Cenchrius. The money of the Ionian Magnesia begins with the issue of Themistocles, when he was dynast under Persian protection. The ordinary silver coins (350-190 B.C.) representing a cavalryman and the river-god Maeander as a bull are common. After 190 B.C. we have spread tetradrachms of the decline of art, more delicately executed than those of Cyme and Myrina, with a bust of Artemis and a figure of Apollo standing on a maeander and leaning against a lofty tripod, the whole in a Miletus. laurel-wreath. The great city of Miletus is disappointing in its money. The period of its highest prosperity is too early for an abundant coinage, yet in the oldest electrum issues we see the lion and the sun of Apollo Didymeus. In the early 4th century the Carian dynasts issued coins from Ephesus. To about 350 B.C. belong the beautiful coins bearing the head of Apollo facing and the lion looking back at a sun, with the inscription ΕΓ ΔΙΔΥΜΩΝ ΙΕΡΗ (scil. δραχμή), showing that this was the “sacred” money of the famous temple at Didyma. The types of the head of Apollo in profile and the lion with the sun continue through a series of various standards with very rare Attic gold staters of the early 2nd century. Phocaea is represented by two very interesting currencies; an electrum series of hectae, characterized by a seal, the badge of the town, beneath the type, struck in convention with Mytilene (see above); and also a widespread early silver coinage, apparently common to the western colonies of the city. The autonomous money is wholly anterior to the Persian conquest. Smyrna Smyrna. issued in the 4th century a very rare coin with the head of Apollo and a lyre, of Colophonian style. Among the earliest coins of New Smyrna are some showing that Lysimachus named it Eurydicea after his daughter. After 190 B.C. it strikes Attic tetradrachms, with the turreted head of Cybele or the city or the Amazon Smyrna (Pl. II. fig. 15), and an oak-wreath sometimes enclosing a lion. A rare silver coin and common bronze coins present on the reverse the seated figure of Homer. A gold coin issued by the Prytaneis of the Smyrnaeans probably belongs to the time of the Mithradatic revolt against Rome (87-84). The imperial coins have numerous types, among others the two Nemeses appearing to Alexander in a vision.
Of Teos there are early Aeginetic didrachms, bearing on the one side a seated grifiin and on the other a quadripartite incuse square. Teos. These ceased at the moment when the population left the town, destroyed by the Persians, and fled to Abdera, where we recognize their type on the coinage of the time. There are much later coins of less importance.
Chios and Samos, islands of Ionia, are represented by interesting currencies. Chios struck electrum and abundant silver. The type Chios. was a seated sphinx with curled wing, and before it stands an amphora, above which is a bunch of grapes; the reverse has a quadripartite incuse. The coins begin before the Persian conquest (490 B.C.).
The coinage of Samos is artistically disappointing, but as a whole has many claims to interest. The earliest money included electrum. Samos. The silver begins before 494 B.C. The types are the well-known lion's scalp and bull's head. The Athenian conquest (439 B.C.) is marked by the introduction of the olive-spray as a constant symbol on the reverse and the occasional occurrence of Attic weight. The Samians, having joined the anti-Laconian alliance after Conon's victory in 394 B.C., struck the coin with Heracles strangling the serpents already noticed under Ephesus; the Rhodian weight is here introduced. The long series of imperial money is not without interesting types. The most remarkable is the figure of the Samian Hera, which clearly associates her with the group of divinities to which the Ephesian Artemis belongs. Very noticeable also are the representations of Pythagoras, seated or standing, touching a globe with a wand.
The money of Caria does not present any one great series. Autonomous silver coins are not numerous except at Cnidus, Caria. and rarely of good style. Antiochia and Alabanda have tetradrachms in the 2nd century. The imperial coins of Antiochia and of Aphrodisias are worthy of notice. Cnidus is represented at first by archaic coins of Aeginetic weight, some as early as the first half of the 7th century, with a very rude head of Aphrodite. The head of the famous statue of Aphrodite by Praxiteles is not reproduced, but the whole statue figures on imperial coins. Among the imperial types of Halicarnassus the head of Herodotus is noteworthy. There is late silver money of Iasus with the head of Apollo, and a youth swimming beside a dolphin around which his arm is thrown. Idyma has silver pieces of fine style on which the head of Apollo is absolutely facing; the reverse type is a fig-leaf. On imperial coins of Mylasa the figure of the Zeus of Labranda holding double-axe and spear is represented. Of Termera we have the rare coin of its tyrant Tymnes, dating about the middle of the 5th century and struck on the Persic system.
The Carian satraps prove their wealth by their series of silver coins, which bear the names of Hecatomnus, Mausolus, Hidrieus and Pixodarus. The weight is Rhodian; the types are the three-quarter face of Apollo, and Zeus Labrandeus standing, holding the labrys or two-headed axe. Pixodarus also strikes gold of Attic weight. His silver is the best in the series, and clearly shows the Ionian style in its quality of expression.
Among the islands of Caria, Calymna begins in the 6th century or earlier with curious archaic Persian didrachms bearing a Calymna and Cos. helmeted male head and on the reverse a lyre. The series of Cos begins with small archaic pieces, the type a crab and the reverse incuse. Next come fine coins of transitional style and Attic weight, with the types of a discobolus before a tripod, and a crab. The break so common in the coinage of this coast then interrupts the issue, and a new coinage occurs before the time of Alexander. The weight is Rhodian, the types the head of Heracles and the crab. After Alexander there is another currency which ceases about 200 B.C. It is resumed later with the new types of the head of Asclepius and his serpent. This continues in Roman times. The bronze of that age comprises a coin with the head of Hippocrates and on the reverse the staff of Asclepius. Xenophon's head likewise occurs, and the portrait of Nicias tyrant in Cos (c. 50 B.C.) on his bronze. Imperial money ends the series.
The island of Rhodes, great in commerce and art, has a rich series of coins. The want of variety in the types—at the city of Rhodes. Rhodes almost limited to the head of Helios and the rose—is disappointing, but happily the principal subject could not fail to illustrate the movements of art, one of which had here its centre. The city of Rhodes was founded c. 408 B.C. on the abandonment by their inhabitants of the three chief towns of the island, Camirus, Ialysus and Lindus. The money of Camirus seems to begin in the 6th century B.C. The type is the fig-leaf, the weight Aeginetic, later degraded. The coins of Ialysus, of the 5th century, follow the Phoenician standard. Their types are the forepart of a winged boar and an eagle's head. The money of Lindus, apparently before 480 B.C., is of Phoenician weight, with the type of a lion's head. The people of the new city of Rhodes adopted another standard, the Attic, and very shortly abandoned it, except for gold money, using instead that peculiar weight which has been called Rhodian; this they retained until the last years of their independent coinage, when they resumed the Attic. The types are the three quarter face of Helios and the rose. There is a grandeur and noble outlook in the earlier heads of Helios which well befits his character, but the pictorial style is evident in the form of the hair and the expression, which, with all its reserve, has a dramatic quality (see Pl. II. fig. 17). Towards the end of the 4th century the radiate head is introduced; the Alexandrine tetradrachms, which were issued after the battle of Magnesia, find a place in the Rhodian mintage. During the age after Alexander there is an abundant bronze coinage, with some pieces of unusual size. The series closes with a few imperial coins ranging from Nerva to Marcus Aurelius.
The early coinage of Lycia introduces us at once into a region of Asiatic mythology, art and language, raising many questions Lycia. as yet without an answer. The standard of the oldest coins (beginning about 520 B.C.) is low Persic, and it falls perhaps under Athenian influence, until it is often indistinguishable from the Attic. The Lycian character belongs to the primitive alphabets of Asia Minor, which combine with archaic Greek forms others which are unknown to the Greek alphabet, and it expresses a native language as yet but imperfectly understood. The art is stiff and delights in animal forms,
