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

ι86

GREEK AND ROMAN COINS

[bk. II

and los (at the last island in the genitive, Όμηρου). Of famous
persons of a less vague antiquity named on coins we may
mention Pittacus (Φιττακόδ), Alcaeus (’Αλκαίον), and Sappho
(Εαττφώ) at Mytilene. Mytilene in fact can reckon more portraits
of historical persons than all other Greek towns put together1.
On Roman coins it was a common custom for a moneyer to
name any famous ancestor of his. To this we owe, for instance,
the fancy portrait of L. Junius Brutus, with the inscription
L. Brutus Prim. Cos., on the aureus of his descendant M. Junius
Brutus.
(6) The names of deities are among the most important
inscriptions of this class, as they enable us to identify many
types which would otherwise remain, in numismatic phraseo-
logy, ‘ uncertain deities.’ The names occur in all four cases,
the nominative (Διόνυσο? Κτίστης at Tium) having no special
significance, the genitive (Διό? ’Ελευθερίου at Syracuse) implying
that the coin, or possibly the object represented on it, is the
sacred property of the deity, the dative (Sanct. Pco Soli
Elagdbal. on coins of Elagabalus with the stone of Emisa,
Pl. XV. 6) meaning that the coin is dedicated to the deity2.
The accusative is very rare, in any cases except of divinized
human beings; as ’Ιου(λίαχ/) Πρόκλαν ήρωίδα (at Mytilene), θεάν
Αίολΐι/ ’Αγριππίναν (also at Mytilene), or personifications of Rome,
or the Senate (θεάν 'Ρώμην, θεόν Σΰνκλητον, common in Asia).
The inscription Δία Ίδαΐον ΊλιεΚ is, however, found on a coin of
New Ilium. This limitation would appear to show that with
the accusative is supposed to be understood έτίμησαν ή βουλή καί ό
δήμος or some other of the similar phrases found in honorary
inscriptions, and not a word expressing worship3.
1 See W. Wroth, Brit. Mus. Catal., Troas, &c., pp. Ixx ff. To his list add
S«£tos νέος Μ.όρ(μου ?) and 'Ανδρομέδα νέα Αεσβώ(νακτος')) Imhoof-Blumer,
Ζ f. Ν. χχ. ρ. 286.
2 Sometimes, however, the deity is not represented, but only an
attribute or a temple, in which case the genitive would imply that the
thing represented was the deity’s property, the dative that the thing was
dedicated to the deity.
3 The phrase Δία Ίδαΐον ‘Ιλιεΐς must be explained by the supposition that
the type represents a statue set up by the city, so that we may understand
some such word as άνέστησαν. Kubitschek has shown (Oesterr. Jahreshefte, i.
pp. 184 ff.) that this and similar types, occurring at Ilium in the time of
Commodus and his successors, belong to a series of statues of which the
inscribed bases of three are extant.