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Early Seleucid Portraits

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

George Macdonald
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Extract

In a recent number of the Journal I had occasion to indicate some of the difficulties surrounding the identification of the royal portraits that occur on silver coins accompanied by the simple inscription ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΑΝΤΙοχοΥ The object of the article in question was to advocate a change of tactics in dealing with the problem,—to urge the desirability of concentrating attention on well-defined groups which should be subjected to a close and comprehensive scrutiny. As an illustration of the line of treatment proposed, there was selected for detailed examination the set of coins composed of tetradrachms on which the diadem worn by the king is furnished with wings. While certain of the inferences tentatively suggested on the strength of this examination have not been universally accepted, the more positive and important of the conclusions reached remain uncontroverted.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 27 , November 1907 , pp. 145 - 159
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1907

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References

1 J.H.S. xxiii. pp. 92 ff.

2 Discussion has chiefly centred round the portrait' of Hierax; see Wace, A. J. B. in J.H.S. xxv. pp. 101 ff.Google Scholar, and von Fritze, H. in Berl. Phil. Wochenschr. 1906, No. 27 (p. 731)Google Scholar.

3 See Bunbury, , Num. Chron. 1883, p. 78 Google Scholar.

4 Monnaies grecques, p. 426. Cf. Bunbury, , Num. Chron. 1883, p. 78 Google Scholar, footnote.

5 Gardner, Seleucid Kings of Syria, pp. xv. f; Bunbury, l.c. pp. 77 ff.; Babelon, Rois de Syrie, pp. lx. ff.; Six, , Num. Chron. 1898, pp. 233 Google Scholar f., etc.

6 See J.H.S. xxiii. p. 116.

7 For convenience of reference the coins in the particular group under examination are numbered consecutively, irrespective of the king whose portrait they may bear. All of them are Euboic-Attic tetradrachms. Where different specimens are catalogued under the same number, it is to be understood that they are from the same dies on both sides. Where the mathematical sign of equality is employed, it means not merely that the specimens thus connected are from the same dies, but that they are identical.

8 The use of the word ‘beneath’ in a description implies that there is no exergual line.

9 Müller, Nos. 943 ff.

10 Coin Types, pp. 123 ff.

11 Num. Chron. 1892, p. 17.

12 Rev. Num. 1892, p. 116, No. 12, Pl. iv. 12.

13 Monnaies grecques, p. 272.

14 Second Portion, Lot 131 (Plate II.).

15 See J.H.S. xxiii. p. 101.

16 J.H.S. xxiii. p. 115—where, by the way, there is an obvious misprint of ‘second’ for ‘third.’

17 In 1887 Head remarked that between 500 and 190 B.C. the city ‘does not seem to have struck any money whatever.’ (Hist. Num. p. 479.)

18 Num. Chron. 1883, p. 77.

19 See Svuronos, Numismatique de la Crète ancienne, Atlas, passim.

20 See supra, p. 147.

21 J.H.S. xxiii. pp. 99 f. and p. 103.

22 Here (and in several other cases) my description differs in some details from that already published. All such corrections and additions have been most carefully verified.

23 The precise details of this monogram are a little doubtful. They are quite clear on No. 9.

24 The obverses of Nos. 4 and 5 (Plate XIII., 9 and 10) are almost certainly from the same hand; and so with Nos. 6 and 7 (Plate XIII., 11 and 12).

25 Its absence from Nos. 5 and 7 may be only apparent. In both cases a considerable part of the field is off the flan.

26 When Leake secured his electrotype, this coin was in the Borrell Collection. I have been unable to ascertain its present whereabouts.

27 Müller, No. 933, ff.

28 See Wroth, B.M.C. Troas, Aeolis, and Lesbos, p. lvi. Cf. supra, p. 147.

29 See infra, pp. 156 f.

30 Num. Chron. 1898, p. 233. His view was that the whole of the Heracles tetradrachms were struck in the Sardian mint, but that they also bore the symbols of some of the cities in which they were intended to circulate, such as Cyme and Phocaea.

31 See B.M.C., Lycia, etc., p. 69, No. 2Google Scholar; Imhoof-Blumer, , Z. f. N. xx. p. 282 Google Scholar, where the Löbbecke coin is figured (Pl. x. 21). There is another—according to Imhoof, a slightly earlier —group with the same types, but without the spear-head; two specimens described in Z. f. N. iii. pp. 321 f., weigh 1·85 and 1·80 grammes respectively; cp. B.M.C. ibid. No. 1.

32 See supra, p. 148.

33 See J.H.S. xxiii. pp. 99 f.

34 J.H.S. xxiii. Plate I., 3 and 5.

35 These monograms are only partially visible. But they can easily be completed from the two pieces that follow.

36 Imhoof described the symbol, which is obscure, as ‘un buste de cerf.’

37 Op. cit. p. xv.

38 Num. Chron. 1883, p. 22 and p. 78.

39 Denkmaeler der alten Kunst, i. No. 236.

40 Les rois de Syrie, p. lxi.; and Num. Chron. 1898, p. 233.

41 Cf. Coin Types, pp. 123 ff.

42 Müller, Nos. 983 and 989. Others, also of Phocaea, show the forepart or the head of a griffin.

43 Although only Cyme is definitely known to have minted with the head of Antiochus I., it is quite likely that the other two cities did the same.

44 Rois de Syrie, p. lxi.

45 Phylarchos, , apud Athen. x. 438 Google Scholar d. (F.H.G. i. p. 336). Cf. Aelian, . Var. Hist. ii. 1 Google Scholar.

46 Apud Athen. vii. 289 f. ((F.H.G. iv. 488).

47 See Waddington, , Rev. Num. 1863, 223 ff.Google Scholar, and (for the most recent discussion of the subject) Regling, in Z.f.N. xxv. pp. 207 ffGoogle Scholar.

48 I am indebted to Mr. E. L. Bevan for directing my attention to this passage.

49 S.v. ‘Attalos’ in Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encycl. iii. 2162.

50 Gesch. der Griech. und Maked. Staaten, ii. p. 85, footnote 5.

51 Griech. Gesch. iii. (i) p. 614, footnote 2.

52 B.C.H. v. p.283.