THE 



ENGLISH CYCLOPEDIA. 



ARTS AND SCIENCES. 



COIN. 



COIN. 



COIN : metal stamped for currency, or in commemoration of some 

 event, in which latter cane the coin are frequently distinguished as 

 medals. With the ancients, however, the coins used for currency had 

 occasionally this property of the modern medal. [MKDAL.] The word 

 coin ig derived by some from the Greek xtmot, common ; by others 

 from the Latin, cuneus, a uxdye ; the first currency of metal, in all 

 probability, being in the form of wedges, or ingots. Commerce, in the 

 earliest periods, was carried on by the mere exchange of articles, and 

 it is remarkable that throughout the early part of Scripture, ae well as 

 through the poems of Homer, not a single passage occurs from which 

 i infer either the use or the existence of stamped money. Metals, 

 however, being close and compact in form, universal as to use, and 

 admitting of division into larger or lesser parts, soon became the 

 representatives of value, though at what exact period remains in doubt. 

 HIT "lotus, i. 94, speaking of the Lydians, expressly says they were the 

 first people on record who coined gold and silver into money. The 

 Parian Chronicle, however, ascribes the origin of coined money to the 

 ^ginctons, under Pheidon, king of Argos, 895 years before Christ. 

 .Elian, in hist ' Various History, 1 corroborates this statement as far as 

 the ^Kginetans are mentioned : and our best numismatic antiquaries 

 agree in considering the coins of /Egina, from their archaic form and 

 appearance, as the most ancient known. They are of silver, and bear 

 on the upper side the figure of a turtle, and on the under an indented 

 mark, as if the metal, at the time of striking, had been fixed upon a 

 puncheon, and from the weight of the blow had received a deep cleft. 

 In later coins of .gina, the turtle has been changed to a tortoise, and 

 the fixture un the other .side converted into a device. The coins of 

 Lydia probably come next in point of antiquity, and then the early 



Gold Dtric. 



Danes of the Persian kings, which occur both in gold and silver, and 

 bear a strong resemblance to the coins of ^Egina in the mode of 

 striking : these, if they are to be referred to Darius the First, must 

 have been coined between B.C. 522 and 486. The richer the metal, the 

 smaller and more portable was the quantity required for the coin. 

 There are coins in gold of the early kings of Persia, similar in type to 

 the silver Danes, and of very minute size. 



The study of coins is not to be considered as the province of the 



antiquary alone. Coins are among the most certain evidences of 



history. In the later part of the Greek series they illustrate the 



.Idgy of reigns. In the Roman series they fix the dates and 



succession of events. Gibbon observes that if all our historians were 



"rials, inscriptions, and other monuments, would be sufficient to 



ARTS AXD act. mv. vol.. in. 



record the travels of Hadrian. The reign of Probus might be written 

 from his coins. In illustrating the history and chronology of sculpture 

 and ancient marbles, coins enable the scholar and the artist not only to 

 discern those peculiarities which characterise style, as it relates to 

 different ages and schools, but to ascribe busts and statues to the persons 

 whom they represent. The personation of the different provinces, too, 

 forms another point of interest upon the Roman coins. Coins are 

 frequently essential to the illustration of obscure passages in ancient 

 writers ; and preserve delineations of some of the most beautiful edifices 

 of antiquity not existing now even in their ruins. Addison, in his 

 ' Dialogue on the Usefulness of Ancient medals,' has long convinced 

 the world of the connexion of this science with poetry. As a branch 

 of the fine arts, it may be sufficient to say that some of the medals of 

 Sifily belong to a period when sculpture had attained its highest per- 

 fection. We would particularly refer to the coins of Syracuse. In 

 every quality of art, too, the Roman coins, to a certain period yield 

 to the Greek alone. From Augustus to Hadrian the Roman mint was 

 the seat of genius : and coins of admirable execution are found even 

 down to the time of Posthumus. 



The generality of numismatic writers divide coins into Ancient and 

 Modem ; the Ancient, into the great divisions of Greek, Roman, and 

 Barbarian. 



The Greet they divide into cities and kings. Of the first they can 

 make no chronological arrangement : it is alphabetical, under the 

 different countries. The kings commence with the age of Alexander 

 the Great, and belong to the four kingdoms into which his empire 

 was divided, besides the kingdom of Epinis. This ^series, in a chrono- 

 logical point of view, closes with the extinction of the dynasty of the 

 LagidiC in the Augustan age. The coins of the Greek cities were 

 impressed either with appropriate symbols or the heads of deities. 

 The coins of the monarcbs bore the heads of the respective princes. 

 Pinkerton observes that the first copper coins of Greece known are 

 those of Oelon king of Syracuse, about 490 years before our sera. 

 These were called Chalci, pieces of braes ; others, of a more diminutive 

 size, were called Lepta, or Kerma, as being change for the poor. He 

 considers there is no proof of the coinage of gold in Greece before 

 Philip of Macedon. Athens had no gold money at the beginning of 

 the Peloponnesian war. 



The Raman coins are divided into consular, imperial, and medallions. 

 The subdivisions of the consular are into Roman ases and coins of the 

 families. Of the imperial there are two subdivisions, Roman and 

 Grecian; the latter being again subdivided into those of provinces, 

 colonies, and municipia. The medallions are likewise divided into 

 Roman and Grecian. The earliest coinage of Rome was of copper, and 

 took place in the reign of Servius Tullius, probably about five centuries 

 before Christ. The Romans are supposed to have borrowed the art 

 from their neighbours, the Etruscans. Of the as, its divisions and its 

 compounds, we have already spoken in a former article. [As.] On 

 some of the later Roman, as well as on what were called the Italian ases 

 and their parts, the practice became prevalent of placing the names of 

 many of the principal families of Rome upon the fields of the coins. 

 These form the division which are called family coins. The silver 

 coinage of Rome was introduced in the year 266 B.C., when the denarius 

 was BO termed from its being equivalent to ten ases. Pliny informs 

 us ('Nat. Hist.' xxxiii. 13, edit. Hard. ii. 612) that the coinage of gold 

 was introduced sixty-two years after that of silver. The largest piece 

 of gold was called aureus. [AuKF-us.] The imperial coins of Rome 

 form the most complete and most interesting series of any extant. 



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