Introduction

1In 1999 the Bastounis family gave a number of coins to the 5^th Ephorate of Byzantine Antiquities (EBA) for cleaning and safekeeping. There followed two other consignments, from the Meletis family in 2000 and the Koleventis family in 2002. All of these coins were found during regular agricultural work. The consignments (to the newly-established 25^th EBA) were completed in 2011 when Father George Geòrgas, the priest of Limnes, handed over seven further coins1. The material was characterised by an internal consistency which made it attractive to us and prompted us to write about it. In conjunction with other coin finds from the North-central Argolid, some of which are studied for the first time in another paper in the present volume2, we hope to build up a picture which encompasses settlement, communication, defence and warfare in the Frankish period, and which showcases the numismatic evidence as a valid historical source.

2The stray finds and the hoard which are the subject of this discussion come from the wider area of Limnes, which lies to the North East of Argos, in the area between the Argolic and Saronic Gulfs. More precisely, the finds are from around “Mygiò”, to the northeast of Limnes, and from locations known as “Pyrgos” and “Lakouvitsi-Koniselo”. Pyrgos lies within Limnes itself, Lakouvitsi to the north of Limnes, above the old road of “Kontoporeia”, which will be addressed further below. Lakouvitsi is known for its late medieval church of the Birth of John the Baptist, and the nearby Agionori has a Frankish-period castle. Mygiò is the single most important position under consideration here, 3.5 km from Limnes and 2.5 km from Agionori, on the south western slopes of the “Tzero” mountain. To the west of Mygiò runs a narrow valley which is dominated, further to the north west, by the said castle of Agionori3. The importance of Mygiò lies precisely in its elevated position, very close to a tight road network which linked the Argolid and Corinthia from antiquity to the end of the middle ages. This side of the Tzero mountain4, which benefited from an abundant water supply, provided good living conditions. The once flourishing settlement preserves nowadays only terraces built from the stones of the old buildings designed to expand the cultivated areas (fig. 1).

3The settlements in this area had already been the subject of investigation from the 1930s onwards, by the Swedish Archaeological Institute at Athens, leading to the so-called called “Berbati-Limnes Archaeological Survey” of the 1980s5. The road network in the area was recently examined by Pikoulas in a book dedicated to the memory of Anastasia Oikonomou, who came herself from Limnes6. The main road which went past Mygiò connected the area of Agionori with Aggelokastro and the area of Dimaina-Epidauros in the east. A little to the west of Limnes and Mygiò, close to Koniselo, another important road known as the Kontoporeia led from Argonauplia to Agionori and from there to Corinth7. These and more minor ancient roads became more important in later Byzantine and Frankish times, precisely because they linked such important towns and positions as Nauplion, Argos, Agionori, Corinth, Aggelokastro, Dimaina, Piada. The position of Mygiò itself, as is testified by the ceramic evidence gathered by the Swedish expedition8, also flourished in the 13^th and 14^th centuries. Numismatically speaking, the area of Limnes, and more precisely the village of Berbati (now known as Prosymna) to the West, has already on previous occasions been the object of research: in 1953 it produced an amalgam (hoard?) of Byzantine copper coins, including counterfeit tetartera, deposited perhaps in the early 13^th century9, as well as a hoard of French and English coins that was concealed probably in the 1250s10. Our coin finds from the North and East of Limnes, which again reveal the period from the late 12^th to the early 14^th century as key to the area, insert themselves into this scheme11.

Coin finds

Stray Finds

4Bastounis family, Mygiò 1999:

5Koleventis family, Pyrgos 2002:

6Father Geòrgas, Lakouvitsi-Koniselo 2011:

Hoard

7Meletis family, Mygiò 2000:

Discussion

8The first observation that must be made about the coin finds from the Limnes area is that we can rely on the evidence of stray finds and of one hoard (and additional hoards, if we also take into consideration the finds from Prosymna: see above). This is important, since strays are able to provide a diachronic picture, while hoards show moments in time. Both the strays and the hoards are confined to a rather narrow chronological band, from the mid-12^th to the first years of the 14^th century, with the great bulk of the evidence gathered in the 13^th century. The absence of later medieval coins, for instance the prolific Achaian denier tournois issues of Mahaut of Hainaut (1316-1321) and John of Gravina (1321-1332), and of Venetian soldini and torneselli12, is striking, and suggests that the area experienced arrested development. On the other hand, the fact that monetization, and indeed habitation as such, took hold substantially in the 12^th-century Komnenian period is a very typical development for the southern Greek area.

9With regard to some of the individual issues, the counterfeit tetarteron from Mygiò 1999 (fig. 2) is a typical example of the octagonally-clipped “Saronic Gulf Group”, of which there was some discussion at the Argos conference, minted no doubt in the Argolid during the first decade of the 13^th century. It is likely that the specimens from one of the Prosymna hoards belong to the same coinage. The French coin from the same consignment (fig. 3) belongs the main late grouping of King Louis IX and has been dated to between the mid-1240s and the date of the major monetary reform in 1266. The second Prosymna hoard closes its royal French series with precisely this issue.

10The two Achaian petty denomination issues in the name of Prince William of Villehardouin (1246-1278) from Mygiò 1999 and Lakouvitsi-Koniselo 2011, which are classified according the numbering system devised by Metcalf (types 9 and 10 respectively), date substantially from the period 1249-1254. The four cited coins from the area to the north and east of Limnes –a counterfeit tetarteron, a French royal tournois, and petty denomination issues– constitute, together with the French feudal tournois and the English sterlings of the second Prosymna hoard, a very typical spread of coinage issues for the Peloponnese, and especially the north eastern Peloponnese, during the first half-century of Latin rule.

11Achaia presumably began minting its own tournois coinage in the later 1260s, and this coinage was to dominate the currency of the peninsula until the middle of the following century. Single finds, such as those from Mygiò 1999 and Lakouvitsi-Koniselo 2011, are common. This coinage was also hoarded in very large quantities, especially during the period after which the mints of Thebes, for the duchy of Athens (mid-1280s), and Naupaktos (probably 1301), began to issue the same currency. The hoard from Mygiò 2000 can be compared to a number of other hoards which display similar compositions. In fact, the numismatic evidence that is now available for the first decade of the 14^th century, in terms of hoards and coin types emitted at the three main mints of Clarentza, Thebes, and Naupaktos, and which has been developed by Tzamalis and Metcalf, is now so substantial that a detailed account of coin production can be proposed. The Achaean series in the Mygiò 2000 hoard ends with Philip of Savoy, whose issues PSA, PSB, PSΓ are represented in good quantities (fig. 4). Philip, who was prince against the wishes of the Angevin overlords, departed from the Peloponnese in November 1304, upon which coinage in his name presumably ceased to be emitted at Clarentza. At what point the same mint resumed coinage in the name of his successor, Prince Philip of Taranto, which is absent from the hoard, is unclear and might have occurred as early as November 1304 and as late as the summer of 1306, when the latter arrived in Greece. While Savoy was prince in Achaea, Philip of Taranto minted under the title of Despot of Romania at Naupaktos, at the western entrance of the Gulf of Corinth. This minting began very probably in 1301, and it is likely that Metcalf’s DR2a variety, which closes this series in the hoard, and which lacks the Achaean title for Philip of Taranto, is also to be dated before November 1304 (fig. 5).

12The Athenian coinage with the obv. legend GVI. DVX has been divided into numerous groupings by Tzamalis. It is clear that GR20Z (fig. 6) is relatively late and culminates in hoards which were concealed as a direct result of the Catalan invasion of the duchy, which also brought this particular coinage series to an end in 131113.

13Nevertheless, GR20Z was probably already minted before the death of Guy II de la Roche in October 1308, and then resumed with Gautier of Brienne in April 1309. Geographically speaking, the minting of the main tournois issues of Greece in this period occurred therefore at two mints at the western entrance of the Gulf of Corinth (Clarentza and Naupaktos) and at another mint substantially further to the East (Thebes). The last eastern issue contained in the Mygiò 2000 hoard dates to later than the two last issues from the western mints. Even if we allow for the inactivity of the mints of Clarentza and Naupaktos during parts of 1304-1306, we are still dealing with a delay of one or two years for western issues to arrive in the Argolid. The connection to Thebes was geographically and politically much more direct14.

14While looking through Greek material of similar dating it became apparent that two hoards from Epidauros, more precisely from the Asklepios sanctuary in the locality now known officially as Asklipieìo, which are kept at the Athens Numismatic Museum, were very close15. The Epidauros 1986 hoard was found in 1904 in the central Building E, whereas the precise provenance of Epidauros 1891-1892, found in November 1883, is currently unknown. The second of these hoards, which are both very small, closes in the same Athenian issue GR20Z, whereas both contain Achaean specimens PTB, an early issue of Philip of Taranto (minted from 1304-1306 onwards: see above).

15Next to nothing has been written about the medieval history of the site of the Asklepios sanctuary in Epidauros. It lies in close proximity to the medieval castle of Ligourio and on another route, more southerly than the one so far discussed in this paper, linking the valley of Argonauplia and the Saronic Gulf. The two hoards of similar composition and dating from Asklipieìo point to a particular caesura in the history of this location. Further, the third analogous hoard from Mygiò, and the absence from the Limnes area of any numismatic documentation dating to later than c. 1308, widen the area which might have been affected.

16Such clusters of hoards, and parallel arrested developments, naturally often come about in relation to violence and warfare. For instance, a few years later Atticoboeotia saw a great number of hoards as the area was invaded by the Catalans (1311)16, and the site of Ancient Corinth ceased to produce any significant coin finds for more than a generation after being sacked by the same Catalans in 131217. When Philip of Taranto arrived in Achaea in 1306, he demanded homage from the Athenian Duke Guy II de la Roche, who had married a Villehardouin wife and had claims on the principality himself. Guy was created bailie and followed Philip in his campaigns against the Byzantines in the central parts of the peninsula18. In 1308/1309 the Latin and Greek forces clashed in a location called “Gerina” by the Aragonese version of the Chronicle of Morea. No modern writer, neither Longnon19, Zakythinos20, nor Bon21, have tried to identify this position. Would it perhaps be possible to consider this a reference to the ancient city of Keryneia, which lies to the southeast of Aigio (Vostitza)? The events that followed the Byzantine victory at this battle are not well documented.

17What is certain is that by this point Guy II had already died (see above), leaving a power vacuum in the duchy and the Argolid. Would it be possible to surmise that the Byzantines took this as an opportunity to make inroads into the Argolid in an attempt to break through to the Saronic Gulf, via the two described routes, which would have led to the concealment and non-retrieval of the three hoards? These years brought mixed fortunes to this part of southern Greece. In the early decades of the 14^th century, Catalan Athens and Thebes flourished, according to the numismatic evidence22, whereas in the same period Argos faced a number of setbacks23, a fact which is dramatically underlined by the recent hoard presented in this volume by Angeliki Kossyva. The arrival of the Catalans had caused a major break within Latin Greece and had left the Argolid without effective leadership. One can imagine that in this climate of economic and, especially, strategic uncertainty, the locations that have been analysed in this paper found it impossible to recover from the blow which they had experienced in 1308/1309, with the result that they present no numismatic evidence for much of the 14^th century.