Numismata hellenica: a catalogue of Greek coins; with notes, a map ...

PREFACE. vn
object has been to make these monuments of ancient Greece as conducive as possible to
the illustration of its geography, art, mythology, and history. With this view, it
embraces, as far as I have found practicable, the productions of all the countries over
which the monetary art of Greece extended, and of every age, from the earliest extant
specimens, to the reign of Gallienus, a space of 800 years. A design so extensive in its
aim, could never have been attempted without the aid of Electrotype, which enables the
collector, when aided by the liberality of the guardians of royal or national museums, or
by the kindness of private individuals, to obtain perfect copies of the rarest specimens,
and to render them as useful to art and literature as the originals themselves.
In the course of this undertaking, I have constantly derived every possible assistance
from Mr. Thomas Burgon, of the British Museum, whose unrivalled knowledge and
experience in Greek Numismatics, will, it is hoped, be employed in reducing into
order the treasures of our medal-room, for these can never be made adequately
useful to art and literature without arrangement and a catalogue ; the latter being
the more necessary, as coins are beyond all comparison the most numerous of Greek
monuments. Augmented as our National Collection has been by the bequest of
Mr. Payne Knight, by the purchase of the Burgon Collection, and by similar acquisitions
on the dispersion of the Devonshire, Thomas, and Pembroke cabinets, it now rivals most
of those on the Continent. With the addition of the Hunterian at Glasgow, which the
Trustees of the British Museum have now, at the end of eighty or ninety years, once
more the opportunity of acquiring, with the assistance of Government,
richest in Europe.
it would be the
W. M. L.