THE COIN COLLECTOR - World eBook Library

THE COLLECTOR SERIES
the points before us. A 20-stater piece in gold of
Eukratides, King of Bactria, and a silver dekadrachm,
unassigned, exist, so far as has been ascertained, in soli-
tary specimens in the Bibliotheque at Paris and in the
British Museum respectively ; a silver tetradrachm of
Plato, King of Bactria, is unknown outside the latter
repository ; and our national collection also possesses
three examples of the highly interesting coinage
(tetradr. and dr.), with the portrait of Eukratides on
one side, and those of Heliocles and Laodice on the
other. The true history of the Bactrian money is still
involved in great obscurity ; we have little more than
internal evidence to guide us ; but, except of Diodotus,
the earliest autonomous ruler, and of Eukratides, we seem
to have no tjold. The 20-stater above mentioned was
obtained in the Punjaub, sold to Rollin & Feuardent
of Paris for i°800, and by them, under the express autho-
rity of the Emperor, who paid half, transferred to the
Bibliotheque for ,£1200. This was in 1867. The
Museum dekadrachm, presented by Sir Wollaston
Franks in 1887, is not well preserved. The gold of
Athens is particularly rare, and that of Syracuse, of
Macedonia, and of Egypt under the Ptolemies, though
plentiful enough, equally conspicuous by its beauty of
execution. One of the most recent finds in Russia
occurred in 1895 at Reni, on the Pruth, and consisted
of a large number of gold staters of Philip of Macedon.
The discovery shews how widely spread was the dis-
tribution of this coin, of which the hoard had been
probably buried during centuries.
40