Rhodian Drachm

The Rhodian drachm was the silver coin of the island state of Rhodes in the south-eastern Aegean, struck from the late fifth century BCE into the Roman period. It carried the head of the sun god Helios on the front and a rose on the back, and was minted on its own lighter weight system, known as the Rhodian standard.

Rhodes was one of the great trading and naval powers of the Hellenistic world, and its coinage was widely trusted. Rhodian drachms, and close copies of them, circulated across south-west Asia Minor, the islands and Crete, and the Rhodian standard was adopted or imitated by many neighbouring mints.

The three old cities of the island, Ialysos, Kamiros and Lindos, joined together in 408–407 BCE to found a new city of Rhodes, and a unified coinage followed. Earlier Greek coins had first appeared on the nearby mainland of Asia Minor, where the Lydian stater began the history of coinage two centuries before, so Rhodes entered a well-established monetary world.

The coins showed Helios, the patron god of the island, at first in profile and later in a three-quarter facing view with flowing hair, often with a radiate crown. The reverse showed a rose, in Greek rhodon, a play on the island's name. A magistrate's name and a small symbol usually appeared beside the rose, allowing modern researchers to arrange the coins in sequence. The cult of Helios was also celebrated by the Colossus, the giant bronze statue built after Rhodes withstood the siege by Demetrius Poliorcetes in 305–304 BCE (see Antigonid coinage).

Rhodes did not use the weight of the Attic drachma. Its early tetradrachms weighed about 15 grams, on a standard shared with Chios and other cities of the eastern Aegean, so that a Rhodian drachm was noticeably lighter than an Athenian one. The weight was reduced further over time. In the early second century BCE Rhodes introduced a large series of light drachms, generally under 3 grams, with the rose set inside a shallow square; modern collectors call these "plinthophoric" drachms, from the Greek for a square tile.

Because the coins were lighter than Attic silver, merchants dealing in both had to apply an exchange rate between the two systems, and money changers did business at every major port. Smaller silver fractions down to the obol, and bronze coins for small change, completed the system.

Rhodes grew rich on the transit trade in grain and other goods between Egypt, the Levant and the Aegean, and on harbour dues. Its drachms became a familiar medium of exchange in Caria, Lycia and beyond. Several mints in the region struck coins on the Rhodian standard, and in the second century BCE many cities and leagues issued drachms that copied Rhodian types closely; these are often called "pseudo-Rhodian" drachms.

The island kept close commercial ties with Ptolemaic Egypt, even though Ptolemaic coinage operated in a closed system, and Rhodian merchants handled money from many sources, including Seleucid coinage and the Pegasi of the Corinthian stater. Rhodes was also known in antiquity for its maritime customs, later echoed in Roman law on shared losses at sea.

Rhodes was an ally of Rome for much of the second century BCE, but relations soured after the Third Macedonian War. In 166 BCE Rome made the island of Delos a free port, drawing trade away from Rhodes and cutting its harbour income. The city's silver output declined over the following century. In 43 BCE Gaius Cassius, one of Julius Caesar's assassins, captured and plundered Rhodes. Bronze coinage continued under Roman rule, but the silver drachm gradually gave way to the Roman denarius.

The drachm itself, as a name for money, lived on long after Rhodes ceased minting; the modern Greek drachma revived the name until the euro replaced it.

• American Numismatic Society
• British Museum – Collection online