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A Lydian Text on an Electrum Coin

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

W. H. Buckler
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Extract

By the kindness of the owner, Mr. Arthur Bernard Cook, an inscribed electrum coin of the well-known ‘lion’ type is depicted in Fig. 1; its inscription, which exists only in part on the examples in other cabinets, appears to be complete. In the list below, the Keeper of the Department of Coins in the British Museum describes the specimens known in various sizes—Mr. Cook's being No. 5—and shows that the series has been attributed either to Lydia or to an Ionian city. The inscription seems to have been originally the same on all these specimens; it was, however, omitted from the collection of texts in Lydian script (Sardis, VI. ii. p. vii, note 1), because the uncertainty of the reading on the coins then available made its Lydian character doubtful and precluded the transcription of a trustworthy copy. Had Mr. Cook's coin been known to me in 1924, I should have included it in that small corpus as ‘No. 52.’

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 46 , Issue 1 , 1926 , pp. 36 - 41
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1926

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References

1 I owe many thanks to Mr. Hill, not merely for this contribution, but for much assistance and advice.

2 Num. Chron. 1890, p. 202 f.; B.M.C. Lydia, p. 3.

3 The qualification ‘practically’ refers to the lack of certainty in any opinion based on a single example of so small a text.

4 The topmost prong of the three, clearly seen in other examples, is bruised or flattened on Mr. Cook's.

5 Sardis, VI. ii. p. 10, note on a, 1; Sayce, , Am. J. Philol. 46, 1925, p. 30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 One and a half letters overlapping the 1. lion's upper jaw are matched by one and a half letters overlapping his lower jaw; the nostril of the r. lion touches the second letter (Δ), while his chin almost touches the fifth letter

7 Cf. the nominatives eś, ‘this,’ kaveś, ‘priest’ (cf. Sayce, loc. cit., p. 40), Maneś, Timleś; and on these names see Sardis, VI. ii. No. 50, and p. 8, note on 1. 2.

8 Head, , Brit. Mus. Excav. at Ephesus, pp. 85, 91Google Scholar; Kretschmer, , Einleitung, p. 334.Google Scholar

9 See below, note 16. The chief reasons for regarding valveś as a personal, i.e. royal, name appear to be (a) the analogy of the earliest inscribed electrum coin of Ionia, which bears the name of one Phanes (Gardner, P., Hist. of Ancient Coinage, p. 76Google Scholar, Pl. I. 2); (b) the obvious appropriateness of the lion-heads in connexion with such a Lydian name.

10 As reported to me by Dr. Josef Keil in a letter; Prof. Kretschmer mentioned valveś = Ἄλης as a philological possibility, but is not responsible for the suggestion here offered as to why that name was used.

11 Because the electrum coinage of Lydia was displaced by the issuing of pure gold staters, possibly by Croesus and certainly before the disappearance of the Lydian kings; cf. the description by Shear of the thirty gold staters found at Sardis in 1922: The Numismatist, xxxv., 1922, pp. 349–352, and The Bankers' Magazine, 1922, pp. 1002–1009.

12 Head, B. V. takes the lion to have been the ‘παράσημον or arms of the royal family of Lydia’; Brit. Mus. Excav. at Ephesus, p. 91.Google Scholar

13 I recall this as having been the impression left on my mind by two visits to this pretty valley, in 1907 and 1914; we rode down it as far as the sea and visited the castro of Notion.

14 B.C.H. xxxix., 1915, p. 34; a footnote gives the modern bibliography relative to Colophon, Claros and Notion; since then have appeared valuable studies by Picard, , Éphèse et Claros (1922)Google Scholar, with description of the topography on pp. 8–9, and the account of Notion by Demangel, and Laumonier, , B.C.H., xlvii., 1923, p. 355 f.Google Scholar

15 This is noticed by Radet, , La Lydie et le monde grec, p. 171Google Scholar: ‘On ne cite, en Ionie, qu'une ville dont il se soit emparé, Colophon.’ The strength of the Persian influence at Colophon (see Gardner, P., Hist. of Ancient Coinage, pp. 259–260Google Scholar) may have been due to the thoroughness of this Lydian conquest, to which the Persians succeeded. In any case there must have been at Colophon, as Professor Bilabel points out, some Lydian influence of special strength which outlived the downfall of Lydian rule; otherwise one can hardly explain the survival down to the second century A.D. of Colophonian families tracing their descent from Ardys, king of Lydia; Philologus, Supplbd. xiv. 1921, pp. 209–210, Picard, op. cit., pp. 209–212, 238.

16 Cf. Picard, , Éphèse et Claros, pp. 597–601.Google Scholar Perhaps it will be suggested that if valveś can be the name of a river, this river may well in our case have been the Halys. Such an identification seems to me questionable, (a) because we know nothing as to Halys ever having been spelt Hales, or as to any connexion between the names and (cf. Picard, op. cit., pp. 65, 555); (b) because names ending in -us are peculiarly Lydian (e.g. Artimus, Lamentrus), and in a text such as ours it is not probable that the name of the great river Halys would have been spelt without that very ending which was so common in Lydia.