Some Observations on Koina and Monetary Economy in Hellenistic Asia Minor

Abstract

The koina of pre-Roman Asia Minor, comprising several major organisations along its western and southern coasts like the koina of Athena Ilias, the Lesbians, the Ionians, the Chrysaorians, and the Lykians, present a collection of federal states less well understood than better documented koina in mainland Greece. This paper highlights the regional characteristics of these Anatolian koina by examining their monetary and political economies. It first suggests that federalising behaviour in Hellenistic western Asia Minor tended to be centred on regional sanctuaries and festivals, and less involved in the formation of cohesive political institutions through federal law-making or military mobilisation. This also had the effect that they present the impression of being monetarily ‘light’, as is explained in the second section, because they were not by and large fiscally cohesive, or had close oversight of monetary supply, with the notable exception of the Lykian league – taxation was not hugely intrusive or extensive, and little federal coinage was produced. The last two sections consider this ‘lightness’ as a function of the regional specificities of political and economic power in the region, suggesting that koina functioned parasitically as organisations ensconced between imperial states and civic communities, both reflecting and shaping the dominant role in the region of these two types of polity in the Hellenistic period.