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The weights of the Athenian agora, from the obol to the talent. Part of the Ancient Measures collection.
Every unit converts through grams on the Attic standard: drachma = 4.32 g, obol = drachma/6, mina = 100 drachmae, talent = 60 minae. Worked example: the 10,000-talent indemnity Rome imposed on Carthage (201 BC) = 10,000 × 25.92 = 259,200 kg of silver. Athens kept its drachma honest for centuries; other cities’ drachmae (Aegina’s 6.1 g, Corinth’s 2.9 g) differed — money-changers earned their living on the spread.
4.32 g of Athenian silver — roughly a skilled worker’s daily wage in the 5th century BC. Six obols made a drachma; the word means ‘a handful’ (of spits).
25.9 kg of silver (Attic) — a strong man’s load. It was never a coin, only an accounting unit: nobody carried a talent anywhere.
Each polis struck its own coinage on its own standard — Athens 4.32 g, Aegina 6.1 g, Corinth 2.9 g. The money-changer’s table (trapeza, root of ‘bank’) existed to bridge them.
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