[ 102 ] 
If what has been juft advanced ftiould be admitted 
bv the learned, they will readily allow the oldeft 
forms of He on the antient Siculo-Punic coins, to have 
greatly refembled, or rather to have been almoft: per- 
fectly the fame with, thofe of that letter exhibited by 
the earlieft Phoenician, Samaritan, Greek, and Etruf- 
can, coins. Nor can any thing be more confonant to 
the faith of hiftory than fuch a notion. We cannot 
therefore fuppofe He to have refembled any of the 
forms of Mem^ or rather to have been represented by 
one of thofe forms, as M. Barthelemy (39), without 
any juft grounds for his opinion, has adually fuppofed, 
,as nothing feems more remote from truth than fuch 
a fuppofttion. Antient hiftory, antient coins, and the 
,realon of the thing itfelf, notwithftanding his exalted 
merit, and the great figure he fo juftly makes in th© 
.republic of letters, decide the point in queftion moft 
.dearly and evidently againft him. 
Nor will it avail him to (40) alTert, that the Greek 
coins of Menas differ in feveral refpeCts from thofe 
.confidered by me in this paper.; and that the (41) 
workmanlhip of the latter is better than that of the 
pieces which are the acknowledged productions of that 
city. For that the worhmanftiip of feveral of the Punic 
and Phoenician coins is highly finilhed and elegant, and 
that the tafte and genius of thofe coins differ con- 
fiderably from the manner of thofe ftruck by the 
Greeks and the Romans, will not admit of a doubt, 
(39) Barthel. in Memoir, de Liiterat. l^c. de V Acadcm, des Irt' 
fcript. y BelL Lettr. iffe. Tom. XXX. p. 409, 410, 41 1, 417* 
(40) Barthel. Lettre a Monf. le Marquis Olivieri^ fJc. p. 28, 
29. A Paris, 1766. 
(41} Id. ibid. p. 28. 
The 
