NUMISMATA ORIENTALIA. - Forvm Ancient Coins

THE COINAGE OF LYDIA AND PERSIA. 13
was quick to adopt and to beautify the Lydian invention. The first issues of the Milesian Mint,
while retaining the form of incuse peculiar to the Lydian money, bore upon the obverse the figure
of a Lion generally in a recumbent attitude with head turned back. Ephesus, Cyme, and another
city which has not been identified with certainty, soon followed suit, striking
electnmi staters
with their respective types, the stag, the fore-part of a horse, and a bull; the Ephesian stater
bearing in addition to its type an inscription in archaic characters which has been read by Mr.
Newton (Num. Chron. n.s. vol. x. p. 237), AIViaZIM3dOH3A0, "I am the token or coin
of the Bright One " (i.e. Artemis). This stater, now in the collection of the Bank of England,
is the earliest inscribed coin known.
All these cities, in applying the Lydian invention, restricted their first issues to electrum,
which they coined according to the Graeco-Asiatic or Phoenician silver standard, the average
weight of the stater of which is about 220 grains.
Samos alone adopted a difierent standard,' and struck her electrum coins according to the
light Babylonian gold mina, the stater of which weighed about 130 grains ;
and as we know that
this standard was in use for silver in the island of Euboea, there is every reason to suppose that we
possess in this circumstance the key to the otherwise anomalous fact of electnmi and gold being
weighed according to one and the same standard. To account therefore for the weight of the
Samian electnmi stater, we must suppose that the Euboic silver mina was in use in that island as
well as in Euboea ; but whether Chalcis originally derived it from Samos, or Samos from Chalcis,
it is impossible to say with certainty.
PERIOD II. REIGNS OF SADYATTES AND ALYATTES.
The second period of the coinage of Lydia extends from the accession of Sadyattes in B.C. 637,
to that of Croesus in 568.* Sadyattes, the son of Ardys,
after the Cimmerian hordes had been
at length finally expelled from Asia Minor, found himself at liberty again to turn his attention
to the West. He laid siege to Miletus, and year after year wasted her fertile lands; but,
owing to the obstinate resistance of the citizens, was never permitted to enter their walls as a
conqueror. He was succeeded by his son Alyattes, who continued for some years longer the
blockade of the great Ionian city, but with no more fortunate result. Under their Tyrant
Thrasybulus, the Milesians, though indeed hard pressed for food, contrived to deceive the
Lydian monarch as to the extent of their remaining resources, and finally he was induced to
abandon all hopes of subduing them by force of arms, and to conclude with them a treaty of
alliance after a war which had lasted for the space of eleven years.
During this time of hardship and impoverishment it is probable
that Miletus ceased to issue
• Metrol. Not. on Anc. EL pp. 26-37 ; Num. Chron. 1875, p. looked upon as approximate. Chronologists are still at yariance
270 sq. respecting them.
' The dates here assigned to the Lydian kings can only bo