The numismatic chronicle and journal of the Royal Numismatic Society

CHRONOLOGY OF THE COINS OF CHIOS. 425
drachm with ^KV^OS in the British Museum, on which
the name is written retrograde, the only case of retro-
grade lettering
that I have observed in the whole
Chian series. 71 This must be another piece of archaism,
and an interesting parallel with it is afforded by
a quarter drachm of Pixodarus in the British Museum
(Brit Mus. Cat: Caria, p. 185, No. 15, and PI. xxviii.
15), on which the dynast's name is written retrograde
between the rays of a star. Considering the influence
of the Carian princes in Chios from 345 to 340 B.C.,
something
more than a coincidence seems called for
to explain this. I am illustrating the variety of this
drachm with the name Sievpvos from Cambridge [PL
XIX. 13], as it seems to me to mark the last stage of
degeneration reached by these fourth-century silver
coins, and it may well be the latest representative of
the old Chian silver standard.
The tetradrachm with Krjfao-oKpiros in the Hunterian
collection (No. 5 of Dr. Macdonald's Catalogue) and the
unique specimen with ZKVIJLVOS are from the same obverse
die with a ring border. Though the name KrjfacroKpiTo?
always appears
in an abbreviated form on the tetra-
drachm s it can be safely restored from the drachms,
where, curiously enough, it is written at full length
in spite of the more restricted space. All coins of this
class are much more distinctly punch-struck than the
drachms of class ft.
No. 53. We owe these small bronze coins almost
entirely to the Pityos find, and they are all rather rare.
71
Exception must be made in favour of a few cases of single
and the numerous
letters; the , for instance, on type No. 47 a ,
occurrences of T in Period IX.
NUMISM. CHBON., VOL. XV, SERIES IV. F I