The conquest of Alexander did not wholly destroy the independence
of Persia. Within less than a century the warlike Parthians,
Parthians.
once subjects of Persia, revolted (249–248 B.C.) against
the Seleucids and formed a kingdom which speedily
became an empire, ultimately the one successful rival of Rome.
Their money is Greek in standard and inscriptions, as well as
in the origin of types. The coins are silver, following the Attic
weight, the chief piece being the drachm, though the tetradrachm is
not infrequent; there are also bronze coins, But none in gold are
known. The drachm has the head of the king on the obverse,
diademed or with a regal head-dress, and on the reverse the founder
Arsaces seated, holding a strung bow, the later tetradrachms varying
this uniformity. Every king is styled Arsaces, to which many of the
later sovereigns add their proper names. The inscriptions are
usually long, reaching a climax in such as ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΕ ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΝ
ΜΕΓΑΛΟΥ ΑΡΣΑΚΟΥ ΔΙΚΑΙΟΥ ΕΠΙΦΑΝΟΥΣ ΘΕΟΥ ΕΥΠΑΤΟΡΣ
ΦΙΛΕΛΛΗΝΟΣ of Mithradates III. (57–54 B.C.; see Pl. IV.
fig. 4), where we see the double influence of Persian and Seleucid styles
and the desire to conciliate the Greek cities. Very noticeable are the
coins which bear the portraits of Phraataces (3 B.C.–A.D. 4) and his
mother, the Italian slave Musa, with the title queen (ΘΕΑΣ
ΟΥΡΑΝΙΑΣ ΜΟYΣΗΣ ΒΑΣΙΛΙΣΣΗΣ). The last of the Parthian
coins are those attributed to Artavasdes (c. A.D. 227).
The coinage of Persis, beginning in the second half of the 3rd century B.C., consists of silver tetradrachms and drachms; the Persis. earliest have fine portraits of the kings, but the style rapidly degenerates. The prevailing reverse type is the Persian fire-altar.
The dynasts of Characene, on the lower Tigris, issued coins (silver, bronze and base metal) from the time of the founder, Hyspaosines Characene. (c. 124 B.C.), down to the 2nd century A.D. The obverses of the tetradrachms have portraits of the kings; the usual reverse type is a seated Heracles.
The Persian line of the Sassanians arose about A.D. 220, and wrested the empire from the Parthians in 226–227, under the leadership Sassanians. of Ardashir or Artaxerxes. This dynasty issued a national and thus Oriental coinage in gold and silver. The denominations follow the Roman system, and there are but two coins, equivalent to the aureus or solidus and the denarius. The obverse has the king's bust, usually wearing a very large and elaborate head-dress, varied with each sovereign, and the reverse the sacred tire-altar (see Pl. IV. fig. 3) ordinarily flanked by the king and a priest. The attachment which Ardashir, the founder, bore to Zoroastrianism established this national reverse type, which endured through the four hundred years of the sovereignty of his line to A.D. 652. The inscriptions are Pahlavi.
The Arab coinage forms the most important Oriental group. It has a duration of twelve centuries and a half, and at its widest Caliphates. geographical extension was coined from Morocco to the borders of China. When the Arabs made their great conquests money became a necessity. They first adopted in the East imitations of the current Persian silver pieces of the last Sassanians, but in Syria and Palestine of the Byzantine copper, in Africa of the gold of the same currency. Of these early coins the Sassanian imitations are very curious with Pahlavi inscriptions and shorter ones in Arabic (Cufic). The regular coinage with purely Moslem inscriptions begins with the issue of a silver coin at Basrah, in 40 A.H. (A.D. 660), by the caliph ‘Ali; after subsequent efforts thus to replace the Sassanian currency, the orthodox mintage was finally established, in 76 A.H. (A.D. 695), by Abdalmalik. The names of the denominations and the weight of the gold are plainly indicative of Byzantine influence. There were three coins. The dinār of gold (Pl. IV. fig. 6) took its name from the aureus or denarius aureus, of which the solidus must have been held to be the representative, for the weight of the Arab coin (about 4.3 grammes) is clearly derived from the Byzantine gold piece. The dirhem of silver (see Pl. IV. fig. 7) is in name a revival of the Greek drachm; it weighs at most about 3 grammes. The copper piece is the fels, taking its name from the follis of the Greek empire. Commercially the gold easily exchanged, and the silver soon passed as the double of the Carolingian denier. For long these were the only coins issued, except, and this but rarely, half and quarter dinars. There are properly no types. There was indeed an attempt in the early Byzantino-Arab money to represent the caliph, and in the course of ages we shall observe some deviations from the general practice of Islam, particularly in the coinage of the atābegs and in Mahommedan coinages not of the Arab group, the modern Persian and that of the Moguls of Delhi. The inscriptions are uniformly religious, save in some Tatar coinages and that of the Turks. In general the coins are for the first five centuries of their issue remarkably uniform in fabric and general appearance. They are always flat and generally thin. The whole of both sides of the coins is occupied by inscriptions in the formal Cufic character usually arranged horizontally in the area and in a single or double band around. Towards the fall of the caliphate a new type of coin begins, mainly differing in the greater size of the pieces. There are new multiples of the dinar and ultimately of the dirhem, and the silver pieces frequently have their inscriptions within and around a square, a form also used for gold. The Cufic character becomes highly ornamental, and speedily gives way to the flexuous naskhi of modern writing. The inscriptions are religious, with the addition of the year by the era of the Flight (A.D. 622), the month sometimes being added, and the mint occurs uniformly on silver and copper, but does not appear on the gold until after the fall of the Omayyad dynasty. Subsequently the official name of the caliph occurs. The religious part of the inscriptions is various, the most usual formulae being the profession of the Moslem faith: “There is no deity but God; Mahomet is the apostle of God,” to which the Shi‘ites or followers of ‘Ali in Persia and Africa add “‘Ali is the friend of God.” The Moorish coins give long formulae and religious citations and ejaculations, and they, like the money of the Pathans of Delhi of the Indian class, have occasionally admonitions urging or suggesting the purer use of wealth. As Arab and other dynasties arose from the dismemberment of the caliphate, the names of kings occur, but for centuries they continued to respect the authority of their religious chief by coining in his name, even in the case of the shadowy Abbasids of Egypt, adding their own names even when at war with the caliph, as though they were mere provincial governors. After the fall of the caliphate some new denominations came in, chiefly of heavier weight than the dirhem and dinar, but the influence of the commercial states of Italy made the later Egyptian Mamelukes, the Turks and the later Moors adopt the gold sequin. In more modern times the dollar found its way into the Moslem coinage of the states bordering on the Mediterranean. It can be readily seen that Arab coins have no art in the same sense as those of the Greeks. The beautiful inscriptions and the arabesque devices of the pieces of the close of the middle ages have, however, a distinct artistic merit.
The Omayyad coins owe their only historical value to the evidence which the silver affords of the extent of the empire at different Omayyads. times. The first separation of that empire dates from the overthrow of this dynasty (which had its capital at Omayyads Damascus, A.D. 661–750) by the ‘Abbāsids (A.D. 750, capital Bagdād) speedily followed by the formation of the rival Omayyad caliphate of the West with its capital at Cordova. The Abbāsids. Abbāsid money has the same interest as that which it succeeded, but its information is fuller. Towards the fall of the line (which ended at Bagdād in 1258) it becomes very handsome in the great coins, which are multiples of the dinar (see Pl. IV. fig. 10). The Spanish Omayyads (756–1031) struck silver almost exclusively. Their rise was followed by that of various lesser lines—the Idrisites (788–985, silver) and Aghlabites (800–909, gold chiefly) in western Africa, the Beni Tūlūn (868–905, gold), and, after a short interval, the Ikhshidīds (935–969, gold), both of Turkish origin, in Egypt. Meanwhile a new caliphate arose (909) in western Africa which subdued Egypt (969), the Fātimid of the line of ‘Ali, and for a while the allegiance of the Moslems was divided between three rival lines, the Omayyads of Spain, the Fātimids of Africa, and the Abbāsids of Bagdad. The Fātimids introduced a new type of dīnār, with the inscriptions in concentric circles, and struck little but gold. In the interim the Persians, who had long exercised a growing influence at the court of Bagdād, revived their power in a succession of dynasties which acknowledged the supremacy of the caliphate of Bagdād, but were virtually independent. These were the Tāhirids (820–872), Saffārids (867–903), Sāmānids (874–999), Ziyārids (928–1042), and Buwoyhids or Būyids (932–1055), who mostly struck silver, but the last gold also. As the Persians had supplanted the Arabs, so they were in turn forced to give place to the Turks. The Ghaznevids formed a powerful kingdom in Afghanistan (962–1186, gold and silver), and the Seljuks established an empire (gold), which divided into several kingdoms, occupying the best part of the East (1037-1194). Of these dynasties the Seljuks of Rūm or Asia Minor (1077–1300) first strike a modern type of Arab coinage (silver, Pl. IV. fig. 9).
The Seljūk dominions separated into many small states, the central ruled by atābegs or generals (12th-13th cent.), and the similar Turkoman Urtuḳis (1101–1312). The atābeg money and that of the Turks of the house of Urtuk are mainly large copper pieces bearing on one side a figure borrowed from Greek, Roman, Byzantine and other sources. They form a most remarkable innovation (Pl. IV. fig. 11). In the same age the great but short-lived empire of Khwārizm (Khiva, 1150–1231) arose in the far East. The first caliphate to disappear was that of Spain, which broke up (c. 1031) into small dynasties, some claiming the prerogative of the caliphates. They chiefly struck base silver (billon) coins. The Christian kings gradually overthrew most of these lines. In the meantime various Berber families had gained power in western Africa and the Almoravides and the Almohades crossed the straits and restored the Moslem power in Spain. They struck gold money of fine work, and that of the later Muwaḥḥids is remarkable for its size and thinness. At the fall of the Muwaḥḥids the only powerful kingdom remaining was the Arab house of Granada (Naṣrids), which, supported by the Berbers of Africa, lingered on until the days of Ferdinand and Isabella (1492). The Fātimite dynasty was supplanted by the Kurdish line of the Ayyubites, the family of Saladin, who from 1169 to 1250 ruled Egypt, Syria and Mesopotamia, with a number of vassal states, some governed by princes of their own family, some by the older lines of the atābeg class which they allowed to survive. In Egypt the Ayyubite coinage is of gold, elsewhere of silver and copper. The caliphate of Bagdād, which latterly was almost limited to that town, though its abundant heavy gold coinage at this very time indicates great wealth, was overthrown by the new power of the Mongols (A.D. 1258), who established a group of empires and kingdoms, comprising the whole
