The numismatic chronicle and journal of the Royal Numismatic Society

PERIOD IX. CIRC. B.C. 379338.
THEBES. Next follows a long series of Boeotian di-
drachms which, judging by style, certainly commences
early in the fourth century obv. Boeotian shield, rev. am-
phora and the three or four first letters of a magistrate's
name. Of these names a very large number is known, so
many
indeed that there can be no doubt that this series must
extend down to the capture of Thebes by Philip in B.C.
338. The point to be settled is the exact date of its com-
mencement.
The total number of names handed down to us by these
coins is about forty. It is also, on other grounds, tole-
rably certain that this coinage lasted about forty years.
The temptation to regard the names on the coins as
those of the eponymous archons of the Boeotians is doubt-
less very strong. Nevertheless, when we bear in mind
how improbable it is that the number of names now
known can be anything like the complete list, I think it
is safer to reject the theory that they are the names of the
annual eponymi, either of the Boeotian League or of the
city of Thebes, for there was an eponymous archon in
each town as well as an eponymous archon of the whole
League.
It seems to me that it is, on the whole, more reasonable
to suppose that certain municipal (or federal) magistrates,
perhaps the three Polemarchs (concerning whose duties
see Foucart, Bull, de Carr. Hell, iv., Inscriptions d'Orcho-