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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Evolution of Coinage

The Evolution of Coinage

MacDonald, George

Paperback

General Antiques & Collectibles

Currently unavailable to order

ISBN10: 1151431508
ISBN13: 9781151431509
Publisher: General Books
Pages: 84
Weight: 0.30
Height: 0.20 Width: 9.01 Depth: 5.98
Language: English
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1916. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER II COINAGE AND THE STATE The public authorities having assumed control of the coinage, two consequences immediately followed. The state acquired the right of determining what was to be current money with the merchant in every part of the district over which its sway extended. At the same time there devolved upon it the duty of making certain that the weight of this money was always just and the quality always pure. These are the cardinal principles by which the relations between coinage and the state are regulated; and the body politic cannot remain sound, unless the right be jealously guarded and the duty conscientiously discharged. The fact that the privilege of striking coins was an attribute of the sovereign power, accounts for the multiplicity of different mints by which the day of the Greek city-state was distinguished. During the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. they can be reckoned by hundreds, each voicing a claim to independence on the part of some self-governing community, great or small. It also accounts for the very different phenomenon presented by the empire which, in the eyes of so many successive Ii THE RIGHT OF MINTAGE 13 generations of Greeks, stood prominently out as the very incarnation of autocratic rule. In all the wide dominions of the Persian King none dared to strike money save the monarch himself and such of his subjects as might be honoured by a special delegation. And so it was throughout antiquity. Each changing phase of the struggle between these two conflicting political ideals was marked by a rise or a fall in the number of active mints. In the fifth century B.C., as the hold of Athens over her 'allies' stiffened into something that was barely distinguishable from despotism, there was a visible shrinkage in the ou...

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