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

PERIOD ill. 35
PERIOD III.—CIRCA B.C. 400-336.
During the war in Asia Minor between the Spartans
under Agesilaus and the Persians, Cyzicus continued to
strike her electruni staters in large quantities. On this
currency the incuse reverse of archaic times was to the
last retained. Probably about the time of the Peace of
Antalcidas, or shortly afterwards, this famous coinage
began to decline, and was generally superseded by a gold
•currency, of which Lampsacus seems to have been the
principal mint.
Ephesus, Samos, Chios, Cos, and Rhodes now furnish the
larger portion of the silver currency of western Asia Minor,
while in the east the Phoenician cities of Sidon, Tyre,
and Aradus begin about B.C. 400 to strike large silver
•coins, the circulation of which extended along the caravan
routes across the desert as far as the banks of the Euphrates
and the Tigris.
In the north the gold coinage of Panticapseum, the
modern Kertch, is remarkable for its peculiar weight, as
•compared with that of other towns. In Macedon the
gold and silver currency of the Chalcidian League was
predominant until it was finally extinguished by Philip,
when about B.C. 358 he began to work the gold mines of
Philippi, and re-organised the coinage of the Macedonian
empire.
In central Greece the chief currencies were those of
Thebes, Athens, and Corinth. In Peloponnesus the
Messenians and the Arcadians, under the protection of
Epaminondas, began to strike money, though not in large
quantities.
In Italy the rich gold and silver coinage of Tarentum
was only rivalled by the silver of Neapolis and Metapontum.
In Sicily, down to about B.C. 345, when the Dionysian
•dynasty was finally expelled, the splendid coinage of
Syracuse had only to compete with that of the Carthaginian
dominions. After Sicily was freed from her tyrants
by Timoleon of Corinth, the Pegasus staters supersede the
larger coins of the age of the Dionysii.
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