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THE COIN COLLECTOR - World eBook Library

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<strong>THE</strong> <strong>COLLECTOR</strong> SERIES<br />

mencing with the sixth century B.C., is at first of archaic<br />

type and of incuse uniface fabric, but attained great ex-<br />

cellence and beauty. The coins from the outset exhibit<br />

on obverse Taras on a dolphin, and some examples pre-<br />

sent the mythical founder, and son of Neptune, on both<br />

sides, variously posed. In the fourth century we find<br />

gold first struck ; but silver was the prevailing metal.<br />

The bronze is late.<br />

Sicilia.—At first this island possessed coins of an<br />

Italian type, introduced by the settlers from the main-<br />

land ; but as the Greeks established themselves here,<br />

the stvle of the money became by degrees Hellenised,<br />

and acquired in course of time an unsurpassed excel-<br />

lence and celebrity, the cities which arose, both along<br />

the coast and inland, emulating each other in the<br />

beauty of their numismatic products and the choice<br />

of the most skilful engravers, of whom in several cases<br />

the names are preserved. Dr. Head divides the mone-<br />

tary annals into eight epochs, which embrace those of<br />

archaic art and of decline under the Roman authority.<br />

The Sicilian medallion, which was, in fact, the ten-<br />

drachma piece, is well known ; the agonistic type of the<br />

reverse is common to the tetradrachn) and didrachm,<br />

and probably does not allude to any specific event;<br />

the triqui'tra, which was copied on the modern cur-<br />

rency of the Two Sicilies, and on that of the Isle of<br />

Man, was first introduced under Agathocles (ii.c. 317-<br />

289), by whom it is supposed to have been intended as<br />

a token of his sovereignty over the whole island. The<br />

most remarkable coins in this series are those of Affri-

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