still Ludwig Miiller’s La Numis-
ἡ The chief authority is matique d’Alexandre le Grand, 1855 (cf. Head's conspectus, Hist. Num, 810 ff.).
Σ For which see Head, op. cit, xl-xliii and p. 809f. Acc. to Hultsch (Gew. ἃ. Alt. pp. 66-68), the shekel or stater of this standard was yyth of a mina of 60 light Phanician shekels= 184°7 (112} x 60+50) na, Which is found as early as the 12th Dynasty in Egypt, whence, through Phenician intermediaries, it was married to Greece and Asia Minor. This gives ο, 260°6 and 67°86 grs. for the Attic tetradrachm and drachm respectively, and for the mina and talent 6785 and 404,100 gra. respectively.
battle, Ptolemy 1. finally succeeded (B.c. 301) in adding Palestine to his Egyptian dominions. The Jews were still, however, but ‘a feeble folk,’ content to use the coins that issued in great abundance from the royal mints at Alexandria and the cities of the seacoast. This was all the more practicable, since Ptolemy (from B.C. 305), alone among the successors of Alexander, coined on the light Pheenician standard (see Pocle, Vhe Ptolemies [Brit. Mus. Cat. of Gr. Coins, 1883, Introd. xxiii f.; Head, Hist. Num. 711 tf; Hultsch, Metrol.? 646 ff.). No. 4 of our Plate is a typical coin, a tetradrachm or double-shekel of the Ptolemies.
Obv. Head of Ptolemy I. diademed.
Rev. NTOAEMAIOY ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ. Type, eagle*
on thunderbolt. M. Wt. 224 gers.
Tyre, which passed into the hands of Ptolemy 11. Philadelphus in B.C. 275, still] possessed a flourish- ing mint, its coins bearing as adjunct, in addition to the Ptolemaic types, the monogram of the city with the club of the Tyrian Hercules (see Poole, op. cit. Plate IV. 8). Sidon, Acco (named Ptolemais by Philadelphus), Gaza, Joppa, were all Ptolemaic mints,t from which, especially from the three latter, the peaceful Jewish community derived their supply of shekels. The yoke of the Ptolemies pressed lightly, for the greater part of the century (B.C. 300-200) at least, upon the Jews. According to the highly embellished story of Joseph, the nephew of the high priest (Onias 11.), told in detail by Josephus (Ant. xii. 4), the tribute in the reign ot Ptolemy ul. Euergetes did not exceed twenty shekels of silver (ib. XII. iv. 1, Niese, § 158). To obtain the modern equivalent of a Ptolemaic talent of silver (6000 drachms of 56 grs.), we must, in accordance with the principles laid down in § 2 of this article, first translate the silver into gold, which is our only standard. Now the ratio of gold to silver in the Ptolemaic system is 124: 1, eight gold drachms being equivalent to a mina (100 drachms) of silver (cf. Hultsch, Wetrol.? 646 f.). We thus obtain, at the mint price of gold £3, 17s. A a oz. of 480 grs., 9s. 1d. as the value of the gold drachm, £45 for the gold mina (3 Mac 1‘), 8$d. for the silver drachm (ib. 3%), and £218 for the silver talent, twenty of which amount to £4360. The total revenue of Ptolemy’s Asiatic possession, Ceele-Syria, and Pheenicia, and Juda, and Samaria amounted—if the figures (Ant. ΧΙ. iv. 4, N. 175 f.) are to be trusted—to 8000 talents, raised by Joseph to 16,000, almost three and a half million pounus sterling! On the same standard are to be reckoned the numerous other sums menticned throughout the story.
When we reflect that the Ptolemaic silver shekel is a double-drachm or stater (of 112 grs.)— the latter term, when the didrachm fell into dis- favour, the Greeks applied to the tetradrachm— we understand how the Alexandrian translators of the Pentateuch so frequently render the Hebrew shekel, which weighed 224 grs., by δίδραχμον as well as by σίκλος, instead of by the more exact τετράδραχμον (in LXX only Job 42").t Similarly the béka’ (yp2) or half-shekel is in the two passages where it occurs (Gn 24", Ex 38%=LXX 39%) ren- dered by δραχμή.
In B.C. 198 Antiochus II. succeeded in wresting Palestine from the feeble grasp of the youthful Ptolemy Epiphanes; it now became a province of the Syrian empire. The Seleucids, like all the successors of Alexander save the Ptolemies, con- tinued his coinage on the Attic standard, retain.
* The special badge or ‘crest’ of the Ptolemies, as the anchos was of the Seleucids (see below).
+ See Poole, Table III. Mints and Dates, p. xovi ff., for com plete list of Phoonician and Palestinian mints to πιο, 198.
Σ The later translators, Aquila and Symmacbus, prefer rraré, (cf. Mt 2727).
424
MONEY
MONEY
ing, for some time at least, even his name and types, to which the anchor was added—the family badge or cognizance of Seleucus, the founder of the dynasty. Gold coins are em pereavely. rare ; the commonest silver coins are the tetradrachm (at this period as high as 265 grs.) and the drachm, to which fall to be added bronze coins of numerous denominations.* For half a century (c. 150-100 B.C.) the Pheenician standard appears alongside of the Attic (Babelon, op. cit. clxxxiii). The mints are numerous; besides Antioch and other cities of Northern Syria we still have Sidon, Tyre, Ptolemais, Ascalon, and others.+
Antiochus treated the Jews with great con- sideration, even with kindness. Taxes were re- mitted, in some cases permanently, in others for three years, with Bieta abatement thereafter ; while a grant of 20,000 drachms, in addition to allowances of wheat and salt, was made from the imperial treasury to defray the cost of the temple service (Jos. Ant. XII. iii. 3, N. 138 ff.). From this time onwards to the date of the complete rupture with Antioch the taxes and other official ΤΕΥ: ments must have been settled in Attic drachms (see below) from one or other of the coast mints. For ordinary transactions and for the sacred dues, the former Ptolemaic currency, based on the native standard, probably salt held the field. We ee (No. 5) a tetradrachm of Antiochus Iv. Epiphanes, with whose accession, in B.C. 175, we approach a turning-point in the fortunes of the Jews.