1879.] ^VQ [Phillips. 



The object in hand is to show Art in its origin, growth and progress ; Art 

 as a hand-maid for the illustration of mythology and the elucidation of his- 

 tory ; Art as an interpreter of the classics, where many obscure passages find 

 upon coins their only true solution. Treatise after treatise has been written 

 to show the advantage to be derived from the study of ancient coinages. 

 Agostino, Goltz, Strada, Eckhel, Spanheim, and a myriad of others have con- 

 tributed their stores of knowledge to the general fund. 



Coins throw light upon the history of nations, their forms of government, 

 the political condition of their citizens ; they indicate the classification of 

 their inhabitants ; they serve to fix the successions of monarchs, the events 

 of their reigns, and the dates of eras. They have preserved to us the names 

 of a multitude of civic magistrates and rulers, their offices and functions. 

 They have presented to us the images of sovereigns and great personages of 

 history, the heroes of antiquity, poets, painters, philosophers, and sages, 

 gods, goddesses, demigods, legislators and women of fame. They have 

 added largely to our geographical knowledge of the ancient world, exhibit- 

 ing rivers and fountains, seas and mountains, rocks and other character- 

 istics of places. Many cities have borne different names at various times 

 and coins alone have authenticated their proper attribution. Coins bear fre- 

 quently types which relate to the religions of the ancient world, both as 

 representing persons, ideas, creeds, shrines, temples, altars and places of 

 worship, sacrifices, utensils and sacred objects. The holy stone to whose 

 worship Elagabalus was consecrated, Diana of the Ephesians, and many 

 similar devices exist on coins. 



Many customs are found on coins, such as congiaries, games, allocutions, 

 &c, and ornaments and forms of dress are also thus preserved to our times. 



Architecture has also been enriched by the edifices, bridges, arches, 

 columns, monuments and similar objects which historians have not fully 

 described, as being too familiar a subject or else have totally passed over, 

 not being then in existence. 



When we consider the vast extent of the riches and possessions of so 

 many of the potentates and states of antiquity, the enormous quantity of an- 

 cient coins which have survived to our times should not surprise us. The 

 antique earth was a world of commerce, as is our modern globe of to-day ; for 

 the requirements of a commerce, which we know wasan extensive one, large 

 quantities of circulating medium were necessary, and the great mines of the 

 archaic days furnished immense supplies of the precious metals. The Syra- 

 cusans, the Athenians, Philip the Second of Macedon, Alexander Magnus, 

 the Ptolemies of Egypt, and lastly the Romans, all issued great quantities of 

 coined money during long centuries ; they were all wealthy and prosperous. 

 In the Royal collection at Paris, probably the finest in the world, there are 

 representative coins of sixty-five thousand different nations, cities and 

 princes ; the whole number of coinage issued, it is supposed, would amount 

 to about one hundred thousand. 



The interest which attaches to the earliest day -dawn of civilization upon 

 this planet, to human life in its first development in the far distant past, is 



