Attalid Asia Minor : money, international relations, and the state PDF
Preview Attalid Asia Minor : money, international relations, and the state
ATTALID ASIA MINOR Money, International Relations, and the State This page intentionally left blank Attalid Asia Minor Money, International Relations, and the State EDITED BY PETER THONEMANN 1 3 GreatClarendonStreet,Oxford,OX26DP UnitedKingdom OxfordUniversityPressisadepartmentoftheUniversityofOxford. ItfurtherstheUniversity’sobjectiveofexcellenceinresearch,scholarship, andeducationbypublishingworldwide.Oxfordisaregisteredtrademarkof OxfordUniversityPressintheUKandincertainothercountries #OxfordUniversityPress2013 Themoralrightsoftheauthorshavebeenasserted FirstEditionpublishedin2013 Impression:1 Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced,storedin aretrievalsystem,ortransmitted,inanyformorbyanymeans,withoutthe priorpermissioninwritingofOxfordUniversityPress,orasexpresslypermitted bylaw,bylicenceorundertermsagreedwiththeappropriatereprographics rightsorganization.Enquiriesconcerningreproductionoutsidethescopeofthe aboveshouldbesenttotheRightsDepartment,OxfordUniversityPress,atthe addressabove Youmustnotcirculatethisworkinanyotherform andyoumustimposethissameconditiononanyacquirer BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData Dataavailable ISBN 978–0–19–965611–0 PrintedinGreatBritainbythe MPGPrintgroup,UK Preface Few epochs in the history of western Asia Minor are as well docu- mented,oraspoorlyunderstood,asthe‘short’secondcenturybc.In 188bc,thetreatyofApameiabroughtanendtoSeleukidrulenorth oftheTaurosmountains.TheprosperousSeleukidterritoriesinAsia Minor were divided by Roman fiat between the inhabitants of the island polis of Rhodes (who received Karia south of the Maeander river) and King Eumenes II of Pergamon, the ruler of a tiny, semi- independent principality on the far northern periphery of the vast Seleukid realm. The curtain fell on Attalid Asia Minor a mere fifty- fiveyearslater,in133bc,withthedeathofEumenes’sonAttalosIII andthebequestofhiskingdomtotheRomanpeople. Before Apameia, the Attalid kingdom had been a relatively small playerinHellenisticgreatpowerpolitics.InChapter3ofthisvolume, BorisChrubasikshowsthatdowntothe190s,theAttaliddynastshad neverin fact enjoyedanyreal independencefrom theSeleukidstate, actinginsteadaslocalpower-holderswithinaSeleukidadministrative framework. Their gradual disentanglement from the Seleukids was completed in 188, when the Attalids saw tremendous swathes of territory bestowed on them at the stroke of a Roman pen. Eumenes was the chief beneficiary of a set of careful and pragmatic Roman calculations of self-interest, persuasively analysed by Philip Kay in Chapter4. Eumenes’ Faustian pact with Romebrought its own problems. As IargueinChapter1,theideologicalandbureaucraticstructuresofthe Attalid kingdom after Apameia developed in a manner quite unlike thoseoftheothermajorHellenisticterriorialstates.Notonlywerethe late Attalid monarchs obliged to develop a new, non-charismatic royal style and ideology; large parts of the tributary economy and royal administration were progressively devolved to civic actors and local power-holders. The military needs of the expanded second- century Attalid kingdom were met with an extensive programme of militarysettlementinruralLydiaandPhrygia,asJohnMadescribes inChapter2.ThelandscapeofwesternAsiaMinorwaspermanently transformedbytheexperienceofAttalidrule. vi AttalidAsiaMinor Atsomepointintheearlysecondcentury,andbythemid-160sat the latest, the Attalid monarchs introduced a new reduced-weight silver currency (the ‘cistophoros’), which circulated only within the Attalid dependent territories in Asia Minor. In stark contrast to all otherHellenisticroyalcoin-issues,thiscoinageboreneitherthename nor the image of any member of the Attalid dynasty. In Chapter6, François de Callataÿ shows quite how startling a jump in Attalid monetary production the introduction of the cistophoric coinage represented: as de Callataÿ’s quantitative studies demonstrate, the annualproductionofsilvercoinagebythelastthreeAttalidmonarchs more than matched that of their former Seleukid masters. A particular problem here is raised by the so-called ‘wreathed’ coinages, a group of large and beautiful silver coin-issues struck by citiesonthewesternfringeoftheAttalidkingdominvastquantities around the middle of the second century bc. As Selene Psoma establishesinChapter8,thesewreathedissuesshouldbeunderstood as a surrogate Attalid ‘export’ coinage, used in particular to fund AttalidgeopoliticalinterestsinSeleukidSyria. Howthenewcistophoriceconomyactuallyfunctioned inwestern Asia Minor has never been convincingly explained. In Chapter5, Andrew Meadows offers a compelling new reconstruction of the operation of the Attalids’ ‘epichoric’ currency system, which, he argues, should be seen as closely connected to wider economic and ideologicalimperativesonthepartoftheAttalidstate.Theworkings of this system on the peripheries of the kingdom are the subject of Chapter7,inwhichRichardAshtonshowshowthecurrency-systems of the two great powers of western Asia Minor, Rhodes and the Attalids, exercised a strong gravitational pull on the local coinages ofsmallcitiesevenoutsidetheirimmediatezonesofcontrol. The kingdom of Eumenes and his successors has long been the CinderellaamongthemajorHellenisticterritorialstates.Ifthecityof PergamonandtheartisticandculturallegaciesoftheAttaliddynasty havebeenrelativelywellservedbyrecentscholarship—onethinksof the work of Erich Gruen, Wolfgang Radt, Hans-Joachim Schalles, AndrewStewart,andBiagioVirgilio,amongothers—thesamecannot be said for the material, economic, and institutional foundations of Attalid success. Hence the focus of this volume on the political economy of the second-century Attalid kingdom, and in particular the three major themes of money, international relations, and the Preface vii state. Culture and ideology are not neglected; but this is first and foremostabookaboutpower. All but two of the papers publishedhere were originallydelivered inaseminarseries,‘TheAttalidsandtheirNeighbours,188–133bc’, held under the auspices of the Oxford Ancient History sub-faculty every Tuesday afternoon during Trinity Term (April–June) 2010. I am grateful to Riet van Bremen, Beate Dignas, Chris Howgego, Jack Kroll, and Robert Parker for their contributions to the original seminar series; to Andrew Meadows and the American Numismatic Societyforhelpwithimages;toNicholasEvans,ofWadhamCollege, forcompilingtheindex;totheFacultyofClassics,WadhamCollege, The Robinson Charitable Trust, and the Heberden Coin Room for financialsupport;andtoHilaryO’SheaatOxfordUniversityPressfor hercommitmenttotheproject. PeterThonemann Oxford,March2012 This page intentionally left blank Contents ListofAbbreviations x ListofIllustrations xiv NotesonContributors xvii 1. TheAttalidState,188–133bc 1 PeterThonemann 2. TheAttalids:AMilitaryHistory 49 JohnMa 3. TheAttalidsandtheSeleukidKings,281–175bc 83 BorisChrubasik 4. WhatDidtheAttalidsEverDoforUs?TheViewfrom theAerarium 121 PhilipKay 5. TheClosedCurrencySystemoftheAttalidKingdom 149 AndrewMeadows 6. TheCoinagesoftheAttalidsandtheirNeighbours: AQuantifiedOverview 207 FrançoisdeCallataÿ 7. TheUseoftheCistophoricWeight-StandardOutsidethe PergameneKingdom 245 RichardAshton 8. WarorTrade?Attic-WeightTetradrachmsfrom Second-CenturybcAttalidAsiaMinorinSeleukidSyria afterthePeaceofApameiaandtheirHistoricalContext 265 SelenePsoma Bibliography 301 Index 329
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