Spartan coin was iron rods - ie rusty nails.

Old rusty nails via Husard's flickr photostream

Sparta was quite a backward state. At the beginning of the Peloponnesian War their monetary system was based on iron rods; not gold or other precious coins - basically they traded rusty nails as currency.

Since the Greeks were always loose confederations of city-states that formed alliances largely based upon their political systems; Athenian democracy vs Spartan Oligarchy or Tyranny, statecraft was a valuable tool. Wealth entered into that and this area Athens had it all over Sparta.

Paying for an extended war with rusty nails probably does not inspire confidence in oligarchic allies.
Cam Riley: South Sea Republic. Freedom, liberty, equity and an Australian Republic.

Comments
  • adam . # . 1/1
    Reminds me of this review.

    Give me utilitiy or give me something slightly better!
    • cam . # .
      I agree with most of that. The Peloponessian War went for so long because Athens would not meet Sparta's hoplites in battle (same as Germany and the UK wouldnt trade shots with Dreadnaughts in WWI) and Sparta wouldnt meet the Athenian Navy in a clean fight. So they fought assymetrically and consequently a city-state form of genocide appears to have been the common way to fight. Quite horrid really.

      The Spartans were skilled at statecraft though. They did manage to keep a wide confederation in place throughout the war despite Athenian attempts to destabilise it through the Messinians and by establishing democratic ruling elites in cities. There was political genocide as well in cities because Sparta and Athens tried to install oligarchic or democratic elites into power. The locals would execute their political rivals and vice versa.
      'Sworn to no party, and of no sect am I.' Frederick Vosper's republican motto.
    • avocadia . # .
      I only just saw 300 this week, after a mate dumped a whole bunch of rips on me.

      Sparta understood only one kind of fighting: land battle, the hoplite shield-wall

      I was vastly amused when, after shooing the hunchback away because he couldn't be part of a shield wall, the Spartans engaged the Persians in a phalanx formation only once for about fifteen seconds, and then broke it up to fight as individuals in the standard barbarian fashion that phalanxes tended to pulverize.

      I guess there is less opportunity for posers posing in posing pouches when they are squeezed together in a shield wall.
  • As I look at my desk and see a small (sob) pile of polymer and miscellaneous metal discs, I'm not sure I can agree one hundred percent with the notion that using iron instead of gold or silver necessarily makes the Spartans backward. The example works better when you play up the convenience factor of those precious metal coins over the deliberately-inconvenient rods.
    • cam . # .
      What happens when the state wants a loan because they are out of money? They start nicking nails from houses? Stealing forks?
      'Sworn to no party, and of no sect am I.' Frederick Vosper's republican motto.
      • avocadia . # .
        Pretty sure they didn't inflate their way out of trouble by melting down their spear heads.