coins are octadrachms in gold and tetradrachms in silver, besides the abundant bronze money. Ptolemy I. appears to have issued his money while regent for Philip Arrhidaeus (323–318); it only differs in the royal name from that of Alexander. He then struck money for Alexander IV. (317–311) on the Attic standard with the head of Alexander the Great, with the horn of Ammon in the elephant’s skin and Alexander’s reverse. He soon adopted a new reverse, that of Athene Promachos. This money he continued to strike after the young king’s death until he himself (305) took the royal title, when he issued his own money, his portrait on the one side and the eagle and thunderbolt with his name as king on the other. This type in silver, with the inscription “Ptolemy the king,” is thenceforward the regular currency. He also issued gold staters (reverse, Alexander the Great in an elephant-car). Ptolemy II. (Philadelphus, 285–247), the richest of the family, continued his father’s coinage. Philadelphus also began (after the death and deification of Arsinoë II., about 271 B.C.), the issue of the gold octadrachms with the busts of Ptolemy I. and Berenice I., Ptolemy II. and Arsinoë II., and certainly struck beautiful octadrachms in gold and decadrachms in silver of Arsinoë II., the gold being long afterwards continued. Philadelphus also began the great bronze issues of the system. Ptolemy III. (Euergetes I. c. 247–222) struck gold octadrachms with his own portrait, wearing a crown of rays. His queen Berenice II., striking in her own right as heiress of the Cyrenaica and also as consort, issued a showy currency with her portrait, both octadrachms and decadrachms like those of Arsinoë, and a coinage for the Cyrenaica of peculiar divisions. Under Ptolemy IV. (Philopator, 222–205) the gold octadrachms are continued with his portrait and that of Arsinoë III. Ptolemy V. (Epiphanes, 205–181) still strikes octadrachms with his portrait and with that of Arsinoë, and begins the continuous series of the tetradrachms of the three great cities of Cyprus. The coinage henceforward steadily degenerates in style and eventually also in metal. In the latest series, the money of the famous Cleopatra VII., it is interesting to note the Egyptian variety of her head, also occurring on Greek imperial money and on that of Ascalon.
Under the Roman rule the imperial money of Alexandria, the coinage of the imperial province of Egypt, is the most remarkable in its class for its extent and the interest and variety of its types. It begins under Augustus and ends with the usurper or patriot Achilleus, called on his money Domitius Domitianus, overthrown by Diocletian (A.D. 297), thus lasting longer than Greek imperial money elsewhere. In the earlier period there are base silver coins continuing the base tetradrachms struck by Auletes, and bronze money of several sizes. Most of the coins are dated by the regnal years of the emperors, the letter L being used for “year.” The types are very various, and may be broadly divided into Greek, Graeco-Roman and Graeco-Egyptian. The Graeco-Roman types have the closest analogy to those of Rome herself; the Graeco-Egyptian are of high interest as a special class illustrative of the latest phase of Egyptian mythology. These native types, at first uncommon, from the time of Domitian are of great frequency. The money of Trajan, Hadrian and Antoninus Pius is abundant and interesting. A coin of Antoninus, dated in his sixth year, records the beginning of a new Sothiac cycle of 1460 years, which happened in the emperor’s second year (A.D. 139). The reverse type is a crested crane, the Egyptian bennu or phoenix, with a kind of radiate nimbus round its head, and the inscription ΑΙΩΝ. Under Claudius II. (Gothicus) and thenceforward there is but a single kind of coin of bronze washed with silver. In this series we note the money of Zenobia, and of her son Vabalathus.
Coins bearing the names and local types of the nomes of Egypt were struck by a few emperors at the Alexandrian mint. Their metal is bronze, and they are of different sizes.
Passing by the unimportant coinage of the Libyans, we reach the interesting series of the Cyrenaica, the only truly Greek currency of Africa. It begins under the line of Battus about the middle of the 7th century, and reaches to the Roman rule as far as the reign of Augustus. The coins were issued at Cyrene, Barca, Euesperides and smaller towns. The weight of the gold always, and of the silver until some date not long after 450 B.C., is Euboic; afterwards it is Phoenician. The ruling types are the silphium plant and its fruit, and the head of Zeus Ammon, first bearded (Pl. II. fig. 23) then beardless. The art is vigorous, and in the transitional and fine period has the best Greek qualities. It is clearly an outlying branch of the school of Central Greece. The oldest coins are uninscribed, so that it cannot always be said at which mint they were struck. The money with the name of Cyrene comprises a fine series of gold Attic staters and silver tetradrachms. It was an important mint of the Ptolemies. Barca has a smaller coinage then Cyrene. It comprises a wonderful tetradrachm (Phoenician), with the head of Ammon bearded, boldly represented, absolutely full face, and three silphiums joined, between their heads an owl, a chameleon and a jerboa. The money of Euesperides is less important.
Syrtica and Byzacena offer little of interest. Their coins are late bronze, first with Punic inscriptions, then in imperial times with Latin and Punic or Latin. Latin and Greek are used in the same coins at Leptis Minor in Byzacena.
In Zeugitana the great currency of Carthage is the last representative of Greek money, for, despite its Orientalism, its origin is Hellenic, and of this origin it is at first not unworthy. Its range in time is from about 410 B.C., when the Carthaginians invaded Sicily, to the fall of Carthage in 146 B.C. The earliest coins are Attic tetradrachms of the class usually called Siculo-Punic. Carthage. These, and certain gold coins with similar types, were issued in Sicily down to about 310 B.C. The types owe much to the coinage of Sicilian cities, especially Syracuse; but they show also distinct Punic motives, such as a lion before a palm-tree, or a head of a Punic queen. The Punic inscriptions enable some to be attributed to mints such as Motya, Solus, Eryx; others name “Carthage,” “the Camp,” “the Paymasters,” many, inscribed Ziz, were issued from Panormus. The coinage from about 340 to 242 B.C., perhaps all issued at Carthage itself, is scanty; the types, head of Persephone and a horse, or horse and palm-tree, now come in, and prevail to the end of the independent coinage. The acquisition of the Spanish mines about 241 caused the issue of a large coinage, but the gold and silver soon degenerate into electrum and potin. The metrology of the various series (excepting the Siculo-Punic) is obscure, but the standard seems to be Phoenician. The late silver 12-drachm pieces and some of the bronzes are among the heaviest struck coins of the ancients. The art of the earlier coins is sometimes purely Greek of Sicilian style. There is even in the best class a curious tendency to exaggeration, which gradually develops itself and finally becomes very barbarous. Roman Carthage has a bronze coinage which is insignificant. There are a few other towns which issued money with Roman legends, such as Utica. The denarii of Clodius Macer, who revolted in A.D. 68, are curiously illustrative of his policy, which was to restore the Roman republic.
The cities of Numidia and Mauretania have a late bronze coinage; but an interesting series of silver and bronze coins is attributed with more or less certainty to the Numidian kings from Massinissa (202–148), to Juba I. (60–46 B.C.), and to the Mauretanian kings from Syphax (213–202 B.C.), to Juba II. (who also struck coins with his consort Cleopatra, Numidia, Mauretania. daughter of Mark Antony and the famous Egyptian queen) and Ptolemy their son, the last of the great family of the kings of Egypt (A.D. 23–40).
II. Roman Coins
The Roman coinage is of two great classes,—the republican and the imperial; the first lasted from the origin of money at Rome to the reform of Augustus in 16 B.C., and the second from this date to the fall of the Western empire in A.D. 476. The evidence of the coins themselves as to the origin of the republican coinage is at variance with that of the ancient writers; but the general principles of criticism must be maintained here as in other matters of early Roman story.
The tradition which ascribed the introduction of coins bearing types to Servius Tullius must be unhesitatingly rejected. The style and types of the earliest Roman coins point clearly to a date not earlier than the middle of the 4th century. The native copper which the Italians used from primitive times as a sort of medium of exchange, in amorphous blocks (aes rude) was probably not a state-currency, being produced by private enterprise. It was not until Rome unified Latium and Campania under her rule that central Italy acquired a true coinage. This must have been about 338 B.C. The history of the republican
