The numismatic chronicle and journal of the Royal Numismatic Society

14:0 E. S. G. ROBINSON.
drachm, hemidrachm, and trihemiobol of 53-4, 27,
13-13*5 grs. respectively. It is noteworthy that at
the rate of 15 : 1, which seems to be certainly established
for silver against gold in the last years of the fifth
century in Sicily, a gold piece of 13-5 grs. would be
worth 13-5x15 = 202-5 grs. of silver, or just about
the weight of the contemporary tetradrachm. It is
noteworthy, too, that the unit of the earliest gold
coins at Gela is of the same weight, which is that of
the Sicilian litra.
To find gold and silver equivalents in Greek numis-
matics must always be an uncertain task, but this
coincidence between the values of the contemporary
silver tetradrachm and gold trihemiobol seems too
close to be overlooked. These little gold pieces form
a bridge to connect the older gold issue with the new
issue of staters of Attic weight which began in the
opening years of the fourth century. While the earliest
of them weigh a decimal or two more, Nos. 57 and
59 represent the most usual weight, say 13-3. This
is exactly a tenth of the new stater, and as such it
is grafted on to the new system, where it is a common
piece right down to the end.
A feature of the numismatics of the early fourth
century is the outburst in the Aegean basin of a gold
to which Athens herself had
coinage of Attic weight,
given the impetus 87
by her issue of necessity
in 408. Style would date the earliest gold of Rhodes 88
87 P. Gardner, "Coinage of the Athenian Empire," in J. H. S.,
1914 ; Woodward, Num. Chron., 1911. Though no staters of the
earliest issue at Athens have come down to us, xp vff0^ standing as
it does alone in the inscription, must refer to staters ;
we have drachms.
and anyhow
88 B.M.C.: Caria, p. 231, No. 10.