THE

OCTOBOLS OF HISTIAEA

By EDWARD T. NEWELL

A RATHER unexpected combination of circumstances has recently led the writer to investigate a well-known group of coins struck in the Euboean city of Histiæa. The results of this study strongly emphasize a necessary alteration in the dates which have been generally assigned to certain of these pieces, thereby throwing into considerable relief the causes leading to the introduction of the series in question.

In April of 1920, during an all too short sojourn in Athens, the writer experienced the unusual fortune of securing a very fine specimen of the well known octobol of Histiæa. The raison d'être for the present article partly hinges on the fact that this new example chances to be in a far

better state of preservation than the only other known specimen. The latter piece, until now unique, was originally owned by P. Lambros of Athens and was for the first time published by S. Komnos in the Revue Numismatique, 1865, pl. vii, No. 10. It was later republished by R. Weil in the Zeitschrift für Numismatik, vol. I, 1874, pp. 186-7. Eventually the coin passed to Photiades Pasha, and at the dispersal of his collection was bought for the Bibliothèque Nationale where it now reposes. This particular specimen, once more described by M. Babelon in his Traité 2, Vol. III, No. 201, pl. cxcviii, fig. 27, weighs 5.75 grammes and is therefore an octobol of the Attic system. Thanks to the kindness of M. Babelon this coin is herewith reproduced on Plate I, No. 2.

The new example (Plate I, No. 3) of the Histiæan octobol is in most respects identical with the Paris specimen, both having been struck apparently from the same pair of dies. The writer's coin, however, weighs 5.59 grammes and is, as stated above, somewhat better preserved.1

The delight experienced at the unexpected acquisition of so rare a piece was but further increased by the opportunity now presented of deciphering an inscription engraved in minute letters on the cross-bar of the stylis held in the Nymph's hand. This inscription apparently commences with the three letters A O A, engraved on the left hand portion of the cross-bar. There are distinct traces of two more letters on the right hand portion, but these unfortunately are indecipherable. A careful inspection of the Paris specimen, on which the first three letters chance to be obliterated but the last two rather more distinct, would suggest — in view of the probabilities of the case— - that these two remaining letters should perhaps be read N A. Thus by means of the new specimen M. Svoronos' insistence (Jour. Int. d'Arch. et Num., 1914, vol. XVI, p. 91) that the cross-bar of the stylis on the coins of Histiæa once bore an inscription, is now fully corroborated. We will later have occasion to return to this inscription and its probable significance.

It so happened that but a few days previous to the fortunate discovery of the Histiaan octobol, the writer was engaged in studying a most interesting little hoard. of Fourth Century coins, now preserved in the National Collection at Athens. This hoard contains tetradrachms of Philip II and Alexander the Great, a drachm of Larissa (400-344 B. C.), two hemidrachms of Locri Opuntii, a drachm of Boeotia, a drachm and five hemidrachms of Sicyon, and a tetrobol of Histiæa—a total of thirty five coins. The find was recently made in the course of some work being carried on near the mole or jetty at Kyparissia in the Peloponnese. The coins themselves are rather heavily coated with oxide, but their original condition appears to have been very good. The hoard presents at least two points of unusual interest. In the first place it antedates by some five or six years the earliest known deposit of Alexander coins- the famous gold hoards of Saida-whose probable date of interment was about the year 322-321 B. C. The second point of interest lies in the

fact that the tetrobol of Histiæa belongs to the seated Nymph type, a type that R. |Weil (Z. f. N., 1874, p. 183 ff) considers to have been first introduced in 312 B. C., and possibly as late as 290-289 B. C. In this he has been followed by Head in the British Museum Catalogue, Central Greece, where the coins in question are placed after 312 B. C. Both the Historia Numorum and M. Babelon in his Traité des Monnaies grecques et romaines endorse this assignment. Needless to say, the specimen in the Kyparissia Find belongs to what all these authorities recognize as the first group of the series, characterized by full weight and very fine style. Similar specimens are reproduced on Pl. xxiv, figs. 6 and 7 of the British Museum Catalogue, Pl. cxcviii, fig. 28 of the Traité, and Pl. I, No. 4 of the present article. Now the dating of our hoard rests entirely upon the Alexander tetradrachms, and for the following reasons. The tetradrachms of Philip II which it contained, were all struck previous to 336 B. C., as none of them belong to that large category known