THE COIN COLLECTOR - World eBook Library

THE COLLECTOR SERIES
boundaries many religious cults allied to those of the
Greeks ; others, as of Men, Enyo, Anaitis, and Serapis,
were peculiar to itself. The high-priest of the goddess
Envo at Comana enjoyed a precedence next to that of
the king. The high-priest of Zela united the temporal
with the sacerdotal authority. Gold staters exist of
Mithridates VI., but of the other dynasts there are
only tetradrachms and their divisions, and bronze
money, many with good portraits, though of inferior
style and workmanship. The history and chronology
of these personages are often very obscure.
Paphlagonia.—There are silver coins with Aramaic
legends of certain satraps of this region, while it
remained under Persian rule. But the central interest
lies in one or two of the cities, namely, Amastria and
Sinope. Of the former there are silver staters of
Persic standard, with the deified head of Amastris
the foundress, daughter of Darius Codomannus, in
a Persian head-dress; but Sinope, an ancient city of
Milesian origin, has a long numismatic history, having
been an important Persian mint in the fourth century
B.C., and continuing to strike money down to Roman
times. A son of Nicomedes II. of Bithynia seems to
have exercised sovereignty over Paphlagonia in the
second century B.C. ; but the dynasty was deposed by
the Romans, and Paphlagonia, with Pontus, added to
that empire.
Bithynia.— Except as a Roman province, there do
not seem to be any coins of Bithynia in gmere.
Roman Bithynia comprehended that district or king-
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