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XAPAKTHP ("engraving" or "engraved pi...
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See also:XAPAKTHP ("See also:engraving" or "engraved piece")
.
Seuthes (end of 5th See also:century B.C.) and See also:Cotys (1st century B.C.), semi-See also:barbarian Thracians, afford no See also:evidence for Gredk usage
.
The other instances (all archaic) point to the nominative understood in See also:early times being in reality some word meaning type, or badge
.
But, if so, this latent nominative was eventually superseded by one meaning " See also:money " or " See also:coin." Thus the staters of See also: The importance of Greek coins as illustrating the See also:character of contemporary See also:art cannot be easily overrated . They are beyond all other monuments the See also:grammar of Greek art . Their See also:gem- Art o1 graphical and See also:historical range is only limited by Greek Coins . See also:history and the Greek See also:world; as a See also:series they may be called See also:complete; in quality they are usually worthy of a See also:place beside contemporary See also:sculpture, having indeed a more See also:uniform merit; they are sometimes the See also:work of See also:great artists, and there is no question of their authenticity, nor have they suffered from the injurious See also:hand of the restorer . Thus they tell us what other monuments leave untold, filling up gaps in the sequence of See also:works of art, and revealing See also:local See also:schools known from them alone . The art of coins belongs to the See also:province of See also:relief, which lies between the domains of sculpture and of See also:painting, partaking of the character of both, but most influenced by that which was dominant in each See also:age . Thus in antiquity relief mainly shows the See also:rule of sculpture; in the See also:Renaissance that of painting . It may be expected that Greek coins will See also:bear the impress of the See also:sister art of sculpture, filling up the gaps in the sequence of examples of the art of which we have remains, telling us somewhat of that which has but a written tradition . Our first See also:duty is to endeavour to place the documents in the best See also:order, separating the See also:geographical from the historical indications, first examining the evidence of local schools, then those of the See also:succession of styles . It is from coins alone that we can discover the existence of great local schools, reflecting the character of the different branches of the Hellenic See also:race . In tracing the changes in these schools we gain a great addition to our ideas of the successive styles, and can detect new examples of those which owe their fame to the leading masters . But in dealing with works in relief we have the See also:advantage due to their intermediate character . In our larger geographical See also:horizon we can trace the character of the successive styles, not of sculpture only, but also of sculpture and painting . Greek coins clearly indicate three great schools, each with its subordinate See also:groups . The school of central See also:Greece holds the first place, including the See also:northern See also:group centred in See also:Thrace and See also:Macedonia, and the See also:southern in the See also:Peloponnesus, with the outlying See also:special schools of See also:Crete and See also:Cyrene . The Ionian school has its northern group, See also:Ionia, See also:Mysia and See also:Aeolis, and its southern, See also:Rhodes and See also:Caria . Beyond these are certain barbarous and semi-barbarous groups, of which the most important is that of eastern See also:Asia See also:Minor, See also:Persia and See also:Phoenicia, with See also:Cyprus . The school of the See also:West comprises the two groups of See also:Italy and See also:Sicily . The whole duration of the schools is limited, by the repulse of the Persians and the See also:accession of Alexander, from 48o to 332 B.C . Before this age all is archaic, and it is hard to trace local characteristics . After it, the centralizing policy of the sovereigns and the fall of the See also:free cities destroyed local art . In certain cultivated centres under enlightened kings a local art arose, but it speedily became See also:general, and we have thus to think of a succession of styles 1 The arms on the Syracusan decadrachms represent a See also:reward given to the victors in the Assinarian See also:games (see below) . Local Schools . during the See also:rest of the See also:life of Greek art . The century and a See also:half of the local schools is significantly the great age of this art . In the study of each school we have first to determine its character, and then to look in its successive phases for the See also:influence of the great masters of See also:style . Two dangers must be avoided . We must not too sharply See also:divide the sculptors and the painters as if they always were true to the special functions of their arts . It is well to bear in mind that the earliest great painter, See also:Polygnotus, was a portrayer of character, Kotos i 0oyparos, ?OrK6s, as See also:Aristotle calls him, whereas the latest great sculptors represented expression (Ta aaBrf) . Thus since i)Boc is the special province of sculpture, and Tilt auirOrl of painting, sculpture first weighed down the See also:balance, afterwards painting; but it must be remembered that relief can be truer to painting than sculpture in the See also:round, which is more limited by the conditions of the material and See also:mechanical necessities . Our second danger is due to the ease with which local qualities may be ascribed to the influence of a leading style . It is also to be See also:borne in mind that the See also:movement of art in coins was during one period slower than in sculpture—hence an influence more general than particular . See also:Pheidias and See also:Myron do not make their See also:mark so much as See also:Polyclitus . In all cases the See also:direct influence of great masters is to be looked for later than their age . The school of central Greece in its southern group, comprehending See also:Attica, is remarkable for its widespread extent . It has its colonies in Magna Graecia at Thurium, an Athenian central See also:foundation, probably at Terina, and in Macedonia at Greece . See also:Amphipolis and Chalcidice under Athenian rule . It alone shows instances comparable to the works of Pheidias, though its most numerous See also:fine works are of the age of Polyclitus and that of See also:Praxiteles and See also:Scopas . Its qualities may be seen by comparison of the same subjects as treated by the other schools and groups . The earliest works are marked more than any others by the qualities of high promise which characterized the Aeginetan See also:marbles—the same dignified self-See also:restraint and See also:calm simplicity . Next we perceive a series strong in style, and showing that lofty dignity, that reposeful embodiment of character, which are the See also:stamp of the works of Pheidias and his contemporaries . The subjects are more remarkable for fidelity, breadth and boldness than for delicacy of See also:execution or elaboration of See also:ornament . Every subject is ideal, even the portrayal of See also:animal See also:form . Thus the character shows us what divinity is intended and the ideality what is intended by the representation of beast or See also:bird . From these works we pass to those which reflect the style of the See also:time of Praxiteles and Scopas, when the influence of painting began to be See also:felt, and art inclined towards feeling and descended to sentiment . Still, to the last, character rules these coins, and the See also:chief difference we see is in the increased love of beauty for its own See also:sake and the fondness for representing movement, not to the exclusion of repose, but by its See also:side . In other respects there is little See also:change except in the finer execution and more ornamental quality of the work . Even when the greatest achievement of the Sicilian school, the See also:female See also:head on the decadrachms of See also:Syracuse, is copied by the Locrians and the Messenians, the larger quality of the school of Greece asserts itself, and the copy is better than the See also:original: there is less artifice and more breadth . The northern group is at first ruder, in the age of Pheidias severer, and afterwards it merges into the greater softness of its southern See also:rival . If it copies, as See also:Larissa may copy Syracuse and Neapolis in See also:Campania, it again asserts its See also:superior simplicity, and we prefer the copy to the original . The Ionian school lacks the sequence which the rest of the Greek world affords . It is broken by the baneful influence of Ionia. the See also:Persian dominion, and consequently the best works belong to the earliest and latest See also:part of the period . The earliest coins, of the Aeginetan age, See also:present nothing special; the later, of the time of Praxiteles and Scopas, comprise works not inferior to those of central Greece, and remarkable, like the Western and the Cretan, as the See also:sole records of a school otherwise unknown . They are markedly characterized by the qualities of the style of feeling, that of Praxiteles and Scopas; but more than this, they are the expression of that style in pictorial form . They represent expression, and they treat it as it could not be treated in sculpture in the round, portraying locks streaming in the See also:air and flowing draperies . It must be remembered that, while Hellas produced the great sculptors, western Asia Minor bred the great painters after Polygnotus, himself a sculptor in painting rather than a painter . In the native See also:land of Zeuxis, See also:Parrhasius and See also:Apelles we see the evidence of the rule of painting . The technical skill is inferior to that of the West., yet the skill in modelling is far greater, and has no parallel in the medallic work of any other time or See also:country . The school of the West, if we except such outlying examples of the art of Hellas as those of Thurium and Terina, has its highest expression in Italy, its most characteristic in Sicily . The West .
It has distinctive qualities throughout the age
.
Even
in the earlier period we trace a striving after beauty and a delicacy of finish, with a weakness of purpose, that mark the school with an influence increasing to a time See also:long after the . extinction of its rivals
.
At the same time there is a knowledge of the capacity of the materials and the form of the coin and a masterly See also:power of finish, on the whole a completeness of technical skill which is unequalled
.
The result in the See also:lower subjects is splendid, if wanting in variety, but in the higher we See also:miss the See also:noble achievements of the greater schools
.
So far there is a general agreement in the northern and southern groups
.
Yet the See also:Italian shows a nobler and simpler style, with some See also:affinity to that of central Greece, which we look for in vain in Sicily, though we are dazzled by the See also:rich beauty of the magnificent series of coins which marks her wealthiest age
.
Sicilian art has this apparent advantage, that the great cities, See also:save Syracuse, perished in the Carthaginian invasion, or under the tyranny of the See also:elder See also:Dionysius
.
Thus we have no important works save of Syracuse during the second half of our period, and cannot See also:judge fully to what this school would have fallen
.
The See also: Those of the great Syracusan decadrachms are small; those of the minute hectae of See also:Cyzicus are large . The most important of the lesser schools is the Cretan . Crete, retaining the See also:primitive life of older Hellas, was never truly civilized, but to the last enjoyed the privileges and Crete. exhibited the faults of an undeveloped See also:condition . Producing in the age of high art neither sculptor nor painter of renown, the Cretans, to judge from their coins, were copyists of nature or art . At first See also:rude, their work acquires excellence in See also:design, but never in execution . While we see their poor reproductions of the designs of the Peloponnesus, we are amazed by their skill in portraying nature . Their gods are seated in trees with a background of foliage . Their bulls are sketched as they wandered in the meadows . All fitness for the mode of relief, as well as for the material and the shape of the coin, is entirely ignored . Hence a delight in foreshortening, and a free choice of subject with no reference to the circle in which it must be figured . In spite, however, of their skill, the Cretans never attempted the three-See also:quarter See also:face, which is at once the best suited to the See also:surface of a coin and the most trying to the skill of the artist . Yet their work is delightfully fresh, as if done in the open air .
There is no See also:idealism, but much life and movement
.
In a word, the school is naturalistic and picturesque
.
Its works are of the highest value in the study of Greek art, but as examples of the application of that art to coins they are to be used with caution
.
Nowhere else do we see the artist so freely copying nature and art, nowhere so unshackled by See also:academic rules, nowhere so little aware of the See also:limitation of his province
.
Senor Zobel de Zangr6niz has classed them to See also:Spain, on the grounds of provenance and the See also:possession of the See also:silver mines by the Barcide kings, against See also: The two provinces Hispania Citerior and Hispania Ulterior have this marked difference: the coins of the nearer province, of silver and See also:bronze, have always Iberian inscriptions on the reverse, and are clearly under distinct Roman regulation; those of the farther are apparently of See also:independent origin, and consequently bear Iberian, Phoenician, Libyo-Phoenician and Latin legends, but they are of bronze alone . The See also:interest of these coins lies mainly in their historical and geographical See also:information . They bear the names of tribes, often the same as those of the town of mintage . The art is poor, and lacks the See also:quaint originality and decorative quality of that of See also:Gaul . Ultimately the native money was wholly latinized (133 B.C.), silver was no longer issued, and although the Ulterior continued to have its own coinage, in the Citerior only Emporiae and See also:Saguntum were allowed to strike coins . See also:Political circumstances for a time renewed the coinage under See also:Sertorius (80-72 B.C.) in the modified form of a bilingual currency . The purely Latin issues of the two provinces, and under the empire more largely (from 27 B.C.) of the three, Tarraconensis, Baetica and Lusitania, present little of interest . They closed in the reign of Caligula (A.D . 37-41), though in later times purely Roman money in See also:gold and silver was issued at different times in Hispania down to the See also:establishment of the Visigothic See also:kingdom . The imperial money of Hispania introduces us to one of the two great classes of provincial coins under the empire; the larger of these was the Greek imperial, bearing Greek inscriptions, the smaller the Roman colonial, with Latin inscriptions, deriving its name from the circumstance that among Greek-speaking nations the coloniae were distinguished by the use of the Latin See also:language on their money . In the coinage of Hispania, issued by a nation adopting Latin for See also:official use, the aspect of the coinage is colonial, though it was not wholly issued by colonies . Many of the See also:Spanish towns belong to the kindred class of municipia; others are neither coloniae nor municipia .
In Hispania the obverse of the coin bears, as usual in the colonial class, the head of the See also:emperor or of some imperial personage, the reverse a subject proper to the town
.
The See also:priest guiding a plough See also:drawn by an ox and a cow is peculiarly proper to a colonia, as portraying the ceremony of describing the walls of the See also:city, so also an ox, with the same reference, the See also:altar of the imperial founder, or, as connected with his cultus, a See also:temple, probably in some cases that of See also:Roma and See also:Augustus
.
Other types, however, portray the old temples in restored Roman shapes, or indicate directly by fishes, ears of See also:corn and more rarely bunches of grapes, the See also:pro-ducts of the country
.
Some original and See also:grotesque types have a markedly local character
.
The money of See also:Augusta Emerita (See also:Merida) in Lusitania, a See also:colony of pensioners (emiriti), is specially interesting, including as it does the silver issues of P
.
Carisius, the legatus of Augustus
.
The coinage commonly called that of Gaul belongs to the See also:people more properly than to the country, for it comprehends pieces issued by the Gauls or other barbarians from the See also:borders of Macedonia and Illyricum to the See also:English The
Gauls
.
Channel and the See also:Bay of See also:Biscay, through See also:Pannonia, part
of See also:Germany, Helvetia and Gaul
.
It influenced the money of northern Italy, and, See also:crossing the Channel, produced that of
It is important to study the mode in which Greek money was coined, because the forms of the pieces thus receive explanation,
and true coins are discriminated from such See also:modern falsifi-Mode Colde of f cations as have been struck, and in some degree from those
which have been See also:cast
.
Our direct information on the subject is extremely scanty, but we are enabled by careful inference to obtain a very near approximation to the truth on all the most important points
.
Of the dies used by the Greeks exceedingly few have been pre-served
.
In the museum at See also:Sofia is an See also:iron die for the reverse of a coin of See also: Most See also:ancient dies are of bronze, others of hardened iron or See also:steel . The blanks were, as a rule, first cast, sometimes in a spherical form, some-times in a form more resembling that assumed by the finished coin . The See also:blank was placed between two dies, the lower, let into an See also:anvil, producing the obverse, the other, let into the end of a See also:bar, producing the reverse . The bar was struck with a See also:hammer, so that the blank received at the same time the impressions of both dies . This general rule was of course often modified; in some parts of the Greek world the dies were hinged together, in others not; and this arrangement of hinging the dies came in at different times in different places . The machinery of striking was probably much elaborated under the Roman empire, but a See also:collar seems never to have been used in ancient times . Greek dies must usually have worn out very quickly; hence an enormous number of slightly varying representations of the same type . But the See also:idea that it is uncommon to find two Greek coins from the same die is exaggerated . A great number of early Italian and Roman, and a few Greek coins, of large See also:size, were cast in moulds, not struck; and under the empire many coins, originally struck, were reproduced, not always fraudulently, by casting; but the genuine ancient coin of small size is, as an almost invariable rule, struck and not cast . We may now pass on to See also:notice the Greek coinage of each country, following See also:Eckhel's arrangement . The series begins (}reek with Spain, Gaul and See also:Britain, constituting the only coinage of great class of barbarous Greek coinage . It must not the Far be supposed that the money of the whole class is of west. one general character; on the contrary, it has very many divisions, distinguished by marked peculiarities; it has, however, everywhere one See also:common characteristic—its devices are corrupt copies of those of Greek or Roman coins . The earliest of these barbarous coinages begin with the best imitations of the gold and silver money of Philip Ii. of Macedon . They probably first appeared to the See also:north of his kingdom, but the gold soon spread as far as Gaul, and even found their way into southern Britain, by which time the original types had almost disappeared through successive degradations . Next in order of time are the silver imitations of Roman coins, the victoriati and denarii of the See also:commonwealth, which began in Spain and passed into Gaul, being current with the gold money of Greek origin; even in Britain the later coinage shows much Roman influence . The See also:copper money of Spain follows the imitated silver types ; that of Gaul and Britain, though showing Roman influence, is more original . Side by side with these large coinages we find Greek money of colonies in Gaul and Spain, and a far ampler issue of Spain . Phoenician coins by the Carthaginian kings and cities of the See also:Peninsula . The coinage of Hispania, corre- sponding to the modern Spain and See also:Portugal, was issued during a period of about four centuries, closing in A.D . 41 . There are four classes of money, which in the order of their relative antiquity, are Greek, of two groups, Carthaginian, Romano-Iberian and Latin . The first or older group of Greek money (from before c . 350 B.C.) belongsto the widespread currency, which reveals the maritime power of the See also:Ionians of See also:Phocaea . It consists of fractions of the drachm of the Phocaean See also:standard, from the diobol or third downwards . Its later pieces are of the Phocaean colony of Emporiae, founded by the earlier See also:settlement of Massilia . Next in order and in part contemporary, beginning before the See also:middle of the 3rd century B.C., come the drachms of Emporiae, which betray the influence of Siculo-Punic art . Their standard is probably Carthaginian . Of the neighbouring Rhoda, a Rhodian colony, there is similar money . Carthaginian coins of Spain begin in the same period with the issues of the great colony of Gades, following the same weights as the Emporian drachms . These are followed by the issues of the Barcides from 234 to 210 See also:Bed., with Carthaginian types and of Phoenician weight, struck of six denominations, from the hexadrachm to the hemidrachm . Britain, which has its own distinctive features . Four classes of coinage are found in these vast limits . Arranging them by date, they are the money of the Greek colony of Massilia and her dependencies, that of the Gauls and other barbarians of central and western See also:Europe, that which can be classed to the tribes and chiefs of Gaul and the imperial coinage of that country . The coins of the Gauls and other barbarians outside Gallia include the gold coins known as " See also:rainbow cups " (Regenbogenschiisselchen), which seem to have been an original currency of the tribes inhabiting the Bohemian and Bavarian districts, and other gold and silver coins (the later series bearing names in Latin characters) which circulated in See also:Noricum, Pannonia, Helvetia, Upper Germany, &c . The great mart of Massilia (See also:Marseilles), founded about 600 B.C. by the Phocaeans, was the centre of the Greek settlements of Gaul See also:Masai/1a. and northern Spain . Emporiae was her colony, with other nearer towns of inferior fame . Yet Massilia always held the first place, as is proved by the abundance of her money . At first it consisted of Phocaean obols, part of the widespread Western currency already noticed in speaking of Emporiae . These were succeeded by See also:Attic drachms, some of which, about Philip of Macedon's time, are beautiful in style and execution . Their obverse type is the head of See also:Artemis, crowned with See also:olive, at once marking the sacred See also:tree, which had grown from a See also:branch carried by the colonists, so tradition said, with a statue of the goddess, from See also:Ephesus, and proclaiming the value of the olive-groves of Massilia . On the reverse we See also:note the See also:Asiatic See also:lion, common to it and the last colony of Phocaea, the Italian See also:Velia in Lucania . These coins circulated extensively in southern Gaul, and were much imitated by the barbarians on both sides of the See also:Alps . The Gauls, on their predatory incursions into Greece, must have seized large quantities of the gold coinage circulating there, oaaL but it is probable that the gold staters of Philip (Pl . I. fig . 14), from which the chief types of the Gaulish gold are derived (Pl . I. fig . I), had already found their way, independently of such raids, by means of See also:trade along the See also:Danube valley into the districts then inhabited by the Gauls . This is clear from the fact that the gold coins of Alexander were never, his silver rarely, imitated by the Gauls, yet these were in circulation at the time of the incursions . Nor did the influence of Philip's silver travel far west . But his gold money evidently travelled through central Europe to Gallia . The money of Gallia before the complete Roman See also:conquest, to which it may be anterior in its commencement by half a century, belongs in the gold to degraded types of the earlier widespread currency . The undoubted gold and See also:electrum of this imitative class, identified as bearing regal or geographical names, are extremely limited . By far the most interesting coin of the group is the gold piece which bears the name at full length of the brave and unfortunate Vercingetorix . The silver money is comparatively common . The Gauls were ready to copy any types that came in their way, so that in the coinage of Gaul we find imitations of the coinage of Tarentum, Campania, various Spanish cities such as Rhoda, and Roman coins of the republic and early empire . The effect of the silver of Massilia and other Greek colonies is especially noticeable in S . Gaul, and the Roman denarius naturally exerted a strong influence . The bronze money of Gaul is still more abundant than the silver, and has a special interest from its characteristic types . Some of the later local coins are casts of an alloy of copper and See also:tin called polio, but merely a variety of bronze . The Roman coins recall those of Hispania, but are limited to a few coloniae . They range in date from Antony and Augustus to See also:Claudius . The best-known coins of this time, those struck at the colony of Copia Lugdunum (See also:Lyons) with the " Altar of Roma and Augustus," belong, how-ever, strictly speaking, to the Roman series . The coins of Nemausus (See also:Nimes), commemorating the conquest of See also:Egypt in the See also:crocodile chained to a See also:palm-tree, were sometimes made in the shape of the See also:hind-See also:leg of an animal, evidentiy for See also:dedication in the sacred See also:fountain, from the mud of which all the specimens of this variety are derived . The ancient coinage of Britain is the See also:child of that of Gaul. retaining the marks of its parentage, yet with characters of its own due to independent growth . Money first came in Britain. trade by the easiest See also:sea-passage, and, once established in See also:Kent, gradually spread north and west, until the age of the earlier Roman See also:wars, when it was issued in See also:Yorkshire, probably in See also:Lincolnshire, and in a territory of which the northern limits are marked by the counties of See also:Norfolk, See also:Cambridge, See also:Huntingdon, See also:Bedford, See also:Buckingham, See also:Oxford, See also:Gloucester and See also:Somerset . The See also:oldest coins are gold imitations of Philip's staters, which, whether struck in Gaul or Britain, had a circulation on the See also:British side of the Channel . They are the prototypes of all later money . From a careful comparison of their weights with those of later coins, and from a study of the See also:gradual degradation of the types, See also:Evans places the origin of the coinage between 200 and 150 B.C . Its See also:close may be placed about the middle of the 1st century A.D . The inscribed coins occupy the last century of this period, being contemporary with uninscribed ones . The uninscribed coins are of gold, silver, bronze and tin, the gold being by far the most common . There is small variety in the types, nearly all in gold and silver, and some in copper, presenting in more or less degraded form the original Gaulish type for gold . It may be suspected that all new types and the extremely barbarous descendant of the tin series are of the age of the inscribed coins, or but little earlier . The Channel Islands are remarkable for a See also:peculiar coinage of billon, a very See also:base silver, presenting the usual types modified by Gaulish grotesqueness . The place of this group in the British series is merely accidental; in character as in See also:geography it is Gaulish . The inscribed coins are evidently in most cases of chiefs, though it is certain that one town (See also:Verulamium) and some tribes had the right of striking money . The most interesting coins are those of known chiefs and their families—of Commius, probably the active See also:prince mentioned by See also: |