Note 796 — Chapter VI · Argos

Strabo VIII. 376, “Ephorus says that in Aegina money was first coined by Pheidon”; Marm. Par. (Jacoby) under 895 B.C. “Pheidon the Argive ... made a silver coinage in Aegina (ἀφ’ οὗ Φείδων ὁ Ἀργεῖος ἐδήμευσε τὰ μέτρα καὶ σταθμὰ κατεσκεύασε καὶ νόμισμα ἀργυροῦν ἐν Αἰγίνῃ ἐποίησεν)”: Et. Mag. s.v. ὀβελίσκος, “the first of all men to strike a coinage was Pheidon the Argive in Aegina”; Eustath. Comm. Iliad. II. 562, “silver was first coined by Pheidias (sic) there (sc. in Aegina).” So, but with no mention of Aegina, and an implication of other metals besides silver, Strabo VIII. 358, “and he (sc. Pheidon) invented the measures called Pheidonian, and weights, and a stamped coinage, particularly that in silver,” and Pollux IX. 83, “whether Pheidon the Argive was first to strike money or Demodike of Cyme when married to Midas of Phrygia or Erichthonios and Lykos or the Lydians or the Naxians.” Aelian, V.H. XII. 10, in a list of Aeginetan achievements mentions their invention of money: he has no occasion to mention Pheidon but rather the reverse, so that no conclusion can be drawn from the omission of the name.