Aristotle found that money, as a common measure of everything, makes things commensurable and makes it possible to equalize them. In the form of money, he says, a substance has a telos, a purpose, and that in creating money individuals have devised a unit of measure on whose basis fair and just exchange can take place.
And it wasn’t limited in Greece, since Iranians, or rather Babylonians and so many other civilizations, had strict opinions about debasing money.
From this tweet:
tired: ‘In God We Trust’
wired: ‘peyvasteh be la’nat-e ilahi taghayyoordeh-ye folus-e shahi’ / ‘پیوسته بلعنت الهی تغییر ده فلوس شاهی’
Translated: ‘God’s curse forever on he who changes the royal coin’, admonishment inscribed on Safavid era coinage against debasing currency
‘Taghayyoordeh’ was an epithet reserved for local governors who cried down the value of the copper folus; periodically (sometimes annually!), coins had to be returned to local mints to be melted down and restruck, with unreturned coins being cried down 50% in value (!!)
The monetary history of Iran:
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