THE COIN COLLECTOR - World eBook Library

THE COLLECTOR SERIES
The coinages of Libya, Byzacene, and Svrtica or
Tripolitana (from its three cities) are of late date, and
principally of bronze ; Leptis Magna, colonised from
Sidon, was the most important place, and struck money
in silver and bronze in the first century B.C., with
Dionysiac and Herakleian types. It has been thought
that the primitive inhabitants of the Canary Islands,
which had their own chieftains, were emigrants from
Libya, and they must have had a currency, as their rule
extended over hundreds of years prior to the Spanish
conquest. Zeugitana included Utica, Hippo, and
above all Carthage, of which the coinage betrays a
powerful Sicilian influence ; the best period was from
the fifth to the fourth century B.C. (410-240). There is
money in gold, electrum, silver, and bronze. The silver
tetradrachm, bearing the deified head of Dido, may be
mentioned ; it seems to have supplied a model to some
of the modern engravers for a personification of Liberty.
The large silver pieces of later date with the head of
Persephone are of coarse work. The authorities classify
the currencies connected with this illustrious city as
follow :—Siculo-Punic coins (410-310) ; coins struck at
Carthage (340-146); Carthaginian coins struck in Spain;
those struck under the Romans subsequently to the
rebuilding by Julius Caesar in B.C. 44, to which may
be appended the coins emanating from the islands
between Africa and Sicily in the second and first
centuries B.C. Dr. Head has pointed out that the
similarity of the Capuan coins to those of Carthage
may have proceeded from the fact that, while Hannibal
104