Ancient Coin Stories

It was Macedon in 277 BCE. The entire country was in chaos. There were Gauls everywhere. One couldn’t walk in the street without witnessing this horde pillaging. The Gauls cut in line at the supermarkets, ravaged the countryside, and had horrible manners.

Something needed to be done, and when the Gauls attacked the holy city of Delphi, the Greeks had had enough. This time, it was the Aetolians who stepped to the front. The Aetolian League was an exclusive club of cities in ancient Greece, who had lately made some rather poor decisions in arguing with Alexander the Great. But with him out of the picture, they were now the big boys in town. They were also the inventors of the thermos, named for their capital.

The Aetolian League teamed up with Antigonos II Gonatas. Antigonos was the rock star of the day, since he enjoyed tremendous fame through both sides of his family. His father was Demetrios I Poliorketes, which means “besieger of cities.” Every time Athens or Rhodes invited Demetrios to dinner, there would be a huge flotilla of tiremes outside the city, and all the inhabitants would say “not again, Demetrios!” Demetrios‘ father was Antigonos I Monophthalmos, the famous general of Alexander the Great who finally perished on the battlefield against the combined might of Seleukos, Lysimachos, and Ptolemy at the age of 81.

Antigonos’ mother was Phila, a highly-respected woman who was the daughter of a poorly respected man in Kassander, who himself was son of Alexander III’s regent in Macedonia, Antipater.

All of this fame was great for Antigonos II Gonatas, but he lacked much of an army to retake his birthright of Macedonia, so he joined with the more powerful Aetolians. Together, they strode out to take on the fierce Gauls.

In an amazing bit of fortune, the work turned out to be easier than thought. While everyone was encamped at night, anxious to fight the next day, an earthquake hit during a lightning storm. The resulting chaos caused the Gauls to panic, and they started killing each other while the Aetolians and Antigonos II Gonatas watched the whole spectacle with popcorn. The next day, they mopped up what remained.

Now, although Antigonos wasn’t the best military leader, being the product of royalty had enabled him to achieve his MBA (Macedonian Business Administration), and one skill he learned there was brand marketing. To build his brand, he advertised the whole ordeal by taking Pan – the Deity of Mischief – as his emblem and placing it in the center of all his coins. The Aetolians, who supplied the majority of troops, are still relatively unknown to this day. The Gauls eventually moved to France and became the center of modern day haute couture.