THE COIN COLLECTOR - World eBook Library

THE COLLECTOR SERIES
type of its fine coinage, appearing even on pieces of
archaic fabric and pattern, and accompanied on the
later currency by the hel meted head of Athena, the
goddess under whose auspices Bellerophon achieved his
exploit. The operations of the mint seem to have con-
tinued undisturbed through the Macedonian conquest
in 338 b.c. till Corinth joined the Achaean League in
243. From this time its output of autonomous money
was intermittent and limited, and in 146 it was de-
stroyed by the Romans. After its restoration in 46 by
Caesar, the city produced a rich volume of bronze coins,
with a large assortment of mythological types, well
deserving of study and attention. In this series we
meet with one of the rare coins with the name and
portrait of Julia, daughter of Augustus.
Peloponesos.—The coinage of this extensive geo-
graphical area long consisted of the money of other
states—Corinth, /Egina, and Arcadia. The region em-
braced the important districts of Achaia, Messenia,
Laconia, Argolis, and Arcadia, and the three influential
and prolific coin-centres Elis, Sicvon, and Argos, as
well as those other well-known political organisations,
the Achaean and Arcadian Leagues. Out of all these
sources sprang an immense body of currency, almost exclu-
sively silver and bronze, particularly the beautiful work
of Elis and the interesting remains of the Ionian Isles,
which are powerfully marked by traces of ancient cults.
The coinage of Lacedaemon, so far as we are at pre-
sent aware, commences with the third century b.c,
none of the legendary iron money being known, and
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