DRACHMA

silver coin of ancient Greece and the monetary unit of modern Greece. Its name derives from the Greek verb to grasp, and its original value was equivalent to that of a handful of arrows. The early drachma had different weights in different regions. From the 5th century BC, Athens gained commercial preeminence, and the Athenian drachma became the foremost currency. One drachma equaled 6 oboli; 100 drachmas equaled 1 mine; and 60 mine equaled 1 Attic talent. As a result of the conquests of Alexander the Great, the Athenian drachma came to be the monetary unit of the Hellenistic world. In time, silver coins of one drachma and its multiples were debased, and progressively higher proportions of copper were admixed. The drachma also became the prototype of an Islamic cointhe dirhem. When Greece attained its independence from Turkey in 1828, the phoenix was introduced as the monetary unit, but it was replaced in 1833 by the drachma, divided into 100 lepta.