Phillips °^ Oct. 3, 



Sybarites and put them to the sword. * * * What then is its numis- 

 matic history? We have several coins of Sybaris, bearing in the form of 

 their brief inscriptions and workmanship the strongesl evidence of high 

 antiquity, so that we may fairly assign them to a period fully five cen- 

 turies before the Christian era. The constant device on these coins was 

 Bos stans et respiciens, showing that it was the acknowledged cognizance 

 of Sybaris. The nexl coins belonging to the place are more recent, as we 

 may judge from the form of their letters and their highly finished style of 

 workmanship, and taken on the analogy of coins in general, they might be 

 assigned to a period not much anterior to the time of Philip and Alexan- 

 der. But we find from these that the devices of the place have undergone 

 an important change. The ancient cognizance of Sybaris is now of sec- 

 ondary consequence and has given way on one face of the coin to the Caput 

 Palladia, the well-known badge of Athens. The inscription, too, is, in one 

 instance, the abbreviated word Sybaris, in another a similar abbreviation 

 of the newly contracted name, Thurium. So then, these coins strictly 

 mark the period when the natives and foreigners were living together in 

 compact, mutually endeavoring to conciliate each other, each party pre- 

 serving tokens of its hereditary attachments. 



"The next set of coins is distinguished by a minuteness of ornament 

 which marks them decidedly as the most recent of the three, and these. 

 (oins, in perfect accordance with the historical narration, bear no memo- 

 rials of the ancient Sybaris. The inscription in every instance is of Thur- 

 ium, the Caput Palladis is prominent, and the ancient cognizance of the 

 Bull is no longer stans ef respiciens but irruens et cornupeta. Doubtless 

 there was found in the meaning of the word 9oup\ov f & reason for the differ- 

 ence they adopted 'a bull running and butting.' 



"When, later in the history of the town, Athens and other powers of 

 Greece began to claim it as a dependency, thej r boldly refused to acknowl- 

 edge any other founder or patron than the deity of Delphi. And what 

 say the coins? Some of them, which seem to have been minted when the 

 republic was yet scarcely free from its ancient habits, retain the badge of 

 Athens, but some also bear the emblems of Ceres, the tokens of agricul- 

 tural prosperity, and others are impressed with the head and insignia of 

 Apollo." 



The device of the bull occurs upon the reverse of a denarius of Augustus 

 (of which a specimen is in the present collection), and also those of the 

 gensTuom.v. " The ' Bos irruens,' " says Smyth (Northumberland family 

 coins, p. 238), "or a fierce bull charging, is no doubt a punning allusion 

 to the moneyer's cognomen, Boupto^. impetuous, and not an agrarian em- 

 blem. Some antiquaries, however, insist that it alludes to an agrarian law 

 introduced by the tribune Sp. Thorius Balbus, which lex concerning the 

 Roman public lands was engraved upon the back part of the same tablet 

 which contained the Lex Servilia de Repetundis ; this tablet was broken 



Cardwell Lecture, ill, p. 66 et seq. Diodoru.s Siculus, lxi., I 90, Ac. ; lxii., 



', II and 35. 



