Fig. 37. Coin of Cnidus.
But could we only find a contemporary description of the type on one of the earliest coins of Asia Minor, the cradle of the art of coining, we might get our ideas on the nature of the coin types greatly cleared. Fortunately such an opportunity is afforded to us by an unique coin in the British Museum, the oldest as yet known which bears an inscription. It is an oblong electrum coin ([Fig. 35]), the reverse having the usual incuse, but on its obverse it bears a stag feeding, and over it runs (retrograde) in archaic letters I AM THE MARK OF PHANES (Φανος εμι σεμα = Φάνους εἰμὶ σῆμα). There can be no doubt that the mark of Phanes is the stag. If there was no inscription it would have been at once asserted that the stag was the symbol of the goddess Artemis, and who could deny it? But as it stands it is plain that the stag is nothing more than the particular badge adopted by the potentate Phanes, when and where he may have reigned, as a guarantee of the weight of the coin and perhaps the purity of the metal. The Daric itself needs no inscription to tell us that its type is not religious. The figure of the Great King with his spear and bow and quiver can hardly be allegorized even by an Origen[386]. Emboldened by these instances we may even hold up our hands against the host of Heaven, and raise doubts as to whether the foreparts of the lion and bull upon the coins of Lydia represent the Sun-god and the Moon-goddess. May not the lion simply be the royal emblem? I have already suggested this explanation for the lion weights of Assyria. Undoubtedly from the earliest times the king of beasts (as in Aesop’s Fables) was regarded in the East as the true badge of royalty. “The Lion of the tribe of Judah” is familiar to us all, and it is more rational to regard the lions which guarded the steps of Solomon’s throne as emblems of kingship rather than as symbols of the Sun. Is then the Lion on the coins of Lydia nothing more than the kings badge, just as the stag is the badge of Phanes? But what about the bull or cow? Shall I go too far if I regard it as indicating that the coin is the ox-unit? When the Greeks borrowed the art of coining from Lydia it is easy to understand that they would likewise borrow the type either in a complete or modified form, and hence it is that we find the lion or lion’s head on the coins of Miletus[387], the lion’s scalp on those of Samos (on which the cow’s head also is found), the lion’s head on the coins of Cnidus, of Gortyn in Crete, at Rhodes, at Miletus, and at the Phocaean towns of Velia in Lucania, and Massalia in Gaul, and put by the Samian exiles on their coins at Zancle. If the Greeks had been barbarians they would have slavishly copied the lion coins of Lydia, just as the Gauls copied the lion of Massalia, and at a later time the stater of Philip, and as the Himyarites of South Arabia, the “owls” of Athens[388], and as in mediaeval times the Danes of Dublin copied the coins of the Saxon kings[389]. But the artistic genius of the Greeks could submit to no such trammels, and the lion type was varied and diversified according to the fancy of each community. The same holds good of the type of the cow and cow’s head. The Greek genius gave us these beautiful types such as the cow suckling her calf (Dyrrachium), the cow with the bird on her back (Eretria), the cow scratching herself (Eretria), the two calves’ heads seen on the coins of Mytilene, and the magnificent charging bull on the coins of Thurii. The cow or bull’s head on the early gold and electrum coins was the indication of the value. In later times when the connection between ox and coin was only traditional, the ox was put on coins simply as symbolical of money.
Fig. 38. Coin of Thurii.
Fig. 39. Coin of Rhoda in Spain.
Again Phocaea, one of the very earliest Greek towns to issue coins, employed a symbol which cannot be termed religious. Her coins bear a seal (phoca) a type parlant referring to the name of the town. Many examples of the same kind can be quoted, the rose (ῥόδον) on the coins of Rhodes (Ῥόδος) and also on those of Rhoda in Spain, the bee (melitta) on those of Melitaea, perhaps even the owl (χαλκίς) on coins ascribed to Chalcis in Euboea. These considerations will serve to show that we may expect many things on coins besides religious symbols. Thasos was famous for its wine, and accordingly the wine-cup is a regular adjunct of its coins, either standing alone, or held in the hands of old Silenus, who quaffs therefrom a “draught of vintage that hath been cooled a long age in the deep-delved earth.” All who have read Horace remember the fame of the wines of Chios, and accordingly the wine-jar is a regular adjunct of the mintage of that island. Now there is proof that the trade in wine was of extreme antiquity, if not in the islands just mentioned, at least in Lemnos, and that that trade was carried on by barter, for we read in Homer how “many ships stood in from Lemnos bringing wine, which Euneos the son of Jason had sent forward, whom Hypsipyle had borne to Jason shepherd of the folk, but separately for the sons of Atreus, Agamemnon and Menelaus, the son of Jason gave wine to be fetched, a thousand measures. From thence used the flowing-haired Achaeans to buy their wine, some with copper, some with glittering iron, some with hides, others with the kine themselves, others again with slaves[390].” From what we have seen in an earlier chapter it is clear that a measure of wine would have a known value in relation to the various articles here enumerated. Thus in North America where the beaver skin was the unit, a gallon of brandy = 6 skins, a brass kettle = 1 skin, an ounce of vermilion = 1 skin and so on[391]. In other words, the ordinary currency with which the Lemnians would purchase wares from other people who had no wine of their own would be wine, the unit of which was the measure (which elsewhere I have tried to show was the cup δέπας, Smith’s Dict. Antiq. s.v. Mensura). This measure would be the size of the vessel ordinarily employed for wine, probably much the same as the two-handled vase out of which Silenus is seen drinking on coins of Thasos.
With the introduction of silver currency nothing is more likely than that an effort would be made to equate the new silver unit to that which had formed the principal unit of barter. That the earliest types should indicate the object (or its value) which the coin replaced is in complete accord with the statement of Aristotle (quoted on an earlier page) that “the stamp was put on the coin as an indication of value[392].” As no numerals appear on the early Greek coins, it is evident that Aristotle regarded the symbol, whether ox-head, or tunny, or shield, as the index of the value. If it be said that the putting of a cow, or axe, or tunny on a coin was simply a picturesque way of indicating a single unit, we may reply that it is far easier to understand why a certain people chose a particular symbol, if in their minds the object symbolized was identified with the value of the silver or gold coin. It is at all events certain that Aristotle did not regard the type as religious in origin. But we are not without actual evidence that such an equating of the silver unit to the barter-unit really took place in Greece. It is held by the best numismatists that Solon was the first to coin money at Athens. It is also well known that the highest class in his constitution, called Pentacosiomedimni (Five-hundred-measure-men), were rated at 500 drachms. Thus the Olympic victor received 500 drachms to qualify him to be a Five-hundred-measure-man[393]. Furthermore Plutarch distinctly tells us that Solon reckoned a drachm as equivalent to a measure[394] or a sheep. It is hardly possible to doubt that the first Attic coined silver drachm was equated to the old barter unit of a measure (either of corn or oil). The same may be said in reference to the olive sprig which from the earliest issue is found on the coins of Athens. The sacred olive-trees (μορίαι) which belonged to the state, and for the care of which special officials were appointed, and even the very stumps of which, and the spot on which they had grown, were under a taboo[395], were a source of considerable revenue to the state in the 6th century B.C. The fact that they were all supposed to be scions of the sacred olive-tree on the Acropolis, which was itself supposed to be the gift of Athena, and the religious care bestowed on them, puts it beyond doubt that the olive at an early date formed one of the most important products of Attica. The instances given already of the employment of various kinds of food as money are sufficient to show that there is nothing far-fetched in supposing that olives and olive-oil may have been so employed at Athens.
