Attalid Asia Minor : money, international relations, and the state

358 Pages·2013·2.65 MB·English

by  Attaliden.

ATTALID ASIA MINOR
Money, International Relations, and the State
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Attalid Asia Minor
Money, International Relations,
and the State
EDITED BY
PETER THONEMANN
1
3
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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
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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