DRACHMS IN SOLON’S LAWS.VARIANTS OF THE PROBLEM’S SOLUTION IN THE LIGHT OF REALITY OF THE SOLONIAN TIME
The second part of the article deals with evidence of Androtion, an Atthidographer, and Aristotle (in the Athenaion politeia ) on the seisachtheia and Solon’s metrological reform (although both measures cited, to say strictly, didn’t belong to the Solonian law code), as in these passages drachms are also mentioned. The authors ascertains that Androtion confuses mistakenly the two above-mentioned actions; as to Aristotle, he ascribed to Solon a monetary reform in addition to a metrological one because he was firmly sure that early 6th century B.C. Athens already had its own coinage (we now know it’s wrong, but even in the first half of the 20th century any specialist in Greek numismatic would have subscribed to this Aristotelian judgment). At the end, the author states that of all existing interpretations of Solonian drachms, the most viable is the one (developed in most detail by J.H. Kroll), which identifies them as pre- monetary money, if to be concreteas non-coined little silver ingots of fixed weight.