BOOKS.
HUMPHREYS'S ANCIENT COINS.* THE first book that treated of " coins " in a distinct and separate form was Bude's work on the Roman As or As, which was originally published in 1516. Three centuries later, numismatic works had so multiplied that a mere list of them formed a goodly volume. The Bibliotheca Nummaria, published by Lipsius in 1801, consists of 448 close pages exclusive of an appendix, and comprises under the letter A alone one hundred and sixty works. Among the writers who devoted themselves to the task of il- lustrating ancient coins, and pointing to the facts that the coins illus- trated, are some of the greatest names in learning. The origin of numis- matic studies, indeed, may be traced to no less a person than Petrarch ; who first formed a collection, with some perception of the true use of coins. His example was followed by Alphonso King of Aragon and Naples, as well as by the Medici, and various crowned heads. The fashion thence descended through princes and nobles to private indi- viduals, till a mere catalogue of collections would probably form a list as long as that of the works which have been written upon them : for it is only by means of such collections that the majority of the books on the subject could have been written. These books are of infinite variety. Some illustrate particular coins, in their history, their manufacture, their metallic composition, weight, value, and depreciation; for it seems the destiny of coinages never to be in- creased in real value. Others treat of the different kinds of coins, either national or metallic—as gold, silver, copper—at the same time that they point out their uses. Some authors illustrate this use—as Vaillant in his works on the dynasties of the Selericidte, the Arsacidte, and the Ptolomies. Other writers have made the Roman Emperors their theme, and not only exhibit the acts from the coins, but the portraits of the ac- tors. Visconti, in his Iconographie Grecque and Iconographic Ro- maine, has illustrated ancient portraiture in part from ancient coins. Perhaps a work like Lodge's Biography, in which the text and the por- trait should form an equally conspicuous place, has yet to be written from ancient coins; though such a subject popularly treated would be- come a standard work.
The use of coins is not limited, however, to the testimony they bear as to the character and progress of art, the data they furnish as to the respective values of the precious metals in relation to each other, or to commodities, or the features they preserve of celebrated men and women, and frequently of celebrated monuments. Read with a learned eye, they throw a light on many facts of history, which without them would be obscure or even unknown, and often tell a continuous tale of them- selves. " If all our records were lost," says Gibbon, " medals, in- scriptions, and other monuments, would be sufficient to record the travels of Hadrian."
"Geography as well as history," writes Mr. Noel Humphreys "are both indebted to the fortunate preservation of coins for the possession of many facts connected with the names and situation of cities which would otherwise have passed into ob- livion. Many coins might be cited bearing the name of a city, accompanied by that of a river or a mountain, which determines not only the existence of the place, which might have been doubted, disputed, or forgotten, but likewise its situation, thus distinguishing it from other places of the same name: for instance, some of the coins of Ephesus have the word, EcDEXEC/N, (in the genitive case,) of the Ephe- sians, accompanied by the personification of a river, beneath which is the word KAL2TP02, which shows that Ephesus was on the banks of the Custer. Another instance is that of the ancient Italic city of Hatria or Hadria, now known only by its coins, which yet gave its name to the Adriatic Sea, on the shores of which it was situated. Hundreds of other similar instances might be cited; for it has been stated that upwards of two thousand names of places, provinces, and princes, exist upon ancient coins, many of them having no other record; and many have been discovered since that calculation was made, every day bringing
with it still fresh discoveries. •
"In important details relative to different stages of civilization, coins have proved of the utmost interest. The vast numbers of coins existing of some comparatively barren but well-situated island, denote its commercial importance, and the activity of its exchanges; while the greater scarcity of the coins of more luxuriant districts denote that the system of exchanges was lees active, while the native richness of the soil which rendered the importation of other produce less necessary is represented on such coins by the wheat-ear, the bunch of grapes, and other symbols of Ceres and Bacchus. Seaport cities. generally adopted some marine symbol either for the principal or subordinate devices of their coins. "Treaties of alliance may frequently be traced- on Greek coins; as, for instance, when the coins of one city are courdermarked by the emblem of another, an alliance, or at all events a convention that the coins of the one are by common agreement allowed to pass as current money among the people of the other is denoted; a custom which became so general that the mark of the allied city was in some cases at once engraved in the original die, in imitation of a subsequent
stamp. • •
"Some interesting particularities relative to the early commercial importance of Marseilles have just been elicited by the discovery of some coins. Up to the time alluded to, no coins were known of Marseilles (the ancient Massilia) earlier than about the period of Alexander the Great; which had led to the supposition that its commercial importance could not have been extensive before that compara- tively late epoch: but the Marquis de Lagoy, in a recent article in the Revue Ntunismatique,' describes some small silver coins with the well-known hollow back of the earliest periods, recently discovered in some excavations near the port; which removes the difficulty, and proves the active commerce of the place (of which the existence of coin-money is an evidence) to have been of the high antiquity which its situation and early colonization rendered probable."
The object of Mr. Humplareys's Ancient Coins and Medals is to give a summary or coup d'ceil of the entire subject, so as to furnish a complete introduction to the study, at the same time that he presents the student with fac-simile specimens of some of the most remarkable coins in actual re- lief, and in the respective metals of the originals; thus starting the tyro with a substitute for a collection. In an introduction Mr. Humphreys gives a precis of the chief writers on coins, and a brief notice of the chief • Ancient Coins and Medals; an Historkal Sketch of the Origin and Progress of Coining Money in Greece and her Colonies ; Its Progress with the Extension of the Roman Empire, and its Decline with the Fall of that Power. By Henry Noel Ilum- Phraya, Author of "The Coins of England." Illustrated by numerous Fac-simile Ex- amples in actual relief, and in the metals of the respective coins. Published by Grant and Griffith.
collections. A chapter treats on the circulating medium, or rather the sub- stitute for barter, that preceded the use of coined money. A discussion as to the people who first struck money follows ; and is settled in favour of the Lydians, on the authority of Herodotus and the probabilities of the case. The earliest coinage is then discussed and described. After that, the reader is introduced to its development in Greece and her colonies, as well as in the dynasties of Greek origin that were established on the death of Alexander. The Roman coinage is exhibited in like manner, from its obscure origin under the Kings, till its decay with the name and empire of Rome, and its subsidence into Byzantine art. Notices of many subor- dinate branches of the subject are intermingled with the leading classifi- cations, whose very names were long to tell; but Carthage, Judtea, Bac- trio, will indicate the natnre of these lesser chapters. There are also notices of the various metals, weights, values, &c., both of Greek and Roman coins, with some general hints and directions to the collector. These might have been fuller, and, in the choice of hooks, have taken a catalogue form with advantage.
A great feature of the book is its illustrations ; which, by means of a new invention, exhibits metallic impressions of the coin itself instead of an engraving.
"This positive fan-simile," says the author in his preface, "is very essential in a work on the coins of classical antiquity; as no modern engraving or other imitation of some of the finest Greek coins of the best periods can adequately convey an idea of their excessive beauty, or the sculptural grandeur of their general treatment. But I have not confined my illustrations in relief exclusively to coins of the finest periods; I have also deemed it advantageous to exhibit a few of the rude early coins, by the same process, in order to convey a more accurate idea than could have been afforded by means of engravings, of the nature of the progress which took place from the rude beginnings of the primitive artists to the exquisite productions of later periods."
The fac-similes are sunk in stout board, which is bound up with the text like a plate. These plates are ten in number ; and every plate con- tains from ten to a dozen specimens, sometimes of both faces of the coin, sometimes only of the obverse or reverse as the occasion requires : each plate is accompanied by a page of description. By this means, the reader has really a coup d'aeil of the history of coinage. The gold stater of Miletus in Lydia, with its strange-looking lion's head and its rude punch mark on the reverse, is a specimen " of one of the first coins ever struck," according to received opinions, and may date from 800 to 700 B.C. Yet the drachma of Egina, possibly the earliest silver coin known, is still ruder. A sort of resemblance to a lion's head may be traced on the golden stater ; but one requires to be assured that the drachma of some century later is really designed for a tortoise. An early silver coin of Thasus has the first attempt at a head, supposed to be of Pan or Bacchus ; and the unskilled observer will have to suppose that it is a head at all. On the same plate is the earliest coin known with a monarch's name, Alexander the First of Macedon; which fixes the date with more certainty, as lie reigned from about 500 to 454 B. c. The obverse is a man leading a horse ; and it not only has distinct unmistakeable forms, but reaches the idea of action, especially in the steed. Art, however, was still immature. The reverse can rise no higher than the plumb, divided into four squares, with a border containing the monarch's name.
These annotations are furnished by the first plate. The second exhibits an advancing stage of art, rising to the true coin ; that is, the punch- mark is supersede,' by a perfect reverse, though the improvement in art is rather in mechanics than design. The succeeding plates show the rapid progress both in design and execution, till at last the decline of art is reached with the decline of the empire. The massy breadth of concep- tion, and the spirited action even in groups on a small coin of the best period, are exchanged for an imbecility in design which falls below that of the Lydian coinage, and a feebleness even in the mechanical parts.
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