The numismatic chronicle and journal of the Royal Numismatic Society

O NUMISMATIC CHRONICLE.
the scope of his work would allow, but some of the
most essential chronological stand-points, such as, for in-
stance, the date of the reduction of the didrachm standard,
have been hitherto involved in uncertainty. In the
course of repeated visits to Taranto itself and other ancient
sites of Great Greece, I have had the good fortune to
come across several new finds of Tarentine coins, both
alone and in association with those of other cities, the
comparative study of which has supplied
some new data
for fixing the chronological succession of the equestrian
series. The results thus arrived at have been supple-
mented by an examination of the Tarentine series in
the cabinets of Paris, Berlin, Naples, of our National
Museum, and of several other public and private collec-
tions, including the rich Hellenic treasury of Dr. Imhoof-
Blumer, at "Winterthur, to whom, as to many other
numismatists and curators, my sincere thanks are owing.
The copiousness of the material thus collected has facili-
tated morphological studies of the numerous varieties of
these equestrian types, enabling me in many cases to trace
the transformation of the scheme of Taras on his dolphin
through regular gradations of change a form of evidence
which often throws a welcome light on the succession of the
different issues. In several instances, moreover, it has been
possible to bring these didrachm types into direct relation
with the gold coinage of the city, as well as with the
silver coinage of lesser denominations, and these corre-
spondences have also supplied
more than one valuable
clue to the chronology of the "horsemen" themselves.
In particular, as I hope to show, they enable us to assign
a definite date for the reduction of the didrachm stan-
dard.
It has been already noticed by numismatists that the