Antiquity

Pre-monetary exchange

The direct exchange of a good for another, namely barter, is the first milestone in monetary history.

In the regions on the western coast of the Black Sea, the first monetary needs were ensured by the issue of arrowhead-money, casted in bivalve bronze molds. This primitive money was realized by the Greek cities established in this area and spread throughout the region. To avoid using the arrowheads as weapons, their tube was filled with lead. Dating from the mid-6^th century BC till the first decades of the 5^th century BC, these objects respected a weight standard, according to the discoveries made in Jurilova, Enisala, Vișina, Nuntași and Constanța (Dobruja region).

Coins minted by the Greek Black Sea coastal cities

The first coins minted on the territory of present-day Romania were issued by the Greek cities on the Black Sea western coast. The coins were minted almost two centuries after the first coins were struck in Asia Minor (modern Anatolia). According to existing documents, Histria (or Istros) was the first city to mint its own coins.

The oldest coins were silver casted and issued around the year 480/475 BC. The coins have on the obverse the symbol of the city (an eagle clawing a dolphin to the left) and the inscription IΣTPI (ISTRI) within an impressed square; on the reverse there are two inverted human heads.

Later on, approximately between 450-350 BC, Histria issued two types of bronze coins as well. The first type has a wheel with four spokes on the obverse and the inscription IΣT (IST) on the reverse. The second type has the river god Istros on the obverse and the city symbol on the reverse. Other late bronze issues (dating up to the 1^st century BC) represent the gods Helios, Demeter, Hermes and Apollo. The last issues of the city’s autonomous period, dating until mid-1^st century AD, have the goddess Athena on the obverse and a caduceus with the inscription IΣTPI (ISTRI) on the reverse.

The second Greek coastal city on the Black Sea that had minted coins was Callatis. The iconography of Callatis silver coins was evidently influenced by Alexander the Great coinage. On the obverse there is the god Heracles wearing the skin of the Nemean lion and on the reverse there are Heracles’s club, quiver and arrows, a wheat-ear and the inscription KAΛΛATIA (CALLATIA). These coins’ issue period was apparently rather short, from the rule of Alexander the Great (336-323) until the year 313 BC.

Dating from the end of the 3^rd century to the mid-1st century BC, the bronze coins issued in Callatis were iconographically more diverse from the silver ones. On the obverse there are the gods Dionysus, Demeter, Heracles, Athena, Hermes and Artemis, and on the reverse there are the attributes specific to the god on the obverse, the city’s inscription and/or the god’s name, in addition to countermarks or magistrates’ monograms.

The city of Tomis started issuing coins in the second half of the 3^rd century BC. Except for the Alexander the Great and Lysimachus staters, this city issued only bronze coins, very diverse from an iconographic standpoint. The first coins issued have Apollo on the obverse, his trident and the inscription TOMI on the reverse, sometimes with countermarks as well. Other types of Tomis coins have Zeus’s head on the obverse, the eagle and two horses halves on the reverse; a wheat-ear, Hermes’s head on the obverse and the caduceus on the reverse; or the joined heads of Castor and Pollux on the obverse and two trotting horses on the reverse. Usually the name of the city is found on the reverse together with various monograms and abbreviations of monetary magistrates.

All three Greek cities on the Black Sea western shore had issued Philip II and Alexander the Great coinage: staters and tetradrachms whose representations and legends are identical to the originals. Only the monograms of the issuing mints are different.

The circulation of the coins issued in these cities exceeded their region of influence. Apart from Dobruja, the coins had reached southern Moldavia and the plains of Muntenia, as well as north-eastern Bulgaria and south-western Transylvania.

As early as the first half of the 5^th century BC, coins issued in other Greek coastal cities on the Black Sea, the Marmaris Sea and the north of the Aegean Sea circulated in the regions around the Carpathian Mountains.

Macedonian and Hellenistic coinage

The circulation of the coins issued by Macedonian kings in the lower Danube river areas was directly influenced by the political power they had in the region starting with the second half of the 4^th century BC.

The coins issued by Philip II and Alexander the Great (staters, tetradrachms and bronze coins) were used especially in the outer-Carpathians areas; they were spread far less in Transylvania where they were rarely discovered. The most frequent discoveries were hoards containing tetradrachms that were identified as posthumous issues, especially the Philip II coinage. Often, they had been discovered together with Alexander the Great coinage. The coins were either issued by the Greek cities on the Black Sea western shore or they entered the region via commercial routes south of the Danube River. Noteworthy is the fact that these Greek cities had continued to issue their own coins, as Macedonian kings had tolerant monetary policies.

The Philip II tetradrachm has the effigy of Zeus wearing a laurel wreath on the obverse and two types of reverses: the first, chronologically, has the king riding to the left with his arm stretched, the inscription ΦIΛIΠΠOY (FILIPPOU) and the mint’s monogram; the second type (issued after 348 BC) has the Olympian horse rider holding a palm branch, the inscription ΦIΛIΠΠOY (FILIPPOU) and the mint’s monogram.

The Alexander the Great tetradrachm has Herakles wearing the lion’s skin on the obverse and on the reverse it has Zeus enthroned to the left, holding an eagle and the scepter, the inscription AΛEΞANΔPOY (ALEXANDROU) or AΛEΞANΔPOY BAΣIΛEΩΣ (ALEXANDROU BASILEOS), as well as different marks and monograms.

The Alexander the Great coinage continued to be minted even after his death both in Macedonian mints and in mints throughout the Greek world. Furthermore, they were copied or served as models for the mints of the Barbarian kings on the outskirts of the Hellenistic world.

A similar destiny had the drachms and the tetradrachms of Philip III Arrhidaeus and the staters of Lysimachus, the king of Thrace.

The gold, silver and bronze Macedonian coins were spread beyond the areas that had been directly controlled, at a certain point, by Alexander the Great or his successors. They were found in Transylvania, especially in the area of Orăștie Mountains, but also in Moldavia.

Coinage of the Scythian kings in Dobruja

A series of Greek type issues, with features well differentiated from the coins issued by the cities on the western coast, was identified in southern Dobruja, in the area of Silistra - Mangalia - Balgarovo. It is generally accepted that they were issued by Scythian kings, coined in mints in Callatis and, probably, in Dionysopolis during the 2^nd century BC. They have Greek gods on the obverse and their specific attributes on the reverse, together with the inscription of the names of the basilei Ataias, Kanites, Charaspes, Tanusa, Akrosas, Ailios, Sariakes.

Gaeto-Dacian coinage

Like all the European civilizations on the outskirts of the Greek-Roman world, the Gaeto-Dacian coins adopted the style and iconography of the Hellenistic and Roman coinage, as well as the technology of the minting process.

The most frequently seen prototype copied the Philip II tetradrachm, with the effigy of Zeus with laurels on the obverse and the representation of a horse rider and the inscription of the Macedonian king’s name on the reverse. Other Greek prototypes were spread regionally as follows:

• Alexander the Great;
• Philip III Arrhidaeus;
• the peon king Audoleon;
• Larissa city in Thessalia;
• the Macedonia Prima tetradrachms;
• a Greek-Roman type with the janiform head (having two faces).

Roman coinage

Roman coinage entered the Lower Danube region starting with the 1^st century BC via commercial routes or as spoil of war. The substitution of the Greek-Macedonian coins with Roman ones had taken place gradually during the first half of that century given the consolidation of Roman power in the northern Balkans.

The denarius was the late Republican coin mostly disseminated in the peripheral regions of the Roman world. In the Gaeto-Dacian regions, the Roman denarius’s circulation must have been seen as an extension of the tradition of using Greek-Macedonian silver coinage. The presence of these coins was definitely owed to both the relations with the lower Danube populations and to local counterfeiting.

The first Gaeto-Dacian workshops minting Roman coinage were archeologically documented after the year 70 AD. The monetary dies found in the town of Sibiu, Hunedoara and Galați reproduce Roman denarii of such fine quality that they are difficult to differentiate from the original coins.

The monetary history of the northern Danube regions became synonymous with the history of Roman coinage once the Moesia Inferior and Dacia provinces were established. There are several differences between the two provinces as regards monetary circulation. In Dacia the most used coins were Imperial currency, while in Moesia Inferior provincial coins were far widely spread. The reason for this phenomenon was the fact that in Dacia there weren’t any workshops minting provincial coins, whereas in Moesia Inferior, Greek cities still minted their own coins. Alongside the Greek cities’ coinage, the coins issued in Viminacium were widely used, which, under the rule of Gordian III (238-244), had received both the title of colony and the right to mint its own money.

The Koson type gold coin

The Koson type coins are gold issues, weighing 8.40 g, which makes them similar to the Greek stater or the Roman aureus. Silver issues are rare.

On the obverse there is a magistrate walking between two lictors to the left and the inscription KOΣΩN (KOSON). Sometimes, in the left field, in front of the first lictor, there is the monogram BR or BA. On the reverse there is an open-winged eagle clawing a scepter and a wreath.

There are several interpretations on the origin of these coins:

• Brutus minted them in 42 BC as payment to the Gaeto-Dacian mercenaries;
• the Gaeto-Dacian king Cotiso minted them around 31-29 BC;;
• a Gaeto-Dacian ruler in the south of the Carpathians or even in the south of the Danube minted them;
• they are a modern fake, minted in the 16th-17th centuries, at a time when forgeries of ancient coins was a relatively widely spread phenomenon in Transylvania.