THE COIN COLLECTOR - World eBook Library

IV
GREEK COINS
There is perhaps no series of coins which, at anv period
of the world's history, has afforded a measure of instruc-
tion and entertainment to scholars and students, as well
as to collectors, equal to that created and maintained
by the money of Ancient Greece, and of the countries
subject to Greek influence, in all metals from the
seventh century b.c. to the third century a.d. The
pleasure and profit arising from the survey and inter-
pretation of this truly immense body of authentic monu-
ments of the religious, social, and political history of
the greatest nation of antiquity have been incessant,
and prove inexhaustible. No people has ever written
its own life so completely, so broadly, so picturesquely
as the Hellenes, or in characters so convincing and so
imperishable. We are accustomed to speak of Greek
and Roman coins as of things intimately allied; but
the spirit of the monetary systems of the two countries
was essentially different, except when Rome and her
Italian neighbours, in the time of the Republic, em-
ployed Greek artists and models. Neither in the
Archaic currency, based on the ccs, nor in the so-called
Consular or Family Group of coins, is local influence
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