204 



EECREATIVE SCIENCE. 



COINS OF THE SELEUCID^, KINGS OP SYRIA. 



A COMPLETE cabinet of ancient coins com- 

 prises so vast an aggregation of specimens, 

 that its formation is far beyond tlie means of 

 the great majority of those who have collected 

 or hoarded a few of these interesting monu- 

 ments. It is in national museums or libra- 

 ries alone that duly classified series of ancient 

 coins of every class can be attempted. Some 

 few private collections, as the Hunterian, the 

 Pembroke, and the celebrated Thomas cabi- 

 net, were indeed wonderfully rich in many 

 very distinct branches ; and yet, as embracing 

 examples illustrating the whole of this most 

 important and interesting branch of archae- 

 ology, they were necessarily inferior to many 

 of the poorest public collections. It is there- 

 fore evident that any attempt to form a 

 general cabinet with anything like tolerable 

 completeness, would involve an outlay both 

 of time and money far beyond the conveni- 

 ence of any collector. Hence it may be 

 suggested that some special department 

 should be selected by the young numis- 

 matist, to which he should confine his chief 

 attention. By this means, and by beginning 

 early and seizing the happy opportunities 

 that never fail to occur from time to time, 

 8ome single branch of the subject may be so 

 completely illustrated as to form a very in- 

 teresting, if not important cabinet, illustra- 

 tive of a special period or dynasty. 



As an instance, I may allude to the cabinet 

 of Roman " Large Brass," formed by Captain 

 W. H. Smyth. This fine collection (the de- 

 scriptive catalogue of which, by its possessor, 

 is one of the most interesting and instructive 

 numismatic works in the English language) 

 consists only of specimens of the Roman 

 copper coins of the larger class, from the 

 reign of Augustus, B.C. 42,* to that of Salo- 



• The date of the battle of Philippi. 



ninus, who was assassinated in the year 

 259 A.D. 



In the Roman series a collection of the 

 denarii, or standard silver coinage, might be 

 made of the same period, at but little more 

 cost. Some of the types are very interest- 

 ing, and it would have the advantage of en- 

 abling the collector to continue his series 

 down to the time of Constantine and his 

 family, or even to a period later than that, 

 at which the larger class of brass money 

 dwindled, and gradually disappeared with the 

 decline of the empire. 



The old French numismatist, Le VaiUant, 

 made a special collection of the coins of the 

 Macedonian kings of Syria, and our own 

 antiquary. Cough, has principally restricted 

 himself, in the numismatic department of his 

 archaeological researches, to the same subject, 

 his volume on the coins of the Seleucidse 

 being one of the finest works of its class. 



From that series of coins, indeed, a most 

 compact and complete cabinet may be formed, 

 and its being limited would enable almost 

 any enthusiastic collector, who had patience 

 to see Ms cabinet increase slowly year by 

 year, to get together, in a comparatively 

 short space of time, a very respectable cabi- 

 net, illustrative of the establishment, the 

 flourishing period, the decline, and extinction 

 of this important dynasty. Another feature 

 in favour of this subject (and some others 

 of a similar class to be afterwards alluded 

 to) is, that the whole period embraced belongs 

 to the finest era of monetary art, nearly 

 the whole of the coins of every reign, except 

 a few of the last, being of fine execution, and 

 some of them remarkably splendid works 

 of art, especially those of the reign of Anti- 

 ochus the Great. The silver tetradrachms, or 

 pieces of four drachmae, are the finest coins of 

 the series ; but a collector wishing to get his 



