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Submitted for award of PhD September 2006. - King's College London

Submitted for award of PhD September 2006. - King's College London

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the Fensemi may have been minted under similar arrangements. However, the occasions<br />

<strong>of</strong> these issues may have been local wars or building projects, unrecorded in our extant<br />

sources.<br />

Rutter also compared the minting <strong>of</strong> coins by Naples <strong>for</strong> Hyrina and Nola to the<br />

production <strong>of</strong> coins within the Achaean league. 605 In the Achaean league, the members<br />

<strong>of</strong> the league, rather than minting locally, gave silver to the federal treasury, which<br />

turned it into federal money. The ethnic <strong>of</strong> the communities contributing to the federal<br />

money appeared on the coins. Rutter admitted that the coins <strong>of</strong> the Achaean league have<br />

not been thoroughly studied and that the historical background <strong>of</strong> Campania is different<br />

from that <strong>of</strong> Achaea. The hypothesis that Naples functioned as the federal treasury <strong>for</strong><br />

the communities that had coins minted there would imply that all these cities and towns<br />

belonged to a federation headed by Naples, which is quite implausible. Nola there<strong>for</strong>e<br />

appears among a handful <strong>of</strong> Campanian communities <strong>for</strong> whom coins were minted in<br />

Naples in the first quarter <strong>of</strong> the fourth century BC. The coinage <strong>of</strong> Nola was produced<br />

in a short period and was inferior in size to the coinage <strong>of</strong> Ilyrina. It is there<strong>for</strong>e<br />

implausible that Nola issued coins to provide money <strong>for</strong> a confederation <strong>of</strong> communities<br />

that it headed. Nor is it necessarily significant that no coins in the name <strong>of</strong> Abella are<br />

known.<br />

5.4. Epigraphic evidence<br />

167

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