Imp. Cae(sar) M. Iulius Phili[ppus Pius]
Fel(ix) Aug(ustus), pont(ifex) max(imus), trib(unicia) p[ot(estate) III, cos., p.p. et]
M. Iulius Philippus nobil[issim(us) Caes(ar)]
nomina militum, qui milit[averunt in]
cohortibus pretoris Phil[ippianis de-]
cem I. II. III. IIII. V. VI. VII. VIII. VII[II. X. piis vin-]
dicibus, qui pii et fortiter [militia fun-]
cti sunt, ius tribuimus con[ubii dumta-]
xat cum singulis et primi[s uxoribus],
ut etiam si peregrini iur[is feminas]
in matrimon(io) suo iunxe[rint, proinde
liberos toll(ant), acxi (for ac si) ex duob(us) c[ivibus Ro-]
manis natos. a. d. VII. [idus Ian.]
C. Bruttio Presente et C. Al(b)[- - - - - cos.]
Coh(ors) V pr(aetoria) Philip[pian(a) p(ia) v(index).]
Neb. Tullio Neb. f. M(a) - - - - - - - -
Ael(ia) Murs[a].
Descript(um) et recognit(um) ex ta[bula aerea],
que fix(a) est Romae in muro [pos(t) templum]
divi Aug(usti) ad Mine[rvam].
[7:] Baumeister, Denkmäler, II., p. 801, fig. 867.
II.—COINS.
(Table-Case K.)
The coins which are selected to represent the Greek and Roman currencies extend over a period of just one thousand years, in the course of which the coinage went through all the developments and anticipated all the varieties of type and fabric which it has since experienced, while in artistic merit it reached an excellence which will probably never be surpassed. The Greek coinage, moreover, has the great interest of being that upon which all later coinages have been modelled—for the Chinese money, which originated about the same time, and apparently independently, may be left out of account.
Greek Coins.—The character and provenance of the earliest coins agree with the best ancient tradition of their origin, in so far as it associates them with Asia Minor, although it is more probable that they were invented by the Greek cities of the coast than by the Lydians, to whom they have been credited in accordance with the Herodotean tradition.[8] The most primitive pieces are found in Asia Minor, and their metal is a natural mixture of gold and silver, called electrum, which occurs in the mountains of Lydia, and was brought down to the sea in the sands of the great rivers, the golden Hermus and its tributary the Pactolus. The cities which the Greeks had planted on the Asiatic shores grew in the seventh century B.C. to a high degree of wealth, by reason of their position on a rich coastland, where they were intermediary in the trade of east and west. There were great bankers in these Ionian cities who had large stores of treasure; their gold and silver would be kept in bars or ingots of definite weight stamped with the device, in place of the written signature, of the banker. From thus marking large ingots with his own signature, it would be a short step for the banker to do the same with smaller denominations of the same weights, so producing a private coinage for his own convenience in calculation, which would come to have a limited acceptance in the quarters where his credit was good. Such pieces are probably to be recognised in the nondescript coins of which the electrum stater is an example (No. 24; fig. 12a); this is scored on one side with parallel scratches and stamped on the other with three deep punch-marks. There are many pieces in existence which have even less design than this, although their weights conform to definite coin-standards. We may perhaps regard this example as a private coin, one of the last of its kind, which immediately preceded the adoption of coinage by the state. The invention of coinage lies really in this innovation, which, however obvious it may seem to us now, was then of deep political significance. When once a state currency was instituted, the private coinage fell out of use, for no individual banker could compete with the guarantee of the state, and the state would not tolerate imitation of its own types. We may therefore take it that the successive stages in the "invention" of coinage were somewhat as follows: first, the occasional practice of stamping certain weights of metal with marks by which they could be identified; this probably continued in private use for a long period before it was adopted by a state; and finally the adoption all over the Greek world of a series of state coinages.
The example, once set, was quickly followed by the more important Greek cities, until by the middle of the sixth century the art of coinage had travelled from Ionia across the mainland of Greece to the colonies in Italy and Sicily. Owing to the peculiar political conditions of Greece, where every town held a separate and independent sovereignty, each state was jealous to assert its autonomy on its coins, with the result that the Greek coinage presents an enormous variety of types, held together, however, as the money of one people by the uniformity of their general character and of the art in which they are expressed.
We may now proceed to consider a few representative coins, which in the midst of innumerable local issues were important enough by their purity of weight and metal, or by their abundance, or by the commercial reputation of their issuing states, to predominate in the Greek world as a sort of international currency and standard of exchange.
The earliest electrum stater of Ionia is interesting on account of its fabric only, for it has no type. It is a bean-shaped lump of metal, one side of which has been stamped with a flat die marked with parallel scratches, the other with three punches, which have left deep impressions (No. 24; fig. 12a). The pieces which immediately followed, such as the silver money of Aegina (No. 25; fig. 12d), have a real type on the obverse, while the punch-mark on the reverse is more regular, and is often ornamented with some design of a special character, though it does not contain a type until later.