NUMISMATOLOGY. 



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the obverse side, face, or head (pars adversa, antica, 

 I'avers), which contains a portrait of the person at 

 whose command, or in whoso honour it was struck, 

 or other figures relating to him. This portrait con- 

 sists either of the head alone, or the bust (protome), 

 or of a half or full length figure. 2. The reverse 

 (pars aversa, postica, le revers) contains mythologi- 

 cal, allegorical, or other figures. The words around 

 the border form the legend ; those in the middle the 

 inscription. (See Legend.) Neither of these were 

 originally placed on coins : the latter is frequently 

 merely a monogram. The lower part of the coin, 

 which is separated by a line from the figures, or the 

 inscription, is the basis, or exergue, and contains sub- 

 sidiary matter, as the date, the place where the piece 

 was struck, &c. 



Numismatics has the same divisions as history. 

 Ancient numismatics extends to the extinction of the 

 empire of the West; the numismatics of the middle 

 ages commence with Charlemagne ; modern numis- 

 matics with the revival of learning. The pieces of 

 metal used first as money were rude and shapeless, 

 with some mark to indicate at once their weight and 

 value. Ancient writers even mention money of 

 leather among the Carthaginians, Spartans, and Ro- 

 mans. Money of wood is also mentioned among the 

 Romans ; as also of shells, which are still used by 

 some African tribes. But gold, silver, and copper 

 have been and are the ordinary materials of money. 

 The form of money is round, oval, square, triangular, 

 or long, as were at first the oboli. 



The study "of medals is indispensable to archae- 

 ology, and to a thorough acquaintance with the fine 

 arts. They indicate the names of provinces and 

 cities, determine their position, and present pictures 

 of many celebrated places. They fix the period of 

 events, determine, sometimes, their cliaracter, and 

 enable AIS to trace the series of kings. They enable 

 us to learn the different metallurgical processes, the 

 different alloys, the mode of gilding and plating prac- 

 tised by the ancients, the metals which they used, 

 their weights and measures, their different modes of 

 reckoning, the names and titles of the various magis- 

 trates and princes, and also their portraits, the dif- 

 ferent divinities, with their attributes and titles, the 

 utensils and the ceremonies of their worship, the cos- 

 tume of the priests in fine, every thing which re- 

 lates to usages civil, military, and religious. Medals 

 also serve to acquaint us with the history of art. 

 They contain representations of several celebrated 

 works of antiquity, as the Hercules Farnese, the 

 Venus of Gnidos. Like gems and statues, they ena- 

 ble us to trace the epochs of different styles of art, 

 to ascertain its progress among the most civilized na- 

 tions, and its condition among the rude. Medals are 

 of great assistance to philology, and the explanation 

 of the ancient classics. 



The ancient medals were struck or cast. Some 

 were first cast, and then struck. The first coins of 

 Rome, and the other cities of Italy, must have been 

 cast : the hammer could not have produced so bold 

 relief. The copper coins of Egypt were cast. The 

 right of coining money has always been one of the 

 privileges which rulers have confined to themselves. 

 The free cities have inscribed only their names on 

 their coins. The cities subject to kings sometimes 

 obtained permission to strike money in their own 

 name, but most frequently were required to add the 

 name or image of the king to whom they were sub- 

 ject. The medals of the Farthians and Phoenicians 

 offer many examples of this sort. Rome, under the 

 republic, allowed no individual the right to coin 

 money ; no magistrate was to put his image thereon, 

 though, sometimes, this honour was allowed by a 

 particular decree of the senate. We can count among 



the numismatic countries only those into which the 

 Greeks and the Romans carried the use of money. 

 The people in the most northern parts of Europe had 

 no money, nor had those of Asia which extended 

 most to the east, and those of Africa at a distance 

 from the Mediterranean. 



Weight should be the standard of the value of 

 money ; and many volumes have been written on the 

 value of coins and their weight. The difficulties, 

 however, have not been entirely cleared up, because 

 the same terms (as, dernier, sesterce) have always 

 been employed without regard to difference of time. 

 In the code of Justinian, complaints are made of the 

 indefiniteness of these expressions in donations. The 

 difficulty is increased by the difference of weight in 

 the coins of different cities, and by our ignorance of 

 the value of gold and silver compared with that of 

 bronze at different periods. 



The coins preserved from antiquity are much more 

 numerous than those which we possess from the pe- 

 riod of the middle ages, in the proportion of a hun- 

 dred to one. Medals are sometimes dug up singly, 

 or in small numbers, where they appear to have been 

 thrown by accident ; but the principal stores are 

 found in tombs, or in places where fear, avarice, or 

 superstition, had deposited them. Millin thinks that 

 the number of extant medals from ancient times may 

 amount to 70,000. Till the third century, the faces 

 on medals were represented in profile. In the coins 

 of the lower empire, on the contrary, we see Gothic 

 front faces filling the whole field of medals. The 

 moderns have employed both modes. The ancients 

 gave more relief to the figure. The art of coining 

 has flourished much in Spain. That country was 

 deprived of the privilege of coining in the time of 

 Caligula. The most ancient Spanish medals are of 

 silver ; their form is rude, the style of the design 

 barbarous. The numerous cities which exited in 

 ancient Gaul, before its conquest by the Romans, 

 fabricated money of gold, silver, and copper. The 

 execution of some of them is excellent, but the gjeat- 

 est part are barbarous. No medals are known of 

 Britain, with the exception of some struck by some 

 of the Augustuses, towards the decline of the Roman 

 empire ; and the same may be said of Germany. The. 

 medals of some of the Italian cities bear the charac- 

 ter of Greek art, and are excellent. The medals of 

 these cities are numerous, as the Romans permitted 

 their inhabitants to coin money long after having sub- 

 jected them. Greece and Asia Minor present many 

 fine and curious medals. The coins of the kings of 

 Macedon are the most ancient of any yet discovered 

 bearing portraits ; and Alexander I., who commenced 

 his reign about 500 years B. C., is the earliest mon- 

 arch whose medals have yet been found. Then suc- 

 ceed the sovereigns who reigned in Sicily, Caria, 

 Cyprus, Heraclea, and Pontus. Afterwards comes 

 the series of kings of Egypt, Syria, the Cimmerian 

 Bosphorus, Thrace, Parthia, Armenia, Damascus, 

 Cappadocia, Paphlagonia, Pergamos, Galatia, Cilicia, 

 Sparta, Paeonia, Epirus, Illyricum, Gaul, and the Alps. 

 This series reaches from the era of Alexander the 

 Great to the Christian era, comprising a period of 

 about 330 years. This must be accounted the third 

 medallic series of ancient monarchs ; and the fourth 

 and last descends to the fourth century, including some 

 of the kings of Thrace, of Bosphorus, and Parthia, 

 with those of Comagene, Edessa, or Osrhoene, Mau- 

 ritania, and Judea. A perfect and distinct series is 

 formed by the Roman' emperors, from Julius Cajsar 

 to the Gothic destruction ot the empire, and, indeed, 

 still later. 



The Grecian medals claim that place in a cabinet, 

 from their antiquity, which their workmanship might 

 ensure to them, independently of that adventitious 



