The numismatic chronicle and journal of the Royal ... - IndianCoins.org

192 C. OMAN.disputed the crown after his death. My main objectto-day is to lay out the general lines on which thechronology of his various issues must be distributed.So little was this sinking of numismatic art duringGrypus's reign appreciated by the earlier students ofthe Syrian coinage, that down to thirty years ago hislast issues were wrongly attributed to his son andnamesake Antiochus XI, another " Epiphanes " in theofficial nomenclature of the dynasty. They are foundso placed even in Dr. Percy Gardner's excellent catalogueof the coins of the house of Seleucus in theBritish Museum series, which came out in 1878. InDr. Head's Historia Numorum they are rightly attributed,and no one now has any doubt that thisnumerous series of tetradrachms should be given tothe father and not to the son, whose issues were veryscanty, as might have been expected from the shortnessof his reign. In PL VIII. 7 will be seen one datedcoin which, if it had been known thirty years ago, wouldhave prevented the wrong attribution, since the datewhich it bears, &L or 209 of the Seleucid Era, obviouslyfalls into the time of the elder king, who was murderedin 216 A.S., and not into that of his son and homonym,whose regnal year was 220 A. s. There can be no doubtthat all the ill-designed coins with the type of a seatedZeus and the simple inscription BAZIAEHZ ANTIO-XOY EI~IIANOYZ belong to Grypus, and only thosewith the longer legend BAZIAEOZ ANTIOXOY EHI-4>ANOYX 4>IAAAEAOY to his son. The latter havea very young head, while the former show a portraitwell advanced in middle life.And the nose of Philadelphus,though decidedly aquiline, does not approachin size that of his rightly nicknamed parent.