Numismatic Evidence Research Articles

Rhegion, Zankle-Messana and the Samians

In 493 Ionian emigrants from Samos and Miletos, on their way to Sicily to found a new city there at the invitation of the Zanklaians, were persuaded by Anaxilas, just risen to power in Rhegion, to seize Zankle instead, which Skythes, its ruler, had left temporarily unguarded. Skythes seems to have been a dependant of Hippokrates of Gela, but Hippokrates, instead of ejecting the Samians, came to terms and left them in possession. Some years later (probably after Hippokrates's death in 491) Anaxilas in his turn occupied the city which now, under the name of Messene, became his headquarters until his death in 476. In spite of the aberrations of Pausanias (iv. 23, 4–10) the literary authorities provide the material for a consistent account along broad lines of the incident and of the events which led up to and followed it. They show some uncertainty over the date when the name Zankle was changed to Messene and over the identity of Kadmos, son of Skythes (Was Skythes always one and the same? was it ‘with’ or ‘from’ the Samians that Kadmos took over and settled Zankle?), but the general outline emerges clearly. On the other hand, it is often held that the numismatic evidence (and it is abundant) contradicts the historical tradition at many points; and C. H. Dodd who first crystallised it in a careful and closely reasoned article in this Journal, arrived at very different conclusions.

Numismatic Evidence of the Battle of Lysimachia

Numismatic Evidence of the Battle of Lysimachia

A Few Notes on the Currency of Britain

In connexion with the preceding paper, a summary of the numismatic evidence as to the currency of Britain, in its relation to that of the Continent, till the establishment of the Saxon scheme, based on the silver penny, may be found useful. It is derived almost entirely from published material.1. Greek and Roman coins of the third to first centuries B.C. are found sporadically in England: there is no sign that they were used for the purpose of currency, or related in any way to the British and Gaulish money.2. Late Republican and Augustan coins occur fairly often, and their types are borrowed by British mints.

The Nothia Dignitatum and the Western Mints

Two sharply contrasted views are held about the duration of Roman government in Britain and in the West generally. The traditional view, which I believe to be substantially correct, dates the abandonment of Britain early in the fifth century. The late Professor Bury put forward in 1920 a theory that the occupation was maintained down to A.D. 438. The theory was based primarily on a later dating of the Notitia Dignitatum, and on a mistaken estimate of the numismatic evidence.

The Bughra Khan Mentioned in the Qudatqu Bilik

It is well known that the oldest existing complete literary work of a Mussulman Turk, the Qudatqu Bilik or Qutadghu Bilik, was composed in 462 H. (a.d. 1069–70) by Yūsuf Khāṣṣ Ḥājib, a native from Bālāsāghūn, on the River Chu, for a Khān residing in Kāshghar who is called “Mashriq Maliki Tabghach Khani Malik Bughra Khan” (King of the East, Khan of China, the King Bughra Khan), “Tabghach Qara Bughra Khanlar Khani” (the Chinese Qara Bughra, the Khan of Khans), “Tabghach Ulugh Bughra Khan” (the Chinese, the great Bughra Khan), even more simply “Ordukent Khani Beg” (the Khan of the court-town, that is Kashghar, the prince). The statements concerning the chronology of the Kashghar kings of the eleventh century are very vague and scanty, and are not supplied by numismatic evidence; therefore it is not an easy task to ascertain who was the king mentioned by Yūsuf. There can be no doubt that he belonged to the dynasty of the Ilek Khāns. The chief authority on the history of that dynasty has been for all Muhammedan and European scholars the great work of Ibn al-Athīr, especially the statements given under the year 408 H. We are told by Ibn al-Athīr that Arslān Khān, son of Qādir Khān Yūsuf, King of Kāshghar, Khotan, and Bālāsāghūn, was deposed by his brother Bughra Khān and taken prisoner; Bughrā Khān was some time later poisoned by his wife, who put to death Arslān Khān also, in 439 H. Bughrā Khān ruled only fifteen months and was succeeded by Ṭoghrul Khān, son of Yūsuf Qadir Khāan (that is, by his brother), who ruled sixteen years (until 456 or 457). His son, Ṭoghrul-tagīn, was deposed after two months by “Hārūn Bughrā Khān, brother of Yūsuf Ṭoghrul Khān and son of Ṭafghāch Boghrā Khān” (?); Hārūn Bughrā Khān passed (‘abara) Kāshghar, made Hārūn (? mistake for Ṭoghrul-tagīn) prisoner; the army of the latter submitted to him, and he took possession of Kāshghar, Khotan, and the neighbouring districts to Bālāsāghūn, where he reigned twenty-nine years and died in 496. These statements can, of course, not be quite correct; if Bughrā Khān Hārūn was the brother of Ṭoghrul Khān, he must have been a son of Yūsuf Qadír Khān, and is, in fact, called so by Ibn al-Athīr himself on the previous page. The reigns mentioned by Ibn al-Athīr, and said to have extended from 439 to 496 (fifty-seven years), do not cover all that time, but nearly ten years less. We know, indeed, from an earlier author, Abu-I-Faḍl Baihaqī, that the first Bughrā Khān (called by Ibn al-Athīr Maḥmud) died not in 439 but in 449. Bughrā Khān Hārūn must have reigned in this case from 467 to 496, Ṭoghrul Khān from 451 to 467; the Qudatqu Bilik, composed in 462, was therefore written in the reign of Ṭoghrul Khān, but Bughrā Khān seems to have been a co-regent of his brother; Ibn al-Athīr speaks of the war made by the two brothers against Shams al-Mulk, Khān of Samarqand. Therefore it was quite natural to come to the conclusion that the Bughrā Khān mentioned by Yūsuf Khāṣṣ Ḥājib was Bughrā Khān Hārūn ibn Yūsuf, and such an opinion has been expressed in my article “Bughrā Khān” in the Encyclopædia of Islām.

Notes and Queries on Athenian Coinage and Finance

The following notes and queries have been mainly suggested by Professor Percy Gardner's recent article on the Coinage of the Athenian Empire. They do not claim to do more than elucidate one or two small points with the aid of rather fuller use of epigraphical evidence than is to be found in his article, and at the same time raise other questions of secondary importance in the same connexion. If no solution is offered here to some of these queries I see no cause for regret, for it may be found convenient by others to have here collected references to such inscriptions as seem to deserve further investigation from the standpoint of the numismatist. The inscriptions here mentioned belong both to the 5th and 4th centuries and so are not confined within the chronological limits of the Athenian Empire.In the first place it may be as well to distinguish roughly the classes of Attic inscriptions in which numismatic evidence is found, in particular that for the circulation of non-Athenian coins in the Athenian Empire. ‘Treasure-lists,’ which record the receipt and transmission of sacred objects of value by their successive boards of curators, frequently, especially in the fourth century, make mention of coins, giving their denomination and number.

V. Was there a Kusana Race?

There is no lack of numismatic evidence for the fact that the words Kūšān šāhān šāh and Kūšān šāh were used as personal attributes by certain princes reigning about the year A.D. 300. On the obverse of one of the coins in question Professor Marquart reads the legend: mazdēsn bagē Pērōzē (i) wažurg Kūšān šāh, “des mazdaverehrenden Gottes Pērōz, grossen Kōnigs der Kūšān.” M. Drouin translates the saine legend as follows: “le mazdéen, le divin Pérose, grand Kouchan, roi.”

Manilivs, Avgvstvs, Tiberivs, Capricornvs, And Libra.

‘The date of the poem has been canvassed with merciless prolixity for the last four-and-twenty years, but the pertinent facts are few.’ So I wrote in 1903 on p. lxix of my edition of the first book of Manilius; and in two octavo pages and a half I collected all those facts, said all that I could find to say on both sides of the questions in dispute, and drew the conclusion that books I and II were written under Augustus and book IV under Tiberius. Ten years have passed, and the prolixity has continued, but the prolix have added no pertinent fact to those which I collected: some of them have even subtracted one, by suppressing the numismatic evidence, which I duly recorded, that Tiberius had Libra for his star.

The Throne of Zeus at Olympia

The title of this paper may appear too wide, since its main object is to establish, if possible, the position of the paintings by Panaenus; but discussion of this one point necessarily involves consideration of certain others —themselves far from unimportant—and thus a more comprehensive designation is needed. It need hardly be said that no theory of reconstruction of the Throne as a whole is here attempted.It may be convenient to state at the outset the evidence used, and to comment generally upon it. In the first place we have the literary evidence, the account by Pausanias: careful, detailed, and, in my opinion, the work of an eye-witness. Its great shortcoming is that it leaves undecided the relation of the parts and details to one another. Secondly, there is numismatic evidence, which is of high value.

The Samians at Zancle-Messana

In this article it is proposed to examine the available numismatic evidence relating to the settlement of Samians at Zancle, and the change of the name of the city to Messana, and to suggest possible lines along which a reconstruction of the events might proceed.It will be well first to review such literary evidence as we possess. The earliest such evidence is found in Herodotus. He gives at length the story of the Samian settlement. After the battle of Lade, which ruined the cause of the revolted Ionians, the Samian oligarchs (οἵ τι ἔχοντες) decided to abandon their city and sail away to found a colony elsewhere, rather than stay and endure the oppression of Aeaces, their old tyrant, restored under Persian influence (ἐς ἀποικίην ἐκπλέειν μηδὲ μένοντας Μήδοισί τε καὶ Αἰάκεῖδουλεύειν). Now the men of Zancle in Sicily had sent a general invitation to the Ionians to come to the West and settle at the Fair Shore (Καλὴν ᾿ Ακτὴν ἐᾶν χαίρειν), a Sicel possession on the north coast of Sicily. The Samians accordingly decided to accept the invitation.

A Portrait of Pythagoras

The fairly numerous ideal portraits of Homer and the Sages which have come down to us, and the yet more numerous headless herms whose inscriptions bear witness to the frequency of such works in antiquity, naturally suggest that others may exist in our museums representing the more famous rulers and philosophers of the sixtli century, among whom the most interesting and important is Pythagoras. From the Renaissance onwards, archæologists have been on the alert to discover a portrait with some claim to represent him, and no less than seven identifications have been at various times proposed. None, however, has found anything like universal acceptance, in spite of the fact that the numismatic evidence is fuller and more trustworthy than usual. A series of Samian coins show the philosopher either seated or standing before a celestial globe set on a pillar. He is richly draped and is bearded, while a band, whose exact nature is difficult to determine, usually runs round his head. The figures are, however, merely generalized and conventional like those of other poets and sages on the coin types figured by Bernoulli. The Paris contorniate must be reserved for fuller treatment, as a discussion of the literary evidence is important for its right understanding.

The so-called ‘Sardanapalus’

This interesting type, of which six replicas are known, has received comparatively little attention at the hands of archaeologists. One authority (see Roscher, Lexikon, pp. 1117–8) treats it as an example of a Hellenistic statue of the bearded Dionysos, adducing numismatic evidence for purposes of comparison. There is, however, no evidence of the erection of cultus statues of the Bearded Dionysos either during the later fourth century or the Hellenistic age, and this work alone is quoted as at once the justification and the example of the assertion. Nor can the coins be considered copies of contemporary statues: they are mere types, possibly reminiscences of existing works, certainly nothing more. No better instance of the use made by fourth century die-cutters of a cultus statue could be given than the Olympian Zeus as he appears on the coinage of Alexander compared with the representation on the famous Elean coin of the time of Hadrian.

A Journey in Cilicia Tracheia

The district which forms the subject of the following remarks is that which we know from Strabo, as well as from numismatic evidence, to have formed the kingdom of Olba, ruled over in ancient times by a family of priest-kings, priests of Jove, dynasts of Olba, and toparchs of Lalassis and Kennatis. Having made a careful exploration of this district, and collected therein the inscriptions which are to follow, I propose to treat the subject-matter under four distinct heads, into which the ground traversed naturally divides itself:—First, the ruins of the three great coast towns between the mouth of the Lamas gorge and the plain of Selefkeh, namely Augusta-Sebaste or Elaeussa, Corycos, and Pseudo-Corasion.Secondly, the first plateau above the sea, studded with ruined towers and villages, and chiefly remarkable for the three great caves or depressions in the ground, one dedicated to the Corycian Jove, a second to the Olban Jove, and a third alluded to only by Pomponius Mela as Typhoneus.