The numismatic chronicle and journal of the Royal Numismatic Society

QUAESTIONES CYKENAICAE. 59
head is similar to that on coins of Samos, and the
reverse type to the coins of lalysus, brings the piece
into relation with the expedition which Arcesilas III
launched from Samos towards 528 to recover his
kingdom, and assumes that R/hodes as well as Samos
was his recruiting ground. 13 The lion's scalp facing is
certainly a distinctively Samian type, but the lion's
head in profile suggests south-western Asia Minor,
and the style of the two coins bearing it, figured in
the Traite, PL xi. 26 and 27 u as Samian, should surely
lead us with Six 15 to place them in that district. Why
too should the engraver, if he wished to refer to Samos,
choose a type which, even granting that the coins just
referred to are Samian, is quite isolated in that series,
instead of the familiar facing lion's scalp with which
the series 1G
begins and continues. Head 17 has already
that the lion's head is borrowed from Lindus.
suggested
We know that a contingent of Lindians under the
sons of Panchis took part in the second colonization
of Gyrene under Battus II shortly before 570, 18 and
this lends added weight to Head's suggestion. At any
rate all connexion with Samos vanishes, and there
is no mention of any place
account of the return of Arcesilas. 19
save Samos in Herodotus's
13
Ibid., p. 290, " Rhodes et Samos, les deux iles ou Arcesilas
recruta son armee."
14 = B. M. C., p. 352, Nos. 23 and 27.
15 Num. Chron., 1890, p. 240.
16 The fact that the earliest coins with lion's scalp (Traite, ibid.,
pp. 443 seqq.) are earlier than the two coins in question makes
their isolation more prominent.
17 Num. Chron., 1891, p. 4, followed by Ch. Blinkenberg, " La
Chronique du Temple Lindien," p. 439.
18
Inscriptions in Blinkenberg, op. cit., p. 329, xvii, and his
comments, p. 353.
19 iv. 162, 163.