The Early Antigonids: Coinage, Money, and the Economy (NS 37)

For the week of May 15, Pocket Change will highlight new books that you might have missed, starting with The Early Antigonids: Coinage, Money, and Economy, vol. 37 of the Numismatic Studies series.

This systematic analysis of the gold and silver coinages of “King Antigonos” is intended to explore the nature of the Antigonid cash economy during the second and the third quarter of the third century BC. The author’s principal aim in reconstructing the precious metal coinage of “King Antigonos” is to comprehend the way in which the mints concerned functioned and to identify the major issues of the period. This helps us to answer questions such as: whether or not production was continuous; on which occasions/for which purposes the mints operated; where and why the coins produced circulated and what their value at the time was; finally, whether these issues outlasted their initiator, Antigonos Gonatas. The macroeconomic profile of Antigonid Makedonia during this period is completed by an attempt to quantify and contextualize these Antigonid silver issues. Explanations other than military for the production of this coinage are explored and the chronology and the role of those silver coins issued posthumously in the name of Alexander that are currently assigned to the early reign of Gonatas are reconsidered. Finally, the geographical distribution of these Antigonid issues is reassessed.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Katerina Panagopoulou (BA Athens, 1993, PhD London, 2000) is Assistant Professor in Ancient History at the University of Crete / Greece, held a 2019–2020 Harvard University CCS-CHS Fellowship in Comparative Cultural Studies in Greece and having previously held fellowships at the Universities of Princeton and Oxford. She has also worked at the Hellenic Open University, (as a Research Assistant) at the Centre for Greek and Roman Antiquity / Hellenic Research Foundation (1993–1994) and at the Foundation of the Hellenic World. Her research interests encompass ancient numismatics, the economic behavior of precious metals (Hellenistic and Roman), Macedonian demography, politics and economy, Social Network Analysis and economic history, Hellenistic and Roman social history. Publications include: “Between Federal and Ethnic: The Koinon Makedonon and the Makedones Revisited,” in H. Beck, K. Buraselis and Alex McAuley (eds.), Ethnos and Koinon, Studies in Ancient Greek Ethnicity and Federalism (Stuttgart, 2019), 363–383; (ed., with Prof. I. Malkin and Dr. Christy Constantakopoulou), Greek and Roman Networks in the Mediterranean (London, 2009).

List price: $150 plus shipping & handling
Member price: $105 plus shipping & handling
ISSN 0517-404-x
ISBN 978-0-89722-355-3
Hardcover, xlv + 388 text pages, b/w figures, color map, color charts, and 64 plates

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