POLITICI MONETARE ÎN CONTEXTUL REALITATILOR POLITICO-MILITARE SI COMERCIAL-ECONOMICE DIN DOBROGEA PREROMANA. EVIDENTA NUMISMATICA
PRE-ROMAN DOBRUDJA MONETARY POLICIES IN THE POLITICALMILITARY AND ECONOMIC-COMMERCIAL CONTEXT. THE NUMISMATIC EVIDENCE

Summary/Abstract: The metallic coin has appeared in the ancient world out of practical reasons, which regarded the simplification of the commercial transactions (means of exchange), the creation of a standard of value, of small dimensions, easily useable, the obtaining of a reserve of value (the hoarding), and the appearance of a means of payment. By means of the coin, one could pay or measure a merchandise from the point of view of the value, and it was accepted and guaranteed by a state or a city (through imposition), by the simple user or the merchant (through convention), as it was a direct expression of authority, an assertion of prestige, sometimes within the limits of the administrative, economic, political and military supervision, other times beyond these fluctuating boundaries. Also, its moulding or striking pertained to a financial sovereignty of the emitter, to hisdecisions, depending on the momentary or of the future interests, with direct consequences on a set of economic and commercial actions. It remained up to the authorities to decide the epigraphic and iconographic details, the constitutive metal, the inner value etc. For the Greek coins issued by different centres, closer to or farther from the analysed geographical space, an impressive number of discovery sites have been charted, in the west-Pontic territory, both hoards and isolated discoveries. A very important part, as mediator for the Greek coins, other than the west-Pontic ones from Dobrudja, was played by the Greek urban centre of Histria, starting with the 6th–5th centuries, but especially during the 4th century, whose manifestation was an economy in full expansion owing to its commercial nature, first and foremost in the Pontic area. Subsequently, the other centres, Callatis and Tomis, had their important role in creating the conditions that were propitious for the dissemination of some coins coming chiefly by sea on the coasts of Dobrudja, in the chora, then in the territory of the natives and maybe north of the Danube. Proof in this respect is represented by the frequent economic, commercial and cultural relations and also other types of relations existing between the west-Pontic colonies of Dobrudja and various other centres of the Greek world, as is confirmed by the epigraphic material.

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