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Located on the Peloponnese peninsula next to the mighty Eurotas River, Spartan citizens were bred for war. The Spartans were arguably the most fearsome, ruthless and accomplished warriors in the ancient world. The legendary warrior city of Sparta was so resistant to currency that they actually forbade its use for several centuries.
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Other regions eagerly followed their example and created distinctive coins depicting the emblems of their society.īut while Athens coinage depicted a wide-eyed owl, and Corinth used the flying horse Pegasus, one Greek city-state stubbornly refused to embrace the concept of coinage. They struck an astonishingly beautiful coin featuring a sea turtle in high relief. Within a century, the island of Aegina, who traded with Lydia, had become the first Greek city-state to see the potential of currency. The Lydians struck their coins in electrum, an alloy of gold and silver, and they depicted the head of a lion. The Greek historian Herodotus recorded that the world’s first coins were struck in the Kingdom of Lydia around the Seventh Century BC. The ancient Greeks produced many beautiful coins that are highly sought after by collectors today. The Lydian lion, believed to the be the world’s first coin