The Roman conquest of Greece is reflected in the coinages. When the Romans overthrew Philip V. in 197 or Perseus in 168 they professed to be restoring the liberties of the Greeks and it is clear from the resumed activity of the mints that the Greek cities were autonomous in one respect at least. After the defeat of Philip V. the Thessalians formed a con federation with silver coins of the type of Zeus and Athena and the legend Thessalon; a similar coinage was issued by the Boeotians. With the final overthrow of Macedon at Pydra in 168 begins the extensive issue of tetradrachms of Maronea and Thasos which became a great commercial currency for trade with the Barbarians across the Danube who continued to imitate them. Macedon itself as a Roman province issued tetradrachms bearing the names of Roman governors. In Asia after the defeat of Antiochus III. at Magnesia we have an outburst of tetradrachms of Attic weight and local types at towns like Lampsacus, Smyrna (Pl. ), Magnesia and many others. Other cities similarly
sumed the issue of Alexander tetradrachms, adding a small symbol to mark the town of issue—Miletus, Samos, Rhodes and many other Asiatic cities. These Alexander types continued down to the middle of the and century when the Roman province of Asia was set up and the cistophori replaced them. The first cistophori, so called from the Dionysiac chest which formed the principal type, were first struck at Ephesus at the end of the 3rd century; the reverse is a bow in quiver between two serpents (P1. 11.-3). The Pergamene kings popularised them and the Romans thus found it easy to substitute them for the Alexandrine tetradrachms with their undesirable associations. Cistophori were now struck in many Asiatic mints and bear the monogram of the town of issue. The last stage in the Roman conquest of the east was the defeat of Mithridates and those towns that had assisted him had their coins replaced by cistophori with the exception of Athens which obtained favoured treatment. The fact that Rhodes resisted Mithridates and assisted Sulla enabled its autonomous silver coinage to survive down to the Civil War :—it was the last autonomous coinage of Greece.
In the west the rise of Rome in the 3rd century introduced a new factor into the history of Greek coinage. The first coinage to disappear was the Etrurian after a life of two centuries. Rome's early intercourse with the Greek cities of Italy is reflected in the Romano-Campanian coinage. In the south the Italian campaign of Pyrrhus left its mark on various coinages, notably at Tarentum which also has some exceptional numismatic records of Hanni bal's occupation. The towns of Magna Graecia gradually lost their silver coinage under Roman influence although their bronze lasted till the 1st century.
In Sicily in the 3rd century Syracuse began to dominate the whole island in coinage as well as politically ; the types are mainly imitations of those of the 5th and 4th centuries; the coins of the other towns have little claim to originality. The Punic Wars brought the Romans to Sicily where the Carthaginians had been established since the end of the 5th century and had struck coins of Syracusan and other Sicilian types with Punic legends and later with their own types. When Syracuse fell to
Rome in 210, Sicily became a Roman province ; henceforth only bronze was struck in it ; these local coins continued into the first century, when the last trace of Greek coinage in the west disappears.
Under the Romans many Greek cities and districts continued to issue their own bronze coins but the geographical area over which this was done became con siderably restricted under the empire. In the west—Italy, Gaul, Spain and North Africa—the right of coinage was abolished quite early in the empire, the latest local issue of these regions being a coin of Babba in Mauretania of the reign of Galba. In the east, particularly in Asia, these local bronze coinages went on down to the time of Gallienus in 268, when the complete depreciation of the Imperial silver coinage, now bronze washed with silver, made the issue of bronze for small change pointless. The language of the inscriptions is Latin in the west and Greek in the east—with a few exceptions in the latter case. The Imperial gold (solidus) and silver (denarius) became the main currencies throughout the Roman empire.
Before dealing in general with the bronze of the Greek cities, we may note one or two local subsidiary silver coinages issued by the Roman emperors in continuation of important pre-conquest coinages. The largest series of these was the Egyptian or Alex andrian series which runs from Augustus to Diocletian. In addi tion to bronze, this series at first included tetradrachms of billon of gradually decreasing fineness, which continued the tetradachms of the Ptolemies; later it is of bronze only. The legends are always in Greek; the coins bear the emperor's head on the obverse and the reverse types are at first usual Roman types but after the end of the first century begin to include native Egyptian types in increasing numbers, often of peculiar interest. The reverses are dated in regnal years in Greek numerals. From the reign of Claudius II. there is only one denomination, a small thick bronze piece originally coated with silver, which is probably still the commonest of all ancient coins. The earlier bronze which occa sionally, although not generally, rival the work of the Roman mint have in the and century a characteristic bevelled edge.
In Syria silver tetradrachms continued to be struck, mainly at Antioch but also at Tyre and a few other mints. These gradually became baser in the course of the early third century. Copper was also struck by the Romans at these mints and frequently bears the letters S C showing that this issue, as in Rome, was the pre rogative of the Senate. Of several other local silver coinages the large series of drachms struck at Caesarea in Cappadocia from Tiberius to Commodus is the most important. The usual type is a local one of Mount Argaeus but common denarii reverses are also found.