OF ARTS AND SCIENCES. 215 



silver coins of Athens, which he had lately received from 

 Mr. George Finlay, of Athens, and made some remarks, of 

 which the following is the substance. 



" Mr. Finlay is the distinguished historian of the Byzantine Enn- 

 pire. He has resided in Athens for many years, occupied with 

 historical studies and archseological researches. The ancient coins 

 of Greece, and the coins of the Byzantine Empire, of which he has 

 a large and valuable collection, have been much attended to by him, 

 both on account of their intrinsic interest and for the illustrations they 

 afford of numerous points in history. 



" The excellence of the Athenian currency has been often the 

 theme of eulogy. The practical sense of the Athenian people was 

 as remarkable as their genius for literature and art. We are apt to 

 forget, in our admiration of the Parthenon adorned by the sculptures of 

 Pheidias, and of the tragedies of Sophocles and the orations of De- 

 mosthenes, that the same people were equally eminent in commerce, 

 manufactures, and agriculture ; that they had devised a judicious sys- 

 tem of public revenue, and well understood the theory and practice of 

 credit in commercial and banking operations. At an early period, the 

 silver coinage of Athens acquired a general currency throughout the 

 commercial world. So well did the Athenians perceive the advantage 

 of this, that they retained, even during the periods of the highest ex- 

 cellence in the fine arts, much of the rudeness of the earliest mintage : 

 so that the coins of Macedonia, and of many of the colonial states, far 

 surpassed, in beauty of design and execution, the coins of Athens. 

 This adherence to the archaic style was intentional ; it was the result 

 of practical wisdom, abstaining from change, in order not to affect 

 the established credit of the ancient currency. 



" The principal authorities on ancient coins are Spanheim, Eckhel, 

 Mionnet, Boeckh, Hussey, Cardwell, and Humphrey ; together with 

 the lists of the coins in the public and private collections of Europe. 



" The silver coins now exhibited are, — 1. Terpabpaxfiop. 2. Apax^r]. 

 3. Tpw^oKov. 4. "O^oXos. 5. TpiTTjuopiov. 6. 'Hp.iol3uXiov. 7. Teraprrjfxo' 

 piov. These coins have been carefully weighed by Professor Hors- 

 ford, with the following results: — 



Troy Weight. French Grammes. 



lerpabpaxp^ov (four drachmas), 255.99 gr. = 16.5778 



ApaxM"? (drachma), 63.20 4.0929 

 Tpio^okov (three-obol piece, or 



half-drachma), 30.70 1.9883* 



