The numismatic chronicle and journal of the Royal Numismatic Society

238 NUMISMATIC CHRONICLE.
mene), who were elected annually, formed themselves into
a committee for the regulation of the currency, and that
the president of this board placed his name upon the coin
struck during his term of office.
Supposing, therefore, that of the three Polemarchs each
was in turn president of the board of currency for a term
of one month, and that there were several issues from the
Theban mint during the year, it might so happen that
the names of all three Polemarchs appeared on the coinage
during their year of office, or, on the other hand, it might
happen that all the issues took place quarterly, and in
those particular months during which the same man happened
to be president. In this case of course only one
name would appear on the coinage for the year in ques-
tion. It is thus manifest that when once the eponymous
character of the signature on the coins is not provable
the number of names can be but a very rough test of the
duration of any given series of signed coins.
We must, therefore, have recourse to other methods of
fixing the date of the commencement of this series of coins.
It should be noted : 1st, that the coinage in question
forms a single and unbroken series ; 2nd, that it is federal
in character, not bearing the name of any one city in
particular ; 3rd, that it is closely imitated by certain coins
of Orchomenus above described (see p. 225, PL IV., 6 8).
It would seem, therefore, that it must have been in circu-
lation before the destruction of that city, B.C. 364.
Now, as we have already traced the Theban coinage
down to about B.C. 387, we may take it for granted that
the new federal coinage can hardly have commenced
before that date ; and from B.C. 387 379, as the Boeotian
confederacy had ceased to exist, no general coinage on a
large scale such as this is possible. But with the appoint-