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

2 PERIOD I.
ojSeXio-Koi, in the temple of Hera at Argos, as official
standards of weight. The earliest European coins were
struck, according to the Phidonian standard, in the island
of Aegina ; and the Euboean cities Chalcis and Eretria, as
well as Corinth with her colonies, and Athens, were not
slow to follow the example of Aegina.
From these centres, Asiatic and European, the new invention
spread far and wide, to the coasts of Thrace on the
north, to those of the Cyrenaica on the south, and to Italy
and Sicily in the west. In each district the weight of
the standard coin or stater was carefully adjusted in relation
to the talent there in use for weighing the precious metals,
these talents being different in different localities, but all
or nearly all traceable to a Babylonian origin.
The form of the ingot {flan) of most of the early coins
was bean-shaped or oval, except in Southern Italy, where
the earliest coins of the Achaean cities were flat and circular.
The device (type) consisted usually of the figure
of an animal or of the fore-part of an animal, heads and
figures of gods and men being rare in the early period.
The reverse side of the coin does not at first bear a type,
but only the impress in the form of an intaglio or incuse
square of the upper of the two dies between which the
flan or ingot was fixed. The early coins of certain cities
of Magna Graecia above mentioned are characterised,
however, by having devices on both sides (generally
the same), on the obverse in relief
incuse.
and on the reverse
The coins of the two centuries previous to the Persian
wars exhibit considerable varieties of style and execution.
In common with the other remains of archaic art which
have come down to us, and with which it is instructive to
compare them, they may be divided into two classes, of
which the earlier is characterised by extreme rudeness in
the forms and expressiveness in the actions represented
the later, by a gradual development into more clearly
defined forms with angularity and stiffness. The eye of
the human face is always drawn, even when in profile, as
if seen from the front, the hair is generally represented by
lines of minute dots, the mouth wears a fixed and formal
smile ; but, withal, there is in the best archaic work a
strength and a delicacy of touch which are often wanting
in the fully developed art of a later age.
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