DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49262#0151
ch. v] MONETARY OFFICIALS 131
private workshops, being of course responsible to the state.
The difficulty of properly controlling them seems to make this
suggestion highly improbable The mint must always have
been strictly under the control of the state, and this would
have been thoroughly ineffective if the moneyer were allowed
to make coins in his own house.
The artists who engraved the dies of Greek coins are, in
a comparatively few cases, known to us by name, owing to
their custom of signing their dies. The consideration of this
subject belongs more properly to another chapter. Here we may
note that, magnificent as some of their productions were, the
utter silence of ancient literature in respect to these engravers
has suggested to some writers that they were not freemen.
Yet, if so, it is hard to see how they can have been permitted
to affix their signatures to the state issue. The fact that we
find the same artist working for different cities also makes it
improbable that he was a slave; the jealousy that always
existed between Greek cities, even in times of political alliance,
would hardly have permitted an interchange of state servants
of this kind.
B. Among the Romans.
§ 6. Boman Monetary Magistrates.
The earliest Roman coins bear no mark indicating the
moneyer who issued them. As in Greece, so too in Rome,
a beginning in the way of indicating the moneyer is made by
means of symbols. These are found on some of the old denarii
of unreduced weight (therefore before the close of the First Punic
war)2. Towards the close of the third century b. c. (before 217)
appear the names of moneyers, in ligature or otherwise abbre-
viated. Gradually the name begins to appear at greater length.
3 A passage is quoted by Lenormant (Polyb. ap. Athen. v. 193 d) in
favour of this arrangement at Antiochia. But the apyipoKoireia which
Antiochus Epiphanes frequented were merely silversmiths’ workshops.
This is clear from the context. ’ApyvpoKonos must not always be taken in
the sense of moneyer. It is parallel in meaning exactly to our word
silversmith. There is no reason, for instance, to suppose that Demetrius
of Ephesus was a moneyer.
2 See above, pp. 47, 48.
K 2
private workshops, being of course responsible to the state.
The difficulty of properly controlling them seems to make this
suggestion highly improbable The mint must always have
been strictly under the control of the state, and this would
have been thoroughly ineffective if the moneyer were allowed
to make coins in his own house.
The artists who engraved the dies of Greek coins are, in
a comparatively few cases, known to us by name, owing to
their custom of signing their dies. The consideration of this
subject belongs more properly to another chapter. Here we may
note that, magnificent as some of their productions were, the
utter silence of ancient literature in respect to these engravers
has suggested to some writers that they were not freemen.
Yet, if so, it is hard to see how they can have been permitted
to affix their signatures to the state issue. The fact that we
find the same artist working for different cities also makes it
improbable that he was a slave; the jealousy that always
existed between Greek cities, even in times of political alliance,
would hardly have permitted an interchange of state servants
of this kind.
B. Among the Romans.
§ 6. Boman Monetary Magistrates.
The earliest Roman coins bear no mark indicating the
moneyer who issued them. As in Greece, so too in Rome,
a beginning in the way of indicating the moneyer is made by
means of symbols. These are found on some of the old denarii
of unreduced weight (therefore before the close of the First Punic
war)2. Towards the close of the third century b. c. (before 217)
appear the names of moneyers, in ligature or otherwise abbre-
viated. Gradually the name begins to appear at greater length.
3 A passage is quoted by Lenormant (Polyb. ap. Athen. v. 193 d) in
favour of this arrangement at Antiochia. But the apyipoKoireia which
Antiochus Epiphanes frequented were merely silversmiths’ workshops.
This is clear from the context. ’ApyvpoKonos must not always be taken in
the sense of moneyer. It is parallel in meaning exactly to our word
silversmith. There is no reason, for instance, to suppose that Demetrius
of Ephesus was a moneyer.
2 See above, pp. 47, 48.
K 2