The numismatic chronicle and journal of the Royal Numismatic Society

4 J. MAVROGORDATO.
contemporaries of Oedipus.
It has for long been
accepted, however, as the emblem of Dionysus, and
was probably distinct both from 77 pailra>8b$ KVODV of
Sophocles,-
and from the Ea-Harmachis of the
Egyptians. Nor would it be profitable to open once
more the question as to the relative merits of the
theories regarding the religious or commercial origin
of coin-types. As a matter of fact the Chian Sphinx
seems to offer a compromise between the two. In its
earlier days, at any rate, the city's badge partakes
of a religious nature. Whether we look upon the
Sphinx, especially
in its hieratic attitude with one
forepaw raised, as an attribute of Dionysus enjoining
silence in respect of his mysteries, or as a guardian of
the temple's treasures, there is nothing of the com-
mercial element about it. But later on when first the
amphora, and then the bunch of grapes were added to
the type, the business interests of an essentially
mercantile community were clearly being brought into
notice.
This slow merging of a mystical aspect into a
the curious orna-
practical one is also suggested by
ment which is to be observed on the head of the
primitive Sphinx,
but which is discarded with one
exception a soon after the middle of the sixth century.
This ornament, like the Sphinx itself, undoubtedly
hails from the East, though both had apparently long
been domiciled in the Aegean area. 4
Like so many
1 Oed. Rex, 391.
3 Electrum Stater struck at time of Ionian Revolt when religious
Toolings must have been in the ascendant. P. Gardner, in J. H. S.,
1911, p. 151, and PI. vii. 1, though the particular coin selected for
illustration is probably a forgery.
Hogarth. Ionia ami the Est, Lecture iii.