THE COIN COLLECTOR - World eBook Library

GREEK COINS
those of the cities and of the Roman period, when Cap-
padocia was a procuratorship. The prevailing religious
idea presented on them is the snow-capped and deified
Mount Argaeus, rising to an altitude of 13,000 feet
above the sea.
Armenia is not known to have struck any coins prior
to the second century B.C., when two of its nobles,
revolting from Syria, divided the territory between
them, distinguishing the two portions as the Lesser and
the Greater Armenia. There are coins of these dynasts
down to a.d. 35, when the country was under Roman
protection, as we infer from a denarius on which Ger-
manicus is represented crowning the last king, Artaxias.
Syria is one of the most important of the ancient
divisions of Asia from a numismatic point of view, as
we enjoy an uninterrupted succession of the Seleucidan
coins from the fourth to the first century B.C., when Syria
was incorporated with Armenia under Tigranes (b.c.
83-69). The portraits of the Seleucidae offer unusual
individuality of character, and among them occurs that
of Cleopatra, mother of Seleucus V., and consort of
Antiochus VIII. The head of Tigranes has an Ar-
menian tiara ; his coins exhibit barbarous reverses, and
he is described on many of them in the Oriental fashion
as King of Kings. Besides the money of the Seleucid
kings, we have that of those of Commagene and Chalci-
dene ; of the cities, including Palmyra, Seleucis, Antioch,
&c. ; of Ccele-Syria, where Damascus is the leading
centre ; of Decapolis, and of Phoenicia, in the last of
which there were the important towns or cities of
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