Greece P200 100 Drachmai 1978 FVF—Wise Athena—Maker of Modern Greek—Hero Monks

A richly colored brown and violet note pairing two pillars of Greek civilization — the goddess of wisdom who gave Athens her name, and the scholar who gave modern Greece its intellectual backbone — alongside one of the most dramatic episodes of Cretan resistance in history.

Front

• Colors:
  • Brown and violet on multicolor underprint
• Portrait: Athena of Piraeus at left — a famous bronze statue of the goddess of wisdom, discovered in Piraeus in 1959
• Building: University of Athens at right
• Signatures: Xenophon Zolotas, Gov.; N. Christofilis, Manager
• Engraver: Lambros Orfanos
• Designer: Yannis Stinis

Back

• Colors:
  • Maroon, green, and orange
• Portrait: Adamantios Korais at left — the father of Modern Greek literature and language reform
• Building: Arkadi Monastery (Crete) at bottom right — site of the 1866 explosion where Cretan rebels chose death over Ottoman surrender
• Engraver: Georgios Angelopoulos
• Designer: Yannis Stinis

Other Characteristics

• Varieties: You may receive any variety:
  • P-200a — original issue, without "Λ" at lower left on back (engraved reverse)
  • P-200b — with "Λ" at lower left on back (lithography reverse)
• Catalog numbers: P-200; Numista N#204416
• Watermark: Head of the Charioteer, Polyzalos of Delphi
• Composition: Paper
• Size: 158 × 67 mm
• Issuing entity: Bank of Greece (Τράπεζα της Ελλάδος)
• Printer: Banknote and Currency Printing Office (Ίδρυμα Εκτυπώσεως Τραπεζογραμματίων και Αξιών), Athens
• Demonetized: Demonetized: 2002 (replaced by the Euro)
• Signatures: Xenophon Zolotas, Gov.; N. Christofilis, Manager
• Currency: Third modern drachma (1954–2001)

The Goddess Who Named a City

Athena, goddess of wisdom, warfare, and crafts, is one of the most enduring figures in all of mythology. According to legend, she won patronage of Athens by gifting the city an olive tree — besting Poseidon, who offered only a saltwater spring. The statue depicted on this note, the Athena of Piraeus, is a stunning 4th-century BC bronze discovered accidentally in 1959 during construction work in Piraeus harbor — buried for centuries, perfectly preserved. She stands nearly 2.4 meters tall and is considered one of the finest surviving examples of ancient Greek bronze sculpture. The University of Athens on the right, founded in 1837, was the first university in the modern Greek state and the first in the entire Balkan and Eastern Mediterranean region.

The Man Who Rebuilt the Greek Language

Adamantios Korais (1748–1833) spent most of his life in Paris, yet he may have done more for Greek national identity than anyone who stayed home. A physician by training and a philologist by passion, he dedicated decades to purifying and standardizing the Greek language — creating Katharevousa, a reformed literary Greek that bridged ancient and modern forms. His Adamantios Library project produced critical editions of ancient Greek texts that fueled the intellectual fire of the Greek independence movement. He corresponded with Thomas Jefferson and was celebrated across Europe as a symbol of Greek enlightenment. He never returned to Greece — dying in Paris at 84 — but his influence on modern Greek identity is incalculable.

The Monastery That Chose Death Over Surrender

The Arkadi Monastery in Crete became a symbol of ultimate resistance on November 9, 1866. Surrounded by Ottoman forces vastly outnumbering the Cretan rebels and civilians sheltering inside, the abbot Gabriel Marinakis made a fateful decision: rather than surrender, he ordered the powder magazine ignited. The explosion killed hundreds — rebels, civilians, women, children, and Ottoman soldiers alike. The event shocked Europe and galvanized international support for Cretan independence. The monastery still stands today as a national shrine, and November 9 is commemorated annually in Crete.

About Greece

• Origin of name: "Greece" derives from the Latin Graecia, the Roman name for the region; Greeks call their country Hellas (Ελλάδα), from Hellen, the mythological ancestor of the Greek people
• Capital: Athens — city pop. ~665,000; metro pop. ~3.6 million
  • Origin of name: Named after Athena, goddess of wisdom, who won a contest with Poseidon for patronage of the city by gifting an olive tree
• Population: ~10.4 million (UN 2023) — comparable to Michigan or Portugal
• Area: 131,957 km² / 50,949 mi² — comparable to Alabama or England
• GDP per capita at PPP: ~$40,000 (IMF 2024)
• Main exports: Petroleum products, aluminum, pharmaceuticals, olive oil, cotton, fruits
• Borders: Albania, North Macedonia, Bulgaria (north); Turkey (northeast); surrounded by the Aegean, Ionian, and Mediterranean seas
• Official/spoken languages: Greek
• Ethnicities: Greek (~91%), Albanian, Roma, and others
• Memberships: United Nations (founding member, 1945); NATO (1952); European Union (1981); Council of Europe (founding member, 1949)
• Sovereignty: Ancient city-states → Macedonian Empire → Roman/Byzantine rule → Ottoman Empire (1453–1821) → Greek War of Independence (1821–1829) → Kingdom of Greece (1832–1974) → Third Hellenic Republic (1974–date)

Greece Unfiltered

• Cradle of democracy: Athens introduced the world's first democratic system around 508 BC under Cleisthenes — though only free male citizens could vote
• Debt crisis: Greece triggered the 2010 European sovereign debt crisis, receiving the largest financial bailout in history at the time (~€289 billion), and endured a decade of brutal austerity
• Islands: Greece has over 6,000 islands, of which only about 227 are inhabited — making it one of the most island-rich countries on Earth
• Ancient legacy: The Olympic Games originated in Olympia, Greece, in 776 BC — held every four years for over a millennium before being banned by the Roman Emperor Theodosius I in 393 AD
• Shipping power: Greece controls the largest merchant shipping fleet in the world by tonnage — a modern echo of its ancient maritime dominance
• Brain drain: Since the 2010 debt crisis, an estimated 500,000 Greeks — many of them young and educated — emigrated, one of the largest brain drains in modern European history
• Mythology everywhere: Over 40% of English words have Greek roots — from "democracy" to "telephone" to "galaxy"

Own this FVF 100 Drachmai and hold Greece's intellectual and spiritual soul in your hands — the goddess of wisdom, the man who rebuilt a language, and the monastery that chose glory over surrender.