A guide to the principal gold and silver coins of the ancients ...

B.C. 190-100. 93
130-125. Rev. Zeus, seated. Wt. 253-6 grs. (28) Cleopatra,
B.C. 125. Rev. Two cornucopiae. Wt. 257 grs.
The series of the Seleucid kings is here continued from
V. A. 12-19.
Plate 52. 29. Tyre. M. Obv. Head of Herakles. Rev. T\POY lEPAZ
KAI AZYAOY. Eagle, on rudder. Year 2 = B.C. 124. Wt.
214 grs.
In B.C. 126, Tyre, hitherto subject to the Syrian kings,
commences a new era of autonomy. The coins dated
according to this era continue in an unbroken series
down to the reign of Nero.
30. Aradus. M. Obv. Head of city, turreted. Rev. APAAIflN.
Nike, holding aplustre. Date 127 = B.C. 133. The whole in laurelwreath.
Wt. 230 grs.
The era according to which the coins of Aradus are
dated begins in B.C. 259, under Antiochus II. The issue
of tetradrachms like the above did not, however, commence
till B.C. 136, and comes to an end in less than a century.
31. Jerusalem. M. Shekel. Simon Maccabaeus (?) b.c. 143-
135. Obv. ^5{•^S^'"' hp^' Shekel of Israel. A cup, or chalice.
Above the letters, I!;* (for y'D^^, shenath arba), year 4. Rev.
ntJ'l^pn D v^'n% Jerushalaim hak-kedoshah, " Jerusalem the
holy," A triple lily. Wt. 220 grs.
,
Antiochus VII. (Sidetes), b.c 138-129, conferred upon
Simon Maccabaeus, the brother of Judas and high-priest
and prince of the Jews, the right of coining money. Some
numismatists attribute these shekels to the time of Ezra,
circa B.C. 458-432 (Ezra vii. 18 ; Neh. v. 15), to whom
a special commission was granted by Artaxerxes Longimanus.
It must be stated, however, that both style and
palaeography offer serious objections to this attribution.
There are, moreover, no traces of the incuse square almost
universal in the fifth century, and the honorific title,
nK^np, " the holy," added to the name of the city, is
almost proof conclusive that the coin belongs or is
subsequent to the period when Sidon, Tyre, and Byblus
adopted the same title, b.c. 176-120. Neither does the
word n:c^ occur on any Phoenician coins before the year
B.C. 238, when Aradus and Marathus begin to use it.
The chalice on these coins is usually called the pot of
manna : a similar one is represented on the triumphal