MONE´TA
MONE´TA (
ἀργυροκοπεῖον), a mint. The mint of Rome was a building on the
Capitoline hill, attached to the temple of Juno Moneta, which was dedicated,
in consequence of a vow, by L. Furius Camillus when dictator. (
Liv. 7.28;, Ovid.
Fasti, 6.183.) Under this head should come an account of the
law in ancient coinage, of rights of coinage,
monetary magistrates, and the organisation of mints. The fullest treatment
of these subjects will be found in the second and third volumes of
Lenormant's
La Monnaie dans l'Antiquité; but as
regards Roman coinage, Mommsen's
Röm.
Münzwesen is the soundest authority. In this place a brief
summary must suffice.
(1)
Rights of Coinage.--No privilege of power was in antiquity
more highly regarded or more jealously preserved than that of issuing money.
In Asia the king of Persia appears from the first to have claimed and
reserved the sole right of issuing gold money. The royal Darics or
τοξόται thus constituted a sort of royal
standard coin: they circulated in vast quantities, and thus controlled and
kept within limits the issues of Asiatic mints. But the Greek cities of the
coast seem to have enjoyed the privilege of issuing silver and copper money
at pleasure. Even the issue of electrum coins by trading cities, such as
Phocaea and Cyzicus, does not seem to have been regarded as a breach of the
monopoly of the Great King. Satraps also, at least in the western provinces
of Asia, were allowed to issue silver money bearing their own names: we
possess many specimens bearing the names of Pharnabazus, Tiribazus, Datames,
and other Persian satraps; though some numismatists suppose that this
privilege was exercised only on occasion of military expeditions. Herodotus
dotus states (4.166) that Darius put to death Aryandes, governor of Egypt,
for issuing silver coins of a finer quality than his own, but his narrative
clearly shows that the issue of silver coins by satraps was usual; it was
only the innovation in the quality, and the ambitious motives which prompted
it, which amounted to an act of rebellion. In Greece proper and in the Greek
colonies in Italy, Sicily, and Africa, and the shores of the Euxine Sea,
each separate to state or
πόλις claimed and
exercised the full right of issuing such money as it chose, but in the
exercise of that right did not of course lose sight of the reasons of
commercial expediency. As a result of perfectly free competition the money
circulating in each region acquired a certain general character, and to this
character all the coins issued in that region tended to conform, form, as
regards material and weight. Subject to such general control as this, the
mint-cities of Greece exercised the freest choice in all their successive
issues. Hence the condition of the Hellenic world, while it was a congeries
of small independent states, is exactly reflected in the great abundance and
unlimited variety of the issues of Greek coins, large numbers of which
enrich the museums of the present day, every specimen evidencing civic
independence, complete political organisation, and local religious cults.
Already we know of some 2,000 mints which issued coin of their own before
the fall of the Roman Empire, and fresh mints are discovered covered every
year. We have money of more than fifty Greek cities of Sicily; and the
little island of Ceos, not ten miles across, had three active mints.
Colonies sent forth by the great commercial cities had no sooner settled in
their new abodes than they began to issue coin, commonly monly of quite a
different character from that of the mother-city. There are of course
certain exceptions to this rule. Athenian cleruchies appear to have used the
coins of Athens; and when the towns of any district in Greece formed among
themselves a close alliance for any political or commercial purpose, greater
uniformity at once appeared in their monetary issues. Thus the cities of
Magna Graecia which were united in the sixth century for mutual defence
against the semi-barbarous Italic races issued coins in which a common
character clearly appears: and
[p. 2.178]the cities which
belonged to the Aetolian and Achaean Leagues used uniform weights and types
for their coins. In late Greek times those cities of Greece which had lost
their civic autonomy and become dependent upon the Hellenistic kings of
Pergamon, Macedon, and Syria, appear still to have preserved to a
considerable extent their right of issuing money: even when it became
necessary to place on it the effigy of their regal protector, they retained
the control of the mint. In the Roman age the issues of Greek silver money
came to an end, except in the case of a few favoured cities, like Antioch,
Tarsus, and Caesareia in Cappadocia; but the issue of copper money was still
permitted to hundreds of towns, great and small, in Greece and the Asiatic
mainland.
Turning to Italy, we have to observe the process by which the Roman state,
acting without pause or change in one direction, reduced the number of mints
and gradually introduced uniformity in the place of wide diversity. In the
fourth century B.C. the Italian, Greek, Etruscan and Oscan coinages present
the same variety and autonomy as those of Greece. At that time Rome issued
only the heavy libral asses of copper. But as soon as denarii in silver were
coined at Rome, in B.C. 269 [see As, Vol. I. p. 205], the Senate awoke to
the desirability of putting down rival issues in cities which came under
Roman dominion; and from this policy the rulers of Rome never swerved until
in the reign of Diocletian coinage was uniform through the length and
breadth of the Empire. Within the Roman organisation, however, the right of
coinage did not always belong to the same functionaries. In consular times
it was exercised within the city by regularly appointed officials, usually
three in number,
iiiviri monetales, though their
number, as well as the conditions attached to their duties, appears to have
fluctuated. Abroad, Roman Imperators exercised the right of issuing such
coins as suited their military necessities, and placing upon it their name
or even their image. This accounts for the existence of money, especially in
gold, belonging to the last century of the Roman Republic, and bearing the
names and portraits of Sulla, Pompeius, and other generals. Augustus, on his
accession to power, having such precedents to allege, took into his own
hands the issue of all Roman gold and silver money, leaving to the Senate
only the issues in copper, each specimen of which bears thereafter the
letters S. C. to show that it was minted by
senatorial authority.
(2)
Organisation of Mints.--On this subject our information is
very insufficient; and we are confined in the main to the testimony of the
coins themselves, which is not exact or conclusive. Of the Athenian coin
issued after Alexander the Great, the type is an owl standing on an amphora:
there are in the field three names of magistrates, and detached letters,
some on the amphora and some below it. The first two names are those of
annual magistrates, no doubt high officials and treasurers: these names
change but once a year. The third name changes twelve times a year, and with
it changes the letter on the amphora (A to M),--facts which show that the
third magistrate, probably the man actually responsible for the goodness of
the coin, was elected in rotation for one month from one of the twelve
tribes. The letters indicate the division of the year, first to twelfth,
during which the tribe represented by this; official prytanised. The letters
below the amphora are supposed to indicate the particular workshop of the
mint where each of the coins was manufactured. Thus every piece could be
traced back with certainty to those who were actually responsible for its
production, and the possibility of forgery was almost destroyed. At Rome we
find no such elaborate scheme for fixing responsibility, but on the other
hand great care in stating the authority by which the coin was issued. The
name of the person who ordered the coin to be made, whether imperator or
monetalis, is after a certain time never wanting. We meet on coins such
inscriptions as IIIVIR ˙ AAAFF, i. e. “triumvir auro argento
aere flando feriundo” (
Cic. Fam. 7.1.
8;
de Leg. 3.3, 7); AED ˙ CVR ˙ EXSC,
“aedilis curulis ex senatus consulto,” and the like. Some
of the Roman denarii also bear, in addition to the name of the issuer, some
device. letter or numeral which seems to have reference to the particular
officina whence they issued. See also As, Vol. I. pp. 206, 207.
The processes used in minting were of course very simple compared with those
of modern times. One engraved die was let into an anvil, another into the
end of a metal bar. Between the two was placed a blank, roughly cast in the
required shape and size and heated to redness. A single blow from a heavy
hammer on the upper end of the metal bar would probably usually suffice to
finish the coin, which would then be removed by the tongs and a fresh blank
substituted. Collars and milling were unknown. Such a process would very
soon wear out any die; and as a consequence, the continual engraving of new
dies was one of the chief occupations of the workmen of the mint. The
rapidity with which they could be prepared is. shown by the fact that the
most ephemeral pretenders to the throne of the Caesars seldom failed to
leave us coins bearing their name and effigy. On this subject, see Gardner's
Types of Greek Coins, chap. iii.
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P.G]
