BY THE SIXTH CENTURY BCE, when coinage came into wide use in the Mediterranean world, ships had evolved to a high technical level. Most ships on ancient coins are rowing galleys: big, fragile racing shells designed for ramming.
Rowers were free citizens, often highly trained athletes. Hollywood, as usual with history, gets it wrong; galley slaves were a medieval innovation rarely employed in the ancient world. Cargo ships, which relied more on sails, were not symbols of power and appear on coins less often.
Greeks
"We live around the shores of the sea like frogs around a pond,” said the philosopher Plato[1] (c. 424-347 BCE).
"We live around the shores of the sea like frogs around a pond,” said the philosopher Plato[1] (c. 424-347 BCE).
Considering the importance of maritime trade and conflict in ancient Greece, it is surprising how few ships appear on archaic (before 500 BCE) and classical (500 – 336 BCE) Greek coins. We hardly ever see a whole ship, usually only the prow (the bow section, with the ram) or the stern (where the steersman sat).
Greek Early Ship
Mariners are famously superstitious–was it bad luck to depict an entire ship? Probably not, since vase paintings of this era often show complete vessels.
More likely it was simply too difficult for die cutters to engrave so many oars. Even a small warship (the pentekonter) had 25 oars per side, while the standard war vessel (the trireme) had 85 oars per side, packed in three tiers.
Phaselis, established about 700 BCE on the south coast of Lycia in Asia Minor, may have been the first Greek city to use a ship as its emblem on coins.
Phaselis, established about 700 BCE on the south coast of Lycia in Asia Minor, may have been the first Greek city to use a ship as its emblem on coins.
The obverse of a rare silver tetrobol (c. 500 – 440 BCE) shows the bow of a ship (in the form of a boar) while the reverse shows the graceful upward sweep of the stern.
Two centuries later, on a handsome silver stater, the style is more refined, but the imagery is the same (Coinage is conservative!). Note the prominent “eyes,” which were carved from marble, painted, and attached to the bow. Greeks believed these eyes gave the vessel a living spirit and helped it to find its way (Carlson, 359).
Zancle (now Messina, Sicily), founded as a Greek colony in the eighth century BCE, was another early user of the ship’s prow on coinage. A tetradrachm of about 494 BCE shows a samaina, a distinctive type of warship developed by the island of Samos.
In the Hellenistic era (336-146 BCE) ships appear more frequently on Greek coins. Demetrius I of Macedon (who ruled 301-283) issued handsome silver tetradrachms to celebrate his naval victories.
Zancle (now Messina, Sicily), founded as a Greek colony in the eighth century BCE, was another early user of the ship’s prow on coinage. A tetradrachm of about 494 BCE shows a samaina, a distinctive type of warship developed by the island of Samos.
In the Hellenistic era (336-146 BCE) ships appear more frequently on Greek coins. Demetrius I of Macedon (who ruled 301-283) issued handsome silver tetradrachms to celebrate his naval victories.
On the obverse, Nike (winged goddess of victory) stands on a platform at the richly decorated prow of a galley, blowing a trumpet. She holds a ship’s mast, symbolic of sea power.
On the reverse, Poseidon is about to hurl his trident. Thanks to a hoard of high-grade examples that reached the market in the 1990s, such magnificent coins typically sell for about US$5000.
