THE COIN COLLECTOR - World eBook Library

THE COLLECTOR SERIES
ral cities, of which the chief was Mytilene. The most
ancient coins are electron) staters, and later pieces in
base silver of two different standards and of several
types, of which we may mention two calves" heads or
two boars"' heads facing each other, a lion's, a calf's,
or a boar's head, two human eyes, or one eye. Some
of these subjects present themselves on the electrum
coinage, which was the earliest. It appears that the
convention-money for the common use of Lesbos and
Phocaea was struck at Mytilene about i3.c. 438. The
only other place of consequence was Methynma. In
the Hecatonnesi off Lesbos there were coinages in silver
and bronze, which are allusive in their legends to Apollo
Smintheos and Asklepios.
Ionia.—This is, from our present point of view, a
very wide field of inquiry, and at the same time, in
regard to its earliest coinages, one where considerable
obscurity still prevails. The most extensive and re-
markable section in this case is the civic one. Clazo-
menae, Colophon, Ephesus, Erythrae, Magnesia, Miletus,
Smyrna, Teos, are names familiar to all ; the most
ancient examples are uninscribed. Of Clazomenae a
favourite early type or symbol is a winged boar, allusive
to a legend of such a creature having once haunted the
vicinity. Some of the gold and silver coins of the
fourth century B.C. are of the best style ; and on a
tetradrachm occurs the name of the artist Theodotos.
The autonomous gold and silver do not come down
lower than the fourth century ; but there are, as at
Colophon, gold staters and silver tetradrachms of Mace-
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