The daric was a

gold coin A gold coin is a coin that is made mostly or entirely of gold. Most gold coins minted since 1800 are 90–92% gold (22fineness#Karat, karat), while most of today's gold bullion coins are pure gold, such as the Britannia (coin), Britannia, Canad ...

which, along with a similar silver coin, the siglos, represented the bimetallic monetary standard of the

Achaemenid Empire The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire, also known as the Persian Empire or First Persian Empire (; , , ), was an Iranian peoples, Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great of the Achaemenid dynasty in 550 BC. Based in modern-day Iran, i ...

.Michael Alram
"DARIC"
''

Encyclopaedia Iranica An encyclopedia is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge, either general or special, in a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into articles or entries that are arranged alphabetically by artic ...

'', December 15, 1994, last updated November 17, 2011

Cyrus the Great Cyrus II of Persia ( ; 530 BC), commonly known as Cyrus the Great, was the founder of the Achaemenid Empire. Achaemenid dynasty (i. The clan and dynasty) Hailing from Persis, he brought the Achaemenid dynasty to power by defeating the Media ...

(550–530 BC) introduced coins to the Persian Empire after 546 BC, following his conquest of

Lydia Lydia (; ) was an Iron Age Monarchy, kingdom situated in western Anatolia, in modern-day Turkey. Later, it became an important province of the Achaemenid Empire and then the Roman Empire. Its capital was Sardis. At some point before 800 BC, ...

and the defeat of its king

Croesus Croesus ( ; ; Latin: ; reigned: ) was the Monarch, king of Lydia, who reigned from 585 BC until his Siege of Sardis (547 BC), defeat by the Persian king Cyrus the Great in 547 or 546 BC. According to Herodotus, he reigned 14 years. Croesus was ...

, who had put in place the first coinage in history. It seems Cyrus initially adopted the Lydian coinage as such, and continued to strike Lydia's lion-and-bull coinage.

Darius I Darius I ( ; – 486 BCE), commonly known as Darius the Great, was the third King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, reigning from 522 BCE until his death in 486 BCE. He ruled the empire at its territorial peak, when it included much of West A ...

(521–486 BC) introduced a new thick gold coin which had a standard weight of 8.4 grams, equaling in value 20 silver coins. The gold used in the coins was of very high quality with a

purity Purity may refer to: Books * ''Pureza'' (novel), a 1937 Brazilian novel by José Lins do Rego * ''Purity'' (novel), a 2015 novel by Jonathan Franzen ** ''Purity'' (TV series), a TV series based on the novel *''Purity'', a 2012 novel by Jackson ...

of 95.83% and it bore the image of the Persian king or a great

warrior A warrior is a guardian specializing in combat or warfare, especially within the context of a tribal society, tribal or clan-based warrior culture society that recognizes a separate warrior aristocracy, social class, class, or caste. History ...

armed with a bow and

arrow An arrow is a fin-stabilized projectile launched by a bow. A typical arrow usually consists of a long, stiff, straight shaft with a weighty (and usually sharp and pointed) arrowhead attached to the front end, multiple fin-like stabilizers c ...

. Their use ended with

Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon (; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), most commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia (ancient kingdom), Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip ...

's invasion in 330 BC, after which they were mostly melted down and recoined as coins of Alexander. Close to the end of the 5th century BC, the Persian satraps in Asia Minor decided to strike their own coins. Darius considered such encroachment a crime punishable by death since the right of coinage was treated as an exclusively royal prerogative. The numismatic evidence does not permit identification of the image on the darics and sigloi as anything but that of the king; it was adopted by Darius as a dynamic expression of his royal power expressly for his coin issues. AchaemenidDaric4thCenturyBCE

The coin is mentioned twice in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' as the Israelites came into contact with it when their

Babylonia Babylonia (; , ) was an Ancient history, ancient Akkadian language, Akkadian-speaking state and cultural area based in the city of Babylon in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq and parts of Kuwait, Syria and Iran). It emerged as a ...

n conquerors were conquered by

Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...

. The first

Book of Chronicles The Book of Chronicles ( , "words of the days") is a book in the Hebrew Bible, found as two books (1–2 Chronicles) in the Christian Old Testament. Chronicles is the final book of the Hebrew Bible, concluding the third section of the Jewish Heb ...

describes King

David David (; , "beloved one") was a king of ancient Israel and Judah and the third king of the United Monarchy, according to the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament. The Tel Dan stele, an Aramaic-inscribed stone erected by a king of Aram-Dam ...

as asking an assembly of people to donate for the construction of the Temple. The people gave generously "for the service of the house of God five thousand talents and ten thousand ''darics of gold'', ten thousand talents of silver, eighteen thousand talents of bronze, and one hundred thousand talents of iron." Since David's reign is believed to be between c. 1048 and c. 1007 BC according to Old Testament chronology, the use of the ''daric'' is either an

anachronism An anachronism (from the Greek , 'against' and , 'time') is a chronological inconsistency in some arrangement, especially a juxtaposition of people, events, objects, language terms and customs from different time periods. The most common type ...

or a conversion by the writer into contemporary units. The other instance is

Ezra Ezra ( fl. fifth or fourth century BCE) is the main character of the Book of Ezra. According to the Hebrew Bible, he was an important Jewish scribe (''sofer'') and priest (''kohen'') in the early Second Temple period. In the Greek Septuagint, t ...

8:27; also a derivative Greek term "darkemonium" is recorded in Ezra 2:69 and three times in

Nehemiah Nehemiah (; ''Nəḥemyā'', "Yahweh, Yah comforts") is the central figure of the Book of Nehemiah, which describes his work in rebuilding Jerusalem during the Second Temple period as the governor of Yehud Medinata, Persian Judea under Artaxer ...

7:70-72. After bribes distributed by a Persian satrap to start the

Corinthian War The Corinthian War (395–387 BC) was a conflict in ancient Greece which pitted Sparta against a coalition of city-states comprising Thebes, Greece, Thebes, Classical Athens, Athens, Ancient Corinth, Corinth and Argos, Peloponnese, Argos, backe ...

in Greece led to

Sparta Sparta was a prominent city-state in Laconia in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the city-state was known as Lacedaemon (), while the name Sparta referred to its main settlement in the Evrotas Valley, valley of Evrotas (river), Evrotas rive ...

n king

Agesilaus II Agesilaus II (; ; 445/4 – 360/59 BC) was king of Sparta from 400 to 360 BC. Generally considered the most important king in the history of Sparta, Agesilaus was the main actor during the period of Spartan hegemony that followed the Peloponn ...

being recalled from a successful campaign in Asia Minor, he remarked that he had been driven out of Asia by "ten (alternately thirty) thousand archers" (referring to the image stamped on the daric). The ancient Greeks believed that the term ''dareikós'' () was derived from the name of

Darius the Great Darius I ( ; – 486 BCE), commonly known as Darius the Great, was the third King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, reigning from 522 BCE until his death in 486 BCE. He ruled the empire at its territorial peak, when it included much of West A ...

, who was believed to have introduced these coins. Some scholars agree with this and constructed the

Old Persian Old Persian is one of two directly attested Old Iranian languages (the other being Avestan) and is the ancestor of Middle Persian (the language of the Sasanian Empire). Like other Old Iranian languages, it was known to its native speakers as (I ...

word as *''dārayaka''-, Shapur Shahbazi
"DARIUS iii. Darius I the Great"
''

''. December 15, 1994. Last updated May 9, 2012. while others have generally supposed that the Greek term can be traced back to Old Persian *''dari''- ("golden", which possibly evolved into the word زر arin modern Persian) and that it was first associated with the name of Darius only in later

folk etymology Folk etymology – also known as (generative) popular etymology, analogical reformation, (morphological) reanalysis and etymological reinterpretation – is a change in a word or phrase resulting from the replacement of an unfamiliar form by a mo ...

. File:PERSIA, Achaemenid Empire. temp. Darios I to Xerxes I. Circa 505-480 BC. AV Daric (14mm, 8.32 g).jpg, Type II Daric ("King shooting arrow") temp. Darios I to Xerxes I (Type I Darics are unknown). Circa 505-480 BC. File:PERSIA. Achaemenid Kings. Circa mid-4th Century BC.jpg, Daric Type III ("King running with lance") gold coin (mid-4th century BC) File:PERSIA, Achaemenid Empire. temp. Artaxerxes II to Artaxerxes III. Circa 375-340 BC. AV Daric (15mm, 8.33 g).jpg, Daric Type IV ("King running with dagger"), temp.

Artaxerxes II Arses (; 445 – 359/8 BC), known by his regnal name Artaxerxes II ( ; ), was King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire from 405/4 BC to 358 BC. He was the son and successor of Darius II () and his mother was Parysatis. Soon after his accession, Ar ...

to Artaxerxes III, circa 375-340 BC. (15mm, 8.33 g) File:PERSIA. Alexandrine Empire. Circa 322-315 BC. AV Double Daric (16.66 gm). Babylon mint.jpg, Double Daric minted, well after the conquests of

, in

Babylon Babylon ( ) was an ancient city located on the lower Euphrates river in southern Mesopotamia, within modern-day Hillah, Iraq, about south of modern-day Baghdad. Babylon functioned as the main cultural and political centre of the Akkadian-s ...

circa 322-315 BC.

References

{{Achaemenid Empire Ancient currencies Achaemenid Empire Gold coins Coins of Iran

See also

References