the Phoenician; the Rhodian (instituted about 400 B.C., tetradrachm
about 15 g.); and the cistophoric (from about 200 B.C., with
a tetradrachm of about 12·73 g.).
The following table exhibits the weights in grammes
of the principal denominations of the Greek systems:—Denominations.
| Gold Shekel System. |
Babylonian or Persic. |
Phoenician. | Aeginetic. | Euboic-Attic. | |
| Double shekel, distater or tetradrachm | 16·80 | 22·40 | 14·92 | 25·20 | 17·44 |
| Shekel, stater or didrachm | 8·40 | 11·20 | 7·46 | 12·60 | 8·72 |
| Hemistater or drachm | 4·20 | 5·60 | 3·73 | 6·30 | 4·36 |
| Third or tetrobol | 2·80 | 3·73 | 2·49 | 4·48 | 2·92 |
| Twelfth or obol | 0·70 | 0·93 | 0·62 | 1·12 | 0·73 |
The term stater is usually applied to the didrachm, but also to the tetradrachm, and at Cyrene to the drachm.
The bronze standards have been less fully discussed. Some notice of them will be given under different geographical heads.
In the types of Greek coins (using the term in its restricted sense) the first intention of the designers was to indicate the city or state by which the money was issued. The necessity for distinctive devices was most strongly felt in the earlier days of the art, when the obverse of a coin alone bore a design, and, if any inscription, only the first letter, or the first few letters, of the name Types. of the people by whom it was issued. Whatever may have been the original significance of the type in itself, religious or otherwise, it was adopted for the coinage—at least in the earliest times—because it was the badge by which the issuing authority was recognized. It was only with the increased complexity of the denominations in later times, when new distinguishing types had to be found, that—as in the 4th century B.C.—the religious motive in the choice of types came deliberately into play.
Greek coins, if arranged according to their types, fall into three classes: (1) civic coins, and regal without portraits of sovereigns; (2) regal coins bearing portraits; and (3) Graeco-Roman coins, whether with imperial heads or not. The coins of the first class have either a device on the obverse and the quadratum incusum on the reverse, or two devices; and these Classes. last are again either independent of each other, though connected by being both local, or—and this is more common—that on the reverse is a kind of complement of that on the obverse. It will be best first to describe the character of the principal kinds of types of the first class, and then to notice their relation. It must be noted that a head or bust is usually an obverse type, and a figure or group a reverse one, and that, when there is a head on both obverse and reverse, that on the former is usually larger than the other, and represents the personage locally considered to be the more important of the two. We must constantly bear in mind that these types are local if we would understand their meaning.
In the following list the types of Greek coins of cities and of kings not having regal portraits are classed in a systematic order, without reference to their relative antiquity.Types of Civic, &c., Coins.
1. Head or figure of a divinity worshipped at the town, or by the people, which issued the coin, as the head of Athena on coins of Athens, and the figure of Heracles on coins of Boeotian Thebes. Groups are rare until the period of Graeco-Roman coinage.
2. Natural or artificial objects—(a) animal, often sacred to a divinity of the place, as the owl (Athens) and perhaps the tortoise (Aegina); (b) tree or plant, as the silphium (Cyrene) and the olive-branch (Athens); (c) arms or implements of divinities, as the arms of Heracles (Erythrae), the tongs of Vulcan (Aesernia). It is difficult to connect many objects comprised in this class with local divinities. Some of them, as the tunny at Cyzicus, are doubtless only so connected because the chief industry of a place was placed under the tutelage of its chief divinity.
3. Head or figure of a local genius—(a) river-god, as the Gelas (Gela); (b) nymph of a lake, as Camarina (Camarina); (c) nymph of a fountain, as Arethusa (Syracuse).
4. Head or figure of a fabulous personage or half-human monster, as a Gorgon (Neapolis Macedoniae), the Minotaur (Cnossus).
5. Fabulous animal, as Pegasus (Corinth), a griffin (Panticapaeum), the Chimaera (Sicyon).
6. Head or figure of a hero or founder, as Ulysses (Ithaca), the Lesser Ajax (Locri Opuntii), Taras, founder of Tarentum (Tarentum).
7. Objects connected with heroes—animal connected with local hero, as the Calydonian boar or his jaw-bone (Aetolians).
8. Celebrated real or traditional sacred localities, as mountains on which divinities are seated, the labyrinth (Cnossus).
9. Representations connected with the public religious festivals and contests, as a chariot victorious at the Olympic games (Syracuse).
The relation of the types of the obverse and reverse of a coin is a matter requiring careful consideration, since they frequently illustrate one another. As we have before observed, this relation is either that of two independent objects, which are connected only by their reference to the same place, or the one is a kind of complement of the other. Among coins illustrating the former class we may instance the beautiful silver didrachms of Camarina, having on the obverse the head of the river-god Hipparis and on the reverse the nymph of the lake carried over its waters by a swan, and those of Sicyon, having on the obverse the Chimaera and on the reverse a dove. The latter class is capable of being separated into several divisions. When the head of a divinity occurs on the obverse of a coin, the reverse is occupied by an object or objects sacred to that divinity. Thus the common Athenian tetradrachms have on the one side the head of Athene and on the other an owl and an olive-branch; the tetradrachms of the Chalcidians in Macedonia have the head of Apollo and the lyre; and the copper coins of Erythrae have the head of Heracles and his weapons. The same is the case with subjects relating to the heroes: thus there are drachms of the Aetolian League which have on the obverse the head of Atalanta and on the reverse the Calydonian boar, or his jaw-bone and the spear-head with which he was killed. In the same manner the coins of Cnossus, with the Minotaur on the obverse, have on the reverse a plan of the Labyrinth. Besides the two principal devices there are often others of less importance, which, although always sacred, and sometimes symbols of local divinities, are generally indicative of the position of the town, or have some reference to the families of magistrates who used them as badges. Thus, for example, besides such representations as the olive-branch sacred to Athene on the Athenian tetradrachms, as a kind of second device dolphins are frequently seen on coins of maritime places; and almost every series exhibits many symbols which can only be the badges of the magistrates with whose names they occur. Regal coins of this class, except Alexander’s, usually bear types of a local character, owing to the small extent of most of the kingdoms, which were rather the territories of a city than considerable states at the period when these coins were issued.
The second great class—that of coins of kings bearing portraits—is necessarily separate from the first. Religious feeling affords the clue to the long exclusion of regal portraits—the feeling that it would be profane for a mortal to take a place always assigned hitherto to the immortals. Were there any doubt of this, it would be removed by Regal, with Portraits. the character of the earliest Greek regal portrait, that of Alexander, which occurs on coins of Lysimachus. This is not the representation of a living personage, but of one who was not only dead but had received a kind of apotheosis, and who, having been already called the son of Zeus Ammon while living, had been treated as a divinity after his death. He is therefore portrayed as a young Zeus Ammon. Probably, however, Alexander would not have been able, even when dead, thus to usurp the place of a divinity upon the coins, had not the Greeks become accustomed to the Oriental “worship” of the sovereign, which he did not discourage. This innovation rapidly produced a complete change; every king of the houses which were raised on the ruins of the Greek empire could place his portrait on the
