The money par excellence (D2, ἀργύριον) of the Jews during the greater part of the Maccabean period was obtained from heathen mints, as, with the decline of the central power, the cities of the coast one after another recovered their autonomy. Tyre, in particular, began in B.C. 126 —from which its new era is dated—to issue an important series of silver and bronze coins with considerable variety of types. The principal de- nominations were the tetradrachm or heavy shekel, and longo intervallo, the didrachm or light shekel, which was doubtless in considerable demand among the Jews for the payment of the temple tax. The weights are at first well maintained, at c. 220 and 110 grs. respectively. No. 8 illustrates a Tyrian shekel or tetradrachm of the Hasmonzan period.
Obv. Head of the Tyrian Hercules (see 2 Mac 419), laureate (looking) right.
Rev. ΤΎΡΟΥ IEPAX KAI AZYAOY. Eagle, left, on rudder, and bearing a palm branch over left shoulder. In the field, date and a club (symbol of Tyre).
§ 6. Bronze coinage of the Idumean dynasty.— In the year B.C. 37, with the help of the Roman legions, Herod, the son of Antipater, ‘ by birth an Idumean, by profession a Jew, by necessity a Roman, by culture and choice a Greek,’ succeeded in securing the throne which Rome had promised him a few years before. Nothing could better show the condition of vassalage under which Herod held his kingdom than the fact that for all his enormous wealth, as evidenced not only by his princely gifts to foreign cities and his lavish ex- penditure at home, but by the great sums of coined money (ἀργυρίου ἐπισήμου) which he bequeathed at his death (Ant. XVII. viii. 1), he was restricted by
MONEY
the suzerain power to a coinage exclusively in bronze. The ΞΣΣ of the legends is now dis-
laced by Greek, while, in addition to the familiar ἩΞΕΠ ΌΤΙ ΤΕΣ typesof the anchor and the cornucopia, we have such new types as the tripod,—another favourite Seleucid emblem,—the helmet, the Mace- donian shield, the pomegranate, the caduceus, ete. One of the most interesting of Herod’s coins is that represented by No. 9. Obv. Metal helmet with cheek pieces; in the field above, a star; on either side, a palm branch. (Others with the same type eS only one branch to left, above). Rev. BAZIAEQE HPQAOY. Type: a tripod; in the field to left LT [=year 3],* and to right the monogram of TP. xX 6. Wt. c. 104 grs. The coins of Archelaus are identified by the title ἐθνάρχης on the reverse, a title borne by Archelaus alone of all the Herodian princes. On the de- position of Archelaus, Judea and Samaria were placed directly under the Roman government (see § 7 for coins of the Roman procurators). His brother, Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee (Lk 31; ef. Lk 237), founded the city of Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee, where most, if not all, of his coins were struck, and whose name, given in honour of his
atron, Tiberius, he placed on the reverse (see
o. 10)—
Obv. HPQAOY TETPAPXOY. Palm leaf (or branch); in the field right and left, L-AT (year 33=A.D. 29-30).
Rev. pipe Within a wreath. 416.
Τὴ an article devoted rather to an expositien of the principal varieties of money in circulation among the Jews than toa catalogue of coins, we must be excused from entering into an examination of the coins of Philip the tetrarch (Lk 3'), and especially of the long and complicated series of Agrippa 11.) the last of the Herods.+ A word must suffice even for those struck by Agrippa I. durin his short reign (A.D. 41-44) over the reunite territories of the great Herod. According to de Sauley these all bear the same date, ‘ year 6,’ te. according to the Jewish method of computation the year A.D. 41-42, reckoning from the first year of Caligula A.D. 37.¢ (See No. 11.)
Rev. BACIAEQC ALPINA (sic). Type, umbrella
with tasselled fringe. ;
Obv. Three ears of corn united on one stalk; to right and left LS (year 6). A 4. Wts. 38-47 grs. : , an
These were the last Jewish coins legitimately and constitutionally struck in Jerusalem. In allusion to his alliance with Claudius, Agrippa struck elsewhere coins with the interesting legend BACIAEYC MEFAC APPINNAC #IAOKAICAP (friend of Cesar, οἵ. Jn 19%). On the death of Agrippa, Judea was once more, and finally, in- corporated with the Roman empire. __ ‘
§ 7. Imperial coinage of Rome, including coins of the Procurators, and of the autonomous cities of Palestine.—When the Romans entered upon their
*The symbol L to denote ἔτος (year) is first found in the Ptolemaic papyri. The monogram is probably the initial letters of ΤΡίχαλκον, indicating that the coin is of the value of three chalki, the chalkus, in the Greek system, being a copper coin, eight of which were equivalent to an obol (4 drachm). For coins of Antiochus tv. Epiphanes with similar monograms of value, and for details as to the weights of the Seleucid bronzes generally, see Babelon, Rois de Syrie, clxxxv ff.
+ ‘Unter allen numismatischen Kreuzen sind die Jahreszahlen auf den Miinzen Agrippas 1. eins der peinlichsten.” So wrote Mommsen in 1871 (Wiener Num. Zeits. iii. 451). For the latest attempt to adjust the chronology of this prince, see Carl Erbes ‘Das Todesjahr Agrippa’s 1.’ [year of death fixed at 86 instead of 100 4.p.] in Z. f. wiss. Theol. 39 (1896), pp. 415-435.