The numismatic chronicle and journal of the Royal Numismatic Society

CHKONOLOGY OF THE COINS OP CHIOS. 367
the sixth 49 and the first half of the fourth cen-
tury B. ov50
The latest student of the question, Miss A. Baldwin,
in her " Electrum Coinage of Lampsdkos ", pp. 15-18,
suggests the decade 450-440 B. c. as the probable date
of this stater's issue. The author bases her arguments
on considerations of style as between this actual piece
and the other fifth-century coins of Chios on the one
hand, and the Z staters of Lampsacus, independently
proved to have been issued circa 450 B.C., on the other.
I entirely agree with her conclusions, though inclining
towards the later limit of the date suggested by her
rather than the earlier one.
It seems to me that this coin was struck at the
height of the Chian prosperity already referred to as
having occurred between the Persian and Peloponne-
sian wars, and while the island was still
perfectly
independent. The issue may very well have been
made with the object of competing on the Athenian
market with the Cyzicene staters that were then in
such keen demand there. 51
The following are the principal types
didrachms and tetrobols:
of the
24. Olv. Sphinx of transitional style seated 1. on plain
exergual line; wing
curled in naturalistic
manner ; hair rolled ; and further foreleg
49 Babelon, Traite, ii, pp. 191-3.
50 Von Sallet, Kgl. Miinzkabinett, No. 82.
51
It will be noticed that, as M. Babelon has already observed
loc.cit., the weight of this stater is rather lower than that of the
Cyzicenes, 236-7 grains (15-34 grammes) as against 252-246-9 grains
(16-33-16-00 grammes). At the conventional ratio of 10 : 1, as
between silver and electrum, twenty of the contemporary silver
didrachms would have been almost exactly equal in value to
one of these staters.