Hill, George Francis: A handbook of Greek and Roman coins (London: Macmillan, 1899)

8θ GREEK AND ROMAN COINS [bk. i
Whether there ever existed in ancient times a subsidiary
private coinage corresponding to the token coinage of modern
times (such as the tradesmen’s, civic, and bank tokens of
England during the seventeenth, eighteenth, and early
nineteenth centuries), it is impossible to say with certainty.
At least, no recognizable specimens have come down to us.
These token coinages differ from the private coinage, the
existence of which M. Babeion has tried to establish for early
times, in that they attempt not to rival the state issue, but
only to supply the gaps which it leaves unfilled ; that is to say,
when the state issues only the more valuable kind of coin,
private money in small denominations is issued to facilitate
small transactions. The series of many ancient states are
notably deficient in small denominations ; but it would seem
that the want was supplied by the use of uncoined blocks or
bars of the meaner metals, such as had been in use before the
introduction of coined money.
§2. Nature of I Temple coinage.'’
There is, then, no certain instance in ancient history of
anything which can properly be called a private coinage. The
prerogative invariably, so far as we are informed, belonged
to the state. Whenever in Hellas coins were issued by
individuals, those individuals were rulers, whether· constitu-
tional kings or tyrants. Even what are known as temple
coinages are probably merely a variety of state coinage. The
temple at Didyma issued coins (drachms or hemidrachms)
of the same types as those of the Milesian coinage, but
with the inscription ΕΓ ΔΙΔΥΜΩΝ ΙΕΡΗ (sc?7. δραχ/η;). The
inscription proves that the coins were issued from the temple ;
but, taken in conjunction with the type, it also proves that they
much more to be said for the attribution to Halicarnassus, where the coin
was actually found, and where we have, in later times, a record of a certain
Phanes, who acted as an auxiliary of Cambyses in Egypt. But as Frankel
has pointed out (Arch. Zcit. 1879, pp. 27-30; Weil, in Berl. Phil. Woch. 1898,
p. χ337), the form Φαη/os·. which appears to be the correct reading of the
name, is the genitive, not of Φαίνης (which would give the uncontracted
form Φαίι/eos in the third, and <E>aivecu in the first declension), but of Φαιι-ώ,
an epithet of Artemis. This being so, the attribution to Ephesus is
made more probable.