The obol was an ancient silver coin

Coin

A coin is a piece of hard material that is standardized in weight, is produced in large quantities in order to facilitate trade, and primarily can be used as a legal tender token for commerce in the designated country, region, or territory....

. In Classical Athens

Athens

Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...

, there were six obols to the drachma, lioterally "handful"; it could be excahnged for eight chalkoi (χαλκοί "copper pieces"). Two obols made a diobol, weighing around 1.41-1.43 grams of silver. Triobols were also in use.

In English, the coin is usually called obol. An obelískos (ὀβελίσκος, obelisk

Obelisk

An obelisk is a tall, four-sided, narrow tapering monument which ends in a pyramid-like shape at the top, and is said to resemble a petrified ray of the sun-disk. A pair of obelisks usually stood in front of a pylon...

) is a "small

Diminutive

In language structure, a diminutive, or diminutive form , is a formation of a word used to convey a slight degree of the root meaning, smallness of the object or quality named, encapsulation, intimacy, or endearment...

 obol", called so in jest because of its huge size.

According to Plutarch

Plutarch

Plutarch then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...

, the Sparta

Sparta

Sparta or Lacedaemon, was a prominent city-state in ancient Greece, situated on the banks of the River Eurotas in Laconia, in south-eastern Peloponnese. It emerged as a political entity around the 10th century BC, when the invading Dorians subjugated the local, non-Dorian population. From c...

ns had an iron obolus of four chalkoi. Sparta chose to retain the use of the cumbersome, impractical "oboloi" rather than coins proper, so as to discourage the pursuit of wealth. The obolus is also a measurement of weight

Weight

In science and engineering, the weight of an object is the force on the object due to gravity. Its magnitude , often denoted by an italic letter W, is the product of the mass m of the object and the magnitude of the local gravitational acceleration g; thus:...

. In ancient Greece

Ancient Greece

Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...

 it was defined as one sixth of a drachma, or about 0.5 gram

Gram

The gram is a metric system unit of mass....

. In ancient Rome

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

 it was defined as 1/48 of a Roman ounce

Ounce

The ounce is a unit of mass with several definitions, the most commonly used of which are equal to approximately 28 grams. The ounce is used in a number of different systems, including various systems of mass that form part of the imperial and United States customary systems...

, or about 0.57 gram, but was never issued as a coin as part of the early republican coinage

Roman Republican coinage

Coinage came late to the Roman Republic compared with the rest of the Mediterranean, especially Greece and Asia Minor where coins were invented in the 7th century BC. The currency of central Italy was influenced by its natural resources, with bronze being abundant and silver ore being scarce...

 system. Below the drachm was the dupondius

Dupondius

The dupondius was a brass coin used during the Roman Empire and Roman Republic valued at 2 asses ....

 (1/5) to the quartuncia (1/480). In modern Greece it is equivalent to one decigram, or 0.1 gram.

The word "obolos", also "obelos" (ὀβελός) or "odelos" (ὀδελός) in other dialects, means a long thin metal nail or rod, such as a spit. "Oboloi" were used as currency in early times. They represented small ingots of copper or bronze of standardized weight, and were traded as such. The French archaeologist T. Reinach defined them as "ustensiles monnais" i.e. utensils-money. During excavations at Argos

Argos

Argos is a city and a former municipality in Argolis, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Argos-Mykines, of which it is a municipal unit. It is 11 kilometres from Nafplion, which was its historic harbour...

 in the Peloponnese

Peloponnese

The Peloponnese, Peloponnesos or Peloponnesus , is a large peninsula , located in a region of southern Greece, forming the part of the country south of the Gulf of Corinth...

, several dozens of rod-shaped oboloi were uncovered. They are dated well before 800 BC and they are displayed at the Numismatic Museum of Athens

Numismatic Museum of Athens

The Numismatic Museum in Athens is one of the most important museums of Greece and houses one of the greatest collections of coins, ancient and modern, in the world...

.

According to a nurse in Eubulus

Eubulus (poet)

Eubulus was an Athenian "Middle Comic" poet, victorious six times at the Lenaia, first probably in the late 370s or 360s BC According to the Suda , which dates him to the 101st Olympiad Eubulus was an Athenian "Middle Comic" poet, victorious six times at the Lenaia, first probably in the late 370s...

' Pamphilus, for the price of an obol, one could obtain a kantharos

Kantharos

A kantharos or cantharus is a type of Greek pottery used for drinking. It is characterized by its high swung handles which extend above the lip of the pot.The god Dionysus had a kantharos which was never empty....

 with a chous of wine, equivalent to about six ounces (three liters). Three obols was the standard fee paid for a prostitute's services.

A coin for Charon

The deceased were buried with an obolus, placed in the mouth of the corpse, in order that, once a dead person's shade reached the underworld of Hades

Hades

Hades , Hadēs, originally , Haidēs or , Aidēs , meaning "the unseen") was the ancient Greek god of the underworld. The genitive , Haidou, was an elision to denote locality: "[the house/dominion] of Hades". Eventually, the nominative came to designate the abode of the dead.In Greek mythology, Hades...

, it would be able to pay Charon

Charon (mythology)

In Greek mythology, Charon or Kharon is the ferryman of Hades who carries souls of the newly deceased across the rivers Styx and Acheron that divided the world of the living from the world of the dead. A coin to pay Charon for passage, usually an obolus or danake, was sometimes placed in or on...

 for passage across the river Acheron

Acheron

The Acheron is a river located in the Epirus region of northwest Greece. It flows into the Ionian Sea in Ammoudia, near Parga.-In mythology:...

. Those without enough wealth, or whose friends refused to follow proper burial rites, were forced to wander the banks of the Acheron for one hundred years.

The obolus, along with the mirror, was a symbol of new schismatic heretics in the short story "The Theologians" by Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges

Jorge Luis Borges

Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo , known as Jorge Luis Borges , was an Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator born in Buenos Aires. In 1914 his family moved to Switzerland where he attended school, receiving his baccalauréat from the Collège de Genève in 1918. The family...

 (Labyrinths

Labyrinths

Labyrinths is an English-language collection of short stories and essays by Jorge Luis Borges.It includes "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius", "The Garden of Forking Paths", and "The Library of Babel", three of Borges' most famous stories. Many of the stories are from the collections Ficciones and El...

, p. 122). In the story's discussion of the circularity of time, eternity, and the transmigration of the soul through several bodies the author uses a quote of Luke 12:59, translated as "no one will be released from prison until he has paid the last obolus."

External links

• A History of Measures The Use of Obeliskoi