THE COIN COLLECTOR - World eBook Library

THE COLLECTOR SERIES
Aradus, Berytus, Marathus, Sidon, Tripolis, and Tyre;
of Samaria and Judaea. The whole of this extensive
region was a very productive source of Greek and other
types, of which the shekel and its divisions with Samari-
tan inscriptions must not be overlooked. The coins
are not, on the whole, so difficult to procure as was often
formerly the case ; successive finds have rendered acces-
sible many which were once almost unknown, including
the half-shekels struck over Roman denarii. The oldest
coins of Phoenicia appear to be those of Sidon and Tyre,
both names suggestive of commercial prosperity and
associated with the Hebrew Scriptures. From a.d. 6
Judaea had been a Roman procuratorial government
subordinate to the praefects of Syria. It was in the
eighteenth year of the Emperor Tiberius, when Valerius
Gratus and Pontius Pilatus held this office, that Jesus
Christ was crucified at Jerusalem. A full account of
Syria and the countries contiguous to it, including the
Holy Land, is to be found in the Wistaria Nvmorwm
and the authorities there cited.
Arabia.—Leaving the ground consecrated by its
more or less intimate associations with Christ and
Christianity, and with the Apostles, we pass into
Arabia, where we have the two numismatic divisions
of Arabia Petraea and Arabia Felix, with some unim-
portant regal coins of ephemeral and obscure dynasts;
a series of the currencies of the Himyarite line of
kings, which governed a large territory in Arabia Felix
during many centuries, and copied Greek and Roman
models; and, lastly, the Roman imperial money, of
98