Ancient Coin Stories

The coinage of Aegina presented me with an interesting problem. Of course, the famous coins were the staters containing turtles, and were themselves a standard of currency that rivaled the Athenian owls. Initially they depicted sea turtles, until Aegina was defeated by Athens and they switched to a land tortoise. To this day we’re still not sure why, but presumably Athens stipulated they couldn’t mint any more sea turtle coins, so they switched to the tortoise.

However, all that occurred long before the period of Philip II and Alexander the Great. I wanted a 4th century representation, and those were primarily bronzes. That worked out much better in a way since these bronzes are a lot cheaper, though somewhat rarer.

There are several different issues of the bronzes. All have the two dolphins on the obverse, but some contain various letters within the grid on the reverse. Because I find the city so intriguing and the bronzes weren’t expensive, I have two samples. The one with the letters N-O is considerably rarer and I was able to find only one other example.

This one has three dolphins, and of course I found it impossible to ignore a coin with a full three dolphins.

By this time Aegina was a shadow of its former self. Most of those who had fought and, at times, won against Athens had been extirpated. Athens did a fairly good job at massacring them – first removing them from their island to the mainland, then stopping by to kill most of them.

A synagogue from the 4th century CE may still be seen on the island, along with its well know temple from the 5th century BCE. The island itself can be seen in a day trip from Athens since it’s only a ferry ride away. I considered seeing it on a Greek trip, but just couldn’t fit the time so I’ll have to visit it another day.