THE COIN COLLECTOR - World eBook Library

THE COLLECTOR SERIES
Greece. The lion is a frequent Pangaean type, together
with the peculiar kind of bull also at that epoch belong-
ing here. Associated with the Strymonian division are
the beautiful coins of Amphipolis.
The original capital of Macedon under its kings was
JEgse, of which some of the latest may have been of
regal origin ; but the earliest piece directly identifiable
with a ruler is of Bisaltian pattern and style, with
the name of Alexander I. (b.c. 498-54) substituted
for the older legend. Only a silver octadrachm of
Phoenician standard is thus inscribed ; and there is
great obscurity as to the attribution of coins, even to
succeeding sovereigns, from the absence of names. Of
course the greatest share of interest centres round the
common and copious coinages of Philip II. and his
son Alexander III. (b.c. 359-23), of whom the former
introduced a species of bimetallism, and greatly im-
proved the style of the gold and silver money, substi-
tuting the celebrated gold stater for the Persian daric
previously in use. Alexander resumed the principle of
a single standard, owing to the depreciation of gold
by the opening of the mines at Philippi by his father,
and their vast yield of ore. The money struck by
Alexander alone constitutes a study, and it is divisible
into two classes : that struck in his lifetime ; that struck
after his death, or in imitation of his types, both in
silver and in gold. But the entire regal series com-
mands attention from the portraits which it furnishes
down to the iEsillas tetrad rachm with one said to be
a likeness of Alexander himself. The tetradrachm of
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