Page:History of Art in Persia.djvu/486

 462 History of Art in Antiquity. Hauls of them, or as numismatists call them "treasures," are often discovered in those countries, where they have lain in their hiding-places for centuries. The first darics were probably issued about 516 B.C, when Darius Hystaspes, being rid of his rivals, turned his attention to the administration of his vast empire. The fabrication could not but increase with his successors when Persia became more intimately mixed up with the affairs of the West, and it was not interrupted, at least for a time, by the disruption of the empire founded by Gyrus. Alexander and his successors appear to have continued to issue coinage on the old system, until their own money was sufficiently known to effectually replace that of their predecessors, both in the interior of the empire and beyond its frontiers,* The fabrication of Persian coinage lasted, tlierefore, at least two hundred years, and was carried on under the rule of ten kings ; but the absence of any inscription on the darics and the sigli precludes the possibility of their being classified according to the reigns in which they must have been issued.' The question has been asked whether the classification of the coins might not be reached through another channel, at least for some of these princes ; to this end the types of Xerxes and Darius have been compared, and a difference, real or supposed, detected between them. In order to do this, however, with any chance of success, we should in the first place possess authentic portraits of these two sovereigns, but nothing of the kind exists at Persepolis or anywhere else. Even admitting for the sake of argument that sculpture, inasmuch as it better preserved, or less prone to seek the general features alone of the royal model, had transmitted to us the portraits under notice, it would be very difficult to distinguish them on the coins. Take any given number of darics and sigli and you will find that they all exhibit the archer on the obverse, and an incuse square on the reverse (Fig. 227). The only which spedmens are known— was not iuiied befora Alexander (Barclay V. Heao^ Hi^ NwKonmt pb 700). Numerous specimens of this coin, says M. Barclay Head, have recently been discovered, and nearly all the pieces in the firitish Museum have come to us from the Panjab {loc. cit.). — Trs. consideration with such minute care, b not shared by ML Lbnormant {Tkt Cnnage o/LytUa and Ptrsiat p. 38). Digitized by Google
 * There arc reasons for believing that the double daric or gold tetradrachm — of
 * This opinion of M. BaicUqr Head, who has studied the specimens under