Long ago Miletus was great.

In five generations from 650 BCE  to 500 BCE --a span from your grandparents to your grandchildren--civilization was transformed by the confluential inventions of democracy, mercantilism, coinage, and philosophy. Thales of Miletos exemplified the times, He is credited with predicting an eclipse, taking out futures contracts on olive presses and leasing them when the harvest came in, and developing the first formal proof in geometry. What we call the Socratic Method was the Milesian Way brought to Athens by Aspasia of Miletos.

Traditionally, cities had been ruled by kings. That story is in The Iliad and The Odyssey. Something changed. It probably happened in one lifetime. Tyrants replaced kings. We do not like tyrants and the word has a negative connotation but tyrants of the archaic world were self-made men on the rise who took over the affairs of their towns. And they could be overthrown, exiled or killed. That took planning and the conspirators became an oligarchy. Widen the ruling junto and you have a democracy. 

At this time, philosophy, argument by reason and evidence, was replacing religion as the informative narrative in the culture.

The citizens voted to go to wars in which they were the soldiers. That was not the traditional way. Rather than expendable masses of untrained farmboys, Greek mercenary armies were made up of bronze-clad hoplites. Your shield protected the man on your left whose right arm was raised with his spear. Social cohesian was critical to success. In return for victory, these armies were paid with the first coins. 

With armies outside their walls, sometimes citizens under the cover of darkness took their money and fled in their ships to found new towns. Thus, the coins of Abdera in Thrace mimicked the coins of their hometown, Teos in Ionia. Small silvers worth a day's wages from the anonymous towns of the Cheronesos peninsula in Thrace c 350 BCE copied the archaic designs of Miletos.

Miletos c. 550 BCE electrum sixth stater 2.37 grams (ex: Singer).

Recumbent lion / incuse punches.

SNG Von Aulock 1796

About 25 years ago, Dr. Gordon Andreas ("Andy") Singer 

was set up at the MSNS Thanksgiving show. 

His table displayed medieval coins.

I gave them some attention and started to walk past 

and he asked me what I was looking for and I said, "Archaic silver." 

And he replied, "Gold can be as cheap as silver." 

I read the tag and told him that 

the coin was misattributed to Phocaea when it was clearly Miletos. 

He said that it wasn't his specialty 

and the coin was mine at that price if I wanted it.

The failure of the Ionian Revolt was a lesson for the American revolutionaries of 1776. The Ionian Revolt started in 499 BCE in Miletos. The 12 cities were Miletus, Myus, Priene, Ephesus, Colophon, Lebedos, Teos, Clazomenae, Phocaea, Erythrae, Samos and Chios. As much as they shared in common culture, and even though they declared a central temple to Poseidon in Priene they never formed a political league and were re-conquered one at a time, in a string of defeats. It was over by 493. 

Unity did not come easily to the Americans. Proposed by Congress on 15 November 1777, the Articles of Confederation were not ratified until 1 March 1781. Contrast that with the fact that the Marine Corps was created on 10 November 1775 after the Battle of Bunker Hill 17 June 1775 and the Battle of Lexington and Concord 19 April 1775. 

I learned in high school that the "American revolution" was not the War for Independence. The revolution happened in the minds of the colonial leaders following the French-Indian War 1757-1763 when they realized that they were mostly on their own and their opportunities for full rights under English law--such as the Bill of Rights of 1689--were weak. The Albany Plan of Union (10 July 1754) was one of several compacts between and among the American colonies. Some attempts at unity were forceful, as when Massachusetts occupied New Hampshire (which it had to give back) and Maine (which it kept). Wars between New York and New Hampshire and Pennsylvania and Delaware were brief. 

Miletos electrum stater from the Rosen collection.

Golden ages come and go. Greek civilization was a complex. Common language and a plethora of independent city-states allowed the exchange of ideas. People interested in ideas gathered in Athens, then were induced to Alexandria. Syracuse was always available, as was Rhodes. And when Alexandria could no longer afford her librarians, the philosophers found homes in other cities, spreading the knowledge rather than hoarding it, though the great library did continue.  

When the first coins were struck, wealth was land and cows. Land was inherited. Coinage changed the form of wealth. More importantly, it allowed the creation of wealth by new means. Aristotle was not alone in opposing it. While livestock breeds naturally, to make money from money is unnatural. Many people today still believe that. 

British North America had no native gold or silver. Spain went bankrupt by looting the native Aztecs and Incas of their gold and silver. However, the British colonies created paper money and from that came roads, canals, railroads, airlines, telegraphs, telephones, and computers. 

Just as tyrants have a bad name today, so, too, do we denigrate sophistry. The ancient sophists were mercenary scholars who charged money for their lesssons. Plato did not like them, though he gave a fair hearing to Protagoras in one of the books of The Republic. 

Diogenes of Sinope was traveling when his ship was stopped and all aboard were taken to a slave market and sold. In those days, once apart from your city, you had no protection.

Obverse and reverse of a drachmon of
Sinope that could have been struck under
the authority of Diogenes who was later
accused of adulterating the coinage.

The ancient Greeks had a word for the person with no interest in politics: idiot. Concerned only with himself, he did not take part in civic life or at least did not come to the Assembly to argue and vote and take the responsibility of holding annual offices. When they attended the assembly, they paid themselves the same wages as a soldier in the field or a rower on a ship: one drachmon per day. The Spartans thought that this was evidence of the corruption of democracy, that the citizens voted themselves payments from the public treasury. In America, we do acknowledge civic engagement. However, our contribution to civilization is honoring the individual who minds their own business.

"Mind Your Business" Continental currency 1776 and Fugio cent 1787.

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

Bringing Philosophy to Athens: Aspasia of Miletos 

Hypatia of Alexandria 

Is Philosophy a Science? 

Numismatics: History as Market 

Numismatics: The Standard of Proof in Economics