Funding the Peloponnesian War

CNG 84, Lot: 480. Estimate $750. Sold for $500. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

SIKYONIA, Sikyon. Circa 431-400 BC. AR Stater (24mm, 11.94 g, 7h). Chimaera standing left, raising forepaw; ΣE below / Dove flying left; Σ above tail; all within wreath. BCD Peloponnesos 186; CH IV, Fig. 4, 4 (this coin). VF, toned, graffito on obverse (large Π). Rare.

Ex BCD Collection (not in previous sales); 1970 Greece Hoard (CH IV 20).

One of the important and largely unanswered questions to date regarding the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC) has been the method by which the Spartans (and the Peloponnesian League) funded their war efforts against the Athenians. Unlike their opponent, whose economic and numismatic history is known in great detail, the Spartans received little attention, due to the paucity of epigraphic evidence, the lack of interest on the part of the literary sources, and the non-existence of either contemporary numismatic material minted in Sparta or local sources of bullion. Cognizant of their lack of silver currency, so vital for putting forces in the field, Sparta appealed almost immediately in 430 BC to outside sources, especially the Persian Empire, for money. As Persian financial assistance did not arrive until after 412/11 BC when war shifted to the eastern Aegean, other sources had to be exploited. Jennifer Warren, in a seminally important article published in the Proceedings of the 13th International Numismatic Congress (pp. 317-20), addresses, in part, this issue of funding, arguing that, prior to the introduction of Persian money, the Spartans relied on the coinage of its neighbors, in particular the silver and bronze issues of Sikyon, which comprised the bulk of the coinage used by the Peloponnesian League during the war, as Sikyon was both a loyal ally and committed member of the Peloponnesian League, and had access to sufficient quantities of bullion. How the coinage was transacted, however, is another story. A Theban stater from the BCD Boiotia Collection (lot 441), dated to circa 425-395 BC, shows the evidence of having been overstruck on a Seltman Group C, Series XII stater of Elis, dated to 432 BC. In his note for the coin, BCD suggests that the undertype may have been part of a consignment of Peloponnesian staters sent north by the Spartans during the war so that the coins could be converted to Boeotian currency to better serve the military plans of the allies against Athens. This is an attractive suggestion, since it supports the argument of Stephen Hodkinson (Property and wealth in classical Sparta [London, 2000] in Warren, op. cit., p. 317) that, as the Spartans themselves minted no coinage, they instead stockpiled other currencies or sent them to the Arkadians for safe-keeping. Thus, the large Π marked on this Sikyon stater may provide a valuable clue for its use. The letter may stand for ΠΕΛOΠΟΝΝΗΣΙΑΚΟΝ (ΑΡΓΥΡΙOΝ), or “money intended for the Peloponnesian War” and may have been part of such a deposit intended for the Spartan war chest. As this coin was found among a hoard of Boeotian staters of the war period and such staters are quite often found in Thessaly, the result of a definite flow of Boeotian money towards that area, it is quite likely that this stater, together with others, found its way into Thessaly for military purposes instead of being restruck in Boeotia, either to pay for equipage or horses, or as diplomatic inducements to manipulate the tension between the Thessalian aristocracy and demos, and shift the fortunes of war to the Peloponnesian side.