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

16θ GREEK AND ROMAN COINS [be. π
an exaggeration of the border is visible on early coins as com-
pared with later ’.
Legends at first appear on Greek coins in a much abbreviated
form. The initial letter of the name of the community served
to indicate the authority by which the coin was issued, such
initials being in fact used as the city arms on other objects
besides coins1 2. Not even the earliest inscriptions, however,
are limited to the city name ; a legend explanatory of the type
occurs on the earliest inscribed coin (Pl. I. 4). As with the
spread of writing the legends became longer, it became neces-
sary to arrange them decoratively so as to fill the vacant spaces
of the field or form a border. The former arrangement is
obvious on most coins ; the latter is perhaps best illustrated by
the coins of the Macedonian and Thracian region, such as
Amphipolis (Pl. V. 1). As time went on, a tendency showed
itself to overcrowd the field with inscriptions, of which good
instances may be found on the Athenian tetradrachms and the
regal coins of late times. On the latter the employment of
the inscription to enclose the type as a border, whether square
(Pl. X. 1) or round3, was still usual, and on imperial coins the
circular arrangement became almost invariable, and has lasted
down to modern times. In imperial times the border of dots is
almost universal.
§ 6. Development of Style.
It is not proposed to deal here in any great detail with the
artistic development of Greek and Roman coin-types 4. The
treatment of the relief in coins follows more or less closely the
general lines on which Greek sculpture in relief developed5.
The Greeks soon advanced beyond the stage in which the
decoration of their coins consisted of a mere pattern, to that in
which they represented some object natural or artificial. As
1 E.g. on coins of Tarentum : Head, Coins of the- Ancients, PI. 7, no. 4, &c.
2 E. Curtins, Ueber den ret. Char, der gr. Munzen, Ges. Abh. ii. p. 457, of. 91 ;
Imhoof-Blumer, Z. f. N. i. 130.
3 Head, Coins of the Ancients, Pl. 62, nos. 20, 21.
4 For Greek coins this has already been done at length in Professor
Gardner’s Types of Greek Coins ; for a brief summary of the development of
style, see also Head, Hist. Num. pp. lx if.
5 The development of coins, however, very often, though not always,
lags somewhat behind that of sculpture.