Chapter I: Greek Coins

§ INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

The following extract from the preface to the British Museum “Guide to the Coins of the Ancients”[5] will give some idea of the uses of Greek Numismatics.

“The chief value of Greek coins lies in their being original works of art, not copies as are most of the extant sculptures in the round, and in their recording the successive phases and local varieties of Greek art, in which respect no other class of monuments, sculptures, bronzes, terracottas, fictile vases, or gems, can compete with them. From the seventh century before the Christian era downwards, and from the farthest east to the extreme west of the ancient civilized world, coins are still extant, in many cases as uninjured as when they first left the dies. The devices or _types_ which they bear, if not by leading artists, certainly faithfully represent the style of the sculpture and even of the painting of the periods to which they belong. Thus in no other branch of Greek monuments can the student so readily and so thoroughly trace the growth, the maturity, and the decay of the plastic art as on coins chronologically arranged.

“For the study of mythology they present the local conceptions of the gods and heroes worshipped in the Greek world, with their attributes and symbols.

“The historian will find a gallery of portraits of sovereigns almost complete, as well as evidences of the history and of the political revolutions of innumerable autonomous states and cities in these all but imperishable records.

“The student of palæography will find on coins examples of various ancient alphabets, such as Lycian and Cyprian, Phœnician, Greek, Latin, Iberian, etc., in various stages of development.

“The metrologist, by comparing the weights of coins of different localities and periods, may gain an insight into the various systems of ancient metrology in its various standards, and obtain a just view of the relative values of the precious metals, and of the great lines of trade in the Greek and Roman world. For practical purposes the medallist and art workman will find in Greek coins the most profitable as well as the safest guide. The artist will not fail to perceive the suggestive value of designs which, on however small a scale, are essentially large in treatment.”

[5] “A Guide to the Coins of the Ancients, from cir. B.C. 700 to A.D. 1,” with seventy plates, by B. V. Head, second edition, London, 8vo, 1881, Trübners.

No one whose means are at all limited should attempt to form a complete collection of Greek coins. Even the vast collection in the British Museum is far from perfect, and in many series is still lamentably deficient.

Any one, however, by limiting his ambition to one particular branch, may hope in course of time to form a cabinet the value of which will increase rapidly in proportion as it approaches completion.

This applies not only to Greek coins but to every class. Thus, for instance, there are collectors of English coins who confine their attention to the Anglo-Saxon period; others who will buy no coins later than the reign of Charles I.; and others, again, who only collect the copper money of the last two centuries.

The young collector who would not drift into unprofitable _dilettanteism_ should therefore select some one series and keep to it, and it is chiefly with the view of assisting him to make his choice of a field to work upon that these pages have been written.

It will be well to form some idea, in the first instance, of the numerous series which are included in the general term of “_Greek coins_.”

Greek coins may be divided into three principal sections:--

A. _Autonomous_, _i.e._ coins issued by cities governed by their own laws.

B. _Regal_, _i.e._ coins struck in the names of kings.

C. _Imperial_, _i.e._ coins of Greek cities struck in Roman Imperial times, and with the head of the Emperor on the obverse.

And into eight chronological periods as follows:--