Olympus and around the shores of Lake Ascanius. This people had probably relations with the Hellenic stock, but had affinity also with the Phrygians. They in this way became influenced by the religious culture and civilisation of the more eastern branches of the great Hellenic family, which extended itself through Thrace to Hellas proper and to countries still farther to the west. Mysians, we are told, were settled in the plain of the river Æsepus, a kindred people, differing little either in habits or language from the earlier occupants. To these were added Phrygians from Thrace, and the whole population became so intermixed and fused that neither the autochthons nor the later immigrants can be separated the one from the other. It is due, probably, to there not having been any very distinctive difference between the several elements of the population that the inhabitants became one, and to some extent a homogeneous people. The next occupation was by Pelasgi from Thessaly, driven out thence by the Eolians, and who at a still earlier period had been dispossessed of Magnesia by Cretheus, son of Æolus. According to Conon, the author of the Ayous, their leader was Cyzicus, son of Apollo, or, as was otherwise said, of Eneus and Enete, daughter of a Thracian king, Eusorus. Cyzicus was married to Cleite, daughter of Merops, king of Percote; but according to another account he died unmarried, though about to take to wife Larissa, daughter of the Thessalian Piasus. These genealogical stories appear to corroborate the Thessalian origin of the Pelasgi who occupied Cyzicus. Conon further relates that Cyzicus had no successor, and that the Tyrrheni (Pelasgi) took possession of the Cyzicene Chersonnese, subjugating the earlier Thessalians. Still among the mist of mythical events we next come across

the Argonauts on their way to Colchis. On landing at Cyzicus they were kindly received by the inhabitants, but after leaving and being driven back on the coast during the night, they were mistaken for enemies, and in the ensuing fight Cyzicus was slain by Jason or Heracles. His death was mourned by the Argonauts as well as by his own people, and his wife Cleite killed herself for grief, the tears of the nymphs originating a fountain which in her memory was called Cleite. During the stay of the Argonauts Hera instigated the giants, who dwelt on Mount Dindymus close by Cyzicus, to destroy Heracles. When Jason and the Argonauts were reconnoitring on the mountain, Briareus and his brother giants threw rocks down upon Heracles, who was left in charge of the ships, and endeavoured to close the mouth of the river Rhyndacus. The rocks were changed by Persephone into an island called Besbicus, and the giants were slain by the arrows of Heracles and his companions. Before leaving the place the Argonauts besought Dindymene for a favourable voyage, and are reported to have erected a temple to Rhea-Cybele, which existed there in after years, together with an image of the goddess, made of the wood of the vine, and like the Artemis at Ephesus and Dionysus of Naxos, no doubt a primitive agalma. As might be looked for, some of the coin-types have reference to Jason and other heroes of the Argonautic myth.

Passing onwards to later times, we arrive at what may be considered the historical origin of the city, in the advent of a colony from Miletus, actuated, it is said, by an oracle from Apollo. This apparently took place, though different dates are given, in Ol. vi. 1, B.C. 756. According to an inscription of Roman times, four of the six tribes into which the Cyzicenes were divided were of

Athenian origin, coming from the Asiatic settlement of Miletus. Another colony is said to have come from Megara, about a century later, in B.c. 675. From this time until the extension of the Lydian kingdom under Gyges, nothing appears to be known of Cyzicus. It came to some extent under the Lydian power when that was carried up to the Hellespont, including the whole of the north of Mysia and almost all the coast from Adramyteum to the Rhyndacus. Though it may be disputed to what extent the Lydian king exercised authority in the time of Gyges, it is clear that Croesus, by his first invasion of Ionia, made all the Greeks tributary. On the overthrow of the Lydian empire by Cyrus in B.C. 546, and the succeeding conquest of Miletus and other Greek cities in Asia Minor, Cyzicus became subject to Persian rule, and remained in that condition until B.c. 477, when the supremacy of that empire over the Hellenic cities of Asia Minor was overthrown. Cyzicus then came, more or less, under Athenian hegemony. It revolted before the battle of Cynossema, B.C. 411, but was, after the defeat of the Spartans there, again brought under the influence of Athens, whose power was farther strengthened by the total defeat at Cyzicus of the Spartan fleet under Mindarus, who fell in the battle, by Alcibiades and the Athenians, B.C. 410. The rule of Athens continued up B.C. 405, when, at Egospotami, Lysander, the Spartan commander, destroyed the Athenian fleet, and for the time broke up the thalassocracy of Athens. Sparta then became predominant, and remained so until B.C. 394, when Conon and Pharnabazus defeated Peisander, and slew him in the battle off Cnidus. Freedom was then restored to the

to

various Greek towns of Asia which had been under Spartan authority, and this they retained up to B.c. 387, when, by the provisions of the peace negotiated by Antalcidas, they again submitted to Persia. In this condition Cyzicus remained till, in B.C. 364, it once more came under Athenian hegemony, to be under her rule but a short time, for after the defeat of Athens at Chios, B.C. 357, the Asiatic towns regained their freedom. From this time until B.C. 334, when Alexander conquered Asia Minor, Cyzicus was a free and very flourishing state. It is unnecessary to carry farther the history, for the issue of the electrum coins, with which alone this essay is concerned, had certainly ceased before then.

The inner polity of an Hellenic state cannot be disconnected from the religion professed within it. The state was supposed to have its origin in some one of the deities of the Hellenic Olympus, or to be the offspring of the prompting or leadership of a god or of some other being in close relationship to him. Its medium of exchange in the shape of money was, therefore, in one sense an outcome of its religion, and received its authentication from a religious sanction. According to Dr. Ernst Curtius, so great an influence had the religion of the state upon its coinage, that it was issued from the temples, and was the vóμopa of the god therein worshipped rather than of the civic community, if, indeed, in early times the god and the state can be separated. The temples were, on account of the offerings and bequests, and from other sources, the great receptacles of property, the banks in fact of the time, and were therefore under the most favourable circumstances for becoming the issuers of money, and to profit by the transaction. A somewhat similar position was occupied by the great religious houses

of the Middle Ages, which accumulating wealth by offerings made to the shrines of saints and for masses, were enabled through the possession of money to become lenders of it, and so in the end, by obtaining mortgages upon land, to become its owners.

The authentication of the currency being, therefore, a religious privilege, whether the money was issued from the temple treasuries or from the mint of the state, the designs on the coins, which were the tokens of its being of a certain weight and quality, were symbols associated in one way or another with the deity whose temples were within the limits of the state. The symbol, therefore, which constituted the badge or arms of the state, was in every sense a religious one, and signified that the city was under the protection of the divinity with whom the symbol was connected. To give a single well-known example, the coins of Athens, from the earliest to the latest period of its independence, bore on one face the head of Athena, and on the other the owl and olive-spray, both so intimately connected with her. The coin-types, therefore, of a Greek state usually bear upon them the impress of the religious cults of the state. In the case of Cyzicus, however, the coin-types do not appear to have been selected with the same rigid adherence to local worship as in most Hellenic cities, though the practice had still a certain and even considerable influence upon the coinage. It will be desirable, therefore, to give a short account of the various cults which, as we learn from historical relation, prevailed at Cyzicus.

The city was provided with a large number of temples, witnessing to the skill of its architects, who were renowned throughout Greece. Cicero (Pro lege Manilia) tells us that Cyzicus was one of the most beautiful cities of the