NUMISMATICS 



551 



tcrised l>y the introduction of the portrait of the 

 reigning monarch in place of the head of the 

 divinity on the obverse. Before Alexander's time 

 no tyrant, however despotic, had ever ventured to 

 place his own head upon the coinage of the state, 

 for hitherto the coinage had continued to maintain 

 intact its original religious character. The regal 

 money of Alexander and his successors now gradu- 

 ally superseded the autonomous coinage of the 

 smaller Greek states, except in the west, which 

 was beyond the sphere of Alexander's conquests, 

 and where the cities of Italy and Sicily continued 

 to strike gold and silver until they were in turn 

 brought under subjection by the growing power of 

 Kome (see below). 



( v.-vii. ) 280 B.C. to the Christian era. Periods of 

 early and later decline ; age of the Epigoni, the 

 Attalids, and of Mithradates the Great. The 

 silver and gold coinage during these three cen- 

 turies is almost exclusively regal, and presents us 

 with a remarkable series of lifelike portraits of 

 the long succession of the Seleucid kings of Syria, 

 of the Ptolemies of Egypt, of the kings of Macedon, 

 of Pontas and Bithynia, of the Attalids of Perga- 

 mum, and of the successors of Alexander in 

 Northern India, many of whom are known to us 

 only from their coins. The chief characteris- 

 tic of the art of numismatic portraiture, 

 which attained its highest perfection about 

 250 B.C., is its realism, which is carried in 

 gome cases almost to the verge of brutality, 

 as for instance on the tetradrachms of some 

 of the kings of Pontus, the ancestors of 

 Mithradates the Great. It is to this period 

 that the earliest coins of the Jews belong 

 the well-known shekels of Israel, struck at 

 Jerusalem bv Simon Maceabreus, 143-135 B. C. 

 Anfong the latest portraits on Greek coins is 

 that of the famous Cleopatra on a coin of 

 Ascalon. She is represented with wide-open 

 and eager eyes, a prominent and slightly 

 aquiline nose, ami a large and expressive 

 month, but with none of the seductive beauty 

 which we should expect to find on the coins of this 

 fascinating princess. Among the non-regal coins 

 of the 2d century B.C. the Targe tetradrachms of 

 some of the Greek cities of the western coast of 

 Asia Minor, which regained their freedom after 

 the defeat of Antiochus the Great by the Romans, 

 190 B.C., are worthy of note; those of f'yino, 

 Mvrina, Smyrna, and Magnesia being especially 

 remarkable. Throughout the greater part of this 

 period Athens continued to coin very plentifully 

 her tetradrachrns with the helmeted head of the 

 chryselephantine statue of Athena Parthenos by 

 Phidias on the obverse. These coins formed the 

 chief currency for the trade between Europe and 

 the East. 



(viii. ) From the Christian era to the reign of the 

 Emperor Gallienus. During this period of nearly 

 three centuries the Romans permitted the Greek 

 cities in the eastern half of the empire to strike 

 bronze money for local use. It is known to col- 

 lectors as the 'Greek imperial' coinage. Artistically 

 it is quite without interest, but arcli.-eologically it 

 is perhaps more important than the matchless silver 

 and gold currency of the free and independent cities 

 of more ancient times. The Greek imperial coins 

 illustrate the local festivals, religious rites, and 

 municipal institutions which prevailed in the out- 

 lying provinces of the Roman empire, and are also 

 of value as recording the mimes "f the guccesMvr 

 chief-magistrates and high officials of the various 

 cities, who appear to have been responsible for the 

 coinage in each locality. 



II. Bmnnn unil J!t/:antine Coins. The Romans 

 for the lintt four centuries of their history had no 

 regular coinage, the chief medium of exchange 



being bronze, circulating by weight, eicy rude, in 

 lumps of irregular form. It was probably about 

 the middle of the 4th century B.C. that the pound- 

 weight of bronze ( 12 oz. ) was first cast into large 

 unwieldy pieces of circular shape, aes grave, 

 having on the obverse a head of Janus, and on 

 the reverse the prow of a galley. This was the 

 Libral As ; and its divisions were the Semis (6 oz.), 

 the Triens (4 oz. ), the Quadrans (3 oz. ), the Sex- 

 tans (2 oz. ), jind the Uncia(l oz. ), each of which 

 bore a distinct type and mark of value. As time 

 went on the As was gradually reduced in weight 

 until (circa 264 B.C.) it stood at no more than 2 oz. 

 At this point the law stepped in and endeavoured 

 to check the further debasement of the coin by , 

 fixing the weight legally at 2 oz. (sextantal reduc- 

 tion ), and by issuing for the first time a silver coin, 

 the Denarius, equivalent to ten asses. The fractions 

 of the silver piece were the Quinarius ( five asses ) 

 and the Sestertius (two and a half asses). In 217 

 B.C. the weight of the as was further legally 

 reduced to 1 oz. (uncial reduction), and again in 

 89 B.C. to half an ounce (semuncial reduction). 

 All these successive reductions were financial ex- 

 pedients, the object of which was to bring a little 

 order into the state currency, which continually 



Medallion o! Syracuse. 



tended to become more and more deteriorated. 

 The types of the silver coins, at first constant and 

 uniform, were subsequently varied according to 

 the pleasure of the triumviri moneta/cs, as the 

 officers were called who were entrusted with the 

 supervision of the coinage. The long series of the 

 Republican silver money, which extends from 264 

 B.C. to Imperial times, is now incorrectly known 

 as the Consular or Family series, because the types 

 usually allude to events connected with the family 

 history of the triumviri monclulcs. The Imperial 

 series commenced in 2 B.C., when Augustus 

 almliKhed the office of the monttarii and reserved 

 for himself all rights connected with the coinage 

 of gold and silver, though leaving to the senate 

 the privilege of striking bronze, wliich was hence- 

 forth distinguished by the letters S.C. (Scnatits 

 C'niistilto). All coins now bore the portrait of the 

 reigning emperor, or of some member of the im- 

 perial family, and on the reverse, for the most 

 part, allegorical personifications, representations 

 of historical events, architectural monuments, or 

 public buildings. Their inscriptions furnish us 

 with the exact date of issue. The chief denomi- 

 nations were, in gold, the aureus ; in silver, the 

 denarius ; and in bronze, the sestertius ( now known 

 as the large bronze), tariffed at four asses; the 

 dupondius i middle bronze), two asses; and the as 

 ami its divisions (small bronze). The large bronze 

 from Augustus to Commodus supplies us with a 

 magnificent series of imperial portraits, but from 

 Septimius Sevenis onwards there is a rapid deteri- 

 oration both in art and workmanship. From the 

 reign of Caracalla to that of Diocletian the utmost 

 disorder prevailed in the coinage, each successive 



