as e.g. the Roman Empire.