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Posted 02/14/2024 4:27 pm
I never heard that ancients carried coins in their mouths, so I had to look it up. Most of what I found was also along the lines of "I've heard that..." but I did find this interesting reference.
https://rg.ancients.info/alexander/fractions.html
So it may have originated as humor that we can't understand today. They did put a coin on or in the mouth of a dead person as payment to Charon, so perhaps it's an allusion to that. Like just in case you died, you went around with a coin in your mouth.
Anyway, it's hard for me to consider that bag as "junk silver." There could be some cool varieties in there and a lot of history in that bag.
https://rg.ancients.info/alexander/fractions.html
Quote:
Silver fractions were the pocket change of the ancient Greeks before the advent and widespread use of bronze coinage. Some people today contend that the ancient Greeks carried fractions like this in their mouths when going to and from the marketplace, based on the plays of the Aristophanes, including The Birds, c. 414 BC, and Ekklesiazusae (The Assemblywomen), c. 392 BC, both of which survive, and Aiolosikon, which survives only in fragments or later quotes. In The Birds, a character describes himself looking up in surprise and accidentally swallowing an obol. In Ekklesiazusae, a character describes himself going off to market with a jawful of coppers to buy some flour. In Aiolosikon, a character describes himself carrying a two-obol piece in his mouth. But Aristophanes was a comic playwright, and elsewhere in The Birds he talks about purses or money bags. Greek garments didn't have pockets. Instead of people carrying small change in their mouths, which would have been unsafe and uncomfortable, a more credible scenario may have been that they carried coins in purses.
Silver fractions were the pocket change of the ancient Greeks before the advent and widespread use of bronze coinage. Some people today contend that the ancient Greeks carried fractions like this in their mouths when going to and from the marketplace, based on the plays of the Aristophanes, including The Birds, c. 414 BC, and Ekklesiazusae (The Assemblywomen), c. 392 BC, both of which survive, and Aiolosikon, which survives only in fragments or later quotes. In The Birds, a character describes himself looking up in surprise and accidentally swallowing an obol. In Ekklesiazusae, a character describes himself going off to market with a jawful of coppers to buy some flour. In Aiolosikon, a character describes himself carrying a two-obol piece in his mouth. But Aristophanes was a comic playwright, and elsewhere in The Birds he talks about purses or money bags. Greek garments didn't have pockets. Instead of people carrying small change in their mouths, which would have been unsafe and uncomfortable, a more credible scenario may have been that they carried coins in purses.
So it may have originated as humor that we can't understand today. They did put a coin on or in the mouth of a dead person as payment to Charon, so perhaps it's an allusion to that. Like just in case you died, you went around with a coin in your mouth.
Anyway, it's hard for me to consider that bag as "junk silver." There could be some cool varieties in there and a lot of history in that bag.
