The numismatic chronicle and journal of the Royal Numismatic Society

9(> E. S. G. ROBINSON".
which may be assigned
to Barce will be considered
in discussing the early anepigraphic gold.
Cyrene : the silver coinage down to c. 390.
At Cyrene the history of the early coinage of the
the same
third period, say down to 390, is practically
as at Barce, with the important exception (noted above),
that though there are plenty of coins of rude workman-
ship there are none of the severe transitional style
with the ethnic on the head side, such as begin the
series at Barce. The earliest pieces are those without
magistrates' names, corresponding to the Barcaean
group to which No. 37 belongs. The style of these
coins is often very rough indeed, sometimes recalling
the more barbarous products of Cretan mints. That
of most coins of the earliest magistrate NIKI3 is
exactly similar, which points to overlapping, though so
far I have not been able to establish this by community
of dies. In this group, apparently, the head is never on
the obverse. The anepigraphic silver tetradrachms
will be discussed later.
On signed coins down to c. 390 we find two names,
NIKIOS and APISTOMHAEOS,
less than half the
number occurring at Barce, though the coins of either of
these magistrates are far commoner than any of those
at Barce. This looks as if they covered approximately
the same period of time, the magistrates at Barce
holding a shorter tenure of office than those at Cyrene,
though style would indicate that the earliest magistrate
at Barce $ab(io$), Nos. 38 and 39 above, is earlier
than NIKI?. In the time of Nikis the head is moved
from the reverse to the obverse of the coin, though
this change does not seem to have been made then once