Online Encyclopedia

Search over 40,000 articles from the original, classic Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition.

GREEK

Online Encyclopedia
Originally appearing in Volume V19, Page 910 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
» Make a correction to this article.
» Add information or comments to this article.
Spread the word: del.icio.us del.icio.us it!

GREEK  COINS] These are followed by didrachms of the same and other cities until the See also:

time of the See also:Persian See also:War . The result of the unpatriotic policy of See also:Thebes and most of the towns of See also:Boeotia was the degradation of the leading See also:city, and the coins reveal the curious fact that Tanagra for a time became the centre of the See also:League-coinage . We now See also:notice the See also:abandonment of the old incuse See also:reverse and the See also:adoption of See also:regular types, the See also:wheel at Tanagra and the See also:amphora at Thebes . These types increase, and indicate several cities during the See also:short See also:period of Athenian See also:influence (456–446 B.C.) . The democratic institutions were next over-thrown, and Thebes became again the See also:head of Boeotia, and struck alone and in her own name, not in that of the League . To the earlier See also:part of this period belong splendid didrachms with reverse types chiefly representing Heracies, subsequently varied by heads of See also:Dionysus in a See also:series only less See also:fine . With the See also:peace of See also:Antalcidas (387 B.c.) Thebes lost her See also:power, the League was dissolved, and the other Boeotian cities issued a coinage of some merit . In 379 B.C . Thebes became the See also:chief See also:state in See also:Greece, and the patriotic policy of See also:Pelopidas and See also:Epaminondas is shown in the issue of the Boeotian coins at the See also:great city without any name but that of a See also:magistrate . Among those which occur is EIIAM, or EIIAMI, who can scarcely be any other than the illustrious See also:general (Pl . I. fig . 18) .

After the See also:

battle of Chaeronea (338 B.c.), swiftly followed by the destruction of Thebes, the coinage is comparatively unimportant, See also:save only for the See also:appearance of new league-See also:money of See also:Attic See also:weight, with the head of See also:Zeus and the figure of See also:Poseidon, between 288 and 244 B.C . In See also:Attica the great series of See also:Athens is dominant . See also:Eleusis issued a small See also:bronze coinage of See also:good See also:style in the 4th See also:century . Athens . See also:Oropus and the See also:island of See also:Salamis also had an unim- portant coinage . The Athenian coinage, apparently introduced by See also:Solon, begins with didrachms on the Eubcic See also:standard, which, owing to the fame of the Athenian money, received the name of Attic . The type is an See also:owl, the reverse having only the incuse square . These didrachms were succeeded under See also:Peisistratus by the well-known Attic tetradrachms with head of See also:Athena on the obverse, and owl and See also:olive-spray on the reverse (Pl . I. fig . 20) . The See also:change supposed to have been introduced by Hippias (Pseudo-Arist . Oeconz. ii .

4) was merely one of nomenclature; by calling in the coinage and reissuing it at See also:

double its old nominal value he only paid back See also:half of what he had received . To what had previously been called didrachms he gave the name of tetradrachms, by which they have since been known . An obol bearing the name of Hippias himself, and types similar to those of Athens, was probably issued by him during his See also:exile . From the time of the Persian See also:wars the See also:helmet of Athena is adorned with three olive-leaves . A rare decadrachm corresponds at Athens to the Demareteia at See also:Syracuse, and was probably issued for similar reasons in See also:commemoration of victory over the barbarians . Otherwise See also:historical events seem to have See also:left little See also:record in the coinage and the Athenians deliberately affected archaism in the style of their coins, which See also:bear no See also:mark of the splendour of Athens as the centre of the sculptor's See also:art . No doubt commercial reasons dictated this conservative policy, which makes the coinage of Athens a disappointment in See also:numismatics . Her money was See also:precious for its purity not only in the Greek See also:world but among distant barbarians, so that imitations reach us from the See also:Punjab and from See also:southern See also:Arabia, and any change would have injured its wide reception . There are many divisions of See also:silver coinage with the types a little varied, and some different ones; and towards the end of the 5th century (probably in 407 B.C.) See also:gold and bronze were introduced . The gold, of good quality and See also:bad style, was never plentiful . The Macedonian See also:empire put an end to the See also:autonomy of Athens, and when the money is again issued it is of a wholly new style and the types are modified . The great series of spread tetradrachms may be dated from about 229 B.C., and lasted probably until the time of See also:Augustus .

The obverse type is a head of Athena with a richly-adorned helmet, unquestionably borrowed from the famous statue by See also:

Pheidias in See also:ivory and goid, but a poor See also:shadow of that splendid See also:original, and an owl on an amphora within an olive-See also:wreath . The earliest coins S83 have the monograms of two magistrates, the later the names of two who are See also:annual (although the nature of their offices is not certain—possibly they were Xarovp-ylat), and, during the period 146–86, a third name, of the treasurer of the prytany in which the See also:coin was issued . Among the names are those of See also:Antiochus (175 B.C.), afterwards Antiochus IV. of See also:Syria, and of See also:Mithradates the Great (Pl . II. fig . 1) and his creature, Aristion (87–86 B.C.); but comparatively few of the coins can be dated exactly . Mithradates issued the only gold staters in this series . The symbols in the See also:field often represent See also:local statues of great See also:interest . The abundance of this money shows the great commercial importance of Athens in these later times . Under the empire Athens issued only quasi-autonomous coins, but these are of great archaeological value as they bear representations of the See also:Acropolis, with the grotto of See also:Pan, the statue of See also:Pallas Promachus, the See also:Parthenon, and the See also:Propylaea, with the steps leading up to the latter; of the See also:theatre of Dionysus, above which are caverns in the See also:rock, and higher still the Parthenon and the Propylaea; and of various statues and See also:groups of See also:sculpture . See also:Megara and other places in Megaris issued a small but interesting coinage . The money of the island of See also:Aegina is of especial interest since with it coinage originated, so far as Greece proper is concerned, probably fairly See also:early in the 7th century B.C . There Aegina is no good See also:evidence for connecting the institution of the coinage with See also:Pheidon, See also:king of See also:Argos, who established a See also:system of See also:measures and weights, known as the Pheidonian .

The weight of the coins is of course on the Aeginetic standard . The See also:

oldest pieces are very See also:primitive didrachms, bearing on the obverse a See also:sea-See also:tortoise and on the reverse a See also:rude incuse See also:stamp (Pl . II. fig . 2) . Afterwards the stamp becomes less rude, and later has a See also:peculiar shape . The sea-tortoise is also replaced by a See also:land-tortoise . There are some coins of the early part of the fine period of excellent See also:work . The great currency was of didrachms . The bronze coins are not remarkable, but some appear to be of an earlier time than most Greek pieces in this See also:metal . The series of See also:Achaea begins under the Achaean League in the time of Epaminondas, with a fine Aeginetic stater and smaller coins in the name of the See also:Achaeans . The later silver coins are either Attic tetrobols or Aeginetic nchaeta hemidrachms . On all but the earliest, i.e. after about 28o B.C., monograms or symbols indicate the cities which were members of the league; on the later bronze coins the names are given in full .

The type of the silver is the head of Zeus Homagyrius, the reverse bearing the See also:

monogram of the Achaeans in a See also:laurel-wreath . The oldest bronze repeats the silver types; the later bear a See also:standing Zeus and a seated See also:Demeter, with the name of the city at full length . About See also:forty-five cities are represented by this coinage . See also:Corinth is represented by a very large series of coins, the weight of which is always on the Corinthian standard, See also:equivalent to Attic but differently divided,—the Corinthian tridrachm, the Corinth. chief coin, corresponding to the Attic didrachm . The oldest pieces, of the 6th century B.C . (some perhaps even earlier), bear on the obverse See also:Pegasus with the See also:letter Q, koppa, the initial of the name of Corinth, and on the reverse an incuse See also:pattern . In course of time (about 50o B.c.) the head of Athena in an incuse square occupies the reverse . The incuse square disappears, as generally elsewhere, in the early period of fine art . Of the See also:age of the excellence and decline of art we find beautiful work, though generally wanting in the severity of the highest Greek art (Pl . II. fig . 3) . Pegasus is ordinarily seen galloping, but some-times standing or drinking, the koppa is usually retained, and the helmet of Athena, always Corinthian, is sometimes See also:bound with an olive-wreath .

The smaller coins have the same reverse, but on the obverse a charming series of types, principally See also:

female heads, mostly representing See also:Aphrodite . There are some drachms with See also:Bellerophon in a combatant attitude mounted on Pegasus on the one See also:side and the See also:Chimaera on the other . The autonomous bronze money is poor, but often of See also:fair work, and interesting, especially when the type relates to the myth of Bellerophon . In 46 B.C. this city was made a colonia; and we have a large and interesting series of the bronze coins struck by it as such, including the remarkable type of the See also:tomb of Lais . The coins of the " colonies " of Corinth See also:form a See also:long and important series, struck by Acarnanian towns with Corcyra, and in the See also:west by See also:Locri Epizephyrii in See also:Italy and Syracuse . Some of these cities were not strictly colonies of Corinth, but the Pegasus staters struck by them form a homogeneous See also:group . They range from the time of See also:Dion (357 B.c.) to nearly the end of the 3rd century . The coins are distinguished by the See also:absence of the koppa, and bear the names or monograms of the cities . There are bronze coins of Patrae as an important See also:Roman colonia, and silver and bronze money of Phlius, both of the period of good Patrae, art . The coinage of See also:Sicyon, on the Aeginetic standard Pat rac Bc dominant in the See also:rest of the See also:Peloponnesus, is disappoint- , See also:ing for a famous See also:artistic centre . It begins shortly before the period of fine art; in that age the silver is abundant and well executed, but the leading types, the Chimaera and the flying See also:dove within an olive-wreath, are wearying in their repetition, and good work could not make the Chimaera an agreeable subject . Small coins with types of See also:Apollo are the only subjects which suggest the designs of the great school of Sicyon .

The money of the Eleans is inferior to none in the Greek world in its art, which reaches the highest level of dignified See also:

restraint, and in the See also:Elis . variety of its types, which are suggested by a few subjects . The leading types are connected, as we might expect, with the See also:worship of Zeus and See also:Hera and Victory, the divinities of the great Panhellenic contest at See also:Olympia, and the coinage is rather the money of Olympia than of the Eleans as a civic community . The prevalent representations are the See also:eagle and the winged thunderbolt of Zeus, the head of Hera and the figure of Victory . The series begins early in the 5th century B.C. with coins, some of which are didrachms (Aeginetic), having as subjects an eagle carrying a See also:serpent or a See also:hare, and on the reverse a thunderbolt or Victory bearing a wreath—archaic types which in their vigour promise the excellence of later days . From 471 to 421 B.C., while Elis was allied with the Spartans, such types continue; the eagle and Victory (sometimes seated) are both treated with great force and beauty, and the subject of seated Zeus is remarkable for its dignity . The Argive See also:alliance (421–400 B.C.) seems marked by the pre-See also:eminence given to Hera, whose head may suggest the famous statue of Polycleitus at Argos . About the same time was issued a didrachm with a See also:noble head of Zeus (Pl . II. fig . 4), which probably recalls, though it is not a copy of, the Zeus of Pheidias . This alliance broken, the old types recur . Magnificent eagles, some admirably designed on a See also:shield, and eagles' heads (see Pl .

II. fig . 5), the seated Victory, and fantastically varied thunderbolts mark this age . Among the artists' signatures at this time is AA, which may represent the sculptor See also:

Daedalus of Sicyon . In 364 B.C. the coinage is interrupted for a See also:year, the Pisatans, who conducted the festival then, issuing small gold coins; these are immediately followed by Elean money with the heads of Zeus and the nymph Olympia . Aristotimus, who was See also:tyrant in 272 B.C., issued coins with his See also:initials . The coinage closes with imperial money, some types of which have a local interest, notably two of See also:Hadrian bearing the head and figure of Zeus, copied from the famous statue by Pheidias . Cephallenia gives us the early silver coins of Cranii, the money of See also:Pale, of charming style, with the figure of Cephalus on the reverse, Cephal- and that of Same, all cities of this island . Of the island of len/a, etc Zacynthus there are silver pieces, usually of rather coarse work, but sometimes of the style of the best Cephallenian money . Some struck in 357 bear the name of Dion of Syracuse, who collected the forces for his expedition in this island . The coins of See also:Ithaca are of bronze . They are of interest on See also:account of their See also:common obverse type, which is a head of See also:Odysseus . Returning to the mainland, we first notice the money of See also:Messene, or the Messenians .

The earliest coin is a splendid Aeginetic didrachm, Messene. having on the obverse a head of Persephone, and excels in See also:

design the"similar subjects on the money of Syracuse, from which it must have been copied, for it is of about the time of Epaminondas . It shows the purer style of Greece, which, copying Syracusan work, raised its See also:character . On the reverse is a figure of Zeus, inspired by the work of Hageladas . The other silver coins are of about the period of the Achaean League . The bronze money is plentiful, but See also:Laconia. not interesting . See also:Lacedaemon, as we might have expected, has no early coins, the silver money being mostly of the age of the Achaean League, but the King Areus (309–265 B.C.) and the tyrant Nabis (207–192 B.C.) are represented by Attic tetra-drachms . On a tetradrachm of the time of the former is a figure of the Apollo of Amyclae . Among the types of the autonomous bronze pieces may be noticed the head of the Spartan lawgiver See also:Lycurgus, with his name . The series of Argos in Argolis begins early in the Argolis . 5th century . The standard is Aeginetic . The first pieces are the drachm and smaller denominations with a See also:wolf, half-wolf or wolf's head on the obverse, and A on the reverse .

A rare See also:

iron coin was issued with these types . At the end of the 5th century begin the didrachms, which have for the obverse type the head of the Polycleitan Hera—a design which is not equal to that of the coins of Elis, the style being either careless or not so See also:simple . The reversetype of the drachm represents See also:Diomedes stealthily advancing with the See also:palladium in his left See also:hand and a short See also:sword in his right . A 4th-century drachm of See also:Epidaurus represents the famous seated figure of Asclepius by See also:Thrasymedes of See also:Paros . Of the money of See also:Arcadia some pieces are doubtless among the most See also:ancient struck by the Greeks; and the types of these and later coins are often connected with the remarkable myths of Arcadia. this primeval part of Hellas, showing particularly the remains of its old nature-worship . The first series to be noticed is that of the Arcadian League; it begins about 50o B.C. with hemidrachms having the type of Zeus See also:Lycaeus seated, the eagle represented as if flying from his hand, and a female head . Of a later time, from the age of Epaminondas, there are very fine coins (issued from See also:Megalopolis) with the head of Zeus, and Pan seated . The coins of Heraea begin deep in the 6th century B.C . The earliest have for obverse type the veiled head of Hera, and on the reverse the beginning of the name of the See also:town . The silver coins of Mantinea (beginning early in the 5th century) have on the obverse a bear, representing See also:Callisto, the See also:mother of Arcas, who was worshipped here, and on the reverse the letters MA, or three acorns, in an incuse square . Later coins, especially the bronze, have subjects connected with the worship of Poseidon at this inland town . The silver coins of Pheneus must be noticed as being of fine work .

The didrachms of the age of Epaminondas have a head of Persephone, and See also:

Hermes carrying the See also:child Arcas . The obverse type is interesting as a copy of the Syracusan subject, as in Locris and Messene . As in Locris, the merit is in the greater force and simplicity of the See also:face, here most successful, the See also:hair being treated more after the Syracusan manner than after that of the Messenians, who simplified the whole subject . The finest coin attributed to Stymphalus is a magnificent didrachm of the age of Epaminondas, with a head of the local See also:Artemis See also:laureate, and Heracles striking with his See also:club . The smaller silver coins have on the one side a head of Heracles and on the other the head and See also:neck of a Stymphalian See also:bird . There were representations of these birds in the See also:temple of Artemis . The series of See also:Tegea is not important, but two of the reverse types of its bronze coins are interesting as See also:relating to the myth of Telephus and to the See also:story that Athena gave a See also:jar containing the hair of See also:Medusa to her priestess Sterope, daughter of See also:Cepheus, in See also:order that she might terrify the Argives should they attack Tegea in the absence of Cepheus, when Heracles desired his aid in an expedition against See also:Sparta . Iron coins were issued by Tegea, and also perhaps by Heraea . The peculiar position of See also:Crete and her long See also:isolation from the See also:political, artistic and See also:literary movements of Hellas have been already touched on . It is not until the age of Crete . See also:Philip V. that Crete appears in the field of See also:history, and then only as the battle-ground of See also:rival See also:powers . The most remarkable influence of this age was when Athens, by the See also:diplomacy of Cephisodorus, succeeded about 200 B.C. in See also:drawing the Cretans into a great league against Philip V. of Macedon .

That this project took actual shape is proved by the issue at all the chief mints of the island of tetradrachms with the well-known types of Athens, to be distinguished from the Atticizing types of other cities at this time . The oldest coins are probably of about 500 B.C., but few cities seem to have issued many until a See also:

hundred years later . Then there is a great outburst of coinage, sometimes beautiful, some-times barbarously careless, which lasts until the age of See also:Alexander, when the local currency was probably in great part replaced by Alexandrine coins . At the end of the 3rd century the local coinages are revived until the Roman See also:conquest (67 or 66 B.C.) . The chief issue is of silver; bronze is less abundant; and gold is all but unknown . The Cretan types have a markedly local character, yet they copy in some instances other coinages . The chief divinities on the pieces are Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Heracles and See also:Britomartis, and the leading myths are those of See also:Minos, the story of the See also:Minotaur and the See also:labyrinth being prominent, and also that of See also:Europa . There is frequent reference to nature-worship as in See also:Sicily, yet with a distinctive preference for trees, the forms of which, however, lend themselves readily to the See also:free See also:representation of Cretan art, which may in part explain their prominence . The peculiarity of Cretan art lies in its See also:realism . At some places, as See also:Aptera, Polyrrhenium and Cydonia, we find engravers' signatures . The weight is at first Aeginetic of reduced form; and in the resumption of the coinage after Alexander's time it is Attic . Of the island in general there are Roman silver and bronze coins of the earlier emperors, some of which are of fine work for the period .

The most interesting types are Dictynna and seated beside a date-See also:

palm, placing her right hand on the head of a serpent in reference to the myth of the See also:birth of Zagreus . As usual, the figure is foreshortened . The reverse has a standing figure of Poseidon . Rhaucus has Poseidon beside his See also:horse . The rare didrachms of Sybritia, or Sybrita, may fitly See also:close the series; one, among the most exquisite of Greek coins, has heads of Dionysus and Hermes in high See also:relief (see Pl . II. fig . 7); another has on the obverse a charming subject, Dionysus seated on a See also:running See also:panther, and on the reverse Hermes drawing on his right See also:buskin,—a delightful figure . Another beautiful type is a seated Dionysus . Zeus Cretagenes . The autonomous coins are very varied . The obverse of the didrachms of Aptera bears a head of Artemis and the reverse a See also:warrior (Ptolioikos) before a sacred See also:tree . Of Chersonesus, the See also:port of Lyctus, there are didrachms of coarse style, with a head of Artemis Britomartis, who had a temple at the See also:place .

The head is copied from Stymphalus, as also is one of the reverse types, Heracles wielding his club . The money of See also:

Cnossus is of great interest . The oldest coins may be as early as 480 B.C . They bear the figure of the Minotaur as a See also:bull-headed See also:man, kneeling on one See also:knee, and a maeander-pattern, in one See also:case enclosing a See also:star (the See also:sun), in another a head (See also:Theseus?) . Of the period 431–350 there are didrachms with the head of Persephone, and the labyrinthine pattern enclosing the sun or the See also:moon or a bull's head for the Minotaur, and at length be-coming a regular See also:maze . To this time belongs the wonderful coin in the See also:Berlin Museum with Minos seated, his name in the field, and the head of Persephone within the maeander-pattern . In the later 4th century a head of Hera (copied without spirit from the coins of Argos) occupies the obverse of didrachms and drachms, and the reverse has a maze through which the way may be clearly traced . This series closes with Alexander's empire, and the native coinage disappears until the league of Cephisodorus revives it with the Athenian tetradrachm of Attic weight, bearing the name of the Cnossians . It is of inferior style, and is followed by See also:base coins with heads of Minos and Apollo, and the Labyrinth, either square as before or in a new circular form, which is interesting as showing it was a See also:mere See also:matter of tradition . There are interesting coins of Cydonia, some of them of beautiful style and work . One bears an engraver's name, Neuantos . The head is that of a Maenad, and the reverse has a figure of the traditional founder Cydon, stringing his See also:bow, who on other didrachms is seen suckled by a bitch .

The style is good, but the See also:

execution poor . Gortys, or See also:Gortyna, is represented by most remarkable coins, which generally allude to the myth of Europa . Didrachms of archaic style have on the obverse Europa carried by the bull and on the reverse the See also:lion's See also:scalp . These pieces are followed by a remarkably fine class of spread didrachms; the best are of about 400 B.C . They have on the obverse Europa seated in a pensive attitude on the See also:trunk of a tree, doubtless the sacred See also:plane at Gortyna, mentioned by See also:Pliny, which was said never to See also:shed its leaves, and on the reverse a bull suddenly turning his head as if stung by a See also:fly (Pl . II. fig . 6) . Nothing in Greek art exceeds the skill and beauty of these designs . The truth with which the tree is sketched, and the graceful position of the forlorn Europa are as much to be admired as the fidelity with which the bull is See also:drawn, even when foreshortened, sharply turning his head, with his See also:tongue out and his tail raised . These designs, beautiful in themselves, are strikingly deficient in fitness, and afford equally strong illustrations of the excellencies and of the one great See also:fault of the art of Cretan coins . Many pieces of the same class are of rude execution . Of Itanus there are remarkable coins, the earlier, some of which are of good style, with the subject of a Tritonian sea-See also:god (See also:Glaucus ?) and two sea-monsters .

Lyctus (Lyttus) is represented by strangely rude pieces, with the types of a flying eagle and a See also:

boar's head . The coins of Phaestus form a most interesting series . Among the didrachms are some of admirable work, with on the obverse Heracles slaying the See also:Hydra with his club and on the reverse a bull . Others have on the obverse Heracles seated on the ground, resting . Another noticeable obverse type is the beardless Zeus seated in a tree, with his Cretan name, Velchanos . On his knee is a See also:cock crowing, showing that he was a god of the See also:dawn . We also find Talos, the man of See also:brass, said to have been made by See also:Hephaestus or Daedalus, portrayed as a winged youth naked, bearing in each hand a See also:stone, and in a combatant attitude . See also:Apollonius Rhodius (Argonaut. iv . 1638 sqq.) relates that Talos prevented the See also:Argonauts from landing in Crete by hurling stones at them, until he was destroyed by the artifice of See also:Medea . The important town of Polyrrhenium is represented by carefully-executed coins with a head of Zeus and a bull's head . A later piece has a whiskered head of Apollo, probably Philip V. in that character . Priansus shows the remarkable type of Persephone The coinage of See also:Euboea is all on the native standard, of which the Attic was a variety .

It includes some of the very earliest Greek money . Carystus begins in the time of the Persian War Euboea. with the type of the cow and See also:

calf, as in Corcyra, and its See also:special badge is the cock . In the period 197–146 it issued gold drachms . See also:Chalcis, the mother of western colonies, has already in the 6th century, or even earlier, a long series with the wheel-type and an incuse diagonally divided, and later, a nymph's head and an eagle devouring a serpent . See also:Eretria probably begins as early as Chalcis, but the obverse type is the See also:Gorgon's head . This is succeeded by the same type and a panther's or bull's head, and fine See also:late archaic coins bear the cow and the cuttle-See also:fish . Eretria was probably the See also:mint of coins with the head of a nymph and a cow or cow's head struck in the name of Euboeans in the fine period . Of Histiaea the usual type is the head of a Maenad and a female figure seated on the stern of a See also:galley . Among the other islands classed after Euboea, Amorgos must not be passed by, as a bronze coin of Aegiale, one of its towns, presents the curious type of a See also:cupping-See also:glass . To See also:Andros has been See also:Cyclades attributed a group of early coins bearing an amphora. and The silver money of Carthaea, Coressia and lulls in See also:Ceos See also:Sporades. is extremely old, beginning in each case in the 6th century . The weight is Aeginetic, and there are didrachms and smaller coins . The usual types of Carthaea are an amphora and then a bunch of grapes; that of Coressia is a cuttle-fish and. See also:dolphin .

The coinage of See also:

Delos is insignificant . Melos coined from the early 5th century to imperial times: its chief type is a canting one, the fiXov (See also:pomegranate) . See also:Naxos is represented by early Aeginetic didrachms and coins of the fine period, the latter being chiefly bronze pieces of remarkably delicate and good work . The types are Dionysiac . A 7th-century coin with the head of a satyr (one of the earliest representations of the human head on a coin) is probably Naxian . Of Paros there are early Aeginetic didrachms with the type of a kneeling See also:goat and beneath a dolphin . Of the 3rd and 2nd centuries B.C. there are Attic didrachms with a head, possibly of Artemis, at first of a charming style, and a goat on the reverse . There are very archaic Aeginetic didrachms of Siphnos, which was famous for its gold and silver mines . A late tetradrachm of Syros is interesting as representing the Cabiri . The coinage of See also:Asia begins with that of Asia See also:Minor . It falls into certain great classes—first, the ancient gold and See also:electrum, Lydian and Greek, in time succeeded by electrum Asia or gold and silver, all struck in the west and mainly minor. on the See also:coast . Then the Persian dominion appears in the silver money of the satraps, circulating with the gold and silver of See also:Persia, and the Greek money is limited to a few cities of the coast, none save the electrum of the great mint of See also:Cyzicus uninterrupted by the See also:barbarian .

With the decay of the barbarian empire the renewed See also:

life of the Greek cities is witnessed by a beautiful coinage along the coast from the Propontis to See also:Cilicia . On Alexander's conquest autonomy is granted to the much-enduring Hellenic communities, and is . again interrupted, but only partially, by the See also:rule of his successors, for there was no time at which Asia Minor was wholly parcelled out among the See also:kings, Greek or native . The See also:Romans, after the battle of See also:Magnesia (Igo B.c.), repeated Alexander's policy so far as the cities of the western coast were concerned, and there is a fresh outburst of coinage, which, in remembrance, follows the well-known types of Alexander . When the See also:province of Asia was constituted and the neighbouring states See also:fell one by one under Roman rule, the autonomy of the great cities was generally reduced to a shadow . Still the abundant issues of imperial coinage, if devoid of high merit, are the best in style of late Greek coins, and for See also:mythology the richest in See also:illustration . The oldest money is the electrum of See also:Lydia, which spread in very early times along the western coast . This coinage, dating from the 7th century B.c., has an equal claim with the Aeginetic silver to be the oldest of all money . Probably the two currencies arose at the same period, and by interchange became the recognized currency of the primeval marts; otherwise we can scarcely explain the absence See also:European electrum or gold . The electrum of the coins is gold—the precious metal washed down by the Pactolus—with a native alloy of a varying part of silver . Its durability recommended it to the Lydians, and it had (by See also:convention) the See also:advantage of exchanging decimally with gold, then in the ratio 13.3 to silver . But this commercial advantage allowed the issue of electrum coins on silver See also:standards, while it was natural to coin them on those of gold; hence a variety of weight-systems perplexing to the metrologist . The See also:classification of the earliest coins is exceedingly obscure; it is hardly possible to say which were struck in Lydia itself, which in the Greek coast cities, such as See also:Miletus; but the See also:majority probably belong to Greek mints .

The most primitive in appearance are those in which the obverse is merely marked with lines, corresponding to the original rough See also:

surface of the See also:die, while the reverse has three depressions, an oblong one flanked by two squares (Pl . II. fig . 8); there are also various coins of small See also:denomination with a See also:plain See also:convex obverse, and a single rough depression on the reverse, known from the excavations at See also:Ephesus . Both the Babylonian and the Phoenician standards were in use in early times . This double currency, as Head suggests, was probably intended, so far as the Lydians were concerned, for circulation in the interior and in the coast towns to the west, the Babylonic weight being that of the land See also:trade, the Phoenician that of the See also:commerce by sea . See also:Croesus (Pl . II. fig . 9) abandoned electrum, and issued pure gold (on the Babylonic and Old-See also:shekel standards), and pure silver(Babylonic), the silver stater exchanging as the tenth of the Euboic gold stater . These results are explained by the metrological data given earlier in this See also:article . Of the Greek marts of the western coast we have a series of early electrum staters, for the most part on the Phoenician weight . An interesting homogeneous group was issued by the various cities which took part in the Ionian revolt (500–494 B.C.) . The Euboic weight naturally found its way into the currencies, but was as yet limited to See also:Samos .

See also:

Phocaea, Teos and Cyzicus, with other towns, followed from a very early period the Phocaic standard, which for See also:practical purposes may be called the double of the Euboic . They alone before Croesus issued gold money, which was superseded at Phocaea and Cyzicus by electrum . This is the See also:main outline of the native coinage of Asia Minor before the Persian conquest . Its later history will appear under the several great towns, the money of Persia (which circulated largely in Asia Minor) being treated in a subsequent place . The first countries of Asia Minor are See also:Bosporus and See also:Colchis, the coins of the cities of which are few and unimportant . The autonomous coinages of the cities of See also:Pontus are more Bosporus, numerous, but the only place meriting a special Coklls, notice is Amisus, which almost alone of the cities of Pontus . gold allowed under the empire) is gradually depreciated and becomes electrum, and ultimately billon and bronze . They bear the heads of the king and the See also:emperor, and are dated by the Pontic era (297 B.C.) . In See also:Paphlagonia we must specially notice the coins of the cities Amastris and See also:Sinope . The silver pieces of the former place bear a youthful head in a laureate Phrygian cap, probably representing See also:Mithras, Amastris, the go Paphla foundress, being seated on the reverse . The silver pieces of Sinope are plentiful . In the 4th century they bear the names of Persian See also:governors .

The types are the head of the nymph Sinope and, as at Istrus, an eagle preying on a dolphin . See also:

Bithynia is represented by a more important series . Bithynla . The provincial See also:diet issued Roman silver medallions of the weight of cistophori (to be presently described), with Latin See also:inscriptions, and bronze pieces with Greek inscriptions . The See also:ordinary silver coins of See also:Chalcedon strikingly resemble on both sides those of See also:Byzantium, and a monetary convention evidently at times existed between these See also:sister-cities, Of Cius, also called Prusias ad See also:Mare, there are gold staters and smaller imperial silver pieces . Of See also:Heraclea there are silver coins of good style; the most interesting type is a female head wearing a turreted head-See also:dress, one of the earliest representations of a city-goddess (early 4th century) . The tyrants of Heraclea, See also:Clearchus, Satyrus, See also:Timotheus and See also:Dionysius are represented by coins . Of the imperial class there is a large series of See also:Nicaea, and many coins of See also:Nicomedia . The series of the Bithynian kings consists of Attic tetradrachms and bronze pieces, issued by Ziaelas, Prusias I. and II., and Nicomedes I . IV . The fine Greek coinage of Asia may be considered to begin with See also:Mysia . Cyzicus is in numismatics a most important city .

Its coinage begins in the 6th century; and the famcus electrum Cyzicene staters were struck here for nearly Mysia. a century and a half (c . 500–350 B.C.) . During that whole period they were not only the leading gold coinage in Asia Minor but the chief currency in that metal for the cities on both shores of the See also:

Aegean; the value at which they were rated was doubtless a matter of convention, and varied from time to time . The actual weight is of the Phocaic standard, just over 248 grains . The divisions were the hecta or See also:sixth, and the twelfth . The extraordinary variety of " types " at Cyzicus is due to the fact that these types are really symbols differentiating the issues, the true badge of the city, the See also:tunny-fish, being relegated to a subordinate position (Pl . II. fig . 11) . The reverse invariably has the quadripartite incuse square in four planes of the so-called See also:mill-See also:sail pattern . The coins are very thick and the edges are rude . The art is frequently of great beauty, though sometimes careless . The silver coinage of Cyzicus comprises beautiful tetradrachms of the Rhodian standard, with a head of Persephone 11ITEIPA, veiled and wreathed with ears of See also:corn .

Both late autonomous and imperial coins in bronze are well executed and full of interest, the two classes running parallel under the earlier emperors . See also:

Lampsacus is represented by a long series of coins . Its distinctive type is the forepart of a Pegasus, which occurs on its coins from the 6th century onwards . In the first half of the 4th century it issued splendid gold staters with various types (really, as at Cyzicus, symbols distinguishing the issues) on the obverse and the half-Pegasus on the reverse . The most remarkable type is a bearded head (probably of a Cabirus) with streaming hair in a conical cap, bound with a wreath, singularly pictorial in treatment as well as in expression (Pl . II. fig . 12) . In contrast to this is a most carefully executed head of a Maenad with goat's See also:ear; and other types of great interest are the See also:Earth-goddess rising from the earth, and Victory nailing a helmet to a See also:trophy, or sacrificing a See also:ram . The money of the great city of See also:Pergamum is chiefly of a late time . Apart from some rare pieces of gold, the silver coinage is chiefly supplied by the money of the kings of Pergamum and by cistophori . The bronze pieces of the city are numerous, both autonomous and imperial, the two classes overlapping, and there are medallions of the emperors . The local worship of Oldest of See also:Asiatic silver, though it is easy to explain that of colnaze .

Pontus seems to have issued autonomous silver money . The common subjects of the bronze money of this place relate to the myth of See also:

Perseus and Medusa, a favourite one in this See also:country . The See also:regal coins are of the old See also:kingdom.; of Pontus and of the Cimmerian Bosporus, of the two See also:united as the state of Bosporus and Pontus under Mithradates VI . (the Great), and as reconstituted by the Romans when Polemon I. and II. still held the kingdom of Mithradates, which was afterwards divided into the province of Pontus and the kingdom of Bosporus . The early coinage of the kingdom of Bosporus is of little interest . Of that of Pontus there are tetradrachms, two of which, of Mithradates IV. and Pharnaces I., are remarkable for the unflinching realism with which their barbarian type of features is preserved . Mithradates VI., king of Bosporus and Pontus, is represented by gold staters, and tetradrachms . The portrait on the best of these (see P1 . II. fig . 1o) is fine despite its theatrical quality, characteristic of the later See also:schools of Asia Minor . The kings of Bosporus struck a long series of coins for the first three and a half centuries after the See also:Christian era . Their gold money (the only non-imperial See also:Aesculapius is especially promient under the Roman rule .

The chief coins of the kings are Attic tetradrachms, with on the obverse a laureate head of Philetaerus, the founder of the state, and on the reverse a seated Athene, the common type of See also:

Lysimachus, from whom Philetaerus revolted . See also:Variations from these types are rare,the most important being a coin with the name of See also:Eumenes (II.), representing his portrait and the Dioscuri . Otherwise the inscription is always 4'IAETAIPOY . The cistophorus probably originated at Ephesus towards the end of the 3rd century, but was soon adopted for the Pergamene dominions, and down to imperial times was the only important silver currency in Asia Minor . It acquired its name from its obverse type, the cisla mystic¢, a See also:basket from which a serpent issues, the whole enclosed in an See also:ivy-wreath . The reverse type represents two serpents, and between them usually a bow-case (Pl . II. fig . 13) . The half and the See also:quarter of the cistophorus have on one side a bunch of grapes on a See also:leaf or leaves of the See also:vine, and the club with the lion's skin of Heracles within an ivy-wreath . They were tetradrachms equal in weight to about three Attic drachms or three denarii . These coins became abundant when the kingdom of Pergamum was transformed into the province of Asia, and are struck at its chief cities, as Pergamum, Adramyttium, the Lydian Stratoniceia, Thyatira, See also:Sardis, See also:Smyrna, Ephesus, See also:Tralles, Nysa, See also:Laodicea and See also:Apamea . They have at first the names of Greek magistrates, afterwards coupled with those of Roman proconsuls or propraetors .

The silver medallions of Asia, the successors of the cistophori, range from Mark Antony to Hadrian and Sabina . They bear no names of cities, but some may be attributed by their references to local forms of worship . The obverse bears an imperial head, the reverse a type either Greek or Roman . The art is the best of this age, more delicate in design and execution than that of any other pieces, the Roman medallions excepted . One of the most remarkable imperial bronze coins of Pergamum represents the Great See also:

Altar (Pl . II. fig . 16) . The coinage of the See also:Troad is interesting from its traditional allusions to the Trojan War . Of See also:Abydos there is a fine gold Troas. stater, with the unusual subject of Victory sacrificing a ram, and the eagle, which is the most See also:constant type of the silver money . One of the few imperial coins commemorates the See also:legend of See also:Hero and Leander . The late tetradrachms of See also:Alexandria Troas bear the head of Apollo Smintheus, and on the reverse his figure armed with a bow . There is a long series of the town as a colonia, of extremely poor work .

Ilium Novum strikes late Attic tetradrachms with a head of Athene, and on the reverse the same goddess carrying See also:

spear and See also:distaff, with the inscription AOHNAE IAIAAOE . On the autonomous and imperial bronze we notice incidents of the See also:tale of See also:Troy, as See also:Hector in his See also:car, or slaying Patroclus, or fighting; and again the See also:flight of See also:Aeneas . The island of Tenedos is represented by very early coins, and others of the fine and late periods . The usual obverse type of all the silver pieces is a See also:Janus-like See also:combination of two heads, presumably some primitive god and his See also:consort; this double type is balanced on the reverse by the double-See also:axe, which played an important part in the primitive cults of Asia Minor and the Aegaean . In See also:Aeolis the most noteworthy coins are the late tetradrachms of Cyme and Myrina, both of the time of decline, yet with a certain strength which relieves them from the general weakness of the work of that age . Cyme has the head of the See also:Amazon Cyme, and a horse within a laurel-wreath; Myrina, a head of the Grynean Apollo and his figure with lustral See also:branch and See also:patera . See also:Lesbos is remarkable for having coined in base as well as pure silver, its early billon coins being peculiar to the island . This base coinage, which was probably common to Mytilene and Methymna, ceases about 450 B.C., when the Mytilenaean silver begins . Methymna has very interesting archaic silver coins, with the boar and the head of Athene . But the most important coinage of Lesbos is the beautiful electrum coinage (a unique stater, P1 . II. fig . 14, and innumerable sixths) which was issued from about 48o to 350 .

Phocaea in See also:

Ionia issued similar coins, distinguished by a See also:seal (the badge of the city), and a convention regulating the weight and quality of the two coinages, andarranging for the two mints to work in alternate years, is still extant . The types vary accordingly, as at Cyzicus and Lampsacus . There is a long and important series of Mytilene of the imperial time, including very interesting commemorative coins, some of persons of remote history, as See also:Pittacus and See also:Sappho,, others of benefactors of the city, as See also:Theophanes the friend of See also:Pompey, from whom he obtained for this his native place the privileges of a free city . The usual style for these persons is hero or heroine, but Theophanes is called a god, and Archedamis, probably his wife, a goddess . The money of Ionia is abundant and beautiful . For the first century and a half (c . 700-545) the chief coinage is of electrum . To the 7th century belongs the remarkable coin in- Ionia. scribed 4 AENOE EMI EHMA (" I am the badge of the See also:Bright One " or " of Phanes "), with a See also:stag, which was perhaps issued at Ephesus . From 545 to the Ionic revolt (494) there is considerable diminution in the coinage; silver attains more importance . Thenceforward, the course of the coinage is fairly See also:uniform until the period 301-190, when there is a general cessation of autonomous issues . After the battle of Magnesia there is a great revival, tetradrachms of Alexandrine and also of local types being issued in vast See also:numbers . After the constitution of the Roman province of Asia (133), the cistophori See also:supply the silver coinage .

The imperial bronze coinage is numerous, with many interesting local types . Of the coins of the various cities the following demand mention . At See also:

Clazomenae in the 4th century there are splendid coins, having for types the head of Apollo, three-quarter face, and a See also:swan . The chief pieces, the gold drachm and a half or octobol, and the silver stater or tetradrachm See also:present two types of the head of Apollo, very See also:grand on the gold and the silver, with the See also:signature of Theodotus, the only known Asiatic engraver, and richly beautiful on the other silver piece . These coins are marked by the intense expression of the school of western Asia Minor . See also:Colophon. has fine severe coins of the 5th century with the head of Apollo and the See also:lyre . The money of Ephesus is historically interesting, but very disappointing in its art, which is limited by the small range of subjects and their lack of beauty . The leading type Ephesus. is the See also:bee; later the stag and the head of Artemis appear . Thus the subjects relate to the worship of the famous See also:shrine . The oldest coins are electrum and silver, both on the Phoenician standard . The type is a bee and the reverse is incuse . The silver coinage continues with the same types, unbroken by the Persian dominion, until in 394 B. c. a remarkable new coin appears .

When See also:

Conon and See also:Pharnabazus defeated the Lacedaemonian See also:fleet and liberated the Greek cities of Asia from Spartan tryanny a federal coinage was issued by See also:Rhodes, See also:Cnidus, Samos, Ephesus, Iasus and Byzantium with their proper types on the reverse, but on the obverse the See also:infant Heracles strangling two serpents; these are Rhodian tridrachms . About this time the Rhodian standard was introduced, and a series of tetradrachms began with the bee, having for reverse the forepart of a stag looking back, and behind him a date-palm . The head of Artemis as a Greek goddess begins to appear in the 3rd century . Other series of coins follow with types associated with Artemis, Rhodian and Attic standards alternating; there are also Alexandrine tetradrachms and of course cistophori . The connexion of the city with Lysimachus, who called it See also:Arsinoe, after his wife, is commemorated by coins inscribed APEI . The Ephesian form of Artemis, as the cultus figure of a nature-goddess, first appears as a See also:symbol on the cistophori, and then on gold coins struck during the revolt of 87-84, when Ephesus took the side of Mithradates . The imperial money provides many representations of the temples of the city, including that of the famous shrine of Artemis, which shows the bands of sculpture on the columns, as well as many other remarkable subjects, particularly the Zeus of See also:rain seated on See also:Mount See also:Pelion, a shower falling from his left hand, while below are seen the temple of Artemis and the See also:river-god Cayster; on another coin the See also:strange Asiatic figure of the goddess, frequent in this series, stands between the personified See also:rivers Cayster and Cenchrius . The money of the Ionian Magnesia begins with the issue of See also:Themistocles, when he was dynast under Persian See also:protection . The ordinary silver coins (350-190 B.C.) representing a cavalryman and the river-god Maeander as a bull are common . After rqo B.c. we have spread tetradrachms of the decline of art, more delicately executed than those of Cyme and Myrina, with a bust of Artemis and a figure of Apollo standing on a maeander and leaning against a lofty See also:tripod, the whole in a Mlletus. laurel-wreath . The great city of Miletus is disappointing in its money . The period of its highest prosperity is too early for an abundant coinage, yet in the oldest electrum issues we see the lion and the sun of Apollo Didymeus .

In the early 4th century the Carian dynasts issued coins from Ephesus . To about 350 B.C. belong the beautiful coins bearing the head of Apollo facing and the lion looking back at a sun, with the inscription El' AIAYMf1N IEPH (scil . Spaxµil), showing that this was the " sacred " money of the famous temple at Didyma . The types of the head of Apollo in See also:

profile and the lion with the sun continue through a series of various standards with very rare Attic gold staters of the early and century . Phocaea is represented by two very interesting currencies; an electrum series of hectae, characterized by a seal, the badge of the town, beneath the type, struck in convention with Mytilene (see above); and also a widespread early silver coinage, apparently common to the western colonies of the city . The autonomous money is wholly anterior to the Persian conquest . Smyrna Smyrna. issued in the 4th century a very rare coin with the head of Apollo and a lyre, of Colophonian style . Among the earliest coins of New Smyrna are some showing that Lysimachus named it Eurydicea after his daughter . After rqo B.c. it strikes Attic tetradrachms, with the turreted head of See also:Cybele or the city or the Amazon Smyrna (Pl . II. fig . 15), and an See also:oak-wreath sometimes enclosing a lion . A rare silver coin and common bronze coins present on the reverse the seated figure of See also:Homer .

A gold coin issued by the Prytaneis of the Smyrnaeans probably belongs to the time of the Mithradatic revolt against See also:

Rome (87-84) . The imperial coins have numerous types, among others the two Nemeses appearing to Alexander in a See also:vision . Of Teos there are early Aeginetic didrachms, bearing on the one side a seated See also:griffin and on the other a quadripartite incuse square . Thos . These ceased at the moment when the See also:population left the town, destroyed by the Persians, and fled to See also:Abdera, where we recognize their type on the coinage of the time . There are much later coins of less importance . See also:Chios and Samos, islands of Ionia, are represented by interesting currencies . Chios struck electrum and abundant silver . The type Chios. was a seated See also:sphinx with curled wing, and before it stands an amphora, above which is a bunch of grapes; the reverse has a quadripartite incuse . The coins begin before the Persian conquest (490 B.c.) . The coinage of Samos is artistically disappointing, but as a whole has many claims to interest . The earliest money included electrum .

Samos . The silver begins before 494 B.C . The types are the well- known lion's scalp and bull's head . The Athenian See also:

con-quest (439 B.C.) is marked by the introduction of the olive-spray as a constant symbol on the reverse and the occasional occurrence of Attic weight . The Samians, having joined the See also:anti-Laconian alliance after Conon's victory in 394 B.C., struck the coin with Heracles strangling the serpents already noticed under Ephesus; the Rhodian weight is here introduced . The long series of imperial money is not without interesting types . The most remarkable is the figure of the Samian Hera, which clearly associates her with the group of divinities to which the Ephesian Artemis belongs . Very noticeable also are the representations of See also:Pythagoras, seated or standing, touching a globe with a wand . The money of See also:Caria does not present any one great series . Autonomous silver coins are not numerous except at Cnidus, Carla. and rarely of good style . Antiochia and Alabanda have tetradrachms in the and century . The imperial coins of Antiochia and of Aphrodisias are worthy of notice .

Cnidus is represented at first by archaic coins of Aeginetic weight, some as early as the first half of the 7th century, with a very rude head of Aphrodite . The head of the famous statue of Aphrodite by See also:

Praxiteles is not reproduced, but the whole statue figures on imperial coins . Among the imperial types of See also:Halicarnassus the head of See also:Herodotus is noteworthy . There is late silver money of Iasus with the head of Apollo, and a youth See also:swimming beside a dolphin around which his See also:arm is thrown . Idyma has silver pieces of fine style on which the head of Apollo is absolutely facing; the reverse type is a fig-leaf . On imperial coins of Mylasa the figure of the Zeus of Labranda holding double-axe and spear is represented . Of Termera we have the rare coin of its tyrant Tymnes, dating about the See also:middle of the 5th century and struck on the Persic system . The Carian satraps prove their See also:wealth by their series of silver coins, which bear the names of Hecatomnus, See also:Mausolus, Hidrieus and Pixodarus . The weight is Rhodian; the types are the three-quarter face of Apollo, and Zeus Labrandeus standing, holding the labrys or two-headed axe . Pixodarus also strikes gold of Attic weight . His silver is the best in the series, and clearly shows the Ionian style in its quality of expression . Among the islands of Caria, Calymna begins in the 6th century or earlier with curious archaic Persian didrachms bearing a helmeted male. head and on the reverse a lyre .

The series of See also:

Cos begins with small archaic pieces, the type a crab and the reverse incuse . Next come fine coins of transitional style and Attic weight, with the types of a discobolus before a tripod, and a crab . 'Ihe break so common in the coinage of this coast then interrupts the issue, and a new coinage occurs before the time of Alexander . The weight is Rhodian, the types the head of Heracles and the crab . After Alexander there is another currency which ceases about 200 B.C . It is resumed later with the new types of the head of Asclepius and his serpent . This continues in Roman times . The bronze of that age comprises a coin with the head of See also:Hippocrates and on the reverse the See also:staff of Asclepius . See also:Xenophon's head likewise occurs, and the portrait of See also:Nicias tyrant in Cos (c . 5o B.c.) on his bronze . Imperial money ends the series . The island of Rhodes, great in commerce and art, has a See also:rich series of coins .

The want of variety in the types—at the city of Rhodes almost limited to the head of Helios and the Rhodes. See also:

rose—is disappointing, but happily the See also:principal subject could not fail to illustrate the movements of art, one of which had here its centre . The city of Rhodes was founded c . 408 B.C. on the abandonment by their inhabitants of the three chief towns of the island, Camirus, Ialysus and Lindus . The money of Camirus seems to begin in the 6th century B.C . The type is the fig-leaf, the weight Aeginetic, later degraded . The coins of Ialysus, of the 5th century, follow the Phoenician standard . Their types are the forepart of a winged boar and an eagle's head . The money of Lindus, apparently before 480 B.C., is of Phoenician weight, with the type of a lion's head . The See also:people of the new city of Rhodes adopted another standard, the Attic, and very shortly abandoned it, except for gold money, using instead that peculiar weight which has been called Rhodian; this they retained until the last years of their See also:independent coinage, when they resumed the Attic . The types are the three-quarter face of Helios and the rose . There is a grandeur and noble outlook in the earlier heads of Helios which well befits his character, but the pictorial style is evident in the form of the hair and the expression, which, with all its reserve, has a dramatic quality (see Pl . II. fig. rq) .

Towards the end of the 4th century the radiate head is introduced; the Alexandrine tetradrachms, which were issued after the battle of Magnesia, find a place in the Rhodian mintage . During the age after Alexander there is an abundant bronze coinage, with some pieces of unusual See also:

size . The series closes with a few imperial coins ranging from See also:Nerva to See also:Marcus Aurelius . The early coinage of See also:Lycia introduces us at once into a region of Asiatic mythology, art and See also:language, raising many questions as yet without an See also:answer . The standard of the oldest Lycia. coins (beginning about 520 B.c.) is See also:low Persic, and it falls perhaps under Athenian influence, until it is often indistinguishable from the Attic . The Lycian character belongs to the primitive alphabets of Asia Minor, which combine with archaic Greek forms others which are unknown to the Greek See also:alphabet, and it expresses a native language as yet but imperfectly understood . The art is stiff and delights in See also:animal forms, Calymna and Cos . sometimes of monstrous types, which recall the designs of See also:Phoenicia and See also:Assyria . The most remarkable symbol is the triskeles or tetraskeles symbol, an See also:object resembling a See also:ring, to which three or four hooks are attached . It is supposed to be a See also:solar symbol like the swastika . The oldest money has a boar or his fore-part and an incuse . This is succeeded by a series with an animal reverse, and then by one in which the hooked ring is the usual reverse type .

The See also:

fourth series bears Lycian in- scriptions, which give the names of dynasts and places . A fifth the See also:priest-kings of Olba are also full of interest. series is characterized by the type of a lion's scalp . This coinage reaches as late as Alexander's time . It is followed by silver and bronze money of the Lycian League before Augustus and under his reign, but ceasing in that of See also:Claudius—the usual types of the chief silver piece, a hemidrachm, being the head of Apollo and the lyre . The districts of Cragus and Masicytus have coinages, as well as the individual cities . Besides this general currency there are some special ones of towns not in the League . The imperial money rarely goes beyond the reign of Augustus, and is resumed during that of See also:Gordian III . There is a remarkable coin of See also:Myra of this emperor, showing the goddess of the city, of a type like the Ephesian Artemis, in a tree; two woodcutters, each armed with a double axe, hew at the trunk, from which two serpents rise as if to protect it and aid the goddess . Phaselis is an exceptional town, for it has early Greek coins, the leading type being a galley . The coinage of See also:Pamphylia offers some examples of good art distinctly marked by the Asiatic formality . See also:Aspendus shows a remarkable series of Persic didrachms, extending from ll 1Dp6y- about Soo B.C. to Alexander's time . The oldest coins have the types of a warrior and the triskelion or three legs, more familiarly associated with Sicily; it is probably a solar symbol .

These coins are followed by a long series with the types of two wrestlers engaged and a slinger . The main legend is almost always in the Panphylian character and language . There are also very curious imperial types . The money of See also:

Perga begins in the and century with Greek types of the Artemis of Perga . Her figure in a remarkable Asiatic form occurs in the long imperial series . Bronze coins earlier in date than the silver money with the Greek types have the Pamphylian See also:title of the goddess, FANAEF,AE IIPEIIAE, " of the See also:Lady of Perga." Side has at first Persic didrachms of about 48o B.C., their types the pomegranate and dolphin and head of Athene; then there are money with an undeciphered Aramaizing inscription of the 4th century and figures of Athene and Apollo, and late Attic tetradrachms, their types being the head of Athene and Victory . These were carried on by Amyntas, king of See also:Galatia, when he made his mint in Side (36 B.C.) . The pomegranate (aiSrl) is throughout the badge of the city . The money of See also:Pisidia is chiefly imperial . There is a long series of this class of the colonia Antiochia . The autonomous coins of Selge have the wrestlers and the slinger of Ptsldia . Aspendus in inferior and even barbarous copies .

Of Bc . See also:

Isauria and See also:Lycaonia a few cities, including Derbe and the colonies of See also:Iconium and Lystra, strike coins, chiefly of imperial time . Cilicia, for the most part a coastland, is numismatically of high interest . To Aphrodisias is assigned an interesting series Cilicia . of archaic coins with a winged figure and a pyramidal fetish-stone; in the 4th century Aphrodite is represented in human form seated between sphinxes; the Parthenos of Pheidias is also represented . Celenderis has a coinage beginning in the 5th century, with a horseman seated sideways on the obverse, and on the reverse a goat kneeling on one knee . Mallus has a most interesting series of silver coins, some with curious Asiatic types . Of Nagidus there are Persic didrachms of good style, one interesting type being Aphrodite seated, before whom See also:Eros flies crowning her, with, on the other side, a standing Dionysus . See also:Soli has silver coins of the same weight, the types being an See also:archer or the head of Athene, one variety imitated from remote See also:Velia, and a bunch of grapes . The coinage of See also:Tarsus begins in the 5th century with Persic staters representing a Cilician king on horseback, and a hoplite kneeling . In the 4th century it was the mint of a large series of satrapal coins, issued by Pharnabazus, Mazaeus and other governors (Issus, Mallus and Soli also sharing the cost of minting) . The chief type is the See also:Baal of Tarsus .

The autonomous bronze of the Seleucid age shows the remarkable subject of the pyre of Sandan, the local form of Heracles; and there is a long and curious imperial series . The coinage of See also:

Anazarbus (imperial, showing rivalry with Tarsus), See also:Seleucia on the Calycadnus, See also:Mopsus, and The coinage of the great island of See also:Cyprus is, as we might expect from its monuments, almost exclusively non-Hellenic in character . The weight-system, except of gold, which is Attic, is Cyprus . Persic, save only in the later coins of some mints, struck on the reduced Rhodian standard, and a solitary Attic tetradrachm of See also:Paphos . The art is usually very stiff down to about 400 B.C., with types of Egypto-Phoenician or Phoenician or of Greek origin . The inscriptions are in the See also:Cyprian syllabic character and the earliest coins resemble the early See also:Etruscan in being one-sided . The prevalent types are animals or their heads, the chief subjects being the bull, eagle, See also:sheep, lion, the lion seizing the stag, the See also:deer and the mythical sphinx . The divinities we can recognize are Aphrodite, Heracles, Athene, Hermes and Zeus See also:Ammon . But the most curious mythological types are a goddess carried by a bull or by a ram, in both cases probably See also:Astarte, the Phoenician Aphrodite . The most remarkable symbol is the well-known See also:Egyptian sign of life . The coins appear to have been struck by kings until before the age of Alexander, when civic money appears . The mints to which coins are ascribed with certainty are Salamis, Paphos, Marium, Idalium and See also:Citium .

The coins of the Salaminian See also:

line are in silver and gold . The earlier, beginning with Evelthon about 56o B.C., have Cyprian, the later Greek inscriptions, the types generally being native, though after a time under Hellenic influence . They are of See also:Evagoras I., Nicocles, Evagoras II., Pnytagoras and Nicocreon, and the coinage is closed by See also:Menelaus, See also:brother of See also:Ptolemy I . The Phoenician kings of Citium, from about 50o to 312, strike silver and in one case gold, their general types being Heracles and the lion seizing the stag . Bronze begins soon after 400 B.C., and of the same age there are autonomous pieces in silver and bronze . There is Greek imperial money from Augustus to See also:Caracalla (chiefly issued by the Koi.v6s) . The most remarkable type is the temple at Paphos, represented as a structure of two storeys with wings . Within the central portion is the sacred stone, in front a semicircular See also:court . The earliest coinage of Lydia is no doubt that of the kings, already described . The next currency must have been of Persian darics (gold) and drachms (sit ver), followed by that of Alexander, Lydia. the Seleucids, and the Attalids of Pergamum, and then by the cistophori of the province of Asia . There is an abundant bronze coinage of the cities, autonomous from the formation of the province, and of imperial time, but mostly of the imperial class . The largest currencies are of See also:Philadelphia, Sardis, Thyatira and Tralles .

The art is not remarkable, though good for the period, and the types are mostly Greek . The coinage of See also:

Phrygia has the same general characteristics as that of Lydia, but the workmanship is poorer . Among noteworthy types must be noticed Men or Lunus, the Phrygian moon- Phrygia . god . There are curious types of Apamea, surnamed Kibotos or the See also:Ark, and more anciently See also:Celaenae . One of See also:Severus represents the legend of the invention of the double See also:pipe, a type already described . Of the same and later emperors are coins bearing the famous type of the ark of See also:Noah and the name See also:NILE . The town of Cibyra is remarkable for a silver coinage of the 1st century B.c., of which the large pieces have the weight of cistophori . Galatia has little to offer of interest . See also:Trajan issued bronze imperial coins for the province, and there is imperial money of See also:Ancyra, See also:Pessinus and Tavium . The only remarkable regal issue Galatia. is that of Amyntas, See also:Strabo's contemporary, who struck tetradrachms at Side in Pamphylia . With the coinage of See also:Cappadocia we bid farewell to Greek art and enter on the domain of See also:Oriental conventionalism, succeeded by inferior Roman design coarsely executed .

There is one largeimperial imperial series, that of Caesarea, intended for general dada, Bc . circulation in the province . The issues range from Tiberius to Gordian III., and are in silver and. bronze . The most common type is the sacred Mount Argaeus, on which a statue is sometimes seen—a remarkable type curiously varied . There are scanty issues of a few other towns . There is an interesting series of coins of the kings of Cappadocia, beginning with Ariarathes I . (c . 332–322 B.C.), who struck Persic drachms at Sinope and Gaziura, and continuing with other kings, called usually Ariarathes or See also:

Ariobarzanes, who struck Attic drachms and occasionally tetradrachms . The rare tetradrachms of Orophernes, a successful usurper (158–157 B.C.), bear a fine portrait . The coins of See also:Archelaus, the last king set up by Antony (36 B.C.–A.D . 17), have a good head on the obverse . Of See also:Armenia there are a few silver and bronze coins of late sovereigns .

The great series of Syrian money begins with the coinage of the Seleucid kings. of Syria, only rivalled for length and abundance by that of the See also:

Ptolemies, which it excels in its series of portraits, though it is far inferior in its gold money Syria and wants the large and well-executed bronze pieces which make the Egyptian currency See also:complete . The gold of the Seleucids is scarce, and their main coinage is a splendid series of tetradrachms bearing the portraits of the successive sovereigns . The reverse types are varied for the class of regal money . The execution of the portraits is good, and forms the best continuous history of See also:portraiture for the third and second centuries before our era . The reverses are far less careful . The weight is Attic, but the cities of Phoenicia were ultimately allowed to strike on their own standard . Many of the coins of the earlier kings were issued in their Bactrian or See also:Indian dominions . Seleucus I . (312—280 B.C.) began by striking gold staters and tetradrachms with the types of Alexander the Great . The same king, like his contemporaries, then took his own types: for gold staters, his head with a bull's See also:horn, and on the reverse a horse's head with bull's horns; for tetradrachms, his own head in a helmet of hide with bull's horn and lion's skin, and Victory crowning a trophy, or the head of Zeus, and Athene fighting in a car drawn by four or two elephants with bull's horns . Antiochus I . (293—261), like his See also:father, first struck tetradrachms with Alexandrine types, and then with his own head, Apollo on the`omphalos occupying the reverse .

The portrait of Antiochus has a characteristic realism . Antiochus III . (222—187) is represented by a fine and interesting series with a vigorous portrait . He alone of the Seleucids seems to have struck the great octadrachm in gold in rivalry of the Ptolemies . Coins dated by the Seleucid era (312 B.C.) first appear in his reign . The portrait of Antiochus IV . Epiphanes (175—164) is extremely characteristic, marked by the mad obstinacy which is the See also:

key to the tyrant's history . The most remarkable coin is a tetradrachm with the head of Antiochus in the character of Zeus . In his time mints became numerous in the bronze coinage, and there is a remarkable series in that metal with Ptolemaic types, marking his short-lived usurpation in See also:Egypt . From the time of See also:Demetrius I . (162—150) the silver tetradrachms bear both mints and See also:dates . In one type the heads of Demetrius and See also:Queen Laodice occur side by side .

With Alexander I . Balas (152—144), See also:

Tyre and See also:Sidon begin to strike royal tetradrachms on their own Phoenician weight . Tarsus also first strikes coins for him with the type of the pyre of Sandan . The money of See also:young Antiochus VI. presents the most carefully executed portrait in the whole series, which, despite its weakness, has a certain See also:charm of sweetness that marks it as a new type in art . The same artist's hand seems apparent in the fine portrait of the cruel usurper Tryphon, and also in the picturesque spiked Macedonian helmet with a goat's horn and cheek-piece which occupies the reverse . Antiochus VII . (138—129) continues the series with, amongst other coins, the solitary bronze piece of See also:Jerusalem, bearing the See also:lily and the Seleucid See also:anchor . Alexander II . Zebina (128—123) is represented by a unique gold coin (P1 . II. fig . 18), as well as by silver and bronze . The empire closes with the money of the Armenian See also:Tigranes (83—69), bearing his portrait with the lofty native See also:tiara, and for reverse See also:Antioch seated, the See also:Orontes swimming at her feet (a copy of the famous group by See also:Eutychides) .

There is a See also:

copper coinage of the Syrian koinon under Trajan; also of the cities of Commagene, See also:Samosata and Zeugma, and less important mints . The money of the kings of Commagene is in bronze (c . 140 B.C. to A.D . 72) . Cyrrhestica has bronze coins of a few cities, nearly all imperial, Cyrrhes- the chief mints being Cyrrhus and Hieropolis . Hieropolis ma in the time of Alexander the Great issued some remark- able silver coins in the name of Abd-See also:Hadad and Alexander himself, with figures of the Syrian goddess Atergatis, who also appears on its imperial coins . Of Chalcidene there are bronze coins of Chalcis and of the tetrarchs, Chalci- and Palmyrene shows only the small bronze pieces of See also:dens, etc See also:Palmyra, the money of See also:Zenobia and the See also:family of Odenathus being found in the series of Alexandria . In Seleucis and Pieria. the four cities of Antioch, Apamea, Laodicea ad Mare and Seleucia Pieria issued a See also:joint coinage inscribed AAEA4'flN AHMSlN about the middle of the 2nd Antioch. century B.c . But the bulk of the money of this territory is of the great city of Antioch en the Orontes . The coinage is bothautonomous bronze before•and of Roman times, and imperial silver, base metal and bronze . Other mints (as Tyre and Sidon) in this same province issued silver of the same class as Antioch, with different symbols . A large series of coins was issued bearing on the reverse the letters S.C .

(Senatus consulto), showing that the coinage was under the See also:

control of the Roman See also:senate . Both Latin and Greek inscriptions are used until the reign of Trajan . The city is first called a See also:colony on the coins of Elagabalus . The earliest coins are dated by various eras (Seleucid, Caesarian, Actian) ; later the emperor's consulships are used to date the silver . The leading types are the figure of Antioch seated, the river Orontes swimming at her feet, from the famous statue by Eutychides, and the eagle on a thunderbolt, a palm in front . Under Hadrian the eagle is represented carrying an ox's See also:leg, a reference to the story of the See also:foundation of the city when an eagle carried off part of the See also:sacrifice and deposited it on the site which was consequently chosen . There are few other types . The series (which, strictly speaking, was not the local coinage of Antioch, but an imperial coinage for the province) is very full and includes money of the Syrian emperor Sulpicius Uranius See also:Antoninus (who also struck bronze at Emesa and gold of the Roman imperial class) . It ends with See also:Valerian, though it begins anew in the Roman provincial money of the reform of See also:Diocletian, to be noticed later . Of the other cities of this See also:district, Emisa presents the type of the sacred stone of Elagabal . The imperial money of Gabala shows the veiled cultus-statue of a goddess flanked by sphinxes . Laodicea has an important series .

It begins with bronze money of the later Seleucids . The autonomous tetra- drachms of the 1st century B.C. have a turreted and veiled female bust of the city, a favourite Syrian and Phoenician type . From 47 B.C. its title is Julia Laodicea; from Caracalla downwards it is a colonia; the inscriptions become Latin; then, very strangely, Greek on the obverse of the coins and Latin on the reverse . Seleucia has a similar regal autonomous and imperial currency, but does not become a colonia . A shrine containing the sacred stone of Zeus Casius, and the thunderbolt of Zeus Keraunius resting on a See also:

throne, are among the types . In Coele-Syria, See also:Damascus issues coins from the 3rd century B.C . (beginning with Alexandrine tetradrachms) onwards; the city becomes a colonia under Philip I . The imperial money of See also:Heliopolis (See also:Baalbek), a colonia, shows a great temple (of syr~a, etc. the Zeus of Heliopolis) in See also:perspective, another temple containing an ear of corn as the central object of worship, and a view of the Acropolis with the great temple upon it, and steps leading up the rock . The coinage of Phoenicia is a large and highly interesting series . The autonomous money is here important, and indicates the ancient wealth of the great marts of the coast . The Paoenkia. earliest coins were struck about the middle of the 5th century and usually bear Phoenician inscriptions . The coinage falls into three main periods; the first pre-Alexandrine; the second, that of Alexandrine, Ptolemaic and Seleucid rule; the third, that of the empire .

In the first period Aradus strikes silver, usually on the Babylonian standard, staters with a head of Melkarth and a galley, and smaller denominations . All the other cities use the Phoenician standard . The regal silver coins of Byblus have a galley as obverse type; on the reverse, a See also:

vulture standing on a ram, or a lion devouring a bull Here and at Sidon and Tyre portions of the types are represented incuse . Sidon has a large and important series of silver octadrachms and smaller denominations; on the obverse is a galley (at first with sails set, then without sails, first lying before a fortress, afterwards alone) . On the reverse is the king of Persia in a See also:chariot, or slaying a lion . These coins were issued by the kings such as Strato I. and II. and Tennes, and by the See also:satrap Mazaeus . The early silver of Tyre has as reverse type an owl with a crook and See also:flail over its See also:shoulder; on the obverse a dolphin, or Melkarth See also:riding on a sea-horse; a common symbol is the See also:purple-See also:shell (Pl . II. fig . 20) . In the second period, besides Alexandrine silver and regal coins of the Ptolemies and Seleucidae, there are certain large and important issues of autonomous or semi-autonomous silver tetradrachms and smaller denominations, as at Aradus (head of the City, and Victory; also drachms with types copied from Ephesus: obv., bee, rev., stag and date-palm), Marathus (head of the City, and nude figure at Marathus seated on a See also:pile of See also:shields), Sidon (head of the City, and eagle), Tripolis (busts of the Dioscuri, and figure of the City holding cornucopiae) and Tyre (head of the Tyrian Heracles, Melkarth, and eagle) . Tyre also issued a gold decadrachm with the head of the City, and a double cornucopiae . On these and other coins Sidon and Tyre claim the rights of See also:asylum .

Berytus first See also:

Comma-gene . Apamea, etc . coins in this period, sometimes under the name of Laodicea in See also:Canaan . See also:Ace-Ptolemais (See also:Acre) was an important mint under the Ptolemies; for a time, under the Seleucidae, it was called Antiochia in Ptolemais . Besides the Seleucid era autonomous eras are in use at some of the cities, as at Aradus (259 B.C.), Sidon (II B.C.) and Tyre (126 B.C.) . Under the empire there are some very large coinages of bronze, besides a certain amount of silver resembling that of Antioch . The quasi-autonomous silver of Tyre was also issued as late as A.D . S7 . Berytus (a colonia) has types relating to the cults of Astarte and Poseidon; Astarte is also prominent at Sidon (a colonia from Elagabalus onwards; a common type represents the wheeled shrine of the goddess) and Tripolis . At Byblus a temple is represented with a conical fetish . Tyre has many interesting types: See also:Dido See also:building See also:Carthage; the Ambrosial Rocks; See also:Cadmus fighting the serpent or See also:founding Thebes, &c . Ptolemais issued coins as a colony from Claudius onwards .

In Trachonitis, the only city of importance is Caesarea Panias, with a famous grotto of Pan, perhaps represented on an imperial coin . Several cities in See also:

Decapolis issued imperial coins, See also:Palestine. among them See also:Gadara and See also:Gerasa . In See also:Galilee the coins struck at See also:Tiberias by its founder, See also:Herod Antipas, may be mentioned . See also:Samaria has money of Caesarea, both autonomous and imperial, the last for the most part colonial, and also imperial of Neapolis, among the types of which occurs the interesting subject of Mount See also:Gerizim surmounted by the Samaritan temple . The coinage of See also:Judaea is an interesting series . The money of Jerusalem is of high interest, and more extensive than appears at first sight . Here was struck the coin of Antiochus VII., with the native lily as a type, the series of the Maccabaean princes, that of the Roman procurators, and the bronze coins countermarked by the tenth See also:legion, quartered by See also:Titus in the ruins of the city . One of these bears the remarkable symbol of a See also:pig . After the reduction of Judaea in the reign of Hadrian, Jerusalem was rebuilt as a colonia with the name Aelia Capitolina . The earliest coin commemorates the foundation . The coinage lasts as late as Valerian . See also:Ascalon strikes autonomous silver and bronze, including remarkable tetradrachms with the portraits of Ptolemy Auletes, of his See also:elder son Ptolemy XIV., and of his daughter See also:Cleopatra (see Pl .

II. fig . 21) . There is also money of See also:

Gaza of some importance; the earliest coins are Attic drachms, &c., of barbarous style, inspired by Greek, especially Athenian See also:models; on its imperial coins the god Marna, and Minos and Io are named . The independent Jewish coinage begins with the famous shekels . They have been assigned to various periods, but the preponderance of evidence would class them to See also:Simon Jewish Maccabaeus, to whom the right of coining was granted coinage . by Antiochus VII . The series is of shekels and half- shekels, of the weight of Phoenician tetradrachms and di-drachms . The obverse of the shekel bears the inscription " the shekel of See also:Israel," and for type a sacred See also:vessel of the temple, above which (after year 1) is the letter indicating the year of issue and the initial of the word year . The reverse reads " Jerusalem the See also:Holy," and the type is a flowering branch (Pl . II. fig . 19) . The half-shekel differs in having the inscription " half-shekel " on the obverse .

The types are markedly peculiar; the obverse inscription is equally so, for the regular See also:

formula of the neighbouring cities would give nothing but the name of the city; but the reverse inscription is like that of Tyre and Sidon, for instance, " of Tyre sacred and inviolable." This agreement is confirmatory of the See also:assignment to Simon Maccabaeus . This coinage bears the dates of years 1, 2, 3, 4 (rare), and 5 (very rare) . There has been much discussion as to the date . It is best reckoned from the See also:decree of Antiochus VII. granting the right of coinage to Simon (139-138 B.c.) . The coins of the fifth year were then struck by See also:John See also:Hyrcanus . The certain coins of the successors of Simon are small bronze pieces of John Hyrcanus (135-104), of Judas See also:Aristobulus (104-103), of Alexander Jannaeus (103-76), who strikes bilingual See also:Hebrew and Greek and also Hebrew coins, showing his native name to have been See also:Jonathan, and of Antigonus (40-37)., who has the Hebrew. name . Mattathiah . The types represent only Inanimate See also:objects . The Maccabaean coinage is followed by that of the Herodian family, equally of bronze, the two most important issues being those of Herod the Great and See also:Agrippa II . The silver coinage under the early empire was chiefly supplied by the issues of Antioch and Roman denarii; the " See also:penny " with See also:Caesar's See also:image and superscription was such a denarius . The money of the procurators of Judaea, in part parallel with the Herodian, is of small bronze coins, struck between A.D . 6-7 and A.D .

58-59, the latest period of their See also:

administration being as yet unrepresented . These are followed by two classes, the money of the first revolt (A.D . 66-70) and that of the second (suppressed A.D . 135) . Both risings caused the issue of native coinage, some of which may be assigned with certainty to each . Of the first revolt are bronze pieces of years 2, 3 and 4 . Of the second revolt are restruck Antiochene tetradrachms and Roman denarii, usually with the name of Simon, which appears to have been that of the See also:leader surnamed See also:Bar Cochebas . The obverse type of the tetradrachms or shekels is the See also:portico of the temple; on the reverse are a bundle of branches and a citron, symbols of the feast of See also:tabernacles . Besides this native currency there are coins struck in Palestine by See also:Vespasian, Titus and See also:Domitian . Of Roman Arabia there are bronze imperial coins of Bostra and less important mints; the kings of Nabataea also issued silver and bronze coins from See also:Aretas III . (c . 87-62 B.c.) to Rabbel H .

Arable, (A.D . 75-101) . From S . Arabia comes a remarkable silver coinage issued by the Himyarites, beginning in the 4thMeso- century B.C., and imitated originally from Attic tetra-drachms p°temla, (both of the old and new style) . In See also:

Mesopotamia BabyIonta the colonia of Carrhae deserves notice, and the city of See also:Edessa, which issues imperial money as a colonia, and has a series of coins of its kings, striking with Roman emperors in silver and bronze . Curiously, this and the colonial issue are long contemporary . The colonial coinages of See also:Nisibis and of Resaena, which became a colonia, close the group . See also:Babylon was probably a mint of Alexander the Great and of many of the Seleucid kings, certainly of the usurpers Molon (222-220) and Timarchus (162 B.c.) . See also:Africa . The coins of Africa are far less numerous then those of the other two continents, as Greek, Phoenician and Roman See also:civilization never penetrated beyond Egypt and the See also:northern Egypt• coast to the west . The series of Egypt is first in See also:geographical order . As yet no coins have been here assigned of a date anterior to Alexander .

The old Egyptians kept their gold, electrum and silver in rings, and weighed them to ascertain the value . During the Persian rule the Persian money must have been current, and the satrap Aryandes is said to have issued a coinage of silver under See also:

Darius I . With Alexander a regular Greek coinage must have begun, and some of his coins are of Egyptian mints . A rare bronze coin was struck at See also:Naucratis, probably during his lifetime . With Ptolemy I. the great Ptolemaic currency begins, which lasted for three centuries . The characteristics of this coinage are its splendid series of gold pieces and the size of the bronze money . The execution of the earlier heads is good; afterwards they become coarse and careless . At first the fine pieces were issued by the Phoenician, Cyprian and other See also:foreign mints, the Egyptian work being usually inferior . While the Seleucids were still striking good coins, the Ptolemies allowed their money to fall into barbarism in Egypt and even in Cyprus . The obverse type is a royal head, that of Ptolemy I. being the ordinary silver type (see Pl . II. fig . 22), while that of Arsinoe II. was long but not uninterruptedly continued on the gold .

The head of Zeus Ammon is most usual 0n the bronze coinage . A type once adopted was usually retained . Thus Ptolemy I., Arsinoe II., Ptolemy IV., Cleopatra I., have a See also:

kind of commemoration in the coinage on the See also:analogy of the priesthoods established in See also:honour of each royal pair . The almost universal type of reverse of all metals is the PtoIemaic badge, the eagle on the thunderbolt, which, in spite of variety, is always heraldic . For art and iconography this series is far inferior to that of the Seleucids . The weight after the earlier part of the reign of Ptolemy I . (who experimented with the Attic and Rhodian standards) is Phoenician for gold and silver.; the_..metrology of .the bronze is obscure . • The chief coins are octadrachms in gold and tetradrachms in silver, besides the abundant bronze money . Ptolemy I. appears to have issued his money while See also:regent for Philip Arrhidaeus (323-318); it only differs in the royal name from that of Alexander . He then struck money for Alexander IV . (317-311) on the Attic standard with the head of Alexander the Great, with the horn of Ammon in the See also:elephant's skin and Alexander's reverse . He soon adopted a new reverse, that of Athene Promachos .

This money he continued to strike after the young king's See also:

death until he himself (305) took the royal title, when he issued his own money, his portrait on the one side and the eagle and thunderbolt with his name as king on the other . This type in silver, with the inscription " Ptolemy the king," is thenceforward the regular currency . He also issued gold staters (reverse, Alexander the Great in an elephant-car) . Ptolemy II . (Philadelphus, 285-247), the richest of the family, continued his father's coinage . Philadelphus also began (after the death and deification of Arsinoe II., about 271 B.C.), the issue of the gold octadrachms with the busts of Ptolemy I. and See also:Berenice I., Ptolemy II. and Arsinoe IL, and certainly struck beautiful octadrachms in gold and decadrachms in silver of Arsinoe II., the gold being long afterwards continued . Philadelphus also began the great bronze issues of the system . Ptolemy III . (Euergetes I. c . 247-222) struck gold octadrachms with his own portrait, wearing a See also:crown of rays . His queen Berenice II., striking in her own right as heiress of the See also:Cyrenaica and also as consort, issued a showy currency with her portrait, both octadrachms and decadrachms like those of Arsinoe, and a coinage for the Cyrenaica of peculiar divisions . Under Ptolemy IV .

(Philopator, 222-205) the gold octadrachms are continued with his portrait and that of Arsinoe III . Ptolemy V . (Epiphanes, 205-181) still strikes octadrachms with his portrait and with that of Arsinoe, and begins the continuous series of the tetradrachms of the three great cities of Cyprus . The coinage henceforward steadily degenerates in style and eventually also in metal . In the latest series, the money of the famous Cleopatra VII., it is interesting to See also:

note the Egyptian variety of her head, also occurring on Greek imperial money and on that of Ascalon . Under the Roman rule the imperial money of Alexandria, the coinage of the imperial province of Egypt, is the most remarkable in its class for its extent and the interest and variety of its types . It begins under Augustus and ends with the usurper or patriot Achilleus, called on his money Domitius Domitianus, overthrown by Diocletian (A.D . 297), thus lasting longer than Greek imperial money elsewhere . In the earlier period there are base silver coins continuing the base tetradrachms struck by Auletes, and bronze money of several sizes . Most of the coins are dated by the regnal years of the emperors, the letter L being used for " year." The types are very various, and may be broadly divided into Greek, Graeco-Roman and Graeco-Egyptian . The Graeco-Roman types have the closest analogy to those of Rome herself; the Graeco-Egyptian are of high interest as a special class illustrative of the latest phase of Egyptian mythology . These native types, at first uncommon, from the time of Domitian are of great frequency .

The money of Trajan, Hadrian and Antoninus See also:

Pius is abundant and interesting . A coin of Antoninus, dated in his sixth year, records the beginning of a new Sothiac See also:cycle of 146o years, which happened in the emperor's second year (A.D . 139) . The reverse type is a crested See also:crane, the Egyptian bennu or See also:phoenix, with a kind of radiate nimbus See also:round its head, and the inscription AIf1N . Under Claudius II . (Gothicus) and thenceforward there is but a single kind of coin of bronze washed with silver . In this series we note the money of Zenobia, and of her son Vabalathus . Coins bearing the names and local types of the nomes of Egypt were struck by a few emperors at the Alexandrian mint . Their metal is bronze, and they are of different sizes . Passing by the unimportant coinage of the Libyans, we reach the interesting series of the Cyrenaica, the only truly Greek currency of Africa . It begins under the line of See also:Battus about the middle of the 7th century, and reathes to the Roman rule asfar as the reign of Augustus . The coins were issued at See also:Cyrene, See also:Barca, Euesperides and smaller towns .

The weight of the gold always, and of the silver until some date not long after 450 B.C., is Euboic; afterwards it is Phoenician . The ruling types are the silphium plant and its See also:

fruit, and the head of Zeus Ammon, first bearded (Pl . II. fig . 23) then beardless . The art is vigorous, and in the transitional and fine period has the best Greek qualities . It is clearly an outlying branch of the school of central Greece . The oldest coins are uninscribed, so that it cannot always be said at which mint they were struck . The money with the name of Cyrene comprises a fine series of gold Attic staters and silver tetradrachms . It was an important mint of the Ptolemies . Barca has a smaller coinage then Cyrene . It comprises a wonderful tetradrachm (Phoenician), with the head of Ammon bearded, boldly represented, absolutely full face, and three silphiums joined, between their heads an owl, a See also:chameleon and a See also:jerboa . The money of Euesperides is less important .

Syrtica and Byzacena offer little of interest . Their coins are late bronze, first with Punic inscriptions, then in imperial times with Latin and Punic or Latin . Latin and Greek are used in the same coins at See also:

Leptis Minor in Byzacena . In Zeugitana the great currency of Carthage is the last representative of Greek money, for, despite its Orientalism, its origin is Hellenic, and of this origin it is at first not unworthy . Its Carthage. range in time is from about 410 B.C., when the Cartha- ginians invaded Sicily, to the fall of Carthage in 146 B.C . The earliest coins are Attic tetradrachms of the class usually called Siculo-Punic . These, and certain gold coins with similar types, were issued in Sicily down to about 310 B.c . The types owe much to the coinage of Sicilian cities, especially Syracuse; but they show also distinct Punic motives, such as a lion before a palm-tree, or a head of a Punic queen . The Punic inscriptions enable some to be attributed to mints such as See also:Motya, Solus, Eryx; others name " Carthage," " the See also:Camp," " the Paymasters," many, inscribed Ziz, were issued from Panormus . The coinage from about 340 to 242 B.C., perhaps all issued at Carthage itself, is scanty; the types, head of Persephone and a horse, or horse and palm-tree, now come in, and prevail to the end of the independent coinage . The acquisition of the See also:Spanish mines about 241 caused the issue of a large coinage, but the gold and silver soon degenerate into electrum and potin . The metrology of the various series (excepting the Siculo-Punic) is obscure, but the standard seems to be Phoenician .

The late silver 12-drachm pieces and some of the bronzes are among the heaviest struck coins of the ancients . The art of the earlier coins is sometimes purely Greek of Sicilian style . There is even in the best class a curious tendency to exaggeration, which gradually develops itself and finally becomes very barbarous . Roman Carthage has a bronze coinage which is in-significant . There are a few other towns which issued money with Roman legends, such as See also:

Utica . The denarii of See also:Clodius See also:Macer, who revolted in A.D . 68, are curiously illustrative of his policy, which was to restore the Roman See also:republic . The cities of See also:Numidia and See also:Mauretania have a late bronze coinage; but an interesting series of silver and bronze coins is attributed with more or less certainty to the Numidian kings from 1Yumldta, See also:Massinissa (202-148), to See also:Juba I . (6o-46 B.c.), and to the A:fnm Mauretanian kings from Syphax (213-202 B.c.), to Juba manta II . (who also struck coins with his consort Cleopatra, daughter of Mark Antony and the famous Egyptian queen) and Ptolemy their son, the last of the great family of the kings of Egypt (A.D . 23-40) . II .

ROMAN COINS The Roman coinage is of two great classes, the republican and the imperial; the first lasted from the origin of money at Rome to the reform of Augustus in 16 B.C., and the second from this date to the fall of the Western empire in A.D . 476 . The evidence of the coins themselves as to the origin of the republican coinage is at variance with that of the ancient writers; but the general principles of See also:

criticism must be maintained here as in other matters of early Roman story . The tradition which ascribed the introduction of coins bearing types to Servius Tullius must be unhesitatingly rejected . The style and types of the earliest Roman coins point clearly to a date not earlier than the middle of the 4th century . The native copper which the Italians used from primitive times as a sort of See also:medium of See also:exchange, in amorphous blocks (aes rude) was probably not a state-currency, being produced by private enter-prise . It was not until Rome unified See also:Latium and See also:Campania under her rule that central Italy acquired a true coinage . This must have been about 338 B.c . The history of the republican coinage from 338 to 16 B.C. falls into two great periods—the second being marked by the introduction of the denarius system in 269 . From 338 to 269 three minor periods may be distinguished, indicating in a striking way the growth of the Roman organization of central Italy . In the period 338–312 Rome consolidated her dominion in Latium and Campania as against her rivals the See also:Samnites . In the second period (312 to c .

290) she finally subdued the Samnites . The system of her coinage is from the beginning based on a double mint, one in Rome and one in See also:

Capua (perhaps also she struck in some other cities in See also:south Italy) . The weight-See also:units with which she starts are, for bronze, the Osco-Latin See also:pound of 273 grammes, for silver the didrachm of 7.58 grammes (the latter being - of the former and more or less coincident with the Phocaic-Campanian didrachm current in Campania) . The relation between silver and bronze was as 1 : 120 or I : 125 . The bronze unit was the as of i pound weight, which was divided into 12 unciae . The reverse type of all bronze denominations was a See also:prow, which alluded to the See also:establishment of Roman sea-power (in 348 she concluded her treaty with Carthage, in 338 she subjugated See also:Antium, her chief rival on the Latin coast, and set up the beaks of the Antiate See also:ships in her See also:forum) . The denominations are marked by I (the as), S (semis= 1 as) and for the smaller de-nominations a number of pellets indicating the value in unciae . On the obverses appear the heads of deities: Janus on the as (see See also:Plate), See also:Jupiter on the semis, See also:Minerva on the triens (4 unciae), See also:Hercules on the quadrans (3 unciae), See also:Mercury on the sextans (2 unciae) and See also:Bellona on the uncia . These heavy coins were all See also:cast at Rome . The Roman mint at Capua, on the other hand, produced a series of silver coins (chiefly didrachms) and small struck bronze change with the inscription ROMANO (see Pl . II. fig . 24) .

In the second period (312 to c . 290) the mint at Rome continues to issue cast bronze of the same weights and types . But at Capua the mint becomes much more active, being opened for cast bronze as well as struck silver . The Osco-Latin silver standard is superseded by the Roman See also:

scruple-standard (I scruple of 1.137 grammes= 1-+v of the pound of 273 grammes) . Silver being to bronze as I : 120, 2 scruples of silver were equivalent to r bronze as of 273 grammes . The first issue of silver in this period consisted of didrachms (six-scruple pieces) with a head of See also:Roma in a Phrygian helmet (alluding to her Trojan foundation), the inscription is ROMANO . Parallel with this is a Capuan issue of libral cast bronze (aes See also:grave) for the use of the Latin territory; the 3-asses (tressis), 2-asses (dupondius) and as all have the head of Roma as on the didrachm, and the reverse type of all denominations is a wheel . (This wheel probably alludes to the completion of the See also:internal routes of communication in Roman territory, especially of the via See also:Appia, which was finished in 312) . Finally, to this first issue is attributed one of the See also:quadrilateral ingots generally known as aes signatum ; its types are the Roman eagle on a thunderbolt, and a Pegasus with the inscription ROMANOM . These ingots, according to a plausible but not quite convincing conjecture, were probably not used as money, but only in sacral and legal ceremonies—such as See also:dedication to the gods, venditio per aes et libram, &c.—in which the use of aes rude was traditional . But from this time onward each issue of silver and aes grave from the Capuan mint was, it is supposed, accompanied by a new See also:ingot of this kind . Three further issues of silver from the Capuan mint took place in this period, each accompanied by its corresponding aes grave series and ingot .

These heavy bronze pieces are all uninscribed; on the silver and small struck bronze ROMA replaces ROMANO . The evidence of.hoards shows that in this period there must have been some sort of convention between Rome and the autonomous mints of her See also:

allies, permitting the circulation, throughout the bronze-using district under Roman control, of all the coins issued from Rome and Capua, on the one hand, and, on the other, all the aes grave issued by the autonomous mints . In the third sub-period (c . 290—269) the silver coinage of the Capuan mint becomes thoroughly Romanized; its inscription is, of course, ROMA; its types are the typically Reiman ones of the youthful head of Janus and Jupiter in his See also:quadriga (these are the nummi quadrigati) . There is also a series of struck bronze inscribed ROMA issued from the same mint . The important feature of this period is that bronze is no longer regarded as the most important See also:element in the currency, but is subordinated to silver; the result is that we have what is called the semi-libral reduction, the weight of the as issued from the Roman mint being half the pound . But opinions vary as to whether the pound of which the as represented the half in this period was the old one of 273 grammes or the new Roman pound of 327.45 grammes . As the latter was certainly used for a special series of aes grave issued from the Roman mint for the Latins (see below), we may assume that it was also used for the regular Roman coinage . Now since the a lb as (163'72 grammes) was equated to 1 scruple of silver (1137 grammes), we get a forced relation of silver to copper of r : 144 . The as being regarded merely as representing so much silver (r scruple), so Iong as the state guaranteed the See also:cover, there was no See also:reason . why the as, being merely token money, should not fall in weight; and that it does, sinking by the end of this or beginning of the next period to the weight of of the Oscan ors (sextans) of the new Roman pound . We may note the occurrence in this series of the decussis or ro-as piece . Of the two series of aes grave issued in this period for the benefit of the Latin district, both are heavier than in the preceding period; the new Roman pound of 327'45 grammes is used for a series issued from the mint of Rome; a still higher weight (perhaps of 341 grammes) for a series issued from Capua .

The relation between silver and copper involved in this standard is not quite clear . In this period also we have ingots corresponding according to the theory above mentioned, to the various series of aes grave; one, with a pair of chickens feeding and a pair of rostra, refers to the augury taken by the Roman imperator before battle . Two other ingots commemorate historical events; one, with a Samnite bull on each side, the subjugation of Rome's great rival; the other, with an elephant and a pig, the alleged rout of See also:

Pyrrhus's elephants by the grunting of See also:swine at Asculum in 278 . After the introduction in 269 B.C. of the silver denarius (piece of ro asses, marked X, Pl . II. fig . 25) with its half (the quinarius, V) and its quarter (the sestertius, IIS), no changes of obviously great economic importance take place in the coinage until near the close of the republican period . Although it is not true, as is sometimes stated, that the coinage of silver at all local ;Hints in south Italy, except the Bruttian, came to a close with the introduction of the denarius, yet the new Roman coin entirely dominated the currency from the first . Many mints, however, continued to issue bronze coinage down to 89 B.C., and a Roman coinage in various metals is also attributed to certain local mints, such as Croton and Hatria; not to mention the Roman issues which still continued to be made from Capua, though in a less degree than before . At Rome itself the mint was now localized in the temple of See also:Juno Moneta, who probably received her surname from, rather than gave it to, See also:motley . The denarius, being equivalent to 10 asses, and weighing 4.55 grammes, would at the See also:rate of I : 120 (which was now restored) be equivalent to 546 grammes of bronze . The as of the time must therefore have been the one weighing S4•6 grammes, that is -- of the Oscan pound cf 273 grammes, ors (sextans) of the Attic-Roman pound of 327'45 grammes . In other words, the legally recognized as of this period was the as of the sextantal reduction .

The bronze coins of this reduction are, like the silver, struck, not cast; the See also:

process of striking had already .been introduced for the See also:lower denominations of bronze in the previous period . About 241 B.C. the weight of the denarius, having sunk under the stress of the first Punic war, was fixed at 3.90 grammes . Possibly the reduction of the as to the weight of an uncia, which Pliny attributes to the time of the Hannibalian crisis, may really have taken place at the same time . In 228 B.C . (some critics prefer to say nearly forty years earlier) a new silver extra-Roman coin, the victoriatus, was introduced . It replaced the old Campanian drachm and, wherever it may have been minted, was meant for circulation outside Rome . The quinarius and sestertius at the same time disappeared from the regular coinage, but the sesterce remained the unit of account . Marks of value occur on all the coins from 269 B.C. for some time onward, except on the smallest bronze and the victoriatus . After the reduction of the bronze had been carried far, it became possible to issue large denominations of a circular form; thus circular bronze decusses (equal each to i denarius) are known of various periods, weighing from over 'too to 65o grammes . Gold was not regularly coined by the Romans until the close of the republic; but certain exceptional issues must be noticed . The earliest (some time during the first Punic War) consisted of pieces of 6o (Pl . II. fig .

26), 40 and 20 sestertii; they were issued both from Rome and from some See also:

external mint or mints . To the crisis of the second Punic War may be assigned certain electrum coins of 11 scruple weight (types: janiform female head, and Jupiter in quadriga) . It is to this time that Pliny attributes the fixing of the as at the weight of an uncia, and the valuation of the denarius at 16 instead of 10 asses (although in estimating the pay of soldiers the denarius continued to be given for to asses) . Finally there is some See also:probability in the attribution to the year 20g of the well-known gold coins of 6 and 3 scruples which have on the obverse a head of the young Janus, and on the reverse two soldiers taking an See also:oath of alliance over the See also:carcass of a pig—in allusion to the See also:loyalty to Rome of her Latin colonies (See also:Livy See also:xxvii . 9, so) . Without following the fortunes of the various denominations, we may note that in 89 B.C. the lex Papiria suppressed all local mints throughout Italy, ordered the reissue of the silver sestertius, and introduced the semuncial (2 See also:ounce) standard for bronze . This was just after the close of the Social War, which had been signalized by the issue, on the part of the revolted allies, of an interesting series of coins (denarii and—most treasonable of all—a gold piece) chiefly from Italia, as they called See also:Corfinium . These coins bear in Oscan letters the names of the See also:Italian military leaders, such as C . Papius Mutilus . In Sr B.C. the regular bronze coinage came to an end, and the denarius remained for a long time the only coin issued by the Roman mint . Roman generals sometimes, however, issued exceptional coins in their own names, such as " bronze sesterces." We have already dealt with the earliest gold money of the republic . Another exceptional issue was the gold coin bearing the name of T .

Quinctius See also:

Flamininus, the liberator of Hellas (struck between rg8 and Igo B.C.); but it was minted in Greece and conformed to Greek standards . The earliest Roman aurei proper (those of See also:Sulla) were also struck outside Rome . They weigh , or '6- of a Roman pound . The aurei of Pompeius were 1s-, those of See also:Julius Caesar See also:gib, of the pound . After Caesar's time the weight of the aureus fell to lb, under Augustus . Of the administrative side of the Roman system of coinage little is known but what the coins reveal . The earliest indication of monetary magistrates is found in symbols, which occur on the coins before the close of the first Punic War . Then the names begin to appear, at first abbreviated, then at length . Probably the right of coinage was in the -beginning vested in the consuls, but it would seem that about the time of the second Punic War it was transferred to a special See also:board of magistrates, the tresviri acre argento See also:aura flando feriundo . Whether they were appointed every year, or only when need arose, we do not know; but it is improbable that there was an annual board until the beginning of the 1st century, if then; and even when annually appointed, they cannot all have exercised their right . On the other hand, there were in some years, as 92 B.C., no less than five moneyers; in c . 86 B.c. there were four, two being aediles exercising a specially conferred right .

Exceptional issues of this kind were often authorized by the senate, and bear inscriptions indicating the fact, such as P.E.S.C . (Publice ex Senatus consulto) . An issue for the purpose of the Apollinarian See also:

games, defrayed out of a special See also:treasury, bears the inscription S.C.D(e) T(hesauro) . Julius Caesar added a fourth moneyer to the board . The first issue of gold by such a board took place in 43 B.c . ; all previous issues of gold had been made, so far as we know, in virtue of military imperium (in 44 B.C. by the praetors) . Augustus, after the troublous period 41–27 was over, returned to the triumviral system; after his reform of 15 B.c. the bronze coinage which he introduced in that year is signed by the triumvirs, although the gold and silver bears no such names . Shortly afterwards, however, he organized the system which will be dealt with under the empire . The types of the Roman republican coins are of great interest, although their art never rises above mediocrity . The chief typesof the period before 269 have already been mentioned . The earliest.denarii, quinarii and sestertii bear a head of the goddess Roma, helmeted, and the Dioscuri charging on horseback, as they appeared at See also:Lake See also:Regillus . The victoriatus has a head of Jupiter and a figure of Victory crowning a trophy .

The types of the bronze coins are practically the same as in the earlier period . About Igo B.C. the goddess See also:

Diana in her chariot begins to appear on the reverses of some of the denarii . Later, other types gradually encroach on the reverses; first, Victory in a chariot; still later such types as the Juno of See also:Lanuvium in a chariot drawn by goats . This and other types which now begin to relieve the monotony of the series usually have a See also:personal allusion to the moneyer, or to his family history . Thus, on a denarius of See also:Sex . Pompeius Fostlus is seen the shepherd Faustulus discovering See also:Romulus and Remus suckled by the she-wolf . Imaginary or more or less See also:authentic portraits of ancestors, such as Numa, L . See also:Junius See also:Brutus or M . Claudius See also:Marcellus, belong to the same See also:category . An elephant's head on a Macedonian shield, on a coin of M . See also:Caecilius 1Vletellus ((a 94 B.C.), alludes to victories won by Caecilii at Panormus (in 251, over Punic elephants) and in See also:Macedonia (in 148) . The cult of See also:Venus by the See also:Julian family is illustrated by a denarius of L .

Julius Caesar (c . 90 B.C.) with a head of See also:

Mars and a figure of Venus in a car drawn by two Cupids . The surrender of Jugurtha by See also:Bocchus to Sulla is represented on a denarius of Sulia's son Faustus (62 B.c., Pl . II. fig . 2}) . The type is probably a copy of the design which we know the See also:dictator used for his signet-ring . M . See also:Aemilius See also:Lepidus (TVTOR REGis) crowning Ptolemy Epiphanes, or Paullus Aemilius erecting a trophy, while King Perseus and his two See also:children, stand before him, are other historical types . A contemporary event is commemorated on a special issue in-scribed AD FRV(mentum) EMV(ndum) EX S(enatus) C(onsulto), coined by L . See also:Calpurnius See also:Piso and Q . Servilius See also:Caepio in 100 B.C . Caepio, See also:quaestor in that year, defeated the proposal of See also:Saturninus to sell corn publicly at a nominal See also:price; but the senate voted a special issue of money to meet the See also:strain of the See also:market .

On the obverse is a head of See also:

Saturn, from whose treasury the funds for the issue were drawn; on the reverse are Caepio and Piso on their See also:official seat, and two ears of corn . Perhaps the most graphic allusion to a contemporary event to be found on any coin is furnished by the cap of See also:liberty with two daggers and the inscription EID(ibus) See also:MAR(tiis) on coins of Brutus . Representations of a less obviously historical character, as personifications of countries or places (Hispania, Alexandria) or qualities (Honos and Virtus) or mythological figures (Scylla), are all, it would seem, inspired by some personal interest . Many types will only be explained when more See also:light is thrown on the obscure corners of Roman mythology and See also:ritual; but they will all probably be found to have some personal reference to the moneyer . Roman types of the later republic, therefore, though they may be classified externally as " religious," " historical," " canting," &c., are all inspired by some personal See also:motive, The inevitable outcome of this character was that, when once contemporary portraiture was regarded as legitimate on the coins, it speedily became its most important feature . The portrait of Flamininus on his gold coin struck in Greece long remained without a Roman analogy . In 44 B.C., by order of the senate, the head of Julius Caesar was placed on the silver coins (Pl . III. fig . 1; the gold coin bearing his portrait is of doubtful authenticity) . After Caesar's death portraits occur on coins issued by men of all shades of political See also:opinion, showing that portraiture on the coins was not then regarded as the monarchical See also:prerogative, which it became from A.D . 6 onwards, when it was limited to members of the imperial family . The history of the imperial coinage is full of metrological difficulties .

These arise from the conditions fixed by Augustus (16–15 B.c.), by which the emperor alone coined gold Augustus. and silver, the senate alone bronze . Consequently the senate was wholly at the See also:

mercy of the emperor . Augustus struck the aureus at 42 to the pound, equal to 25 denarii at 84 to the pound (Pl . III. fig . 3) . He introduced a new coinage in two metals, the sestertius of 4 asses and dupondius of 2, both in fine yellow brass (orichalcum), and the as semis and quadrans in common red copper . This distinction of metals, however, was sometimes ignored, as in the time of See also:Nero,when we have sestertius (PI . III. fig . 2), dupondius and as, all in brass, and of three different sizes . The as is usually nearly equal in size and weight to the dupondius, but is distinguished by its metal and inferior fabric . All this brass and copper coinage bears the letters S.C., senatus consulto . Emperors not acknowledged by the senate are without such money; thus we have no specimens of See also:Otho or Pescennius See also:Niger .

Nero reduced the denarius to -hth of the pound, and alloyed its silver with from 5 to to % of base metal . Henceforward the quality of the denarius gradually sank, until under See also:

Sept . Severus under later the proportion of alloy was from 5o to 6o% . Caracalla emperors. also issued See also:lead plated with silver and, among his aurei, copper plated with gold . He also introduced a new coin, called after him the argenteus Antoninianus . It was struck at o ,th to 84th of the pound, and seems to have been originally a double denarius struck on a lower standard . The characteristic of this coin is that the head of the emperor is radiate as Sol (Pl . III. fig . 4), that of the empress on a See also:crescent as See also:Luna . Towards the end of Caracalla's reign the weight of the aureus had fallen to is lb . Under Elagabalus the taxes were paid in gold alone; this was ruinous, for the treasury paid in debased silver at nominal value, which had to be used to See also:purchase gold by the taxpayer at real value . Under Gordian III. the silver contained 67 % of alloy; and eventually under See also:Gallienus the " argenteus " frequently contained no silver whatever .

See also:

Aurelian (A.D . 270–275) attempted a reform of the coinage by which the previous coin was reduced from its nominal to its See also:intrinsic value . The coins were now of bronze with a See also:wash of silver, and we now find them marked with their value as two denarii . These coins replace at once the base silver and the bronze, which now disappear . The moneying right of the senate had become illusory by the depreciation of silver, which had ceased to have any real value . Aurelian entirely suppressed this right; See also:Tacitus and See also:Florian restored it for a few years, after which the S.C. disappears from the coinage . The reform of Aurelian caused a serious outbreak at Rome, but was maintained by him and by Tacitus . Aurelian also suppressed all local mints but Alexandria . It was the work of Diocletian to restore the issue of relatively pure money in the three metals . He made no less than four unsuccessful attempts to regulate the weight of gold . Not later than 290 he restored a pure silver coinage with a piece of lb . His reformed bronze coins are the follis, marked XX, XX•I., K, KA, &c .

(all meaning " 2 denarii=the unit ") and the half-denarius of centenionalis . See also:

Constantine, probably in A.D . 312 (though some critics attribute the reform to See also:Constantius Chlorus) desiring to rectify the gold coinage, which had long been quite irregular in weight, reduced the chief gold piece to ;12 of the pound, and issued the solidus (Pl . III. fig . 5) , a piece destined to See also:play a great part in commercial history . It was never lowered in weight, though many centuries later it was debased, long after it had become the See also:parent of the gold coinages of Westerns and Easterns alike throughout the civilized world . The letters OB, which are commonly found in the exergue of gold coins from the 4th century onwards mean Obryzum (refined gold), and the letters PS, found on silver coins Pustulatum (refined silver) . Under Constantius II . (A.D . 36o) and Julian the silver coin of D}8 lb was suppressed, and the siliqua of ii.tth of the pound (which had already been issued in small quantities before) took its place . From about 36o there was a system of 4 bronze coins (follis, denarius, centenionalis and a centenionalis) . The last soon disappeared, and under See also:Honorius (395) only the centenionalis remained .

Honorius and his successors issued the silver decargyrus (= to denarii) . The bronze coinage of this time was small and mean . It will be seen that a See also:

fuller system of bronze was originated by See also:Anastasius, the See also:Byzantine emperor . Under Augustus the Roman monetary system became the official standard of the empire, and no local mint could exist without the imperial See also:licence . Thus the Greek imperial money is strictly Roman money coined in the provinces, with the legends and types of the towns . Many cities were allowed to strike bronze, several silver . The kings of the Cimmerian Bosporus enjoyed the exceptional See also:privilege of striking gold, which, however, became rapidly debased . The silver becomes limited about Nero's time, but lasts under the Antonines, and is also found under Caracalla and Macrinus . It is chiefly supplied by the mints of Caesarea in Cappadocia, Antioch and subsidiary mints in Syria, and Alexandria in Egypt . None of these were strictly city-mints, but served the purposes of the provincial See also:government . The bronze increased in mints and quantity in the 2nd century, but, through the debasement of the Roman silver, one city after another ceased to strike about the middle of the 3rd . The provincial mint of Alexandria, however, continued to strikeuntil the end of the century .

From the coins of the ordinary Greek and other cities under the empire must be distinguished the issues of the Roman colonies . In the west these practically ceased in Nero's time; in the See also:

east they lasted as long as the other Greek coinage . Purely Roman gold and silver was coined in certain of the provinces, in See also:Spain and See also:Gaul, and at the cities of Antioch and Ephesus . When the base silver had driven the Greek imperial bronze out of circulation, Gallienus established local mints which struck pure Roman types . Diocletian in-creased the number of these mints, which lasted until the fall of the empire of the West, and in the East longer . These mints were (with others added later), Londinium (or See also:Augusta), See also:Camulodunum, Treviri, Lugdunum, Arelate (or Constantina), Ambianum, Tarraco, Carthago, Roma, See also:Ostia, See also:Ravenna, See also:Aquileia, See also:Mediolanum, Siscia, Serdica,' Sirmium, Thessalonica, Constantinopolis, Heraclea, Nicomedia, Cyzicus, Antiochia (ultimately Theupolis) and Alexandria . A few were speedily abandoned . As regards the internal organization of the mints under the empire, we know that, although the names of the triumviri monetales do not occur on the coins after 15 n.c., they continued to exist (with the title Illviri acre argento auro flando feriundo, although their competence was restricted to the first metal) until probably the time of Aurelian, who withdrew the right of coinage from the senate . Officials of the imperial treasury superintended the gold and silver coinage; Trajan placed a See also:procurator monetae See also:Augusti of equestrian See also:rank at the head of the whole system, subject to the emperor's rationales (the chief official of the treasury) . The system of procurators was extended and regularized by Diocletian . In the Roman colonies (which were only allowed to issue bronze) the formula D.D. or EX D.D . (ex decurionum decreto) often occurs, corresponding to the S.C. of the Roman mint .

At many colonies, especially in the west, the monetary duumviri sign the coins . At Rome the imperial mint itself was situated behind the Colosseum, near the Caelian See also:

hill, the senate retaining its mint on the Capitol probably until the time of Trajan . The three monetae (of the three metals) appear together on medallions for the first time under Hadrian, and probably indicate the organization of the mints for the three metals in one place . From the middle of the 3rd century mint-marks begin to occur on the coins, indicating the various mints, the officinae in each mint, &c . Sometimes these marks form " See also:secret combinations "; thus the letters I, 0 and BI found on three different coins of Diocletian (struck at three different officinae), and the letters HP, KOY and AI on three corresponding coins of Maximian, combine into Greek words representing the genitives of the Latin titles lovius and Herculius assumed by these two emperors . The obverse type of the imperial coins is the portrait of an imperial personage, emperor, empress or Caesar . The type only varies in the treatment of the head or bust—if male, laureate, radiate or See also:bare; if female, sometimes Inscr Typesipandveiled, but usually bare . The reverse types of the flans. See also:pagan period are mythological of divinities, allegorical of personifications, historical of the acts of the emperors . Thus the coins of Hadrian, besides bearing the figures of the chief divinities of Rome, commemorate by allegorical representations of countries or cities the emperor's progresses, and by actual representations his architectural See also:works . Types often occur purely personal to the emperor, such as the sphinx which Augustus used as his signet, or the capricorn, his See also:natal sign . The most remarkable feature of imperial types is the increase of personifications, such as See also:Abundantia, See also:Concordia, Liberalitas, Pudicitia—for the most part drearily conventional . The inscriptions are either simply descriptive, such as the emperor's names and titles in the nominative on the obverse, or partly on the obverse and partly on the reverse, and the name of the subject on the reverse; or else they are dedicatory, the imperial names and titles being given on the obverse in the See also:dative and the name of the type on the reverse .

Sometimes the reverse bears a directly dedicatory inscription to the emperor . The inscriptions on the earlier imperial coins from Tiberius to Severus Alexander are generally See also:

chronological, usually giving the current or last consulship of the emperor and his tribunitian year . It must be noted that Christian symbols first made their appearance on coins in an unsystematic, almost accidental way . The earliest instance is at the mint of Tarraco in A.D . 314, when a See also:cross occurs as a symbol on the reverse . In A.D . 320 the Christian monogram is found as a detail in the field at several mints . But the types still remain pagan; these symbols are not introduced by order, although the officials who introduced them doubtless knew they could do so with impurity . As times goes on the Christian emblems become more popular; on a coin of Constantius II. we find Victory crowning the emperor, who holds the standard of the cross; the inscription is HOC SIGNO See also:VICTOR See also:ERIS . Another type of the same reign is the Christian monogram flanked by See also:alpha and omega . Under Julian there is a temporary recrudescence of pagan types; with the revival of See also:Christianity monotony of type sets in . The art of Roman imperial coins, although far inferior to that of Greek, is well worthy of study in its best ages, for its intrinsic merit, for its illustration of contemporary sculpture, and on account of the influence it exercised on See also:medieval and See also:modern art .

On the whole the finest work is produced under Augustus, when the portraits still betray a certain refinement of See also:

imagination in the artists . Some of it reflects the beauty of Roman monumental sculpture in relief of the time, whether that sculpture be regarded as the work of Greeks or of purely Roman artists . The most vigorous portraiture is perhaps found under the Flavians . Under the Antonines, although still striking and powerful, the portraits lost in subtlety and from the time of See also:Commodus there is a rapid decline . The age of Diocletian and Constantine shows a well-meant but hopeless See also:attempt at revival of art . In spite of its defects, the fact that many of the greatest medallists of the See also:Renaissance See also:drew their See also:inspiration from the art of imperial coins shows that it had many good qualities, of which the chief was an honest directness of effort . The realism in which this resulted is perhaps best seen in the portraits of Nero, the growth of whose bad passions may be seen in the increasing brutality of his features and expression . The medallion series is full of charming subjects, though when they have been treated by Greek artists of earlier ages the contrast is trying; the most satisfactory are the representations of older statues; the purely new compositions are either poor inventions, or have a theatrical See also:air that removes them from the province of good art . The period of the medieval and later coins of See also:Europe must be considered to begin about the time of the fall of the Western empire, so that its length to the present See also:day is about 1400 years . It is impossible to See also:separate the medieval and later coins, either in the entire class, because the time of change varies, or in each group, since there are usually pieces indicative of transition which display characteristics of both periods . The clearest See also:division of the subject is to place the Byzantine coinage first, then to notice the characteristics of its descendants, and lastly to See also:sketch the monetary history of each country . The coinage of the present day, however, having certain definite characteristics, may be dealt with separately .

The Byzantine money is usually held to begin in the reign of Anastasius (A.D . 491–518, Pl . III. fig . 6) . The coinage is always in the three metals, but the silver money is rare, and Byzan- was probably struck in small quantities . At first both eu,plre. the gold and the silver are fine, but towards the close of the empire they are much alloyed . The gold coin is the solidus of Constantine, with its half and its third, the so-called semissis and tremissis . The Byzantine solidus (See also:

besant) had an enormous See also:vogue throughout the middle ages, being the chief gold coin until the introduction of the Italian gold in the 13th century . The chief silver coin was the miliarision, and a smaller coin, the siliqua or keration . Under See also:Heraclius (610–641) the hexagram or double miliarision was first coined . The silver money of the restored Greek empire is obscure . In 498 Anastasius introduced a new copper coinage, bearing on the reverse, at his time, the following indexes of value as the main type: M, K, I and E, 40 nummi, 20, 10 and 5 .

These coins bear beneath the indexes the abbreviated name of the place of issue . Justinian I. added the regnal year in A.D . 538, his twelfth year . The money of this class presents extraordinary variations of weight, which indicate the See also:

condition of the imperial finances . The Alexandrian coins of this class begin under Anastasius and end with the See also:capture of the city by the See also:Arabs . They have two denominations, IB and S, and T or 12, 6 and 3 denarii, and there is an isolated variety of Justinian with A r(33) . The Alexandrian bronze never lost its weight, while that of the empire generally fell, and thus some of the pieces of Heraclius, while associated with his sons Heraclius See also:Constantinus and Heraclonas, have the double See also:index IB and M . Under See also:Basil I. the bronze moneyappears to have been reformed, but the absence of indexes of value makes the whole later history of the coinage in this metal very difficult . There was one curious change in the aspect of the money . Early in the 11th century the solidus begins to assume a See also:cup-shaped form, and this subsequently became the shape of the whole coinage except the smaller bronze pieces . These novel coins are called nummi scyphati . The types, except when they refer simply to the See also:sovereign, are of a religious and consequently of a Christian character .

This feeling increases to the last . Thus, on the obverse of the earlier coins the emperors are represented alone, but from about the loth century they are generally portrayed as aided or supported by some sacred See also:

person-age or See also:saint . On the reverses of the oldest coins we have such types as a Victory holding a cross (other personifications all but disappear), but on those of later ones a representation of Our Saviour or of the Virgin See also:Mary . See also:Christ first appears on a coin of about A.D . 450, where He is represented marrying Pulcheria to See also:Marcian . He does not appear again until the end of the 7th century, when His bust is introduced by Justinian II . It was perhaps this type, so offensive to See also:Mahommedan feeling, that caused the See also:Caliph Abdalmalik to initiate the Mussulman coinage . From the gth century Christ appears in various forms on the coins; about 900 we find the Virgin; a few years later See also:saints begin to appear . A remarkable type was introduced by See also:Michael VIII., See also:Palaeologus, who recovered See also:Constantinople from the Latins in 1261, and issued coins with the Virgin standing in the midst of the walls of the city . The principal inscriptions for a long period almost invariably relate to the sovereign, and See also:express his name and titles . The secondary inscriptions of the earlier coins indicate the town at which the piece was struck, and, in the case of the larger bronze pieces, the year of the emperor's reign is also given . From about the loth century there are generally two principal inscriptions, the one relating to the emperor and the other to the sacred figure of the reverse, in the form of a See also:prayer .

The secondary inscriptions at the same time are descriptive, and are merely abbreviations of the names or titles of the sacred personages near the representations or whom they are placed . From the time of Alexius I . (See also:

Comnenus) the principal inscriptions are almost disused, and descriptive ones alone given . These are nearly always abbreviations, like the secondary ones of the earlier period . The language of the inscriptions was at first Latin with a partial use of Greek; about the time of Heraclius Greek began to take its place on a rude class of coins, probably local; by the 9th century Greek inscriptions occur in the regular coinage; and at the time of Alexius I . Latin wholly disappears . The Greek inscriptions are remarkable for their See also:orthography, which indicates the changes of the language . In the 11th century we notice a few metrical inscriptions, the forerunners of See also:verse-mottoes on later coins . Of the art of these coins little need be said . It has its importance in illustrating contemporary ecclesiastical art, but is generally inferior to it both in design and in execution . It is noticeable that from the beginning of the Byzantine period the facing representation of the bust begins to be popular, and that from the time of Justinian (6th century) onwards the profile practically disappears from the coinage . The last Byzantine gold coin (a piece of John V., 1341–1391) shows a figure of John the Baptist imitated from the Florentine coinage .

Phoenix-squares

Besides the regular series of the Byzantine empire, in which we include the money assigned to the Latin emperors of Constantinople, there are several cognate groups connected with it,either because of their similarity,or because the cognate groups . sovereigns were of the imperial houses . There are the coinages of the barbarians to be next noticed, and the money of the emperors of Nicaea, of Thessalonica and of See also:

Trebizond . The last group consists of small silver pieces, which were prized for their purity; they were called Comnenian See also:white-money (avlrpa Koµvi?vara), the princes of Trebizond having sprung from the illustrious family of the Comneni . The coinage of the other states of the West falls into well-defined periods, which have been distinguished as (1) transitional period, from Roman to true medieval coinage, from the fall of Rome (476) to the See also:accession of See also:Charlemagne (768); (2) true medieval age, during which the Carolingian money was the Periods currency of western Europe, from Charlemagne to the of other fall of the Swabian See also:house (1268) ; (3) early Renaissance, European from the striking of the florin in See also:Florence (1252) to Corsage, the classical Renaissance (1450); (4) the classical Renaissance, from 1450 to 1600; (5) the modern period . 1 . The various coinages of the transitional period will best be considered together (see below) . 2 . The inconvenience of gold money when it represents a very large value in the necessaries of life must have caused its abandon-Medleval. ment and the substitution of silver by the Carlovingians . The denier (denarius) or penny of about 24 grains was at first practically the See also:sole coin . The solidus in gold was struck but very rarely, perhaps as a kind of See also:proof of the right of coining . The Byzantine solidus or See also:bezant was used and probably the equivalent Arab gold .

The Arab silver piece, the dirhem, was almost exactly the double of the denier, and seems to have been widely current in the See also:

north . The new coinage spread from See also:France, where it was first royal and then royal and feudal, to See also:Germany, Italy, where the Byzantine types did not wholly disappear, See also:England, Scandinavia, See also:Castile and See also:Aragon . In Germany and France feudal money was soon issued, and in Italy towns and ecclesiastical See also:foundations largely acquired from the empire the right of coinage, which was elsewhere rare . The consequence of the extended right of coinage was a depreciation in weight, and in the middle of the 12th century the one-sided pennies called bracteates appeared in Germany, which were so thin that they could only be stamped on one side . The types of this whole second coinage are new, except when the bust of the emperor is engraved . The most usual are the cross; and the See also:church as a temple also appears, ultimately taking the form of a See also:Gothic building . There are also sacred figures, and more rarely heads in the later age . 3 . The true See also:herald of the Renaissance was the emperor See also:Frederick II . In restoring the gold coinage, however, he followed in the steps of Ot early the See also:Norman See also:dukes of See also:Apulia . With a large Arab popula- ena;s- tion, these princes had found it convenient to continue the Oriental gold money of the country, part of the great See also:lance. currency at that time of all the western Moslems, and See also:Roger II . (113o—1154) also struck Latin coins of his own as DVX APVLIAE, the first ducats .

Frederick II . (1215-125o), continuing the Arab coinage, also struck his own Roman gold money, solidi and half solidi, with his bust as emperor of the Romans, Caesar Augustus, and on the reverse the imperial eagle (Pl . III. fig . 7) . In workmanship these were the finest coins produced in the middle ages . But the calamities which overwhelmed the Swabian house and threw back the Renaissance deprived this effort of any weight, and it was left to the great republics to carry out the See also:

idea of a worthy coinage—a See also:necessity of their large commercial schemes . The famous gold florin was first issued in 1252 (PI . I II. fig.8) . The obverse type is the standing figure of St John the Baptist, the reverse bears the lily of Florence . The weight was about 54 grains, but the breadth of the coin and the beauty of the work gave it dignity . The commercial greatness of Florence and the purity of the florin caused the issue of similar coins in almost all parts of Europe . See also:Venice was not long in striking (in 1284) a gold coin of the same weight as the florin, but with the types of a standing figure ofChrist,and the See also:doge receiving the See also:gonfalon at the hands of St Mark (see Pl .

III. fig . 9) . It was first called the See also:

ducat, the name it always bears in its inscription; later it is known as the zecchino or See also:sequin . Though not so largely imitated as the florin, the extreme purity of the sequin was unquestioned to a time within the memory of living persons . See also:Genoa likewise had a great gold currency, and the other Italian states struck in this metal . It is significant of the power of the Italian republics that the later See also:Mameluke sultans of Egypt found it convenient or necessary for their position between Europe and See also:India to adopt the weight of the florin and sequin for their gold money . Many varieties of gold money appear in course of time in France, England and to a less extent in other countries . The need for a heavier silver coinage caused the issue of the large denier (grossus denarius, See also:gros or See also:groat) . This coin appears early in the 14th century . The types from the 14th century onwards are very various and distinctly worthy of the art of the time, which as yet is purely decorative and conventional, so that portraits are not possible . The religious intention also is gradually giving way to the See also:desire to produce a beautiful result, and the symbol of the cross is varied to suit the decorative needs of the coin . Heraldic subjects also appear, and in the shield, which is frequently a reverse type, we see the origin of the usual modern reverse of the most important coins .

4, 5 . With the classical Renaissance we find ourselves in the presence of modern ideas . The elaborate systems of coinage of the Of clssskalvarious states of Europe are soon to begin, and the Of cias- prevalence of a general currency to become for the time space, and impossible . Silver money now gains new importance with modem. the issue of the thaler or See also:

dollar in Germany, in 1518 . This great coin speedily became the chief European piece in its metal, but as it was coined of various weights and varying purity it failed to acquire the general character of the denier . A word must be added on money of account . While the denier was the chief and practically the sole coin, the solidus passed from use as a foreign piece into a money of account . The solidus, like the See also:German schilling (See also:shilling), contained Mosey of usually 12 deniers . As there were 20 shillings to the a'xount. pound of silver, we obtain the reckoning by £ s. d., librae, solidi and denarii . The pound as a weight contained 12 oz., and its two-thirds was the German mark of 8 oz . It would be interesting, did space permit, to notice fully the art of this entire class, to examine its growth, and to trace its decline; but, as with that of Greek and Roman coins, we must Art. mainly limit ourselves to the best period . This is a space of about a hundred and fifty years, the age of the classical Renaissance, from the middle of the 15th century to the close of the 16th .

The finest works are limited to the first half-century of this period, from a little before 1450 to about 1500, in Italy, and for as long a time, beginning and ending somewhat later, in Germany . The artists were then greater than afterwards, and See also:

medal-making had not degenerated into a trade; but with the larger See also:production of the period following the work was more See also:mechanical, and so fell into the hands of inferio, men . The medals of this first period may not unworthily be placed by the side of its sculpture and its See also:painting . Not only have some of its medallists taken See also:honourable places In a See also:list where there was no See also:robin for ignoble names, but to design medals was not thought an unworthy occupation for the most famous artists . There are, as we should expect, two principal schools, the Italian and the German . The former attained a higher excellence, as possessing not merebr a nobler style but one especially adapted to coins or medals . The object which the artists strove to attain was to present a portrait or to commemorate an See also:action in the best manner possible, without losing sight of the fitness of the designs to the form and use of the piece on which they were to be placed . For the successful attainment of this purpose the style of the later pre-Raphaelites was eminently. suited . Its general love of truth, symmetrical grouping, simple drapery and severely faithful portraiture were qualities especially fitted to produce a fine portrait and a good medal . It is to be noted that their idea of portraiture did not depend on such a feeling for beauty as influenced the Greeks . Rather did it set before it the moral or intellectual attainments and capabilities, what the Italians called the virtd, of the subject . The German art, as seen in the medals, is mostly the work of carvers in See also:wood or honestone, or goldsmiths .

It excels in vigorous, realistic portraiture, and in decorative treatment of heraldic subjects, but is lacking in breadth of style and in the imagination shown by the best Italian medallists . Both these schools, but especially the Italian, afford the best foundation for a truly excellent modern medallic art . The finest coins and medals of Italy and Germany have an object similar to that which it is sought to fulfil in the See also:

English, and their nearness in time makes many details entirely appropriate . Thus, without blindly imitating them, modern artists may derive from them the greatest aid . There are some delicately beautiful Italian medals of the 16th century, too closely imitated from the Roman style . A vigorous realistic school, the only great one of modern times, arose in France before the close of the 16th century and lasted into the next . It was rendered illustrious by See also:Dupre and the inferior but still powerful Warin . From this age until the time of See also:Napoleon there is nothing worthy of note . The style of his medallists is the weak classical manner then in vogue, but yet is See also:superior to what went before and what has followed . It is not intended here to enter in any detail into the various divisions of the subject already treated in its main outlines . The questions that would require See also:consideration are of too complicated and technical a nature to be illustrated within reasonable limits; the principal matters of inquiry may, however, be indicated . We begin with a survey of the transitional coinages in the various countries of the West .

They cover the period from the 5th to the 8th centuries, and are of immense historical significance . The types throughout are monotonous: t ranion the bust of a Roman emperor or local ruler, a cross of coinage, some kind, a Victory, &c . The style is quite barbarous . The classification of the earliest servile imitations of Roman and Byzantine money rests solely upon provenance and is uncextrdiai . The following general series are distinguished: (A) The See also:

Vandals (in Africa, 428–534) issued gold (?), silver and bronze from See also:Hunneric (477–484) to Gelamir (530'-534); the gold is See also:anonymous . (B) The Suevians (Spain, 409–585) had little but imitations of .1 Byzantine gold; but Richiar (448-456) issued a denarius in his own name . (C) The See also:Ostrogoths (Italy, 489-553) were preceded by the Herulian See also:Odoacer (476-494), who coined silver and bronze; their kings (including See also:Theodoric, 493-526, and See also:Totila or Baduila, 541-552) issued gold, silver and bronze in their own names, from Rome, Ravenna, See also:Milan, &c . (D) The See also:Lombards (Italy, 568-774) had no coins in their own names before Grimoald, See also:duke of Beneventum (662-671); later there are gold solidi and thirds and silver from many mints" Gold was issued for the duchy of Beneventum in the 8th century . (E) The Burgundians (Gaul, to 534) first issued recognizable coins under Gondebald (473-516) . (F) The Visigoths ( South Gaul and Spain) had imitative gold thirds in the 5th and 6th centuries; the kings' names appear from See also:Leovigild (573-586) to Roderic (710-711) . Sixty-one mints were in operation . (G) The Meroving See also:Franks first issued under See also:Clovis I .

(481-51 I) coins recognizably Frankish (solidi and thirds) . Royal names first appear on silver and copper under Theuderic of See also:

Austrasia (511-534) and See also:Childebert I. of See also:Paris (511-558) . The chief Frankish inscribed coinage is, however, of gold solidi and thirds, from Theodebert I . (534-548), who See also:broke down the Roman imperial prerogative and issued gold with his own name in full, to the beginning of the 8th century . The last Merovings issued no coins in their own names, being mere puppets . And from the middle of the 6th century the coins with kings' names are far less numerous than those bearing the names only of mints and moneyers; some Boo places (not only in what is now France, but in Germany, the Low Countries and See also:Switzerland) are thus named (Pl . III. fig . 12) . This coinage seems to have been intimately connected with the fiscal organization, though the generally accepted theory that the taxes collected in each place were there and then converted into money is by no means proved . Certain religious establishments also possessed the right of coining in their own name . The close of the Meroving See also:dynasty saw a revival of silver in the See also:saiga, which heralded the introduction of the denier . (H) The Anglo-See also:Saxons began with an imitative coinage similar to the Merovingian, viz. gold, solidi and thirds, and silver sceattas (=treasure, Ger .

Schatz) of about 20 grains troy, and stycas (= pieces, Ger . See also:

Stuck), first of silver, then of copper . The gold is rare and confined to the south; only two solidi are known, imitations of Honorius, with runic legends on the reverse . The types of the gold thirds, as of the coinage in other metals (which does not begin until the 7th century), are derived more or less directly from Roman . Some of the inscribed sceattas bear the name of See also:London in Roman letters; others, in See also:runes, the names of Epa and Peada (who is perhaps the son of See also:Penda), king of See also:Mercia (d . 655) . Sceattas with runic inscriptions were also issued in East Anglia towards the end of the 8th century . But the sceatta was superseded by the penny introduced by Off a (757-796) . See also:Offa also struck a gold coin, bearing his name and an inscription copied directly from an almost contemporary Arab coin; but this is quite an exceptional issue, represented now by a unique specimen . The styca, which begins c . 670, was characteristic of the Northumbrian coinage, lasting, long after the introduction of the penny farther south, down to the Danish invasions of the second half of the 9th century . A series was issued by the archbishops of See also:York .

Wigmund (837-854) struck a gold solidus inscribed MVNVS DIVINVM, copied from the solidi of See also:

Louis le Debonnaire, and evidently meant for a religious purpose (Pl . III. fig . II) . For the whole question of Anglo-Saxon coins see See also:BRITAIN: Anglo-Saxon . (I) The See also:Frisians had a small coinage of gold thirds (imitated from Byzantine), and one with the name of Audulfus also exists (end of the 6th century?) . The chief mint was probably Doccum . We now proceed to the consideration of the coinages of the various countries from the 8th century to modern times . The See also:Portugal money of Portugal begins, after the See also:expulsion of the See also:Moors, with See also:Alphonso I . (1112); it is exclusively regal, and not of great interest except as affording indications of the wealth and commercial activity of the state in the early part of the 18th century . The coinage of Spain, after the reconquest from the Moors, is almost without exception regal . The king- dom of See also:Navarre had a coinage from the time of Sancho III . (l000- 1035) .

The series of Castile and See also:

Leon begins with Alphonso VI . (1053) with deniers and obols . Aragon first has coins under Sancho Ramirez I . (ro63) . Gold (imitated from spaia . Moorish money) is introduced in the middle of the 12th century . A plentiful coinage was issued after the See also:union of the crowns in 1.479 . The Spanish dollar of the 17th and 18th centuries was one of the most widely circulating currencies in the West (see P1 . V. fig . 5) . The medals of Spain are not important . In 755 See also:Pippin abolished the gold coinage of his Merovingian predecessors and introduced the silver denier (see Pl .

III. fig . 10); the coinage became a royal prerogative once more, and France. was confined to a few mints . The denier, which at first weighed c . 1.28 gramme (194 grains), was for centuries the most important of European silver coins . Under Charlemagne the weight was slightly raised; the See also:

Caroline monogram appears, and there are other modifications in the types . Charlemagne also issued money from various Italian, German and Spanish mints, He also introduced the obol, and struck gold (chiefly at Italian mints) . Among his types must be noted the temple with the inscription XPISTIANA RELIGIO . Louis he Debonnaire (814-840) was the last Carolingian to strike gold . In the 9th century are perceptible the first traces of the See also:movement which led to the extensive feudal coinage . The See also:advent of the house of See also:Capet made no great change in the system, but the feudal issues now become important . The most widespread denier was that of the See also:abbey of St See also:Martin at See also:Tours (denier tournois); the royal coinage was known as the monnaie parisis . St Louis (1226-1270) effected a great reform late in his reign, making the See also:sou (hitherto a money of account) into a real coin as the gros (see Pl .

III. fig . 14), and introducing a gold coinage . Henceforward the coinage increases in complexity; in the 14th century it has great artistic merit (see Pl . III. fig . 17) . The See also:

French medals are far more interesting than the modern coins . The earliest of artistic importance not by Italian artists show nevertheless strong Italian influence (medals of See also:Charles VIII. and See also:Anne of See also:Brittany, of Philibert of See also:Savoy and See also:Margaret of See also:Austria) . A series of large medallions of the See also:Valois is attributed to Germain Pilon . The most characteristically French artists are See also:Guillaume Dupre (working 1595-1643) and See also:Jean and See also:Claude Warin (middle and second half of 17th century) . The long historical series of Louis XIV. has no artistic value; but that of the See also:Napoleonic period shows great technical ability on the part of artists like See also:Andrieu, in spite of the false classicalism of their designs . The silver penny was introduced into England by Offa, king of Mercia (757-796), following the lead of Pippin in France (see Pl . III.fig.13) .

It soon rose in weight to about 22 grains England. troy (1.42 gramme), at which it long remained . The types were usually, obverse the king's head, or some form of cross or religious symbol; reverse some form of cross, religious symbol or See also:

ornament . The inscriptions gave the names of the king and of the moneyer, later also the mint . An important gold coin of Offa was imitated from an Arab dinar of 774, with the addition of the words OFFA REX . The Mercian coinage ends about 874 . The pennies of the kings of See also:Kent extend from 765 to 825; the archbishops of See also:Canterbury went on striking to the beginning of the loth century . The East Anglian regal series extends to 890; the memorial coinage of St See also:Edmund circulated largely in East Anglia in the 9th century . The penny appears in See also:Northumbria with the Dane Halfdan (875-877) and continues to the middle of the next century . A coinage of " St See also:Peter " pennies was issued from York c . 920-940 . The coinage of Wessex begins with See also:Ecgbert, probably c . 825, when he got See also:possession of the mint at Canterbury (see Pl .

III. fig . 15 with the name of London) . The coinage marks the See also:

gradual growth of Wessex, until England is united under See also:Edgar (957-975) . There is hence-forward for a long time no change of great importance in the coinage, which continued to consist of pennies, with rare half-pennies (the pennies were usually cut into halves and quarters along the lines of the cross to make small change) . During the reign of See also:Stephen the monotony is relieved by a few issues by barons like See also:Robert, See also:earl of See also:Gloucester . The number of mints is much reduced by the time of See also:Henry III., and the moneyers cease less casts of genuine farthings, and counters made in See also:imitation of the sixpence of the time, are constantly mistaken for . such farthings . After this there is little to remark, except the baseness of the art of the coins under the first three Georges, until .the See also:talent of Pistrucci gave a worthier form to the currency . Between 176o and 1816 hardly any silver or copper money was issued . The See also:gap was filled by the use of Spanish dollars See also:counter-stamped, and silver tokens issued by the See also:Banks of England and See also:Ireland, as well as by vast quantities of tokens issued by private persons . In 1816 the new coinage of gold and silver was issued, since when there have been few changes in the See also:British currency .. The English medals are far more interesting for their bearing on events than as works of art . The best are almost all by foreigners, but the fine pieces of the Simons form notable English exceptions .

The medals of the Tudors are good in medals . style, and show some excellent portraits, in particular those by Trezzo and Stephen H . (generally known as Stephen of See also:

Holland) . There is one of Mary queen of Scots by Primavera, representing her in middle life, which is perhaps her most characteristic portrait . See also:Elizabeth's are of historical importance, and some of them, as the See also:Armada medals (see Pl.V. fig . 7), have a certain barbaric grandeur, being probably the work of English artists . The richer series of the See also:Stuart period contains some medals of fine style . These include works by Warin, the Simons and the Roettiers, besides the excellent coin engravers Briot and Rawlins . The numerous badges worn by adherents of various parties during the See also:civil war and See also:Commonwealth have a personal and historical interest . The most curious pieces are those popular issues relating to current events, such as the so-called " Popish See also:plot," and a certain interest attaches to medals of the exiled Stuarts . From this time there are no works deserving notice except military and See also:naval medals, the historical interest of which makes some amends for their poverty of design and execution . The English tokens form a curious class .

They are of two periods: the earlier, which are almost always of copper, were issued chiefly at the middle of the 17th century and some-what later; the later, which are mainly of copper, but also sometimes of silver, were struck during the scarcity of the royal coinage in this metal at the end of the 18th century, and during the earlier years of the 19th century . Both were chiefly coined by tradesmen and bear their names . The colonial money of England was. until lately unimportant, but now (except in style) it is not unworthy of the wealth and activity of the dependencies . The " Anglo-Gallic " money struck by the English kings for their French dominions forms a peculiar class . It was begun by Henry II., who struck deniers and half-deniers for See also:

Aquitaine . See also:Richard I . (whose name is not found on his English coinage) struck for most of the French domains, but no coins are attributed to John or Henry III . See also:Edward L's coins are of billon; of Edward II. there are none . Gold was introduced before 1337, and there are fine series of gold, silver, and billon of Edward III . (see Pl . III. fig . 19) and the See also:Black See also:Prince .

Henry, earl of Lan- caster, struck silver at See also:

Bergerac (1345-1361) . The succeeding kings down to Henry VI.(first reign) all issued Anglo-Gallic coins . There was a temporary revival under Henry VIII. at Tournay (1513-1519) . The whole series,' with the exception of the See also:Calais coinage, is French in character . The coinage of See also:Scotland is allied to that of England, although generally ruder; but it seems to have been more influenced in the early period from England, and towards its close from Scotland . France . The oldest pieces are silver pennies or sterlings, resembling the contemporary English money of the reign of See also:David I . (1124-1153) . David II. after 1357 introduced a gold coinage . In the 15th and 16th centuries there is an important coinage, both in gold and silver, not the least interesting pieces being the fine See also:bonnet-piece of See also:James V., and the various issues of Queen Mary, many of which bear her portrait . The indifferent execution of the coins of Mary's reign is traceable to the disturbed state of the kingdom . The Scottish coinage came to an end in 1709 .

See also:

Wales has never had a coinage of its own, properly speaking . A unique penny attributed with good reason to Bowel the Wales . Good, a contemporary of Edmund (died c . 950), was perhaps struck at See also:Chester . Various English kings struck coins at Welsh mints such as Rhuddlan, See also:Pembroke . to sign the coins in Edward I.'s reign . Henry III. made an abortive attempt to introduce a gold coinage, which was success-fully established by Edward III. in 1343, with the gold florin, and in 1344 with the gold noble (see P1 . III. fig . 20) . (The obverse type of the noble, the king in a See also:ship, is generally thought to refer to the victory of See also:Sluys in 1340.) He also introduced the silver groat (4d.) and half-groat . The English coinage, both gold and silver, was now of such high quality and reputation that it (especially the silver See also:sterling) was largely exported and imitated, chiefly in the Low Countries . The gold coinage of Edward III. is perhaps the most successful, from an artistic point of view, in the English series .

Subsequent developments of the coinage now become very complicated . Edward IV. distinguished his noble by a rose on the obverse and a sun on the reverse, and introduced a new gold coin, the See also:

angel . The Tudor period is distinguished by the splendour, variety and size of the coins; Henry VII. introduced the sovereign of 20s . (240 grains) and the shilling, and on his coins the first serious attempt at portraiture is found (see Pl . III. fig . 21) . Under Henry VIII.the quality of the silver money declines, being not effectually restored until the reign of Elizabeth, when an unsuccessful attempt was made to introduce a copper coinage . Private tokens came into use, but the official copper coinage does not begin until the next reign . The use of the mill, as distinct from the See also:hammer, was begun in 1562, but it took just a century to oust the old-fashioned method . In 1613 John, See also:Lord See also:Harrington, obtained a patent for the issue of copper farthings, and private tradesmen's tokens were prohibited . The gold sovereign of James I., from its inscription (FACIAM EOS IN GENTEM VNAM) and the fact that it was meant to circulate on both sides of the Border, was known as the unite . The coinage of Charles I. presents great varieties owing to the civil war .

The best workmanship is seen on the milled coins issued by See also:

Nicolas Briot . But the majority of the money was still hammered . The scarcity of gold in the royal treasury during the troubles induced the king to coin twenty- and ten-shilling pieces of silver, in addition to the crowns and smaller denominations . Gold three-pound pieces, or triple-unites, however, were issued from the See also:Oxford mint . One of the most remarkable of his pieces is a crown struck at Oxford by Rawlins . It bears on the obverse the king on horseback, with a representation of the town beneath the horse, and on the reverse the heads of the " Oxford See also:Declaration." The so-called "See also:Juxon medal," given by Charles to See also:Bishop Juxonon the See also:scaffold, is really a pattern-piece by Rawlins (see Pl . V. fig . 1) . Of equal interest are the See also:siege-pieces of many castles famous in the See also:annals of those days . They are mostly of silver, often mere pieces of plate with a stamp; but See also:Colchester and See also:Pontefract issued gold . The coinage of the Commonwealth is of a plainness proper to the principles of those who sanctioned it . The great See also:Protector, however, caused money to be designed of his own bearing his head .

It is not certain that this was ever sent forth, and it is therefore put in the class of patterns . Simon, the chief of English medallists, designed the coins, which are unequalled in the whole series for the vigour of the portrait (a worthy presentment of the head of See also:

Cromwell) and the beauty and fitness of every portion of the work . The finest coin produced under Charles II., and technically the best executed piece in the whole English series, is the " See also:Petition Crown " (see Pl . V. fig . 2), a pattern by Simon, to which, however—probably for political reasons—the work of See also:Jan Roettier was preferred . Maundy money was first struck in this reign, and the name See also:guinea was now applied to the 20S. piece . In 1672 a true copper coinage of halfpence and farthings was introduced . Hence- forward there is a decline in the coinage, although skill is perceived in the portrait of See also:William III., whose grand features could scarcely have failed to stimulate an artist to more than a common effort . Queen Anne's money is also worthy of note, on account of the attempt, on See also:Dean See also:Swift's See also:suggestion, to commemorate current history on the copper coinage,which led to the issue of the famous farthings (see Pl . V. fig . 4) . These have been the cause of an extra- ordinary delusion, to the effect that a very small number (some say three) of these pieces were struck, and that their value is a thousand pounds each, instead of usually some shillings .

See also:

Worth- 900 The money of Ireland is more scanty and of less importance than that of Scotland . The pieces most worthy of notice are the silver Ireland pennies of the early Danish kings, the earliest being that of Sihtric III . (989-1029), copied from contemporary English pennies . The Anglo-Irish coinage begins in 1177, when John as lord of Ireland received the right of coinage . A copper coinage was introduced as early as the reign of Henry VI . The quality of the Irish coinage was exceedingly poor in the 16th century, especially under Elizabeth . Between 1642 and 1647 various kinds of money of necessity were issued, including the only gold Irish coin, the See also:Inchiquin See also:pistole . After his expulsion from England James II. issued enormous quantities of coins of necessity made of gunmetal or See also:pewter . The latest Irish coins were the penny and See also:halfpenny of 1822 . The Isle of Man had a regular copper coinage, beginning in 1709 with pence and halfpence under the See also:Derby family, continued by James, duke of See also:Athol (issue of 1758), and by the English sovereigns from 1786 to 1864 . The badge of the island is the three-legged symbol, with the See also:motto Quocunque jeceris stabit . See also:Belgium occupies the next place in our arrangement .

Its coinage, which, except for the few mints operating under the See also:

Merovingians and See also:Carolingians, does not begin until the rlth century, comprises many pieces struck by foreign rulers, and has little of an independent character in either the regal or the seignorial class . The most important coinages are those of the house of See also:Burgundy and Charles V. and his son, and of the bishops of See also:Liege . In character the coinage of Belgium approximates to the French on the one side, the German on the other . About 1400 the Burgundian school produced a remarkable series of medals representing Roman emperors, of which two (those of Constantine and Heraclius) have come down to us; these form a See also:link between the late Roman medallion and the Italian medal of the Renaissance . The series of Holland is similar in character until the period of the revolt of the provinces . The Dutch dollars of the 16th to the 18th centuries had an immense circulation (see Pl . V. fig . 3) . Among the early Dutch medallists must be mentioned Stephen H., generally without reason known as Stephen of Holland (working 1558-1572), whose portraits show great charm . The Dutch historical medals are of great interest, more especially those which were struck by the Protestants in commemoration of current events . There is also a remarkable series of bronze medallets or jettons, which form a continuous commentary on history during the 16th and early part of the 17th centuries . Both are interesting as largely illustrating not only local events but also those of the chief European states .

Such are the pieces recording the raising of the siege of See also:

Leiden, likened to the destruction of See also:Sennacherib's See also:army, the assassination of William the Silent, and the discomfiture of the Armada, affording striking indications of the zeal, the piety and the confidence in the right which built up the great political structure of the Dutch republic . After this time the medals lose much of their interest . The money of Switzerland illustrates the varying fortunes of this central state, and the gradual growth of the stronghold of European freedom . First we have the gold money swlrzer- of the Frankish kings, among whose mints See also:Basel, land . See also:Lausanne, St See also:Maurice-en-See also:Valais and Sitten (See also:Sion) already appear . The silver deniers, which Charlemagne made the coinage of the empire, are issued by fewer mints; the dukes of See also:Swabia began to strike at See also:Zurich in the loth century, and the empire granted during the loth and to the 13th century the right of coinage to various ecclesiastical foundations, bishoprics and abbeys . See also:Bern was allowed a mint by the emperor Frederick II. in 1218, and other towns and seigneurs subsequently gained the same right . The demi-bracteate appears about the middle of the 11th century, and about 1125 is superseded by the true bracteate, whichlasts until about 1300 . The 14th century witnessed the rise of the Swiss See also:confederation, and by degrees the cantons struck their own money . These, together with the coins of some few See also:sees and abbacies, form the bulk of Swiss money of the medieval and modern periods . The separate cantonal coinage, interrupted by the French occupation, was finally suppressed in 1848, when a uniform currency was adopted by the whole[MEDIEVAL AND republic . The monetary systems of the cantonal and ecclesiastical mints were extremely complicated .

This was partly due to the variety of coins, partly to the debasement practised by the ecclesiastical mints . See also:

Geneva had a peculiar system of her own . Italy, with Sicily, has peculiar features . Here the barbaric coinages were mixed with the Byzantine issues which marked the recovery of the Eastern empire, and left a lasting influence in the north at Venice, and in the south at Modern Beneventum . Later the Arab conquest left its mark Italy and slurry . in the curious Oriental coinages of the See also:Normans of Sicily and the emperor Frederick If., mixed after his See also:fashion with Latin coinage . The earliest money is that of the barbarians, Ost