Rhodian Hegemony and Anatolian Monetary Economy in the Hellenistic Period

Description

The island of Rhodes was a major player in the Hellenistic period, a city which was also a hegemonic power. It exercised direct control on the Anatolian mainland, through the integration of a coastal peraia into the structures of its state from the late fourth century, and then brief expansion further into Caria and Lycia after being awarded new territories under the Treaty of Apameia in 188 BCE. In this presentation, I will analyse Rhodes’ hegemonic relationship to its Anatolian possessions and their environs through the complicated Rhodian coinage. The consequences of Rhodian power – both direct political control and indirect economic dominance – on Anatolian monetary economies were varied, including the implementation of a closed monetary zone in the Rhodian peraia, changes in weight standards followed by local minting, the production of imitative Rhodian coinage by smaller communities, and the spread of Rhodian small change. My analysis, building on work by Alain Bresson and Richard Ashton, will be enabled by the digital resources created by the ERC-funded CHANGE Project (https://change.web.ox.ac.uk). Overall, the case of Rhodes will illuminate how hegemonic power had pervasive impact on the economic lives of communities and their citizens, a concrete way hegemony was felt on the ground.

Period	22 Oct 2025
Event title	COLLOQUE. De la négociation à l’intégration : l’hégémonie à l’époque hellénistique
Event type	Conference
Location	Paris, FranceShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International