Stater - History

History

The stater, as a Greek silver currency, first as ingots, and later as coins, circulated from the 8th century BC to 50 AD. According to Robin Lane Fox, it was borrowed by the Euboeans from the Phoenician shekel, which was of about the same weight and was also a fiftieth part of a mina.

Original mintings of this coin such as practiced in Athens valued the stater at a tetradrachm (4 drachms), though issues at other places or times applied the word "stater" to a didrachm (2 drachm) coin. The stater was also minted at Corinth. Staters were also struck in some of the Mediterranean islands such as Aegina and Kydonia. For example, one silver coin struck in Kydonia was that of a stater featuring the Minoan goddess Britomartis.

There also existed a "gold stater", but it was only minted in some places, and was mainly an accounting unit worth 20-28 drachms depending on place and time, the Athenian unit being worth 20 drachms. (The reason being that one gold stater generally weighed roughly 8.5 grams, twice as much as a drachm, while the parity gold:silver, after some variance, was established as 1:10) The use of gold staters in coinage seems mostly of Macedonian origin. Celtic tribes brought it in to Western Europe after using it as mercenaries in north Greece. The best known types of gold staters are the 28 drachm Kyzikenos from Cyzicus, and the gold staters minted in Gaul that Gallic chiefs modelled after those of Philip II of Macedonia, which mercenaries brought back West after serving in his armies, or those of Alexander and his successors. Gold staters have also been found from the ancient region of Gandhara from the time of Kanishka.