The numismatic chronicle and journal of the Royal Numismatic Society

388 J. MAVKOGOKDATO.
this, we are to look upon the tetradrachms signed by
"Avutvos and the rest of his class as the true contem-
poraries of the drachms with letters, what are we to
think of the drachms without letters, Nos. 39, 39 a , and
45 ? These two groups cannot be separated from each
other, nor. for the matter of that, can either of them
be easily distinguished from the earlier of the two
classes of drachms with names in full, though these
must surely have been subsequent issues.
Among the bronze coins of Imperial times issues
will be found without magistrates' names alternating
with others on which names occur, down to the very
last products of the mint under Gallienus. Can it be
that some such custom as this, the meaning of which
even in Imperial times is unknown to us, so far as
I am aware, may also have been in force in the fifth
century B.C.? It seems unlikely, though there are
signs of the practice during the intervening centuries,
in the case of small coins both of silver and bronze, to
which attention will be drawn in due course.
In the matter of weights these coins stand on a
distinctly lower level than the anepigraphic drachms
that preceded them. From the table given below,
with the object of demonstrating the gradual decline
account of the former's resemblance to type No. 32. See remarks
made below, under type No. 46, with reference to the similar
characteristic that it presents.
Mr. G. F. Hill makes the suggestion, for which I am much obliged,
that these single letters may be numerals. This seems highly
probable, but the difficulty of the anepigraphic specimens remains,
and that of determining the proper place in the series of the drachms
in question is, if anything, increased. Judging from the highest
surviving letter, A, the group, on this hypothesis, would have lasted
twelve or eleven years,
part of the series or not.
according as we assume ^ to have made