Page:History of Art in Persia.djvu/489

Medal Engraving. 465 Ftc. 233.— DonMe tiglos. Silver. Bak( LAY Hbao, Cu'mjiief Plate II. Fiy. 4. a city wall with five crenelated towers, and in front a war-ship. Below, at the base, two lions back to -back (Fig. 232). The battlemented city, with the galley riding at anchor, is seen on another coin (Fig. 233) ; but the ob- verse exhibits the combat of the king and the lion, a group familiar to us from the bas-reliefs and engraved stones. The same device adorns the reverse of a coin struck at Tarsus, as we learn from the bilingual inscrip- tion in Greek and Aramaic. The king is figured upright; in one hand he grasps the spear, and in the other an object resembling the emx oHsaia, In the field is a lotus flower (Fig. 234). In other satrapal and dynastic specimens the consecrated coin- type of the darics reappears, with ad- ditions that somewhat modify their character. Thus, we possess several exemplars, where the legend at the side of the kneeling archer reads: nveAfOPHZ ^Fig. 235} ; with an incuse square on the reverse. The name which is written in the Ionic character is unknown, but is doubtless that of some t>'rant who governed one of the cities in the satrapy of Sardes for the Great King in the fifth century b.c. Others again, though exhibiting the same coin type, have no inscription on the face, whilst on the reverse, in the place of the guadraium incusum^ ap- pears the figure of a horseman in full gallop — perhaps a Persian — with brandishing spear (Fig. 236). This coin is later than the preceding one, and the Aramaic letter and dolphin upon the ex- ergue recall Syria and Cilicia. The device of another is a trotting horseman, with traces of an Aramaic legend upon the exeigue — perhaps the name of Tarsus (Fig. 237); behind the archer is the crux ansata. Again, a silver coin of unknown origin has the bust of the archer (Fig. 238), with bow in one hand and a bunch of arrows in a H Fig. 234.— Silver coin. Tlursas. Fig. 235. — ^Silver tetrulrachm. Barclay Head, Cmtagt^ Phie III. Fig. i8. Digitized by Google