The Antiquary. JANUARY, 1883. Greek Coins. BY BARCLAY V. HEAD, Assistant Keeper of Coins, British Museum. PART I. ULLION Money.-Many centuries before the invention of the art of coining, gold and silver in the East, and bronze in the West, in bullion form, had already supplanted barter, that most primitive of all methods of buying and selling, when among pastoral peoples the ox and the sheep were the ordinary mediums of exchange. The very word Pecunia is an evidence of this practice in Italy at a period which is probably recent in comparison with the time when values were estimated in cattle in Greece and the East. The Invention of Coinage.-"So far as we have any knowledge," says Herodotus (I. 94), "the Lydians were the first nation to introduce the use of gold and silver coin." This statement of the father of history must not, however, be accepted as finally settling the vexed question as to who were the inventors of coined money, for Strabo (VIII. 6), Aelian (Var. Hist., XII. 10), and the Parian Chronicle all agree in adopting the more commonly received tradition, that Pheidon, King of Argos, first struck silver coins in the island of Aegina. These two apparently contradictory assertions modern research tends to reconcile with one another. The one embodies the Asiatic, the other the European tradition; the truth of the matter being that gold was first coined by the Lydians, in Asia Minor, in the seventh century before our era; and that silver was first struck in European Greece about the same time. VOL. VII. Earliest and Later Methods of Coining. The earliest coins are simply bullets of metal, oval or bean-shaped, bearing on one side the signet of the state or of the community responsible for the purity of the ineta! and the exactitude of the weight. Coins were at first stamped on one side only, the reverse showing merely the impress of the square-headedspike on which the metal bullet was placed after being weighed, and then heated to make it sufficiently soft to receive the impression of an engraved die. The bullet of hot metal would then be placed with a pair of tongs on the top of the spike, which served the purpose of an anvil, and held there while a second workman adjusted upon it the engraved die. This done, a third man with a heavy hammer would come down upon it with all his might, and the coin would be produced, bearing on its face or obverse the seal of the issuer, and on the reverse nothing whatever except the mark of the anvil spike, an incuse square. This simple process was after a time im proved upon by adding a second engraved die beneath the metal bullet, so that a single blow of the sledge-hammer would provide the coin with a type, as it is called, in relief, on both sides. The presence of the unengraved incuse square may therefore be accepted as an indication of high antiquity, and nearly all Greek coins which are later than the age of the Persian wars bear a type on both sides. Scientific Value of Greek Coins.-The chiet scientific value of Greek coins lies in the fact that they are original documents, to which the experienced numismatist is generally able to assign an exact place in history. The series of the coins of any one of the cities of Greece thus forms a continuous comment upon the history of the town, a comment which either confirms or refutes the testimony which has been handed down to us by ancient writers, or where such testimony is altogether wanting, supplies very valuable evidence as to the material condition, the political changes, or the religious ideas of an interval of time which, but for these dumb witnesses, would have been a blank in the chart of the world's history. Perhaps the most attractive side of this enticing study lies in the elucidation of the B meaning of the objects represented on coins, in other words, in the explanation of their types. The history of the growth, bloom, and decay of Greek art may also be traced more completely, on a series of coins which extends oyer a period of close upon a thousand years than on any other class of ancient monuments. Greek Coin-types.-Greek coin-types may be divided into two distinct classes: (a), Mythological or religious representations, and (b), portraits of historical persons. Religious Aspect of the Coinage of Greece. From the earliest times down to the age of Alexander the Great the types of Greek coins are almost exclusively religious. This fact-for that such it is, no one can for a moment doubt who is in the least degree familiar with these interesting relics of a remote past—may seem at first strange. Nevertheless it is not difficult to explain. It must be borne in mind that when the enterprising and commercial Lydians first lighted upon the happy idea of stamping metal for general circulation, a guarantee of just weight and purity of metal would be the one condition required. With out some really trustworthy warrant, what merchant would accept this new form of money for such and such a weight without placing it in the scales and weighing it according to ancient practice? In an age of universal religious belief, when the gods lived, as it were, among men, and when every transaction was ratified by solemn oath, as witness innumerable inscriptions from all parts of the Greek world, what more binding guarantee could be found than the invocation of one or other of those divinities most honoured and most dreaded in the district in which the coin was intended to circulate? There is even good reason to think, with Professor E. Curtius, that the earliest coins were actually struck within the precincts of the temples, and under the direct auspices of the priests; for in times of general insecurity by sea and land, the temples alone were, as a rule, sacred and inviolate. Into the temple treasuries poured offerings of the precious metals from all parts. The priesthoods owned land and houses, and were in the habit of letting them on lease, so that rents, tithes, and offerings would all go to fill the treasure-house of the god. This accumulated mass of wealth was not left to lie idle in the sacred chest, but was frequently lent out at interest in furtherance of any undertaking, such as the sending out of a colony, or the opening and working of a mine; anything, in fact, which might commend itself to the sound judgment of priests; and so it may well have been that the temple funds would be put into circulation in the form of coin marked with some sacred symbol by which all men might know that it was the property of Zeus, of Apollo, or Artemis, or Aphrodite, as the case might be. Thus coins issued from a temple of Zeus would bear, as a symbol, a thunderbolt or an eagle; the money of Apollo would be marked with a tripod or a lyre; that of Artemis with a stag or a wild boar; that of Aphrodite with a dove or a tortoise-a creature held sacred to the goddess of Love, in some of whose temples, as Curtius remarks, even the wooden footstools were made in the form of tortoises. All this applies of course only to the origin of the stamps on current coin. Throughout the Greek world the civic powers almost everywhere stepped in at an early date, and took over to themselves the right of issuing the coin of the state. Nevertheless, care was always taken to preserve the only solid guarantee which commanded universal respect, and the name of the god continued to be invoked on the coin as the patron of the city. No mere king or tyrant, however absolute his rule may have been, ever presumed to place his own effigy on the current coin, for such a proceeding would, from old associations, have been regarded as little short of sacrilege. In some rare cases the right of coinage would even seem to have been retained by the priests down to a comparatively late period; for coins exist, dating from the fourth century B.C., which were issued from the famous temple of the Didymean Apollo, near Miletus, having on the obverse the head of Apollo laureate and with flowing hair; and on the reverse the lion, the symbol of the sun-god, and the inscription ET AIAYMON IEPH "sacred money of the Didymi." We will now select a few out of the almost innumerable examples of ancient coin-types in illustration of the principle here set forth as to the religious signification of the symbols which appear upon them. Aegina. First in importance comes the plentiful coinage of the island of Aegina, issued according to tradition by Pheidon, King of Argos, probably in the sanctuary of Aphrodite, in Aegina, the first European mint. These coins bear the symbol of the goddess, a tortoise or turtle; and they were soon adopted far and wide, not only throughout Peloponnesus, but in most of the island states, as the one generally recognized circulating medium. When Pheidon first issued this new money, he is said to have dedicated and hung up in the temple of Hera, at Argos, specimens of the old cumbrous bronze and iron bars which had served the purpose of money before his time. Athens.-Passing from Aegina to Athens we have now before us the very ancient coins which Solon struck when he inaugurated that great financial reform which went by the name of the Seisachtheia, a measure of relief for the whole population of Attica overburdened by a weight of debt. By the new law then enacted (circ. B.C. 590), it was decreed that every man who owed one hundred Aeginetic drachms, the only coin. then current, should be held exempt on the payment of one hundred of the new Attic drachms, which were struck of a considerably lighter weight than the old Aeginetic coins. Some would no doubt stigmatize a measure of this sort as neither more nor less than national bankruptcy; but there are occasions when the common good of the nation at large renders not only excusable, but absolutely inevitable, some encroachment upon the rights of individuals. The type which Solon chose for the new Athenian coinage was, like all the types of early Greek money, purely religious. On the obverse we see the head of Athena, the protecting goddess of the city; and on the reverse her sacred owl and olive-branch. These coins were popularly called owls, ylaukes, or maidens, Kópaι, Táplεvol. Aris tophanes, who not unfrequently alludes to coins, mentions these famous owls in the following lines (Birds, 1106), where he promises his judges that if only they will give his play their suffrages, the owls of Laurium First, for more than anything Owls from you depart, But shall in your houses dwell, Delphi.-Passing now into Central Greece, let us pause for a moment at Delphi, the religious metropolis of the Dorian race. Delphi was essentially a temple-state, independent of the Phocian territory in the midst of which it was situated. It was, moreover, the principal seat of the sacred Amphictyonic Council. Here were held the great Pythian Festivals, to which all who could afford it flocked from every part of the Hellenic world. The town of Delphi, which grew up at the foot of the temple of Apollo, on the southern declivity of Parnassus, was in early times a member of the Phocian Convention; but as the temple increased in wealth and prestige, the Delphians claimed to be recognised as an independent little community; a claim. which the Phocians always strenuously resisted, but which the people of Delphi succeeded at length in establishing. The town, however, as such never rose to any political importance apart from the temple, upon which it was always de facto a mere dependency. As might be expected, the coins issued at Delphi are peculiarly temple coins; and were probably struck only on certain special occasions, such as the great Pythian Festivals, and the meetings, called Пlvλaía, of the Amphictyonic Council, when many strangers were staying in the town, and when money would consequently be in request in larger quantities than usual. At such times markets or fairs were held, called πυλατίδες ἀγοραί, for the sale of all kinds of articles connected with the ceremonies and observances of the temple. At these markets a coinage issued by the priesthood, which all alike might accept without fear of fraud, would be a great convenience. The usual type of this Delphian temple money was a ram's head; the ram, kápvos, B 2 being the emblem of Apollo, κapvetos, the god of flocks and herds. On the Delphian coins there is also another emblem, which, although it is usually only an accessory symbol, and not a principal type, must not be passed over in silence, viz. the dolphin (deλpis). Here we have an allusion to another phase of the cultus of Apollo, who, as we read in the Homeric hymn to Apollo (1. 390, seqq.), once took the form of a dolphin when he guided the Cretan ship to Crissa, whence after commanding the crew to burn their ship, and erect an altar to him as Apollo Delphinios, he led them up to Delphi, and appointed them to be the first priests of his temple. On another coin struck at Delphi we see the Pythian god seated on the sacred Omphalos, with his lyre and tripod beside him, and a laurel-branch over his shoulders; while around is the inscription AMOIKTIONON, proving the coin to have been issued with the sanction of the Amphictyonic Council. Boeotia.-In the coinage of the neighbouring territory of Boeotia, the most striking characteristic is that it is a so-called Federal Currency, that is to say, that the various Boeotian cities possessed from first to last sufficient cohesion to be able to agree upon a common type, which might serve to distinguish the Boeotian currency from that of other states. This is the more remarkable when we remember the fierce political feuds which from the earliest times divided Boeotia into several hostile camps. Here then we have a clear proof that the Buckler, which is the type from the earliest times to the latest of all Boeotian money, is no mere political emblem, but a sacred symbol, which friends and foes alike could unite in reverencing as such; just as in medieval times all Christians, however hostile to one another, and to whatever land they might belong, were ready to pay homage to the sign of the cross. To what divinity, however, this Boeotian shield especially belongs we do not know for certain. The Theban Herakles has perhaps the best claim to it. The cities of Boeotia, however, while they all agreed to accept the buckler as the distinctive badge of their money, nevertheless asserted their separate and individual rights on the reverse side of their coins. On the obverse we here get uniformity, on the reverse variety, and yet among all the various types on the reverses of the coins of the Boeotian cities, there is not one which is not distinctly religious, whether it refer to the worship of Herakles or Dionysos at Thebes, to Poseidon at Haliartus, to Apollo as the sun-god at Tanagra, or to Aphrodite Melainis as a moon goddess at Thespiæ, etc., etc. Sometimes the god himself is directly portrayed, sometimes his presence is veiled under some symbolic form, as when the amphora or the wine-cup stands for Dionysos, the club for Herakles, the trident for Poseidon, the wheel for the rolling disk of the sun-god, and the crescent for the goddess of the moon. Thrace. Proceeding now northwards through Thessaly and Macedon, we come upon a region where silver money was coined in very early times, probably long before the Persian invasion, by the mining tribes who inhabited the mountainous district opposite the island of Thasos. Here again we find the same close connection between the religion of the people and the types of their coins. The subjects represented on the money of this northern land are Satyrs and Centaurs bearing off struggling nymphs, rudely but vigorously executed, in a style of art rather Asiatic than Hellenic. SILVER COIN OF THASOS. Such types as these bring before us the wild orgies which were held in the mountains of Phrygia and Thrace, in honour of the god Sabazius or Bacchus, whose mysterious oracle stood on the rugged and snow-capped height of Mount Pangaeum, around which among the dark pine forests and along the hill sides clustered the village communities of the rude mining tribes, who worked the rich veins of gold and silver with which the Pangaean range abounded. Ephesus.-We will now take an example from Asia Minor where we shall find the |
