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

86
Metal
JE
M
M
M
M
Size
4
3i
4
Weight
ASIATIC GREECE.
Headof Apollo tor.
Another similar.
R. MYPI. Dicta, lyre.
MYPeiNA. Turreted female bust (Myrhina) to I. R. MYPeiNAinN. Fortune
standing to l.
MYRLEIA BithynijE.
Note.— Myrleia was said to have been a colony of Colophon, named from its leader Myrlua.
Having been talcen by Philip, son of Demetrius, of Macedonia, it was given by him to Prusias, King
of Bithynia, who changed the name to Apameia, in honour of his wife, who was nearly related to
Pliilip (Strabo, p. SCI ; Stephan. in v.). Eckhel describes coins of this town with the head of Apollo
on the obverse ; reverse, lyre, with the legend AIIAMEQN MYPAEANQN, and the dates 235, 237
of the Pontic rera. The coin with the former date has EOI TAIOY OYIBIOY IIANSA. This is
twenty-three years later than the latest date on the coins of Nicomedes III.
Veiled female head to r. R. MYPAEA. Tetrachord lyre ; below, a monogram.
Note.—The lyre is the commonest type also on coins of Colophon.
NACOLEIA Phrygiffi.
Traj'anus.
AYT. NEP. TPAIANOC KAICAP CE. TEP. AAKI. Head of Trajan to r. R. NA-
KOAeQN eni AKYAAIOY HPOKAOY. Female figure, representing the city?
seated to I. ; on head, modius or tutulus ; in right hand, patera ; in left hand,
hasta.
Caracalla.
AYT. K. M. AYPHAI. ANTiiNGINOC. Head of Caracalla to r. R. NAKOAGflN. The
emperor on a horse, without movement, to l. ; his right hand extended (as
pacificator).
Note—At Seid-cl-Ghazi, the late Mr. J. R. Steuart saw more than one ancient marble inscribed
with the name of the people of Nacoleia, as he informed me at Naples, and has confirmed in his
" Ancient Monuments of Lydia and Phrygia," page 14, though the inscriptions have never been published.
This position of Nacoleia is important, as it verifies that of Eski-Sheh^r as Doryleeum, while
it corrects the line from Doryleeum to Apameia, and the direction of the line from Nacoleia to Eu-
meneia (Ishekli). At about twelve miles, therefore, to the south-south-west of Nacoleia, and
twenty-five to the south-east of Cotyaeum, was situated that remarkable valley concealed in the midst
of a forest of pines, and rugged with high protruding rocks, which one or more of the Phrygian
kings chose for their place of sepulture, as we learn from inscriptions on a perpendicular escarpment
of one of the rocks, which I there copied and afterwards published (ride Asia Minor, plate facing
p. 21). The valley of Doganlu, as it is now called, is not more remarkable for its natural peculiari-
ties and its ancient monuments, than for its position very nearly in the centre of the Gordian kingdom,
about midway between the northern capital Gordium and the southern Ce\cense, as well as
between the eastern and western limits of Phrygia. To the Phrygian epigraphs which I copied,
Mr. Steuart added those on another monumental rock, apparently royal, and observed some other
monuments of minor note, one of which was purely Greek. Although the Phrygian inscriptions of
Doganlu are the only known documents in that language, they are sufficient to show that, about the
eighth century B.C., it had some Greek forms and even words, and that it was written in characters
borrowed from the Greeks of the western coast, where those letters had been introduced long before
by the Phoenicians. The forms of the Phrygian letters not only prove this historical fact, but, compared
with the Lycian, they show that the Greek alphabet was applied to the Lycian at a much later
time. Mr. Mure, in adverting to these Phrygian inscriptions in his work on " the Language and
Literature of Greece" (p. 63), speaks of them as " first observed by Leake, and recently transcribed
and published by Steuart," as if Steuart alone had copied any of them—an unfair representation of
the fact, but which would not have been worth noticing, had it not appeared in a work which is
secure of a lasting reputation, and which opportunely overthrows one of the most offensive of those
Gei-man theories which, however armed with erudition, tend to obstruct the course of historical truth
and rational inquiry.