Page:Origin of metallic currency and weight standards.djvu/347

 (purple fish) and tortoise. No doubt tortoise-shell must have been the chief article of export from Tortoise Island, described by Strabo (773), as situated in the Arabian Gulf (Red Sea).

The foregoing considerations make it not at all improbable that the tortoise on the coins of Aegina simply indicates that the old monetary unit of that island was the shell of the sea-tortoise ([Greek: hê thalattia chelône]), which was considerably larger, and therefore more valuable for making bowls, than that of the land or "mountain" tortoise ([Greek: hê oreinê chelône]). There was a well-known headland on the Coast of Peloponnesus called "Tortoise Head" (Chelonates), and this creature must have been a peculiar feature of the shores of Aegina, or it would not have been chosen as the type for her coins, whether it be a religious symbol or not. At all events we know from the story of Sciron the robber, slain by Theseus, that the sea-tortoise was a familiar feature on the shores of the Saronic Gulf, as the hapless travellers who were kicked over the rocks by the caitiff were devoured by a large sea-tortoise which frequented the strand below. This creature's picture is handed down on a well-known vase-painting which commemorates the exploits of Theseus. Finally, it may well be supposed that had not its connection with the invention of the lyre attracted to that instrument the name of "Tortoise" both in Greek and Latin, we should have found the name employed for some sort of vessel, as is the case with the Echinus.

Coin of Boeotia with shield.

Coming now to Central Greece, we find on the coins of all the Boeotian towns (with the exception of Orchomenus in her earliest issues) the well-known device of the Boeotian shield. This has been confidently pronounced to be a sacred emblem, symbolic of a common worship, conjectured to be that of Athena Itonia, whose temple near Coronea was the meeting-place of the