The numismatic chronicle and journal of the Royal Numismatic Society

68 NUMISMATIC CHRONICLE.
Among the other purchases made by Berlin during the year
are the following :
An octadrachm of Alexander I. of Macedon, and a decadrachm
of Alexander the Great, which is said to be finer than either the
English or the French specimen of that rare coin.
Eleven gold staters of Ptolemy Soter, all of one type, the
quadriga of elephants, and varying only in their monograms.
Dr. Friedlaender has also acquired not by purchase but by
exchange (a process of improving a cabinet which our own
Museum might adopt with advantage) the fine and rare coin of
Pheneus, in Arcadia, of the type of Hermes carrying the boy
Areas ; and the rare variety of the tetradrachm of Amphipolis,
Rev., torch within a wreath.
On a hecte of Asia Minor, also recently acquired, is on one side
a head of Hera, and on the other a comic mask, also representing
Hera. This leads Dr. Friedlaender into a disquisition on the
comic symbols and adjuncts on Greek coins, and into a discus-
sion on the subject of the types occurring on electrum hectae,
which he rightly declines to accept as the types of cities, but
takes to be simply due to the choice or whim of the die
engraver. May they not be rather the signets or badges of the
officers in charge of the mints ?
In the mediaeval series, beside the Grote collection the Berlin
cabinet has purchased two remarkable gold coins of the Mero-
vingian kings Childeric II., 668678, and Childebert III.,
694 711, both struck at Marseilles ; also a curious Irish penny,
which Dr. Friedlaender attributes to King Anlaf V., 1029
1034, the successor of Sigtric III., the obv. of which reads
EANLF EVNMLH, the reverse being copied from an English
coin struck by Ealdred on Exeter.
2. v. Graba. On Saint Maurice or St. Denys on Bracteates.
3. Th. Mommsen. On the names of the Emperor Balbinus.
4. J. Naue. On the portrait of Alexander on coins of Lysimachus.
In this interesting paper the writer gives good reasons
for supposing that the heads of Alexander on certain tetradrachms
of Lysimachus are actually engraved by Lysippus' own
hand.
5. A. Kliigmann. On rnoneyers' names on Roman Republican
denarii.
6. H. Riggauer. Eros on coins.
7. R. Weil. Asklepios and Hygieia on coins of Bizya, in
Thrace.
8. A. von Sallet. Nyinphodorus of Abdera, circ. B.C. 430.
A tetradrachm of the usual type, with the name of thjs magistrate
on the reverse, has led Dr. v. Sallet to identify it with the