THE COIN COLLECTOR - World eBook Library

GREEK COINS
and bronze. There are also silver coins of Sinde of
the fourth century b.c. It is supposed that the
Roman imperial money of the time of Augustus, with
the name of Agrippia Caesareia, is referable to Phana-
goria, and that the latter was temporarily known under
that name. We have likewise a series of dynasts of
the Cimmerian Bosporos from the second century b.c.
to the fourth a.d., with Greek coins exhibiting inscrip-
tions, the latter bearing on one side the head of the
king, and on the other that of a Roman emperor.
Colchis (Mingrelia).—The only coinage seems to be
pieces of the third or second century b.c, of base silver,
with a bull's head, and bronze money of the first
century b.c of Dioscurias, with the emblem of the
Dioscuri, the legendary founders of the place. A
ruler named Aristarchus, only known by his coins,
appears to have held sway in this district about
60 b.c.
Pontus, a district containing two or three towns
with interesting associations, and over which a dynasty
of princes reigned from about 250 b.c. to 63 a.d., when
Pontus became a Roman province. The kings of
Pontus at one time held nearly the whole of Asia
Minor, and their chief mint was at Pergamum. The
principal cities were Amasis, birthplace of Mithridates
the Great and Strabo the historian, of which we have
autonomous and Roman money with Greek inscrip-
tions, Amisus, Sebastopolis, Zela, and Comana Pontica,
of all of which there are coins, some of ancient date,
in silver and bronze. Pontus embraced within its
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