more than the original types of the state, removed from the first to a secondary position, while the minor types occur in such variety as to prove that they are extra national, unless, like the mint-marks of modern coinage, they are mere arbitrary marks to denote certain coinages. But this view does not appear entirely satisfactory, when we find frequently in these minor types the old national types of many other states. On the Athenian coinage of a certain period these minor types are very numerous and various, among which are the rose of Rhodes, the lyre of Lycia, the lion of Miletus, &c., which would rather seem to indicate a monetary understanding with the states whose types were thus used. The coins of Rhodes and other places, also present зmall extraneous types of this description, which, though most abundant on the far circulating coinage of Athens, are yet found on the money of many other states, especially in the Sicilian coinage and those of Magna Græcia, among which the coins of Metapontum afford a vast number of very beautiful lesser types, in addition to the grand national type of the ear of barley. Carelli has engraved a great number of these lesser types separately, on account of their beauty. The silver coins of Alexander the Great, struck in Asia, have very frequently, in addition to his well known types of the head of Hercules and the sitting Jupiter, minute accompanying types of this description, which in that case, however, have a somewhat different import, as they are supposed to indicate the various cities where they were struck. Those with the sphinx are attributed to Chios; those with the griffon to Teos or Abdera; those with the lion's head in profile to Cyzicus or Cnidus; those with the horse's head to Egea in Cilicia; those with the bee to Ephesus; with the rose, to Rhodes; with the anchor, to Ancyra; with the double axe, to Tenedos; with the torch, to Amphipolis in Macedonia, &c.

OF COUNTERMARKS ON GREEK COINS.

The small types called countermarks are quite different from such as have just been described above, and were evidently struck on the coin after it had left the mint, possibly

by a state receiving a quantity of foreign coin, and thus stamping it with its own national type to guarantee its currency, as equal to the native coin or at a fixed rate, much as the Spanish dollars were countermarked at the mint for circulation in this country during the scarcity of silver in the reign of George the Third. The Greek countermarks are frequently struck in the most beautiful part of the original types, as in the middle of the cheek of a fine female head, for instance; a piece of barbarism for which it is difficult to give the artistic Greeks credit, unless it was intentionally done to show the superior value and importance of their own national types. The coin given below, as affording an example of the

countermark, is of copper, and issued in Seriphus, a Greek island. It bears the head of Medusa on one side, that of Perseus on the other; Danaë having arrived in that isle with her infant son Perseus, and being well received by the king Polydecte; in consequence of which tradition the islanders may have erected temples to this hero, as at Argos, Athens, and Mycene. The countermark is a thunderbolt, which, as it is the type of several places, it would be impossible to specify the precise one to which it belongs; but it answers equally well as an example of the system of countermarks.

CHAPTER XVIII.

OF THE INSCRIPTIONS ON GREEK COINS-BOTH AUTONOMOUS AND REGAL.

In the present short chapter on the inscriptions found on Greek coins, I shall endeavour to discuss the subject with some attention to chronological order, leaving those Greek inscriptions which belong to the period when the Greek states had become Roman provinces, to be described sepa rately under the head of Imperial Greek, when treating of the coins of the Roman empire. For want of this systematic arrangement many elementary works are calculated to confuse the student and prevent his acquiring a clear and distinct notion of the gradual development of the mode of inscription adopted on the Greek coinage. For instance, when the titles, ΑΥΤΟΝΟΜΟΙ (autonomous), ΜΕΤΡΟΠΟΛΕΩΣ (of the Metropolis), NEOKOPON (of the curators of the temple), ΕΦΕΣΙΩΝ Α ΑΣΙΑΣ (of Ephesus, the first city of Asia),* &c., all belonging to the Roman period, are given miscellaneously in an elementary work along with the simple inscriptions of the periods of Greek independence, it is impossible that the student should not form a false estimate of the nature of such inscriptions, as well as of the period of their use. I shall, therefore, as far as possible, adopt a strictly chronological arrangement, terminating the subject in the present chapter with the latest inscriptions that belong to the various Greek states during the period of their independence, whether as republics or sovereignties, and reserving those which belong to the period of their subjection to Rome to be treated of, when describing the coins of the Roman empire, except where comparison of different epochs and manners may appear advantageous or instructive.

* For description of Greek i:scriptions of the Roman period, see article on Imperial Greek Coins.

The inscriptions one would naturally expect to find on the earliest coinage, would be indications either of weight or value, but such is not the case on the coinage of Greece or any of her colonies; and it was reserved for the strong common sense of the Romans, to adopt this apparently obvious course, to be described in its proper place. The imaginative Greeks were more occupied with the fame of their respective cities, and with the mythic legends connected with their foundation; and we consequently find their earliest money impressed with some symbol relative to the especial worship established, or to the name of the city, received from some circumstance connected with its early mythology, as Athens from Athena, the Greek Minerva, and Posidonia from Poseidon, the Greek Neptune: others being more indirectly derived through some circumstance arising out of the connexion of the tutelary deity with the early fortunes of the state, or from some attribute of the divinity, as Argos from Apynes, (light or shining), as symbolic of Apollo in his character of poßos, or the sun.

Another peculiarity in the inscriptions of Greek coins, and one in which they differ from those of Rome, is, that the inscriptions, when they occur in full, are written in the genitive case, and most probably in the abbreviated forms the genitive case is implied also; while the inscriptions on Roman coins are almost invariably in the nominative case; and where the Athenians would place the word AOENAIÓN, of the Athenians, or, as implied, money of the Athenians, at Rome the name of the city, when it does appear, which is only previous to the Empire, occurs in the nominative case, as, simply, Roma (Rome). The same remark applies to the coins of princes as of cities; for while on the Greek coinage we find the name of Alexander the Great in the genitive case, AAEZANAPOT, "of Alexander," or "money of Alexander," on coins of the Roman Emperors the name occurs simply in the nominative case, and appears to refer merely to the portrait which it generally surrounds, as "Cæsar Augustus, son of the Divine Julius," on the coins of Augustus.

Greek monetary inscriptions, or legends,* as they are more

* Minute distinctions between legends and inscriptions on coins, are made

*

Sechnically termed, begin in the most simple manner, and no coins of our time can convey any idea of them. At first, the type alone was considered sufficient identification; but as the invention of coinage spread, and more than one place adopted the same type, some farther distinction became necessary. Thus, on some of the earliest known coins of Phocea, we find the character Þ (ph) in addition to the type, being the initial letter of the name of the state-Phocca. On the early coins of Ægina, we find the three initial letters Air (Aig), as the A or AI of still earlier coins may have been found insufficient to distinguish the name from that of other places beginning with the same letters, when the number of states issuing coins increased. The city of Athens never, in the time of her independence, found it necessary to exceed the AOE (Athe), the first three characters of its name; but at Syracuse we find, at an early period, the letters ZYPA (Syra), and very soon afterwards, the name in full, ETPAKOZION (Syrakosion), in the genitive case, signifying "of the Syracusans," or rather, "money of the Syracusans." Many places, however, never placed the full name on the coinage till a very late period. Sovereigns placed their names on the coins after the same mode of progression, from a single letter, as the following examples will show; A, alone, is found on coins attributed to Archelaus, King of Macedon; on coins of the kings of Cyprus, about 370 B.C., Evagoras appears as ETA (Eva); on those of Amyntas, King of Macedon, we find AMTNT (Amynt); on those of Perdiccas, ПEPAIK; and eventually, on those of Philip II. of Macedon, the name appears in full, as IAINпOT (Philippou), in the genitive case, "of Philip," the title, king, not being yet assumed, even by that powerful prince. But there are a few rare exceptions to this rule, as regards the coins of princes, and we find on the coins of Alexander I. of Macedon, which are as early as 480 or 500 B.C., the name in full, AAEZANAPO, the old form of the genitive case, and on a coin attributed by Mr. Millingen to Gelas, King of the Edonians, who, from the appearance of the

by technical numismatists, which need not be referred to in an elementary work. The Greek node of writing the name.

+As attributed by Mr. Borrell.