The numismatic chronicle and journal of the Royal Numismatic Society

78 E. S. G. KOBINSON.
On No. 20, as has been mentioned, the letters are not
so clear, but the reading T E (from the Hirsch specimen)
seems the most likely, besides being along the line
of least resistance. The inscription, whatever it is, is
bound to be either an ethnic or what is termed for convenience'
sake a moneyer's name or mint letter. The first
alternative is most likely, because (1) it is in the place
regularly employed for the ethnic, both in this period
(when the inscription appears on the obverse at all)
and in the next, and (2)
if a conclusion to be reached
later is correct, the T on the reverse is to be regarded as
a mint letter, and we should not expect another on the
be a
same coin. Granted that it is an ethnic, it might
continuation of the inscription begun on the obverse, 57
but no possible ingenuity can read the letters as A I
,
which is what in that case they would have to be. Nor
again are they KV or EV, the only other alternatives
that we have reason to expect. This tetradrachm then
should be placed side by side with the drachm No. 21,
which it resembles in the freer treatment of the beard
and eye.
The letter T which occurs on the reverse raises
a very difficult question, to which it is not possible
to give a satisfactory answer. This letter occurs only
on coins of Barce, and its occurrence there seems to be
arbitrary : for example, we find it in varying positions
on the regular series of drachms mentioned above
linking the first and second groups; we find it also
on a tetradrachm of the third group (here No. 19)
Evnrptdar. Aw^'O"*^" ft* Kara p.t