Testimonia Numaria
by John Melville Jones
Greek and Latin Texts concerning Ancient Greek Coinage
The Testimonia Numaria project aims to collect and evaluate ancient Greek and Roman texts relating to ancient Greek and Roman coinage. Two volumes have been published, Testimonia Numaria Volume I (1993) which contains 928 Greek and Latin texts together with translations into English, and Testimonia Numaria Volume II (2007), which contains forty-nine additional texts, commentaries on all the texts, a bibliography and an index. A third volume, Testimonia Numaria Romana, is in preparation. This will present and comment on texts relating to Roman coinage up to the fifth century A.D.
Comments on the entries in Testimonia Numaria (as well as on new texts) are most welcome. Please quote the TN (if applicable) at the beginning of your message. All entries are forwarded directly to Professor Melville Jones. These are archived according to the TN number and/or relevant TN chapter heading.
Please forward your comments
Email: John Melville-Jones (jrmelvil@cyllene.uwa.edu.au)
Chapters:
1 - Statements on the Nature of Ancient Greek Coinage
2 - The Predecessors of Ancient Greek Coinage
3 - Documents relating to the Coinage of Athens
An Athenian inscription, dated with some confidence to 412 B.C., has been published in Archaiologikon Deltion 55, 2000, 87-112. It consists of a casualty list of men killed in the fighting against the Spartans. It uses the older form of the letter sigma, with three bars not four. The assigning of this date to the inscription lends support to the view, which by now has begun to be generally accepted, that this letter form did not die out in the 440s, and that its presence cannot be used to provide a firm terminus ante quem for inscriptions of the fifth century B.C.. The dating of the Standards decree to the 420s is supported by this piece of evidence.
JMJ 14 April, 2008
4 - Inventories from Athens and Attica
5 - Inscriptions from the Delphi and Phocis
6 - Extracts from the Inventories of the Delian Temples
7 - Coinage of Various Ancient Greek Mints
There is a mistranslation in the sixth line, which should read '... or make a sale for produce ...' In the Cretan dialect ônew, which one expects to mean 'buy', can mean 'sell', and the genive, karpô, 'fruit, produce', gives the price at which the goods are sold. In the context it seems that those traders in the market place who try to avoid using the new bronze coinage by engaging in barter are to be punished, just as much as those who refuse to accept it.
JMJ 14 April, 2008
8 - Regal Issues
9 - Minting and Mint Workers
10 - Forgeries and Expedients
11 - Hoards and Treasures
12 - Money Changers and Testers
13 - Various Weights and Coin Denominations