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Significance of „Boiotian League/Chalkis" Silver Issue 27
number of archaic Greek coins. Even if it is assumed to stand for Chalkis,
there is no reason to assume it indicates a political combination with the
Boiotian League.
A wheel appears as the reverse type on some of Chalkis' early coinage, but
it is not the only or even the characteristic reverse type. The wheel on the
shield/wheel coin, moreover, is not exactly like the wheel on any issue that
is certainly from Chalkis. W.P. Wallace has pointed out that "this is the only
Chalkis wheel to have an axle-hole, and its fabric seems more Eretrian than
Chalkidian."17 A wheel appears on a number of other contemporary
coinages, including Makedonian issues of a style generally similar to Euboian
coinages and the shield/wheel issue."
The Berlin specimen is clipped; its original weight cannot be ascertained.
The Paris specimen weighs 16.80 g, in reasonable agreement with both the
Euboian and Attic standards for the stater.'9 The stater weighs the same
theoretical 17.2 g in both standards, but the Euboian stater was divided into
thirds and sixths while the Attic was divided into halves and quarters. In the
absence of fractional denominations, the two standards cannot be
distinguished. Euboian cities first struck coins to the Euboian standard but
changed to the Attic system of divisions before 500 B.C. The Chalkidike
similarly changed from the Euboian to the Attic system of fractions at an
early date. Both the Euboian and Attic standards were, of course, also
employed elsewhere. Boiotia coined to the Aigenitic standard rather than the
Euboian, but the first certain Boiotian coins of Aigenitic standard were not
struck until a decade or more after the shield/wheel issue.2° It is not beyond
possibility that some Boiotian city, perhaps Tanagra, employed the Euboian
standard for an abortive issue considerably before it commenced regular
coinage.
Despite these doubts, it is likely that the shield/wheel issue was in fact
struck at Chalkis sometime around 520 B.C. Style, fabric, and weight agree
better with contemporary Euboian issues than with any others. Salvaging the
probable Chalkidian origin of the issue does not, however, resurrect
17 W.P. Wallace, "Early," p. 38 n. 2.
18 E.g. coins of the Ichnai (BMC Macedonia p. 76 no. 1; Price and Waggoner, Asyut, nos.
40-44), other Thraco-Macedonian issues (BMC Macedonia pp. 154-155 nos. 16-21), as
well as the EMINAKO coins from Olbia (Babelon, Traite 113, Paris 1912, 272, giving the
issue to Thrace; modern opinion is in favor of Olbia as the mint.) These coinages, of course,
are struck to different weight standards from the Attic-Euboian standard of the
shield/wheel issue. Wheel types are common throughout the Greek world, from Massalia
through Baktria.
19 The coin has suffered a test cut on the obverse, which should not have altered its weight.
The loss of 0.4 g is most likely due to corrosion, which affected many of the coins in the
Taranto hoard greatly. Kraay, Archaic, 88-91, 329-330.
20 Note 11 supra.