Factors Strengthening and Threatening the Security Functions of the Achaemenid Coins (559-330 BC)

AbstractCoins are illustrative and credible sources of ancient times whose study can shed light on the darker parts of history. Coins had security, commercial, and media role in the past. The purpose of this study is to investigate the factors that enhance and threaten the security functions of the Achaemenids period coins (559-330 BC) using a historical research method and a descriptive-analytical writing approach, library sources, and museum archives and documents. Trade and trading tools have always been one of the most important components of a society’s social life. The present study attempts to investigate this aspect of socio-economic history by proposing the hypothesis the political and economic factors can affect the Achaemenid coin security functions. The findings indicated that the Achaemenid coins have to be reinforced by Darius’s efforts to pay attention to economic (royal road), administrative (Divine Road), and political management practices (Satrapies). The threatening effects of the Achaemenid coins must also be found in the political, social, and economic mismanagement of Darius’s successors, such as the policy of gold coinage in the Peloponnesian Wars, the recruitment of mercenary soldiers, corruption of the court, the rise of the Satraps, and the increase in interest rates and taxes.