The Athenian Drachma and the Role of Money in the Economy

This chapter provides information on the various types and subdivisions of the Athenian currency of the times, the drachma series of coins. It explains why drachma became the international currency of the times, something like the “dollar” of the Classical times. Then it describes the Athenian monetary system, by arguing that money supply in the market was a combination of direct democracy procedures in the Assembly, but also the market forces themselves. This is why this chapter next describes the Athenian monetary regime in relation to later unconventional monetary regimes, such as the Scottish free banking regime and the digital currencies phenomenon. It then explains the famous Law of Nicophon, which was introduced with the purpose that only pure currency (unfraudulent coins) to be circulated in the economy. The chapter closes with the last subsection, which explains the related methods of assessing the purity of metal coins in Classical Greece.