The numismatic chronicle and journal of the Royal Numismatic Society

NUMISMATIC CHRONICLE,
i.
FLORAL PATTERNS ON ARCHAIC GREEK COINS.
THE device on the reverse of the early coins of Corcyra,
and of Dyrrhachium and Apollonia, the colonies of
Corcyra, has caused much difficulty among numismatists.
Eckhel accepted the opinion of Beger that it represented
the celebrated gardens of Alcinous, King of the Phaeacians,
of which Homer speaks in terms of high praise (Odf/fi.,
vii. 112). There was, he says, without the court of Alci-
noiis, a large orchard near the doors, and around it a wall
drawn all round. In it grew pears, apples, pomegranates,
and figs, which ripened in succession all the year through.
And beside it was a vineyard, and a vegetable garden,
and in the midst two fountains. Of these orchards and
gardens the type of the coins was supposed to represent a
sort of rude ground-plan.
This attribution was followed by Eckhel, but by scarcely
any more recent numismatist. Boeckh, Miiller, and
others consider the type to be merely a star-like but
fortuitous collection of strokes without special meaning.
Friedlander and Von Sallet see in it the stars of the
Dioscuri (K. J/. K., p. 62). In the course of an exami-
nation of the coins of Corcyra, I have come to the convic-
tion that the type is not without meaning; but that it
VOr,. I THIRD SER1K8. B