106 ANCIENT AND MODERN COINS 



2. Eleji or Velia (Gr. Ilyele) in Lucania. Obverse — Fine head of 

 Pallas to r. ; on the helmet a gryphon ; behind the neck A.* Reverse 

 — a lion stalking to r. In the field a dolphin and <E>. In the exergue 

 AHTON. [YEAHTON.f] Drachma. Weight— 4 dwt. 17 grs. 



prising also a few coins of the republican era, and some Greek drachmas, chalci, 

 dichalca, &c., with specimens of the coinage of various States of Europe of 

 rather ancient dates. 



In the preceding year (1856) H B. Hope, Esq., presented to the Institute a 

 number of early English coins. 



The gifts of these two gentlemen, together with a few others, amounting in 

 all to some 340 pieces, constitute the present collection, of which a complete 

 classified and descriptive Catalogue has lately been made. 



It is intended to insert in the Journal those portions of this List that may be 

 supposed to possess some interest for the Canadian numismatist ; and it is hoped 

 that members and others who may have in their possession historic coins, 

 ancient or modern, European or of this Continent, will be induced to add some 

 of them to the (at present) very modest Cabinet of the Institute. 



It will be seen that this collection, although containing pieces of considerable 

 value to the student, is entirely destitute of specimens of the large-sized coins 

 and medals which in the Cabinets of Europe illustrate so exquisitely the history 

 and the arts of by-gone centuries — of times, which, in some instances, have left 

 no other records. 



* The A may indicate the name of the designer or engraver of the die The 

 lion on the reverse refers to an ex voto figure of that animal offered in the temple 

 at Delphi, on the first emigration of the people of Phocis to Asia. The $ is 

 probably the initial of Philogenes, one of the leaders of the expedition. The 

 dolphin indicates that Velia was a maritime community The dolphin and 

 trident on the Great Exhibition Medal of 1851 imply the same thing in regard to 

 England. 



t This coin is described in Rasche, Lex. Rei Num., vol. x. p. 801 ; and there 

 the epigraph is given in full. The name of the inhabitants of the woAis or state 

 occurs on Greek coins usually in the possessive case. The ellipsis is vS^ifffj-a, 

 "lCe\7]rwv implies that it is a coin of the Hyeletae. The original colonists, 

 Phocaeans from Alalia, in Corsica, named the place (B. C. 543) Hyele, altered 

 by the later Italians to Elea,. Helia and Velia. (" Oppidum Helia, quae nunc 

 Velia." Plin. iij. 10.) Cicero dates a letter to Trebatius "xiij. kal. Sext., Velia." 

 It was situated on the sea coast a little to the south of Naples, near the mouth 

 of the Hales, which Cicero in the above mentioned letter calls a noble stream— 

 " Halethem, nobilem amnem." As Elea, it gave name to the Eleatic School of 

 Philosophy. Cicero (de Nat. Deor iij. 33) asserts that Zeno the Eleatic was here 

 cruelly piit to death, — " Zenonem Eleae in tormentis necatum." Horace refers 

 to it as a place resorted to by invalids. He asks his friend Vala (Ep. ]. 15) to 

 inform him " Quae sit hiems Veliae," &c. 



