although the officials who introduced them doubtless knew they could do so with impunity. As times goes on the Christian emblems become more popular; on a coin of Constantius II. we find Victory crowning the emperor, who holds the standard of the cross; the inscription is HOC SIGNO VICTOR ERIS. Another type of the same reign is the Christian monogram flanked by alpha and omega. Under Julian there is a temporary recrudescence of pagan types; with the revival of Christianity monotony of type sets in.
The art of Roman imperial coins, although far inferior to that of Greek, is well worthy of study in its best ages, for its intrinsic merit, for its illustration of contemporary sculpture, and on account of the influence it exercised on medieval and modern art. On the whole the finest work is produced under Augustus, when the portraits still betray a certain refinement of imagination in the artists. Some of it reflects the beauty of Roman monumental sculpture in relief of the time, whether that sculpture be regarded as the work of Greeks or of purely Roman artists. The most vigorous portraiture is perhaps found under the Flavians. Under the Antonines, although still striking and powerful, the portraits lost in subtlety and from the time of Commodus there is a rapid decline. The age of Diocletian and Constantine shows a well-meant but hopeless attempt at revival of art. In spite of its defects, the fact that many of the greatest medallists of the Renaissance drew their inspiration from the art of imperial coins shows that it had many good qualities, of which the chief was an honest directness of effort. The realism in which this resulted is perhaps best seen in the portraits of Nero, the growth of whose bad passions may be seen in the increasing brutality of his features and expression. The medallion series is full of charming subjects, though when they have been treated by Greek artists of earlier ages the contrast is trying; the most satisfactory are the representations of older statues; the purely new compositions are either poor inventions, or have a theatrical air that removes them from the province of good art.
III. Medieval and Later Coins of Europe
The period of the medieval and later coins of Europe must be considered to begin about the time of the fall of the Western empire, so that its length to the present day is about 1400 years. It is impossible to separate the medieval and later coins, either in the entire class, because the time of change varies, or in each group, since there are usually pieces indicative of transition which display characteristics of both periods. The clearest division of the subject is to place the Byzantine coinage first, then to notice the characteristics of its descendants, and lastly to sketch the monetary history of each country. The coinage of the present day, however, having certain definite characteristics, may be dealt with separately.
The Byzantine money is usually held to begin in the reign of Anastasius (A.D. 491-518, Pl. III. fig. 6). The coinage is always Byzantine empire. in the three metals, but the silver money is rare, and was probably struck in small quantities. At first both the gold and the silver are fine, but towards the close of the empire they are much alloyed. The gold coin is the solidus of Constantine, with its half and its third, the so-called semissis and tremissis. The Byzantine solidus (besant) had an enormous vogue throughout the middle ages, being the chief gold coin until the introduction of the Italian gold in the 13th century. The chief silver coin was the miliarision, and a smaller coin, the siliqua or keration. Under Heraclius (610-641) the hexagram or double miliarision was first coined. The silver money of the restored Greek empire is obscure. In 498 Anastasius introduced a new copper coinage, bearing on the reverse, at his time, the following indexes of value as the main type: M, K, I and E, 40 nummi, 20, 10 and 5. These coins bear beneath the indexes the abbreviated name of the place of issue. Justinian I. added the regnal year in A.D. 538, his twelfth year. The money of this class presents extraordinary variations of weight, which indicate the condition of the imperial finances. The Alexandrian coins of this class begin under Anastasius and end with the capture of the city by the Arabs. They have two denominations, IB and S, and Γ or 12, 6 and 3 denarii, and there is an isolated variety of Justinian with ΛΓ(33). The Alexandrian bronze never lost its weight, while that of the empire generally fell, and thus some of the pieces of Heraclius, while associated with his sons Heraclius Constantinus and Heraclonas, have the double index IB and M. Under Basil I. the bronze money appears to have been reformed, but the absence of indexes of value makes the whole later history of the coinage in this metal very difficult. There was one curious change in the aspect of the money. Early in the 11th century the solidus begins to assume a cup-shaped form, and this subsequently became the shape of the whole coinage except the smaller bronze pieces. These novel coins are called nummi scyphati. The types, except when they refer simply to the sovereign, are of a religious and consequently of a Christian character. This feeling increases to the last. Thus, on the obverse of the earlier coins the emperors are represented alone, but from about the 10th century they are generally portrayed as aided or supported by some sacred personage or saint. On the reverses of the oldest coins we have such types as a Victory holding a cross (other personifications all but disappear), but on those of later ones a representation of Our Saviour or of the Virgin Mary. Christ first appears on a coin of about A.D. 450, where He is represented marrying Pulcheria to Marcian. He does not appear again until the end of the 7th century, when His bust is introduced by Justinian II. It was perhaps this type, so offensive to Mahommedan feeling, that caused the Caliph Abdalmalik to initiate the Mussulman coinage. From the 9th century Christ appears in various forms on the coins; about 900 we find the Virgin; a few years later saints begin to appear. A remarkable type was introduced by Michael VIII., Palaeologus, who recovered Constantinople from the Latins in 1261, and issued coins with the Virgin standing in the midst of the walls of the city. The principal inscriptions for a long period almost invariably relate to the sovereign, and express his name and titles. The secondary inscriptions of the earlier coins indicate the town at which the piece was struck, and, in the case of the larger bronze pieces, the year of the emperor's reign is also given. From about the 10th century there are generally two principal inscriptions, the one relating to the emperor and the other to the sacred figure of the reverse, in the form of a prayer. The secondary inscriptions at the same time are descriptive, and are merely abbreviations of the names or titles of the sacred personages near the representations of whom they are placed. From the time of Alexius I. (Comnenus) the principal inscriptions are almost disused, and descriptive ones alone given. These are nearly always abbreviations, like the secondary ones of the earlier period. The language of the inscriptions was at first Latin with a partial use of Greek; about the time of Heraclius Greek began to take its place on a rude class of coins, probably local; by the 9th century Greek inscriptions occur in the regular coinage; and at the time of Alexius I. Latin wholly disappears. The Greek inscriptions are remarkable for their orthography, which indicates the changes of the language. In the 11th century we notice a few metrical inscriptions, the forerunners of verse-mottoes on later coins. Of the art of these coins little need be said. It has its importance in illustrating contemporary ecclesiastical art, but is generally inferior to it both in design and in execution. It is noticeable that from the beginning of the Byzantine period the facing representation of the bust begins to be popular, and that from the time of Justinian (6th century) onwards the profile practically disappears from the coinage. The last Byzantine gold coin (a piece of John V., 1341-1391) shows a figure of John the Baptist imitated from the Florentine coinage.
Besides the regular series of the Byzantine empire, in which we include the money assigned to the Latin emperors of Constantinople, Cognate groups. there are several cognate groups connected with it, either because of their similarity, or because the sovereigns were of the imperial houses. There are the coinages of the barbarians to be next noticed, and the money of the emperors of Nicaea, of Thessalonica and of Trebizond. The last group consists of small silver pieces, which were prized for their purity; they were called Comnenian white-money (ἄσπρα Κομνήνατα), the princes of Trebizond having sprung from the illustrious family of the Comneni.
The coinage of the other states of the West falls into well defined periods, which have been distinguished as (1) transitional period, from Roman to true medieval coinage, from the fall
