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Rh that can be brought together. Ancient coins throw some light upon the architecture as well as upon the sculpture of the nations by which they were struck. Under the empire, the Roman coins issued at the city very frequently bear representations of important edifices. The Greek imperial coins struck in the provinces present similar types, representing the most famous temples and other structures of their cities, of the form of some of which we should otherwise have been wholly ignorant. The art of gem-engraving among the ancients is perhaps most nearly connected with their coinage. The subjects of coins and gems are so similar and so similarly treated that the authenticity of gems, that most difficult of archaeological questions, receives the greatest aid from the study of coins.

After what has been said it is not necessary to do more than mention how greatly the study of coins tends to illustrate the contemporary literature of the nations which issued them. Not only the historians, but the philosophers and the poets, are constantly illustrated by the money of their times. This was perceived at the revival of letters; and during

the 17th and 18th centuries coins were very frequently engraved in the larger editions of the classics.

The science of numismatics is of comparatively recent origin. The ancients do not seem to have formed collections, although they appear to have occasionally preserved individual specimens for their beauty. Petrarch has the credit of having been the first collector of any note; but it is probable that in his time ancient coins were already

attracting no little notice. The importance of the study of all coins has since been by degrees more and more recognised, and at present no branch of the pursuit is left wholly unexplored.

Besides its bearing upon the history, the religion, the manners, and the arts of the nations which have used money, the science of numismatics has a special modern use in relation to art. Displaying the various styles of art prevalent in different ages, coins supply us with abundant means for promoting the advancement of art among ourselves.

If the study of many schools be at all times of advantage, it is especially so when there is little originality in the world. Its least value is to point out the want of artistic merit and historical commemoration in modern coins, and to suggest that modern medals should be executed after some study of the rules which controlled the great works of former times.

Definitions.—The following are the most necessary numismatic definitions.

1. A coin is a piece of metal of a fixed weight, stamped by authority of government, and employed as a circulating medium.

2. A medal is a piece, having no place in the currency, struck to commemorate some event or person. Medals are frequently comprised with coins in descriptions that apply to both equally; thus, in the subsequent definitions, by the term coins, coins and medals must generally be understood.

3. The coinage of a country is usually divided into the classes of gold, silver and bronze (copper), for which the abbreviations N, 🜇, and Æ are employed in catalogues. In addition to these metals, and to the modifications of them created by the presence of varying amounts of alloy, certain other compounds were frequently used, notably electrum, billon, brass and potin.

4. Electrum ( ), a compound metallic substance, consisting of gold with a considerable alloy of silver. Pliny makes the proportion to have been four parts of gold to one of silver. The material of early coins of Asia Minor struck in the cities of the western coast is the ancient electrum. The amount of silver varies very considerably with time and place. Gold largely alloyed with silver, not struck by the ancient Greeks or their neighbours, should be termed pale gold, as in the case of some of the late Byzantine coins.

5. Billon, a term applied to the base metal of some Roman coins, and also to that of some medieval and modern coins. It contains about one-fifth silver to four-fifths copper. When the base silver coins are replaced by copper washed with silver the term billon becomes inappropriate.

6. Brass, a mixture of copper and zinc. It may be used as an equivalent to the orichalcum of the Romans, a fine kind of brass of which the sestertii and dupondii were struck, but it is commonly applied indiscriminately to the whole of their copper currency under the empire.

7. Potin, an alloy of copper and tin (therefore a variety of bronze) used for some late Gaulish coins.

8. Various other metallic substances have been used in coinage, including iron (in Peloponnesus) and an alloy of copper and nickel employed for some Bactrian coins. The so-called “glass coins” of the Arabs are merely coin-weights.

9. The forms of coins have greatly varied in different countries and at different periods. The usual form in both ancient and modern times has been circular, and generally of no great thickness.

10. Coins are usually measured by millimetres, or by inches and tenths, the greatest dimension being taken, or, when they are square or oval, the greatest dimension in two directions.

11. The weight of a coin is of great importance, both in determining its genuineness and in distinguishing its identity. Metric weights are used by most numismatists except in England, where troy weight is still in general use.

12. The specific gravity of a coin may be of use in determining the metals in its composition.

13. Whatever representations or characters are borne by a coin constitute its type. The subject of each side is also called a type, and, when there is not only a device but an inscription, the latter may be excluded from the term. This last is the general use. No distinct rule has been laid down as to what makes a difference of type, but it may be considered to be an essential difference, however slight.

14. A difference too small to constitute a new type makes a variety.

15. A coin is a duplicate of another when it agrees with it in all particulars but those of exact size and weight. Strictly speaking, ancient coins are rarely, if ever, duplicates, except when struck from the same pair of dies.

16. Struck coins are those on which the designs are produced by dies impressed on the blank piece (or flan) of metal by some form of hammering or pressure; they are distinguished from cast coins made by running metal into a mould.

17. Of the two sides of a coin, that is called the obverse which bears the more important device. In early Greek coins it is the convex side, or the side impressed by the lower die; in Greek and Roman imperial it is the side bearing the head; in medieval and modern that bearing the royal effigy, or the king’s name, or the name of the city; and in Oriental that on which the inscription begins. The other side is called the reverse.

18. The field of a coin is the space unoccupied by the principal devices or inscriptions. Any detached independent device or character is said to be in the field, except when it occupies the exergue.

19. The exergue is that part of the reverse of a coin which is below the main device, and distinctly separated from It; it often bears a secondary inscription. Thus, the well-known inscription CONOB occupies the exergue of the late Roman and early Byzantine gold coins.

20. The edge of a coin is the surface of its thickness.

21. By the inscription or inscriptions of a coin all the letters it bears are intended; an inscription is either principal or secondary.

22. In describing coins the terms right and left mean the right and left of the spectator, not the heraldic and military right and left, or those of the coin.

23. A bust is the representation of the head and neck; it is commonly used of such as show at least the collar-bone, other busts being called heads. A head properly means the representation of a head alone, without any part of the neck, but it is also commonly used