Metals and Weight Standards of Milesian Coins

Although many objects had been used as money from the earliest times, coins in the modern sense were invented in the general region of Miletus and adjacent Lydia in the late seventh or early sixth century bc. The idea of coined money spread from the Ionian colonies to mainland Greece about 550 bc, and by about 500 bc it had spread throughout the Greek world. All the coinage of the West is directly descended from the first issues struck in the territory surrounding Miletus more than two and a half thousand years ago.

The earliest coins of Miletus and Lydia were not made of gold or silver but rather of electrum, a naturally-occurring alloy of gold and silver that was especially common in the Lydian rivers. Since the gold/silver ratio in natural electrum is variable, the Lydian kings purposely regulated the proportion of gold in their coinage to guarantee that it would have a consistent value (and almost certainly to guarantee that it would generate a profit for themselves, as well). Although the gold content of the earliest Lydian coins appears to have been closely regulated, at least some of the Ionian Greek cities—including Samos, a few miles off the coast from Miletus—issued early electrum coins that were highly variable in gold content, although this was not readily detectable because copper was routinely added to maintain consistency of color (Konuk, in press). Much remains to be learned, even today, about the details of early electrum coinage production. Progress in this area will certainly depend upon techniques of materials analysis that have only become available within the last few years (Keyser and Clark, 2001).

The economic uncertainties that followed from the use of an alloyed metal for coinage soon led to the widespread replacement of electrum issues with separate series of gold and silver coins, and this innovation was made by the Lydian king Croesus (Kroisos), who ruled from 561–546 bc. Just as the oil of the Middle Eastern countries has made them wealthy today, so the electrum, gold, and silver of Lydia made that country wealthy in the sixth century bc. The expression “as rich as Croesus” has been a by-word for wealth for more than 2500 years.

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