issued by other Italian cities. These are very thick coins, some of which are of great size, while most have a rude appearance. They are always cast, and were preceded by formless lumps of bronze, known as aes rude, which were not properly a state-coinage. The designs of the Italian coins are generally, if not always, of Greek origin, although the influence of the native mythology may be sometimes traced. The inscriptions are in Latin, Oscan or Etruscan, and follow a native orthography; sometimes on the earlier coins they are retrograde. The art of this class is generally poor, or even barbarous. The denominations are common to Greek money, except in the case of the bronze, which follows a native system. Of this system the early proper Roman coins afford the best known examples. The Graeco-Italian coins are of gold, silver and bronze. The silver and bronze are very common, and the gold comparatively so, although struck by few states or cities. A number of the cities of S. Italy issued in the 6th century coins with an incuse design on the reverse repeating with slight modifications the design of the obverse. The designs are of Greek origin, although here, as in the proper Italian coins, but less markedly, native influence can be detected. This influence is evident in the frequent occurrence of types symbolically representing rivers, showing a bias towards the old nature-worship, and still more in the use of Latin inscriptions, with half-Italian forms of the letters on coins otherwise Greek. Of the best art of ancient Italian money we have already spoken, and we shall have occasion to mention some of its most beautiful examples. The denominations of the gold and silver coins are unquestionably derived from those of Greece, according to the weight of the Attic talent, the heaviest gold piece being the stater or 3000th part of that talent; in silver there are few tetradrachms, the didrachms are extremely common, and smaller denominations are usually not rare. We thus learn that the silver currency was chiefly of didrachms, smaller pieces being less used, and larger ones scarcely used at all. It is important here to notice that the interchange of the native or Italian bronze coinage with the Greek silver coinage led to a double standard, silver and bronze. The bronze standard, as might be suspected, was of Italian origin, the silver of foreign introduction.
The peculiarity of the Italian bronze is that in its oldest cast form it was of such weight as to show the absence in some parts of the country of silver equivalents. It was long after silver had been introduced everywhere, with struck bronze equivalents, before the heavy coinage (aes grave) went out of circulation. The silver money is at first remarkable for the evidence it affords of its extraneous character in presenting two standards. Afterwards it becomes equivalent to the bronze, or supplies equivalent pieces, and is quite regular. The original condition of the Italian currencies is best illustrated by the money of Etruria in the 4th and 3rd centuries B.C. Etruria, be it remembered, was an early goal of oriental commerce by sea. At the great mart of Populonia, and in the country round, we find, besides a few gold coins, not only silver coins of two different foreign standards, the Euboic and the so-called Persic, but also cast aes grave and later struck bronze pieces. Without discussing the origin of these various currencies it is enough to note that they bear witness to the effects of a widely-spread commerce, and show that here was the meeting-point of the native system and of foreign ones.
In Italy the aes grave long ruled. Originally it was libral, the principal coin being the as, nominally of the weight of the Italic pound of 273 grammes; this, at least, is the weight of the earliest Roman coinage. On the other hand, the aes grave of some places in E. Italy, as Hatria and Ariminum, is heavier. The successive reductions of the as belong to Roman numismatics, and it is only necessary here to add that they affected the local bronze coinages as Italy fell under the rule of the republic. The silver coinages, on the other hand, survived for a longer time throughout the Greek cities. Apart from the complicated silver coinage of Etruria, and from the Roman issues, we find in central Italy a few silver coins (the unit of 1.18 grammes being the equivalent, at the rate of 1.250, of a bronze as of 11-10 oz.) and a large silver coinage of didrachms and smaller denominations in lower Italy. This was chiefly issued by the wealthy marts which dotted the coasts of Campania, Calabria, Lucania and the Bruttii. We find Etruscan inscriptions on the coins of Etruria, and Oscan on some of those of middle and lower Italy, where they are eclipsed in number and style by the Greek issues. The chief silver standards of S. Italy are (1) the Campanian (with a didrachm of 7.41 grammes); (2) the Italic, with a stater of 8.16 grammes, divided into thirds; and (3) the Tarentine, with a stater of 8.32 grammes, divided into halves. The Tarentine stater was known as νοῦμμος. The independent coinage of Italy, with one exception, came to an end in 89 B.C.
Beginning in the north of Italy, the first coins that strike us are those of Populonia in Etruria. The silver money of this place is generally of the peculiar fabric in which the reverse is left perfectly plain. The aes grave of upper and middle Italy was largely dominated by the issues of the Roman mints at Rome and Capua (to be treated later). Samnium shows us a curious revival of native silver money after the local coinage of the Italian towns had been almost abolished by Rome. It was the result of the Social or Marsic War of the confederate tribes, who struck for Italy against the Roman supremacy during the years between 90 and 88 B.C. The coins present the head of Italia, and reverse types, of which the most striking are warriors, varying in number, taking an oath over a sacrificial pig, and a bull for Italy goring the prostrate wolf of Rome. The inscriptions are Oscan or Latin.
Certain of the Greek towns of Italy deserve special mention for the splendour of their coinage—beautiful in style and delicate in execution. In Campania (leaving the Romano-Campanian for later notice) the two most interesting currencies are of Cumae and Neapolis, the modern Naples. Cumae presents Greek towns of Italy. silver money of the archaic and the early fine style, in which last we first observe the peculiar naiveté of western Greek art before it had attained elaboration. The abundant silver coins of Neapolis are of the early and the late fine periods and of the decline. The types are usually the head of the siren Parthenope, more rarely Athene; the reverse presents the man-headed bull common on Campanian money, and possibly meant for the river-god Acheloüs, father of the Sirens. The bronze money is of good style, and age has beautified it with the rich blue or green patina due to the sulphurous soil. When we reach Calabria the Greek money startles us in astonishing wealth of beauty in the currency of the opulent and luxurious mart of Tarentum, second only to Syracuse in the whole West, of all the main periods of art, and including in the age of its present prosperity and its fall (the time of the contest with Rome) the most abundant gold issues of any Greek city. The gold money of Tarentum (see Plate) is a delight to the eye, with the varied beauty of its gem-like types, which, while they show the gem-engraver’s art, prove the medallist’s knowledge of the rich but opaque metallic material. Several heads of divinities adorn these coins, and the chief reverse types relate to the legendary founder, Taras, son of Poseidon. Always a youth, he appears as a charioteer, perhaps as a horseman, and riding on a dolphin—the familiar Tarentine type. The most remarkable subject represents him with outstretched arms praying to Poseidon, probably in allusion to the Tarentines' appeal to Sparta for aid about 346 B.C. (Pl. I. fig. 3). The silver coinage is chiefly of didrachms of reduced Corinthian weight. The prevalent type is Taras seated on a dolphin; in the earliest money the type is single, and repeated incuse on the reverse; afterwards this subject occupies the reverse, and, itself a charming composition, is delightfully varied. On the early fine coins the people or demos, personified generally as a youth, often holding a spindle, occupies the obverse, but gives place in the 4th century to a horseman in various attitudes, affording great scope to the engraver’s skill; probably he is Taras himself, save when he is a full-grown warrior. These representations illustrate the famed horsemanship of the Tarentines, and refer to contests and games which were probably local. Heraclea in Lucania shows us didrachms of the fine age, with heads of Athene and subjects connected with Heracles: the contest with the Nemean lion is most skilfully treated, and the series is very characteristic of the gem engraver’s art. The powerful city of Metapontum begins with early coins having the incuse reverse, and then displays a long series stretching down to the decline of art. The constant type, which recurs with the heraldic instinct of the West, is the ear of barley, reminding us of the “golden harvest” (χρυσοῦν θέρος) which the Metapontines dedicated at Delphi. Like the Tarentine badge, it first occupies the obverse, then the reverse, balanced by a charming series of heads of divinities. Persephone is the most appropriate counterpart; we also note heads of Concordia (Ὁμόνοια) and Hygieia, marked by an ingenuous grace peculiar to the early fine work of the Western school, of Leucippus the founder as a helmeted warrior (occurring on a rare tetradrachm and the usual didrachms), and many other types of unusual variety and originality of conception.
