Persian Empire
Q & A 6 min read

What was the Persian Daric Coin?

A gold coin of about 8.4 grams, struck in very pure gold (95–98%), with the Persian king in a half-kneeling position on the obverse and a series of irregular punch marks on the reverse, introduced by Darius the Great in the late sixth or early fifth century BCE. The daric was the principal gold coin of the Achaemenid Empire and a famous coin of the ancient world. It circulated widely across the Mediterranean and the Middle East, and gave its name to a Greek word for a bribe or a fortune. The cluster on Persian coinage and the daric gives the institutional context; the long-tail here is the coin itself.

Origin and introduction

The daric was introduced as part of a major reform of the Achaemenid monetary system. The Persian Empire, before the reform, had relied on the coinage of the conquered territories, in particular the Lydian and Ionian Greek coinage of western Asia Minor. The system was inefficient, since the various local coinages had different weights, purities, and designs, and the central administration had to convert between them.

Darius I, who came to the throne in 522 BCE after a period of rebellion and civil war, introduced a series of major administrative reforms, including the standardisation of the currency. The new gold coin, the daric, was struck on a weight standard close to the Attic gold standard, with a weight of about 8.4 grams and a purity of 95–98 per cent. The coin bore, on the obverse, a figure of the Persian king in a half-kneeling position, holding a bow in his left hand and a spear or javelin in his right.

Weight and purity

The weight of the daric, about 8.4 grams, is close to the Attic gold standard used by the Greek cities of Athens and Corinth. The choice of the Attic standard was a deliberate policy decision: the Greek cities of Asia Minor, which had been using the Attic standard for centuries, would find it easy to accept the new Persian coin. The purity of the daric, typically 95–98 per cent, was also very high, particularly by the standards of the ancient world, where debasement of the coinage was a chronic problem.

The high weight and purity of the daric made it a coin of international reputation. The Greek historian Herodotus, writing in the fifth century BCE, reports that the daric was widely accepted in the Greek world and that the Persian kings paid their soldiers and officials in darics. The Greek orator Aeschines, in the fourth century BCE, complained that the daric had become a byword for corruption in Athens, since the coin was so widely accepted that Athenian orators and politicians were tempted to take bribes in it. The Greek word δαρεικός (literally, daric) came to mean a bribe or a fortune, and the term passed into later Greek and into Latin as a word for a large sum of money.

Design and iconography

The design of the daric is striking and consistent. The obverse shows a figure of the Persian king in a half-kneeling position, with the right knee on the ground and the left foot forward. The king holds a bow in his left hand and a spear or javelin in his right. The figure is shown in a somewhat formal, almost hieratic pose, with the details of the royal dress (the kandys, a long-sleeved coat; the anaxyrides, or trousers; the tiara, or soft pointed cap) clearly visible. The reverse of the coin is marked only with a series of irregular punch marks, an incidental consequence of the striking process, but one that became a distinctive feature of the daric.

The design of the daric is a clear statement of Achaemenid imperial ideology. The half-kneeling archer, with the bow in his left hand, was a clear assertion of martial kingship, and the choice of the bow, a weapon of the Iranian steppe tradition, was a deliberate political statement. The same image, in slightly different form, appeared on the silver siglos and on the tribute tablets of the empire.

Mints and production

The daric was struck at a number of royal mints, including Sardis in Lydia, Susa in Elam, and possibly Babylon and Memphis. The minting process was tightly controlled, and the weight and purity of the coins were kept remarkably consistent across the empire. The use of punch marks on the reverse, which initially was a simple consequence of the striking process, became a distinctive feature of the Achaemenid coinage and was used as a security measure to discourage counterfeiting.

The total volume of Achaemenid gold coinage was substantial. Estimates by numismatists suggest that the empire struck perhaps 20–30 million gold darics over the course of the dynasty, an enormous sum in the ancient world. Many of these coins have been found in hoards across the empire, from the Indus Valley to the Aegean, and they form a major category of the world’s surviving ancient coinage. The large hoards of darics found in the Oxus Treasure, in the Black Sea region, and elsewhere attest to the volume of Achaemenid coinage.

The silver siglos

The silver counterpart of the daric was the siglos, a coin of about 5.4 grams struck in very pure silver. The siglos bore a similar, though less detailed, royal image, and it was the principal silver coin of the Achaemenid empire. The siglos was struck on the Attic silver standard, with a purity of about 95 per cent.

The siglos was used for everyday transactions in the Achaemenid empire, while the daric was reserved for large payments, military pay, and diplomatic gifts. The two coins were related to each other at a fixed ratio of about 1:13, although the actual market rate fluctuated. The siglos, like the daric, circulated widely across the Mediterranean and the Middle East, and it was the principal silver coin of the eastern Greek world in the fifth and fourth centuries BCE.

Use and circulation

The daric was used for a variety of purposes in the Achaemenid empire. The principal uses were:

  • The payment of soldiers and officials: the Achaemenid kings paid their armies in darics and sigloi, and the soldiers used the coins to purchase supplies and to send money home.
  • The payment of tribute: the tribute paid by the satrapies to the central government was collected in darics and sigloi, and the coins were stored in the royal treasury.
  • Diplomatic gifts: the daric was the standard gift of the Achaemenid kings to foreign rulers and to favoured officials, and the coin was used to seal alliances and to reward service.
  • International trade: the daric was the principal international currency of the eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East in the fifth and fourth centuries BCE, and it was accepted in most of the major trading cities of the region.

The daric was a coin of international reputation, and it was widely imitated. The Greek cities of Asia Minor continued to strike their own coinage, but they accepted the daric in their markets. The Greek cities of the Aegean, in particular Athens, accepted the daric as a major international currency, and Athenian vases of the fifth century BCE depict Persians counting out darics. The Carthaginians, the Arabs, and the Indian kingdoms also accepted the daric in their markets, and the coin has been found in hoards as far away as the Indus Valley and Egypt.

Decline and legacy

The daric continued to be struck until the fall of the Achaemenid empire in 330 BCE. After the conquests of Alexander the Great, the daric was gradually replaced by the Macedonian gold stater, but the Achaemenid coinage continued to circulate in the eastern Greek world for some time. The Parthian kings, who succeeded the Achaemenids in Iran, struck their own coinage, but they continued to use the Achaemenid weight standard and to draw on the Achaemenid iconographic tradition.

The legacy of the daric is twofold. In the first place, the coin was a major element of the Achaemenid imperial system and a symbol of Persian power in the ancient world. In the second place, the daric established a measure of monetary stability and design that was imitated, in turn, by the Hellenistic kings, the Romans, the Sasanians, the Islamic caliphs, and the medieval and modern coinages of the Middle East. The study of the daric is, in practice, a study of the monetary foundations of the Persian trade and economy and a major area of numismatic research.