THE COIN COLLECTOR - World eBook Library

GREEK COINS
donian type and of regal origin, and bronze coins down
to Roman times. The famous Colophonian cavalry are
denoted in the armed horseman which constitutes a
reverse type on the coinage, as the head of Apollo,
whose temple and oracle were in the vicinity, does on
the obverse one. The money of Ephesus is divided into
about eight classes, commencing with the electrum
coins of the sixth century, and concluding with the
Roman imperial series. The most singular feature
of the primitive currency is the mystical type of the
bee and the stag, symbols of the worship of the
Nature-goddess, the high-priests of whose temple were
called King Bees, and the priestesses Bees. The Roman
money for Ephesus is plentiful, but of no great value
or interest, except, perhaps, the pieces of religious
significance, as that where the founder, Androclos, is
slaying a wild boar, in allusion to the legend that he
had been commanded by an oracle to build a city on
the spot where he met such an animal. Of Magnesia
the most noteworthy monument is the plated didrachm
struck by Themistocles when he was banished from
Athens and had this city assigned to him by the king
of Persia (b.c. 464-449).
The earliest coins of Miletus are associated with the
oracle at Didymi of Apollo Didumseus, who was sym-
bolised by the lion and the sun ; and it may well be
that they were struck within the temple, and continued
so to be till the fourth century b.c, by the priests in
charge. There are gold staters and silver pieces of
the second century b.c, and bronze coins of analogous
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