Aegina
Historical Overview
The Silver Stater of Aegina in the CU Art Museum collection (2014.06.130) dates to 456-431 BCE. By this time Athens had successfully interrupted the trade monopolies of Aegina. Athens conquered the island in 458/7 BCE (Hornblower 2016, 1) and like other members of the Delian league, Aeginetans were forced to use Athenian coinage on multiple occasions (Rhodes 2004, 116). This suppressed their own coinage. Athens even went so far as to exile the Aeginetans from their land in 431 BCE (Millbank 1906, 34). Their mint would restart after the fall of Athens, but never would reach its previous heights of supremacy in the Aegean.
Art Historical and Economic Overview
Regardless of their iconographic meaning, the Aegina turtles were very recognizable and underwent little change. This was to ensure their continued recognition and acceptance in trade (Milbank 1906, 16). These turtles were a very trusted form of currency, often preferred over local mint, and circulated widely from in the Peloponnese, Central Greece, the Cyclades, Crete, the Eastern Mediterranean, Egypt to even in the palace at Persepolis (Sheedy 2012, 107-109; Meadows 2003, 342). Other coinages, particularly in the Cycladic islands, use these coins and their weight standard as a model for their own minting (Sheedy 2012, 110). This makes the shift to tortoises noticeable and attention grabbing, why deviate from what has worked for so long and been so influential?
Additional Essay
Aegina was the earliest mint in the Aegean and the one to introduce coinage as a method of storing wealth to many of their trade partners in the Aegean. The silver medium gives value to these coins, but where did Aegina source it from? There is no source of silver on the island (Kraay 1976, 43). The closest source of silver is from Siphnos, which is an island with very productive 6th century mines (Kraay 1976, 43). Their other options are mines in nearby Attica, or Thrace/Macedonia (Kraay 1976, 43). Recently Euboea has also been a suggested source (Vaxevanopoulos et. al. 2020, 24). Kraay argues that because they are a merchant polis, they likely sourced it wherever or whenever most accessible to them and could have come from combined sources. Aegina was an early adopter of using silver coins to store wealth because of their role as traders and merchants.
Their roles as traders also led to Aegina being the mode of introduction to coinage for many places. Unfortunately for them, it spread to their competitors too. Initially in the late 6th century BCE Athens minted their Wappenmünzen group from Macedonian and Thracian bullion (Albarede et. al. 2024, 6). Then “Athens was found to possess on its own soil an ample stock of the metal which Aegina had done so much to popularize" (Kraay 1976, 43). They used this source to create their iconic Athena and owl silver tetradrachms. However, Athens did not just rely on their Laurium mines (Albarede et. al. 2024, 6), although it was their primary source, they had another option to draw from. The league they established to supposedly protect Greece from the Persians, had a treasury (Metcalf 2012, 94). They used this league’s treasury as a source of silver for their coins, despite the originally intended purpose. Aegina was forced into this league and therefore forced to help provide for Athens and then even forced to use their mint (Rhodes 2004, 116), instead knocking them off the top of the food chain in Aegean trade.
As previously stated, Macedonia had a substantial silver supply. Making an empire is very expensive, however Alexander the Great found other sources to fund his long stretch of conquering. His sacking of Persepolis would provide a particularly large sum of bullion which lasted for him and even his successors (Glenn et. al. 2018, 141). The study substantiating this claim used a sample from the Babylonian mint during c. 330- 300 BCE, below is a coin from the same mint around 325-323 BCE. It shows Alexander wearing the lion pelt of Hercules on the obverse and enthroned Zeus holding an eagle and a scepter. This is a common motif for Alexander the Great, and his successors would use similar images to make a claim to his prestige.
They way different polies source the raw materials for their mints reflect the way they interact with other poleis. The well-known merchants of Aegina sourced their silver from multiple sources on their trade routes. Athens had their mines, but they also gathered silver by coercing their willing and unwilling allies into providing for the treasury of the Delian league. Similarly, Alexander the Great sourced some silver through local resources and but also a grand quantity came from places he conquered.