The Attic talent (a talent of the Attic standard), also known as the Athenian talent or Greek talent (, ''talanton''), is an ancient unit of weight equal to about , as well as a unit of value equal to this amount of pure silver.The exact mass of a talent was 25.992kg. Herodotus, Robin Waterfield and Carolyn Dewald, ''The Histories'' (1998), p. 593. A talent was originally intended to be the mass of water required to fill an

amphora An amphora (; ; English ) is a type of container with a pointed bottom and characteristic shape and size which fit tightly (and therefore safely) against each other in storage rooms and packages, tied together with rope and delivered by land ...

, about .Talent (Biblical Hebrew), Unit of Measure
''unitconversion.org''.

History

The earliest known Athenian coins range between the years of 545 BC to 515 BC. However, Athenians had already adopted the

drachma Drachma may refer to: * Ancient drachma, an ancient Greek currency * Modern drachma The drachma ( ) was the official currency of modern Greece from 1832 until the launch of the euro in 2001. First modern drachma The drachma was reintroduce ...

and the obol as a form of currency. The corresponding weights vary before and after the Athenians began to produce coins. After the reign of

Solon Solon (; ; BC) was an Archaic Greece#Athens, archaic History of Athens, Athenian statesman, lawmaker, political philosopher, and poet. He is one of the Seven Sages of Greece and credited with laying the foundations for Athenian democracy. ...

, the change of standard was lowered to half of its former weight. As the Athenian league's influence expanded over the

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern ...

, the Attic standard became one of the major weight standards adopted during the Archaic and

Hellenistic In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the R ...

Period. During the

Peloponnesian War The Second Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC), often called simply the Peloponnesian War (), was an Ancient Greece, ancient Greek war fought between Classical Athens, Athens and Sparta and their respective allies for the hegemony of the Ancien ...

, a

trireme A trireme ( ; ; cf. ) was an ancient navies and vessels, ancient vessel and a type of galley that was used by the ancient maritime civilizations of the Mediterranean Sea, especially the Phoenicians, ancient Greece, ancient Greeks and ancient R ...

crew of 200 rowers was paid a talent for a month's worth of work, one drachma, or 4.3 grams of silver per rower per day.Torr, Cecil. "Triremes", ''The Classical Review,'' Vol. 20, No. 2 (March 1906), p. 137. According to wage rates from 377 BC, a talent was the value of nine man-years of skilled work. This corresponds to 2340 work days or of silver per worker per workday. The Attic talent, corresponding with the standard, would change throughout the time of

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 ...

and the Hellenistic Period, subsequently diminishing its value little by little.

Currency or weight

The subsequent units would then become as follows, obol,

, mina, and heaviest being the talent. An Attic talent is equivalent to 60 minae, 6,000

e or 36,000 oboloi.

References

{{Hellenistic coinage Coins of ancient Greece Ancient Athens Economy of ancient Greece Ancient Greek units of measurement Units of mass

History

Currency or weight

See also

References