§ INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.
The following extract from the preface to the British Museum “Guide to
the Coins of the Ancients”[5] will give some idea of the uses of Greek
Numismatics.
“The chief value of Greek coins lies in their being original works of
art, not copies as are most of the extant sculptures in the round, and
in their recording the successive phases and local varieties of Greek
art, in which respect no other class of monuments, sculptures, bronzes,
terracottas, fictile vases, or gems, can compete with them. From the
seventh century before the Christian era downwards, and from the
farthest east to the extreme west of the ancient civilized world, coins
are still extant, in many cases as uninjured as when they first left
the dies. The devices or _types_ which they bear, if not by leading
artists, certainly faithfully represent the style of the sculpture
and even of the painting of the periods to which they belong. Thus in
no other branch of Greek monuments can the student so readily and so
thoroughly trace the growth, the maturity, and the decay of the plastic
art as on coins chronologically arranged.
“For the study of mythology they present the local conceptions of the
gods and heroes worshipped in the Greek world, with their attributes
and symbols.
“The historian will find a gallery of portraits of sovereigns almost
complete, as well as evidences of the history and of the political
revolutions of innumerable autonomous states and cities in these all
but imperishable records.
“The student of palæography will find on coins examples of various
ancient alphabets, such as Lycian and Cyprian, Phœnician, Greek,
Latin, Iberian, etc., in various stages of development.
“The metrologist, by comparing the weights of coins of different
localities and periods, may gain an insight into the various systems
of ancient metrology in its various standards, and obtain a just view
of the relative values of the precious metals, and of the great lines
of trade in the Greek and Roman world. For practical purposes the
medallist and art workman will find in Greek coins the most profitable
as well as the safest guide. The artist will not fail to perceive
the suggestive value of designs which, on however small a scale, are
essentially large in treatment.”
[5] “A Guide to the Coins of the Ancients, from cir. B.C. 700 to A.D.
1,” with seventy plates, by B. V. Head, second edition, London, 8vo,
1881, Trübners.
No one whose means are at all limited should attempt to form a complete
collection of Greek coins. Even the vast collection in the British
Museum is far from perfect, and in many series is still lamentably
deficient.
Any one, however, by limiting his ambition to one particular branch,
may hope in course of time to form a cabinet the value of which will
increase rapidly in proportion as it approaches completion.
This applies not only to Greek coins but to every class. Thus, for
instance, there are collectors of English coins who confine their
attention to the Anglo-Saxon period; others who will buy no coins later
than the reign of Charles I.; and others, again, who only collect the
copper money of the last two centuries.
The young collector who would not drift into unprofitable
_dilettanteism_ should therefore select some one series and keep to it,
and it is chiefly with the view of assisting him to make his choice of
a field to work upon that these pages have been written.
It will be well to form some idea, in the first instance, of the
numerous series which are included in the general term of “_Greek
coins_.”