Archaeology Magazine - December 1965 - 19

and lighter than at the time of their issue. Ten are
worn smooth and cannot be identified at all. Two
small pieces of metal, about the same size and weight
as the other coins, were probably never actually
coins. The general composition of these small denominations is very similar to that in the hoards from
Athens mentioned above.
After a.D. 400 supplies of silver in the Roman
empire seem to have failed quite seriously, and silver
coinage became very rare. There was a continuing
gold coinage which was suitable for large monetary
transactions, and a multiplicity of very small bronze
coins. There were certainly different sizes which seem
to have constituted different denominations, but the
absence of an effective silver coinage must have made
medium-scale business cumbersome to transact. This
unhappy situation was largely remedied by the
monetary reform of Anastasius who, as the Byzantine
historian Malaias tells us, "converted all the copper
coinage into folles which thenceforth circulated in
the Roman world." Anastasius introduced the system
of clearly marked denominations of 40, 20, 10 and 5
which are the characteristic feature of early Byzantinebronze coinage.
The Isthmia hoard throws an interesting light
on the way in which the reform operated. The old
tiny bronze coins of the latest Roman emperors remained in circulation to constitute the small change
of the new system. The evidence from Isthmia shows
that they continued in circulation long after Justinian's further reform in 538 and long after they
had been issued, as the small change so important for
the conduct of petty transactions in a commercial
society.
The evidence of a hoard like this is invaluable in
establishing the pattern of currency at a given date.
It provides clear evidence of the way in which the
early Byzantine emperors introduced successive
changes into the copper currency circulating in
Greece. It also warns us that as these tiny nummia
In addition to the 209 large coins there are sixty-one were still in circulation at the end of the sixth centiny coins in the hoard, mostly weighing between tury, other individual examples of them recovered
one-half gram and one gram. They are all worn, from excavations may well have been lost just as late
and some are difficult to identify precisely. One is a as the time when the Isthmia hoard was buried for
worn 5-nummia coin, probably of Anastasius. Twenty- safekeeping.
nine are monogrammed coins of the late Roman and
early Byzantine emperors. It is possible to recognize DAVID W. MACDOWALL,born in Liverpool,England,
the monograms of Marcian (450-457), Leo (457- in 1930, was educated
at LiverpoolInstitute and Corpus
474), Zeno (474-491), Basiliscus (475-47 6), Anas- ChristiCollege,Oxford,where he studiedClassics,Ancient
History and Philosophy.For the Ph.D. degree he studied
tasius (491-518) and Justinian. Twelve are issues Roman
numismaticsat Oxford and the British Schoolat
of the Ostrogoths or the Vandals. Seven are late Rome. AssistantKeeper in the Departmentof Coins and
Roman bronze coins of the smallest denomination, Medals in the British Museumuntil I960, he is now a
in the UniversityGrants Committeein London.
of the time of Valentinian II, at the end of the fourth Principal
His monographon "Western Coinagesof Nero" is to be
century clipped so that they are very much smaller publishedby the AmericanNumismaticSociety.

a similar 16-nummia of Justinian: on the obverse only
IAN and on the reverse the p of a IS P.
Of the sixty-eight 20-nummia coins of Justin II
struck at Thessalonica in the Isthmia hoard, eleven
have traces of being overstruck on 16-nummia coins
of Justinian. Examples are dated to 567/8, 568/9,
574/5 and 575/6. This is a clear indication that in
spite of their high weight- they were as heavy as the
20-nummia struck in the last three years of Justinian
- the 16-nummia coins continued to circulate in
Greece until 574/5 and 575/6, when the withdrawal,
evidenced by the overstriking, was being completed.
The 16-nummia denomination has long been a
puzzle. It belongs to a series peculiar to the mint of
Thessalonica under Justinian, which produced coins
of 16, 8, 4, 3 and 2 nummia instead of the usual 40,
20, 10 and 5 nummia of Constantinople. It has been
suggested that the series circulated more in Syrmia
(the area in Yugoslavia between the Danube and the
Sava) than in Greece and that output was directed
northward, since few 16-nummia coins have been
found in Greece. One was found at Corinth, and the
sole example of the 4-nummia denomination in the
British Museum was found in Athens. The evidence
of overstriking in the Isthmia hoard suggests that
perhaps the 16-nummia coins were more effectively
withdrawn from circulation in Greece than elsewhere, to be overstruck and transformed into the
more common 20-nummia denomination.
The mints at which these large Byzantine coins
were struck are regularly shown in the exergue. In
Figure 1 we have CON for Constantinople, in Figure 2 NIKO for Nicomedia, in Figure 3 THJEYPO
for Theoupolis (Antioch) and in Figure 9 TES for
Thessalonica. Most of the earlier coins in the Isthmia
hoard were struck at Constantinople, but Thessalonica
provides the large majority of 20-nummia pieces
struck after 563/4, the year when the mint in that
city reopened.

267

Archaeology Magazine - December 1965

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