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Plutarch states the Spartans had an iron obol of four coppers. They retained the cumbersome and impractical bars rather than proper coins to discourage the pursuit of wealth. [5] Silver Athenian obol, prominently featuring the regional owl design. 510–490 BC. In Classical Athens, obols were traded as silver coins. Six obols made up the drachma.
Sparta deliberately used iron currency to make amassing wealth unwieldy, and remained on an iron currency standard all through Greece's golden age. [2] Julius Caesar's Gallic Wars, mentions iron currency in Britain. [3] "For money they use bronze or gold coins, or iron bars of fixed weights." — Julius Caesar, 54 BC [1]
Spartans were obliged to use iron obols (bars or spits), meant to encourage self-sufficiency and discourage avarice and the hoarding of wealth. A Spartan citizen in good standing (a Spartiate) was one who maintained his fighting skills, showed bravery in battle, ensured that his farms were productive, was married and had healthy children.
Pelanor (Ancient Greek: πέλανορ, lit. 'cakes') [1] was the currency reportedly used in Sparta during the reign of the semi-mythical Lycurgus. [2] According to Plutarch's Life of Lycurgus, [3] not only did Lycurgus ban the use of gold and silver currency in favor of iron, but, just as the iron was red hot, it would be quenched in vinegar, thus rendering the metal unusable for any other ...
The three most important standards of the ancient Greek monetary system were the Attic standard, based on the Athenian drachma of 4.3 grams (2.8 pennyweights) of silver, the Corinthian standard based on the stater of 8.6 g (5.5 dwt) of silver, that was subdivided into three silver drachmas of 2.9 g (1.9 dwt), and the Aeginetan stater or didrachm of 12.2 g (7.8 dwt), based on a drachma of 6.1 g ...
An ancient Greek coin with a portrait of Nabis, king of Sparta and inventor of the Iron Apega. The Apega of Nabis, also known as the Iron Apega, was described by Polybius [1] as an ancient torture device similar to the iron maiden. It was invented by Nabis, a king who ruled Sparta as a tyrant from 207 to 192 BC.
Irish Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney makes a less direct allusion with a simile — "words imposing on my tongue like obols" — in the "Fosterage" section of his long poem Singing School: [195] The speaker associates himself with the dead, bearing payment for Charon the ferryman, to cross the river Styx. Here, the poet is placing great ...
The Spartans used the same typical hoplite equipment as their other Greek neighbors; the only distinctive Spartan features were the crimson tunic (chitōn) and cloak (himation), [38] as well as long hair, which the Spartans retained to a far later date than most Greeks. To the Spartans, long hair kept its older Archaic meaning as the symbol of ...