Unità ponderali e monetarie nei golfi di Napoli e di Salerno prima della II battaglia di Cuma

Behind the monetary practices of the Late-Archaic period offering evidence of the currencies of the Graeco-Tyrrhenian world, we can glimpse the practice had been adopted as from the Bronze Age to determine the ratios between the various shekels and the minor fractions present in the Near East and the Aegean. A propulsive role is hypothesised for the Euboeans in transferring Levantine ponderal practices to the Gulf of Naples, in the early days of frequentation of the southern Tyrrhenian Coast in fact, the drachma of 5.8 g minted subsequently by the colonies of Chalkidiki in the West was not cut to a weight foreign to the Greek world but revived, in terms of coin, practices that developed in Euboea and the cities of Greece in contact with Euboea. Significantly, at Cuma were to be found coin representing the principal measures of weight (5.8 g; 7.76 g; 8.72 g) use as from the Bronze Age in Cyprus and on the Syrian-Palestinian coast as well as being attested in Euboea in the mid- 9th century BC (T. 79 Toumba weights). The “Phoenician” foot of 7.76 g seems to have found its way to the Tyrrhenian not through the Strait, but along the coast of Africa, crossing south of Sicily to reach the Iberian coast and the Gulf of Lyon. The coinage of Elea and Poseidonia launched in the years following up on the settlement of the Phoceans driven out of Alalia were based solely on this ponderal value (and fractions of it) and – although we have no precise chronological definition of the start of minting of the two poleis to argue that one preceded the other – we cannot rule out the possibility that its establishment on the Gulf of Salerno and the launch of monetary practices were due precisely to the Phoceans of Alalia, who were well acquainted with the “Phoenician” foot in use on the Gulf of Lyon and along the coasts of north Tyrrhenian Etruria.