coin, though apparently of nearly the same period, is already an improvement upon its Corinthian prototype; and is an evidence of the great progress in art, which the Greek colonies in Italy and Sicily so rapidly made, especially in the fabrication of the public money, in which, in high finish and intricate elaboration, they eventually surpassed the Greeks themselves.

Later coins of Syracuse, struck by the Syracusans, with the Corinthian types of the Pegasus, and the head of Minerva, in honour of the successes of Timoleon, when sent to their assistance from Corinth, are farther and more striking proofs of the superiority of Sicilian art; the Pegasus being more highly finished, and the head of Minerva, though of similar design, being strikingly superior, in every respect, to Corinthian coins of the same period.

No. 2, Plate III., is a very early coin of Selinus, a town on the south coast of Sicily, whose ruins are still one of the greatest wonders of the island; some of the columns of the principal temple being of greater diameter than those of any ancient edifice known, except those of Egypt. Selinus, it is conjectured, took its name from the stream on which it was built a common practice among the Greeks of Sicily and Magna Græcia the stream itself having received its name from the abundance of wild parsley-in Greek, ZHAINON (Selinon)-growing on its banks. This herb became, probably, sacred to the presiding nymph, and so, as a sacred symbol, was adopted as the principal type of the coinage of this city. I have introduced it here in order to exhibit another variety of form in the punch-mark of the reverse, which appears to be a sort of approach, in concave, to the form of the design of the obverse; and so forms a link between the shapeless punch-mark, and the incused coins I am about to speak of.

In a former chapter I have described a few rare instances in which very early coins of some of the Greek colonies of Asia Minor, have a punch-mark forming a distinct design; and, to a certain extent, a perfect reverse; the design being in concave, or incused, as numismatists express it. These sunk designs, were, of course, in relief on the punch; with the intention no doubt, of increasing the power of that instru ment to drive the piece of metal bout to be coine, well into

the mould. One of the most ancient examples that can be cited, of this mode of coinage, is, possibly, the half stater of Clazomene, Plate I., No. 13, which, while it has the usual type of that place, the winged boar, in relief on the principal side (see Chap. II.), has on the reverse a rude lion's head, incused, or sunk.

THE INCUSED COINAGE OF MAGNA GRÆCIA.

I have here to describe several examples of a perfected system of the incused method, which it appears some of the Greek colonies in Magna Greæcia adopted even in their earliest coinages. And not only did they thus depart from the more usual practice of the parent states in coining their money, as regards the treatment of the punch, but the whole system appears to have undergone reformation; the pieces produced being no longer thick and hemispherically raised towards the centre, like the older coins of the Greeks of the Peloponnesus, Asia Minor, and the Greek islands: but very thin and flat, the pieces of two drachms being larger in surface than four drachm pieces of the parent states.

This Magna Græcian incused coinage belongs to a very early period, as can be proved by the coins of Sybaris, which city was destroyed in the year 510 B.C.; while previously to this period, the incused mode of coinage had been already abandoned in favour of the more usual method. After the disuse of the incused method, coins of Sybaris, apparently belonging to more than one distinct stage of progress, are known; so that the incused method must have been abandoned for some considerable time previous to the destruction of the city in 510 B.C. Supposing it to have been some forty or fifty years only, it would place the period of abandoning that mode of coinage as early as 550 B.C., and the probable period of the issue of many of the earliest coins of that make, at least as early as 600 B.C. Mr. Millingen, the author who has most successfully studied this class of coins, appears almost tempted to place them, in point of antiquity, before any other coins whatever; and certainly, as far as ascertained date, they are so. coins of Alexander I. of Macedon, are the earliest of either

The

Grecian or Asiatic coins to which a posi ive date can be assigned (and that is not earlier than 500 B.C); which renders the much greater perfection of manipulation of the incused coins of Sybaris, and other places in Magna Græcia, dating 600 B.C., truly extraordinary; for though the work manship is of Archaic character, it is so complete, and so finished in its style, as to place any other coins, of supposed equal antiquity, at a great distance in these respects. Nevertheless, the original idea of such a mode of fabrication was probably brought to Italy by colonists from Phocæa, or Clazomene, where I have described the partial existence of a somewhat similar practice.

Mr. Millingen suggests the possibility that this method. was adopted to prevent forgery; but, if such was the case, the precaution was ineffectual, as forgeries are now in existence executed with great address, which are evidently as old as the earliest issues of the originals. This early money of Magna Græcia is, perhaps, as I have above suggested, the earliest of any description to which a date can be assigned; yet certainly not of the same high antiquity as some ancient gold of Lydia and the Asiatic colonies of Greece, from which the idea of an incused reverse was, no doubt, originally derived. The coins of Alexander I., of Macedon, issued about 480 B.C., are, as I have stated, the oldest to which a positive date can be assigned, either of Greece or Western Asia, while it appears pretty certain that the incused coins of Sybaris were executed between 560 and 620 B.C., in confirmation of which it will be necessary to recapitulate some previously stated facts. Sybaris was founded by a colony of Achaians, in the year 721 B.C., and destroyed in the year 510 B.c.: previous to its destruction the ancient mode of coinage, with an incused or sunk impression of the type of the obverse on the back, had been abandoned, and the thick coins, in the more usual Greek style, with raised impressions on both sides, been adopted. But these lastnamed coins may have been issued after the re-establishment of the city in 453, which existed under its ancient name till 448 B.C., when it was again destroyed by the Crotonians. During those five years the second class of coins may have been executed-which, however, would still give the earliest incused coins of Sybaris an undoubted antiquity, ranging

from 510 to 550 B.C., supposing, which is unlikely, that it was not before the last-mentioned date that they began to coin money. The wood-cut represents one of the earliest known

ncused coms of Sybaris, the sunk impression of the reverse being represented by the dark shade The inscription

is merely YM written in archaic characters from right to left, the sigma (s) being placed face downwards, as is usual in very ancient inscriptions; it would stand in more modern characters, and written from left to right, zr (SY), the first two letters of the name of the city. The single type, the bull, alludes no doubt to the river, on or near which the city was built, and the name of which, "Thurium," it is supposed to have taken after its second re-establishment. The coins of Sybaris, afterwards struck under its new name of Thurium, belong to the finest period of Greek art, and are among the most beautiful coins known.

*

I shall now proceed to describe the examples of the incused coinage of Magna Græcia in the order in which they occur on Plate III.

No. 5, Plate III., is an incused coin of Caulonia, an Achaian colony, led by Typhon of Egium in Achaia, who founded this celebrated Græco-Italic city probably as early as, or earlier than, 700 B.C. The inscriptions on the coins of this city do not read from right to left, like the oldest of Sybaris and Posidonia, and, therefore, though they are of the same character, are probably only cotemporary with the later coins

See Chapter on Greek Coins of the finest period.-Crins of Gelas.

of that class of the two above-mentioned places; still, at least, as old, most probably, as 500 B.C.,* or, perhaps, half a century might be added to this estimate of their antiquity. The name of this city is abbreviated in the inscription (during the incused period) as KATAO (KAULO). The type is a naked figure, holding a branch in one hand, and supporting in the other a small figure, which holds a smaller branch in each hand. In front of the figure is a stag or fawn; and the whole of these types are repeated in hollow at the back, as shown by the dark shade in the engraving. This type has not been well explained, and all that can be said with certainty respecting it, is that it most likely alludes to some local tradition. In fabric, with the exception of the more modern character of the inscription, it greatly resembles the incused money of Sybaris; but the figure, though still archaic, is in a more advanced style of art, and is executed in the sharpest style; while the border, forming a circle much truer than is usual in any ancient coins except those of this class, is very neatly executed. The reverse is, as stated, a repetition in hollow of the relief on the obverse, and the punch with which it was produced must have been very accurately and carefully finished.

No. 6, Plate III., is an early coin of Tarentum of this class, and of higher antiquity than the Caulonian coin just described; its type is a figure of a young man in the act of striking a lyre, and is supposed, by the most recent authorities, to represent Taras, the son of Neptune, who founded and gave his name to the city. This supposition is confirmed by the presence of the name ZAPAT, written from right to left, in the ancient oriental manner, in front of the figure, just as the name Koras, or Proserpine, the daughter of Ceres, appears on coins bearing the head of that semi-divinity. Taras was the reputed son of Neptune; and on later coins of Tarentum, he appears riding on a dolphin, or accompanied by other marine emblems, to be more particularly noticed in treating of coins of a later period, where Tarentan coins

Mr. Millingen merely says anterior to 389, B.C., the epoch of the destruction of Caulonia; but the incused style had at that period been long discontinued. Later Caulonian coins, with reliefs on both sides, exist, having stag for the type of the reverse.