Page:Origin of metallic currency and weight standards.djvu/313

 are other coins, often attributed to Miletus, which may be assigned to Lydia; some with a recumbent lion on the obverse, and a reverse exhibiting the fox, stag's head, and X of the coin already described. To these may be added a series of coins bearing a lion's head with open mouth, and with what is commonly regarded as a star above it, but which is more probably part of the lion's hair, and on the reverse incuse sinkings, in some cases containing an ornamental star. These coins have now with great probability been assigned by the eminent numismatist, Mr J. P. Six, to the Lydian king, Alyattes, the father of Croesus.

When Croesus ascended the throne in 568, one of his earliest acts seems to have been an attempt to propitiate the Greeks both of Asia and Hellas proper by sending offerings of equal value to the two most famous shrines of Apollo, Delphi and Branchidae. In the course of some fourteen years he reduced under the sway of Lydia all the regions that lay between the river Halys and the sea. "It seems probable (says Mr Head) that the introduction of a double currency of pure gold and silver, in place of the primitive electrum, may have been due to the commercial genius of Croesus." If this be so, the monarch seems to have acted with thrift in his offerings, for according to Herodotus his dedications at Delphi were all of white gold, i.e. electrum. Perhaps then he got no more than he deserved when, induced by the declaration of the Delphic prophetess that he would destroy a mighty kingdom, he made war upon Cyrus with disastrous issue. There however can be no doubt that Croesus made some important monetary change, for in after years there still remained a clear tradition of Croesus' stater ([Greek: Kroiseios statêr]), just as the famous gold stater of Philip of Macedon was known as the Philippean or Philippus. In his monetary reform Croesus seems to have had regard to the weights of the two old electrum staters, each of: ix. 84 sq., [Greek: isôs de onomatôn karalogô prosêkousin hoi Kroiseioi statêres kai Philippeioi, kai Dareikoi, kai to Berenikeion nomisma kai Alexandreion, kai Ptolemaikon kai Dêmareteion, k.t.l.]]