Fijr. 3.
with the head of Proserpine accompanied by dolphins, and for reverse a victor in the Olympic games in a char- iot receiving a wreath from Victory — a type which is also found on the reverse of the staters of Philip of Macedon, known as Philips, and largely imitated by other states. Coins of Alexander the Great are abun- dant, many having been struck after his conquests in the Greek towns of Asia. A rose distinguishes those struck at Rhodes, a bee those struck at Ephesus, etc.; these are all types generally accompanying the figure of Zeus on the reverse ; on the obverse is the head of Hercules, which has sometimes been supposed to be that of Alex- ander himself. It would rather seem, however, that the conqueror's immediate successors were the first who placed their portrait on the coins, and that under a shal- low pretence of deification — Lysimachus as a descendant of Bacchus, and Seleucus of Apollo, clothed in the attri- butes of these deities. Two most beautiful and impor- tant series of Greek coins are those of the Seleucida?, in Asia, of silver, and of the LagidiB or Ptolemies, in Egypt, of gold.
3. Roman coins belong to three different series, known as the Republican, the Family, and the Imperial.
a. The so-called Republican, the earliest coinage, be- gan at an early period of Roman history, and subsisted tiU B.C. 80. Its standard metal was copper, or rather as or bronze, an alloy of coj)per. The standard unit was the poundweight, divided into twelve ounces. The (es, or as, or pound of bronze, is said to have received a state impress as early as the reign of Servius Tullius, B.C. 578. This gigantic piece was oblong like a brick, and stamped with the representation of an ox or sheep, whence the word pecunia, from pecus, cattle. The full pound of the as was gradually reduced, always retaining the twelve (nominally) uncial subdivisions, till its actual weight came to be no more than a quarter of an ounce. About the time when the as had diminished to nine ounces, the square form was exchanged for the circular. This large copper coin, called the as grave, vras not struck with the punch, but cast, and exhibited on the obverse the Janus bifrons, and on the reverse the prow of a ship,
NUMISMATICS
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NUMISMATICS
with the numeral I. Of the fractions of tlie as, the sex- tans, or sixth part, generally bears the head of Mercur\', and tlie uucia, or ounce piece (fig. 4), that of Minerva;
Fiir. 4.
these pieces being further distinguished by dots or knobs, one for each ounce. There were circular pieces as high as the decussis, or piece of tweh-e asses, presenting a head of Roma (or Minerva), but none are known to have been coined till the weight of the as had dimin- ished to four ounces. The Roman uncial coinage ex- tended to the other states of Italy, where a variety of types were introduced, including mythological heads and animals. In the reign of Augustus, the as was vir- tually superseded by the sestertius, called by numisma- tists the tirst bronze, about the size of an English penny, which was at first of the value of '2i, afterwards of 4 asses. The sestertius derived its value from the silver denarius, of which it was the fourth. The half of the sestertius was the dupondius (known as the second bronze), and the half of the dupondius was called the assarium, an old name of the as. The assariura is known to numismatists as the third bronze.
Silver was first coined at Rome about B.C. 281, the standard being founded on the Greek drachma, then equivalent in value to ten asses; the new coin was there- fore called a denarius, or piece of ten asses. The earliest silver coined at Rome has on the obverse the head of Roma (differing from Minerva by having wings at- tached to the helmet) ; on the reverse is a quadriga or biga, or the Dioscuri. Among various other types which occur in the silver of the Italian towns subject to Rome are the horse's head and galloping horse, both very beau- tiful. During the social war the revolted states coined money independentl\^ of Rome, and used various devices to distinguish it as Italian and not Roman money.
The earliest gold coins seem to have been issued about B.C. 90, and consisted of the scrupulum, equivalent to 20 sestertii, and the double and treble scrupulum. These pieces bear the head of Mars on the obverse, and on the reverse au eagle standing on a thunderbolt, with the in- scription " Roma'' on the exergue. The large early re- publican coins were cast, not struck.
b. The Family Coins begin about B.C. 170, and about B.C. 80 they entirely supersede the coins first described. Those families who successively held offices connected with the public mint acquired the right first to inscribe their names on the money, afterwards to introduce sym- bols of events in their own family history. These types gradually superseded the natural ones; the portrait of an ancestor followed; and then the portrait of a living citi- zen, Julius Coesar.
c. Under the empire the copper sestertius, which had displaced the as, continued the monetary standard. A magnificent series exists of the first bronzes of the em- perors from Augustus to Gallienus. While it was the privilege of the emperors to coin gold and silver, cojiper could only be coined ex senatuscoiisulto, which from the time of Augustus was expressed on the coins by the let- ters S.C., or EX S.C. The obverse of the imperial coins bears the portraits of the successive emperors, sometimes of the empress or other members of the imperial famih* ; and the reverse represents some event, military or social, of the emperor's reign, sometimes allegorized. The em- peror's name and title are inscribed on the obverse, and sometimes partly continued on the reverse; the inscrip- tion on the reverse generally relates to the subject delin-