- unit, but silver, although at first on this standard, immediately
changes to the Rhodian of 240 grs. Evidently then the fixed element is the gold, the fluctuating the silver. The coinage of Rhodes likewise exemplifies the doctrine already indicated, that the employment of religious and mythological symbols seems to mark not the earlier but rather the later stages of Greek coining. Thus Camirus employed the fig-leaf, Ialysus half a winged boar, and Lindus the lions head with open jaws, but after 408 Helios the Sun-god, from whom all Rhodians alike claimed descent, and to whom the island was sacred[1], becomes the regular type, with the type parlant of the Rose (Rhodon) on the reverse.
Next let us take the money of Macedonia, where there was an abundant coinage of both gold and silver. The Pelasgian tribe of Bisaltae, and the Thracian Edonians and Odomanti, had during the half century which preceded the Persian wars all struck silver on the so-called Phoenician standard. It is commonly supposed that they obtained this standard from the important town of Abdera, which at the same period employed a like standard, and it is suggested that Abdera had borrowed it from her mother Teos, who had borrowed it from Miletus and the other great towns of the Ionian seaboard, among which it was especially employed for electrum. But unfortunately, whilst the types of Teos and Abdera are the same (a seated Griffin), the staters of Teos weigh only 186 grs., which is the Aeginetic, not the Phoenician (220 grs.) standard. Shortly after the overthrow of the Persian host Alexander I. of Macedon acquired the land of the Bisaltae along with the rich silver mines, which were said to produce for him a talent daily, and he adopted both the types and standard of the Bisaltian silver coinage, only substituting his own name for that of the Bisaltae. During the century which elapsed between Alexander I. and the accession of the famous Philip II. the coinage of Macedon and that of Abdera followed the same course in each case; the Phoenician standard of 230 grs. gave way to the so-called Babylonian or Persian of about 170 grs. Again, it has been suggested that Abdera influenced the neighbouring communities
- ↑ Pindar, Olymp. VII. 58 sq.
