The Athenian Decadrachm has generated discussion amongst classical numismatists since the first coin was mentioned as a find in Megara in 1817 (it is now in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France).  Very few of these coins have been recorded, with 17 in private collections, 18 in museums and a further 3 whose location is unknown.   There is a strong interlinkage between the dies used for the known specimens, which indicates that they were produced over a small number of issues within a 10-year period.  In comparison, the most recent estimate is that between 500 and 480 BC around 325 obverse dies were used for the Athenian tetradrachm, or ‘owl’, leading Kallet/Kroll to approximate that 6 million tetradrachms were struck in the period.  The arguments around the decadrachm centre on the date and purpose for its issue  – was it commemorative, or a short-term issue of a larger denomination for general circulation untied to a specific event?  These two questions are intertwined as a commemorative issue would tie to a specific event and so tie down a date.

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The coin is minted on the Attic standard of a 17.2g tetradrachm, making this 43.0g.  The obverse is stylistically similar to the tetradrachm with the head of Athena wearing a crested Attic helmet.  On the reverse the owl is in profile with its wings spread.  This new pose  forces the ethnic to move from the right of the owl and to be placed above right and below each wing.  The other major difference to the tetradrachms is the absence of the crescent below the olive sprig.

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At first consideration the date and purpose for the production of the Decadrachm seems evident as Heroditus records that ‘The Athenians had amassed a large sum of money from the produce of the mines of Laurium, which they proposed to share out amongst themselves at the rate of ten drachmas  a man;  Themistocles, however, persuaded them to give up this idea and,  instead of distributing the money, persuaded them to give up this money, to spend it on the construction of two hundred warships for the use in the war with Aegina.’  [Histories, 7.144].   This passage would indicate that the intent was to place additional coinage into circulation and would date the issue to the mid to late 480s BC.  

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Whilst early writings on the decadrachm by respected numismatics such as Barclay Head, Ernest Babelon and Percy Gardner supported this date, but the latter raised the possibility that the coin was a commemorative issue, aligning it to the Demareteia of Syracuse.  The Demareteia is the name given to the Attic standard decadrachms of Syracuse, of which there are only 14 extant examples, which bear the head of Gelon’s wife Demarete on the reverse.  These are thought to have been minted just after 480 BC when Gelon, the tyrant of Syracuse, defeated the Carthaginians at the battle of Himera.   Demarete had interceded for the Carthaginians and was rewarded by them with 100 gold talents, which sum was used to mint the Demareteia [Diodorus, 11.26].   The similarity between the two issues was thought by Gardner to demonstrate both the date of issue (the battle of Himera and the battle of Salamis both date to 480 BC), and in the commemorative nature of the issue.

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Returning to Heroditus, he noted that although the proposal was made to distribute ten drachma per man, it was overturned on the appeal of Themistocles to build the ships that would eventually lead to the defeat of the Persians at Salamis.  So, unless the view is taken that some of the silver actually was distributed to the citizens, it would seem to remove that purpose from discussion of the coinage and put in doubt the date implied.

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Dating the production of the decadrachms has therefore relied on stylistic analysis,  constructing a timeline for the more numerous tetradrachms, and then placing the decadrachms into that sequence.  The most obvious starting point is the palmettes on the helmet of Athena, sometimes known as the ‘wreathed’ tetradrachm series.   Colin Kraay’s pioneering study of early Athenian coinage places this series as being issued later than the battle of Salamis in 480 BC.   The work of Kraay was built up on by Chester Starr, whose work has become one of the standard references for Athenian coins.  As with Kraay, he built his chronology on the hoard evidence for the Athenian tetradrachms and, by stylistic analysis dated the decadrachms to around 469-465 BC.  The hoard evidence for dating the decadrachms was supplemented by 13 of them found within the Emali hoard discovered in 1984, which is thought to have been deposited in around 460 BC.   It should be noted that separately the Demareteia had been downdated to the early 460s BC.

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With a new date proposed for the decadrachms the question still arises as to whether they are tied to a particular event as a commemorative issue.  Between 469 and 466 BC, Athens led the Delian League to a huge victory over the Persians at the Eurymedon River. The Delian League acquired a large amount of treasure from the defeated Persians, who had been planning another invasion of Greece. Thasos, one of the members of the Delian League, objected to the unfair distribution of the wealth acquired and seceded from the League. Athens responded by launching a war against Thasos, forcing it back into the League. The subsequent peace treaty in 463 BC required significant additional payments from Thasos, who had access to its own silver mines . It has been proposed that the Athenians struck the decadrachms to celebrate their victories over both the Persians and the Thasians using the wealth obtained during these wars.  If you place it immediately post the battle of the Eurymedon river then this does align, however delaying until the end of the war with Thasos seems to push the dating later than that proposed by Starr.  There is however one more bit of evidence to consider.

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A metallurgic analysis of one of the decadrachms matched that of the mines at Laurium with a high silver purity.  As other silver sources typically had higher gold content, it would have been expected that an influx of silver from Thasos or Persia (after the Eurymedon victory) would have increased the gold content of the decadrachms.  An inference may be made that the decadrachms were minted prior to that influx.  However, it may equally be that with such a high value coin more than typical care was taken over the purity of the silver.

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The revised dating of the decadrachm places in a period where Athens was at the height of its cultural, moral and economic ascendancy after the defeat of the Persians.  At a time when the Athenians leading the Delian League,  it is possible that they ordered the issue of an ostentatious decadrachm to supplement the position of the tetradrachm as the trade coin of the period and to reflect the power and authority of Athens within its new arche (loosely 'empire') rather than it being tied to a specific event.