DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9184#0036
16 New Chapters in Greek History. [Chap. I.
matic testimony only, to the years B.C. 2 to A.D. 11 ; and
these reigns date some important events of Roman
history, and help us to determine the policy of Augustus
on various occasions. As a rule the autonomous coins of
Greece bear no dates, and their period can only be fixed
by arguments of style and epigraphy. But the mints of
Greece were so active that we are able in the case of
hundreds of Greek cities to place beside their history, as
recorded by ancient writers, a tolerably continuous numis-
matic record with which it may be compared, and whereby
it may be occasionally corrected, more often supplemented
and expanded. To give detailed instances would involve
too long a disquisition ; but a few cases of the correction
or expansion of history by numismatic evidence may be
summarily mentioned. We have, I believe, no record of a
union of the people of the cities of Arcadia before the
time when the Arcadian League was established by Epami-
nondas. Yet if there had been no tradition of a political
union it is improbable that the idea of founding one would
have occurred to that great statesman. On turning to
coins, we find, issuing probably from the mint of Heraea,
a very extensive series belonging to the sixth and fifth
centuries, the inscription of which, 'ApKa&iicov, is sufficient
to prove that some kind of federal union, involving at least
the use of a common coinage, must have existed in
Arcadia as early as the time of the Persian wars. As
another instance we may take the city of Patrae in Achaia.
The language of Polybius and Pausanias seems to imply
that the city, after suffering severely at the time of the
Gaulish invasion of Greece, was entirely destroyed at the
time of the sack of Corinth in B.C. 146. Yet wc learn
that Mark Antony, when he sailed against Augustus,
made Patrae his head-quarters. This apparent inconsis-
tency is made less hopeless when we find from the
evidence of the silver coins of Patrae that the city must
matic testimony only, to the years B.C. 2 to A.D. 11 ; and
these reigns date some important events of Roman
history, and help us to determine the policy of Augustus
on various occasions. As a rule the autonomous coins of
Greece bear no dates, and their period can only be fixed
by arguments of style and epigraphy. But the mints of
Greece were so active that we are able in the case of
hundreds of Greek cities to place beside their history, as
recorded by ancient writers, a tolerably continuous numis-
matic record with which it may be compared, and whereby
it may be occasionally corrected, more often supplemented
and expanded. To give detailed instances would involve
too long a disquisition ; but a few cases of the correction
or expansion of history by numismatic evidence may be
summarily mentioned. We have, I believe, no record of a
union of the people of the cities of Arcadia before the
time when the Arcadian League was established by Epami-
nondas. Yet if there had been no tradition of a political
union it is improbable that the idea of founding one would
have occurred to that great statesman. On turning to
coins, we find, issuing probably from the mint of Heraea,
a very extensive series belonging to the sixth and fifth
centuries, the inscription of which, 'ApKa&iicov, is sufficient
to prove that some kind of federal union, involving at least
the use of a common coinage, must have existed in
Arcadia as early as the time of the Persian wars. As
another instance we may take the city of Patrae in Achaia.
The language of Polybius and Pausanias seems to imply
that the city, after suffering severely at the time of the
Gaulish invasion of Greece, was entirely destroyed at the
time of the sack of Corinth in B.C. 146. Yet wc learn
that Mark Antony, when he sailed against Augustus,
made Patrae his head-quarters. This apparent inconsis-
tency is made less hopeless when we find from the
evidence of the silver coins of Patrae that the city must