Obv. Head of Antiochus Epiphanes (looking)
right, diademed, with fillet border.
Rev. BAXIAEQE ANTIOXOY OEOY ENIPANOYE {king Antiochus, divine, illustrious]. Zeus (looking) left, seated on throne, naked to the waist, and holding a Nike, who crowns him, in right hand, while left rests on sceptre. In exergue a monogram. Wt. 259 grs.
The portrait of Antiochus is considerably ideal- ized ;+ the titles on the reverse show that the coin was struck about the middle of his reign (Babelon,
. cit, xxiii.), probably before he had set up ‘the abomination that maketh desolate’ in the Jewish temple (Dn 1181 12"),
Several of the more important cities of the Seleucid empire were about this time permitted to issue a series of semi-autonomous bronze coins, distinguished from the royal bronzes of the same minting-places by having, besides the royal por- trait on the obverse, the name of the issuing city (TYPIQN, oss ox τεῦ) § on the reverse.
To the earlier part of Antiochus Epiphanes’ reign belong the intrigues of Jason, brother of the high priest Onias ΠΙ., who offered Antiochus the large sum of 440 talents for the high-priestly office, with ‘a hundred and fifty more, if it might be allowed him... to set up a (Greek) place of exercise and (form) a body of youths (to be trained therein), and to register the inhabitants of Jeru- salem as citizens of Antioch’ (2 Mac 4°). Jason in his turn was outbid by Menelaus, who offered the
*See the standard work of E. Babelon, Les Rois de Syrie, 1890; also P. Gardner, The Seleucid Kings of Syria (Brit. Mus. Cat. of Gr. Coins), 1878. Of. Head, Hist. Num. 637 ff., where the older literature is given.
t From the royal Seleucid coins struck in the cities just named must be carefully distinguished the coins of these and other cities issued by them on their obtaining a measure of autonomy, which increased as the power of the Seleucids declined (see below).
1 On the coin-portraits of this famous figure in Jewish history see Babelon, op. cit. xciiff., and Plates XI1.-XV.
§ The title here assumed by Tyre is noteworthy, ‘ mother (city) of the Sidonians,’ a reply to the, historically more justifi- able, pretensions of Sidon to be the ‘mother-city of Tyre.’ Similar rivalries were common in the Roman period. Also of interest, in view of the legend on the later Jewish shekels, is that on the bronze coins of Gebal-Byblus, nv7p 523 ‘Gebal the holy.’
300 These and the other
impecunious monarch ‘more than Jason by talents of silver’ (ib. v.™). sums mentioned in 1 and 2 Maccabees (1 Mac 1138 1336-19 1581. %, all talents ; 2 Mac 3" 419 [read 3300 drachms] ete.) are to be reckoned as Syrian-Attic
drachms and talents. In endeavouring to reach an approximate valuation of these sums, it must be remembered that the Syrian currency is on a silver, ours on a gold standard. The gold of the Seleucids, even in the shape of coins, was always bullion, and varied in its ratio to silver between 10 : land 124: 1 (see Hultsch, Metrol.? §§ 30f.). Now, if we take the normal weight of the Attie drachm at 67.307 grs. (=4'366 grammes), we have as the sterling value of the gold drachm at the mint price 10s. 1114., and of the talent (6000 drachms) in round numbers £3280, At the ratio of 10:1 this gives £328 for the silver talent, at 124: 1 £262, the mean value being £295, for the silver drachm 11%d., which is considerably higher than the estimates of previous writers. e large sums deposited in the temple (400 talents of silver and 200 talents of gold, 2 Mac 3") would thus amount to £118,000 and £656,000 respectively, a total of over three- quarters of a million.
§5. The first native coinage; the problem of the so-called ‘Maccabean shekels’; the bronze coins of the Hasmonean princes.—The latter half of the 2nd cent. saw the once powerful empire of the Seleucid rent by internal dissensions and hasting to its fall. Already the Jews, under the brave sons of Mattathias the Hasmonzan (ὉΠ), had taken the field in defence of the national religion, and had proved themselves so dangerous as foes that Demetrius I. (145-139/8 B.C.) recog- nized them as likely to prove not less valuable as allies (1 Mac 13*-#), The privileges then granted by Demetrius, amounting to political autonomy under the ἘΠ ΖΕΓΑΙΕΣΥ οἵ it ier cay as is often represented, to complete independence,—were con- firmed by his brother Antiochus vil. Sidetes (B.C. 138-129) in the famous rescript preserved in 1 Mac 15*-. ‘Now therefore,’ it runs, according to the best text, ‘I confirm unto thee [Simon] all the exactions which the kings that were before me remitted unto thee, and J give thee leave to coin money for thy country with thine own stamp (ποιῆσαι κόμμα ἴδιον νόμισμα τῇ χώρᾳ σου), ete. Did Simon avail himself of the privilege here recorded of issuing money in his own name? This has hitherto been the guestio vexatissima of Jewish numis- matics. For some time past, however, the attri- bution to Simon the Hasmonzan (less correctly, the Maccabee) of the well-known silver shekels and half-shekels with the legends Shékel Yisrdel and Yertishalem Kédéshah, and the dates ‘year 1’ to ‘year 5,’ has been an accepted numismatic doctrine, so much so that very convincing reasons will natur- ally be expected to justify the present writer’s rejection of it. These reasons may be stated here in preference to a later section. hey are (1) the