A History of Ancient Coinage 700-300 B.C.

- In the course of the last fifty years the science of Greek coins, ancient numismatics, has undergone great developments. Up to about 1860 the study had been gradually taking shape, and many able scholars and numismatists, such as Sestini, Eckhel, and later Millingen and others, had opened up great fields of study, and showed much penetration and erudition in the discussion of the various classes of coins and their relations to the cities which issued them. Attempts have been made by some recent writers to trace the trade-routes, and to track the commerce of the Minoan and Mycenaean ages. The results reached by them are somewhat speculative. In the absence of literature, attempts to utilize pottery and schemes of ornament for proof of trade influences and ethnographic connexions are meritorious, but they are risky. The book has all the information related to the coinage of 700-300 B.C. Coins, however, which are also of inestimable importance for commercial inquiries, have been carefully examined and published; and the value of such works as Head's Historia Numorum has been generally recognized. It is the object of this book to make the facts of coinage useful for the knowledge of commercial intercourse.