A number of vassal states and protectorates continued to issue their own coinages in the precious metals until they became Roman provinces. The only gold coinage of this kind is that of the kings of the Bosporus who struck coins from the time of Augustus to the beginning of the 4th century with the Roman Emperor's head on one side and the local dynast's on the other. This coinage becomes gradually debased, passing from gold to electrum then to silver and billon and ultimately to copper in the 3rd century A.D. At the other end of the world, the kings of Mauretania continued to strike their own gold and silver until it became a Roman province in A.D. 40.
The right of coinage is sometimes continuous and sometimes in termittently permitted by the Emperor or governor. Sometimes the right is held alternately by pairs of towns as in Moesia by Marcianopolis and Nicopolis. Coins are struck not only by single towns but jointly by alliances of towns (/iomonoia).
The general type is everywhere the same ; obverse a bust and reverse a type of local interest. Under the Republic the Greek cities usually placed on the obverses of their coins an allegorical bust,—that of some local hero or of the "people" the "Senate" or the local city-goddess. The People (Demos) in Asia Minor is usually personified as a young male bust ; the municipal council (Boule) and the Senate (Sunkletos) appear as young veiled fe males. The Tyche of the city appears as a female bust wearing a mural crown. The goddess Roma is found as a helmeted female, e.g., at Smyrna. Pergamon and other towns of Asia Minor have Poseidon. Athena, Apollo and other well-known divinities are also found on the obverses.
Under the empire the usual obverse type is the head of the Emperor as on the regular Roman series. There are some notable exceptions. Macedonia for example had the head of Alexander the Great. Athens was privileged by Hadrian to use the head of Athena in place of the Emperor's. These are exceptions; the usual type is the bust of the Emperor and the obverse legend gives his name and titles in Greek, usually transcriptions or translations of his Latin titles, with occasionally some local allusion. The re verse type is reserved for the town of issue and the date when given is in a local era. The name of the town is in the genitive plural of the ethnic, very frequently with the addition of some proud epithet, of more or less significance. These epithets are of various kinds; many refer to the emperor either to flatter him or in memory of some benefit received. Some recall the origin of the inhabitants; Blaundus in Lydia, for example, calls itself Mace donian because it was originally a colony of Macedonian soldiers. Very favourite adjectives are "autonomous" and "free" but the most highly prized is that of Neokoros, which in Imperial times signified that the town had built a temple in honour of the Em peror. Ephesus for example proclaims in the reign of Caracalla that it had built 3 imperial temples. Capitals of provinces call themselves Metropolis; the title "first city" of the province is also highly prized and occasionally disputed, as we see from the coin-legends of Nicomedia and Nicaea in Bithynia or of Smyrna and Ephesus in the province of Asia. Towns in Phoenicia and
Syria which had a temple with the right of asylum call themselves lepet Kai iia-vXos ; a number of maritime towns bear the title pavapxis officially granted them by the emperor in recognition of their naval importance. Damascus calls itself "illustrious," Syedra "brilliant," Nicaea "greatest and best" and there are many such empty titles.
Besides the ethnic these coins very often bear the names of magistrates and other officials; in the early years of the empire these include a few governors and other officials sent from Rome, some of whom even have their portraits on their coins, like the younger Cicero at Magnesia. But throughout the series the names and titles of local magistrates are vastly more common. These throw a good deal of light on local life and administration.
It is the reverse types of this series of coins that give them their importance. The coins of Athens preserve representations of many statues famous in antiquity which have long since per ished such as the Athena Parthenos of Phidias, the great Athena Promachos on the Acropolis visible far out at sea, or the Dionysos of Alcamenes. A coin of Elis preserves for us the Olympian Zeus of Phidias and Lacedaemon the Apollo of Amyclees. Local cults are everywhere illustrated and incidents in the lives of all the divinities of Greek mythology are common types. Not only do we have gods and goddesses but also all kinds of local deities like river gods and nymphs. Local celebrities are also recorded ; thus we have Homer at several of the various towns that claimed him as a native notably Smyrna, Anacreon at Teos, Sappho at Eresos in Lesbos, Herodotus at Halicarnassus, Alcaeus at Mytilene which records on its coins a whole series of its famous men, the majority of whom are not otherwise known. Not only are famous Greeks commemorated; the travels of Hadrian in the provinces led to the issue of many specially fine coins, some of which bear the por trait of his favourite Antinous.
Agonistic types are very numerous on account of the great part played by games and festivals in the life of the time. Their cele bration is frequently recorded on coins ; sometimes we learn that the town was not able to bear the expense and that officials or private individuals were ready to bear the expense in return for the honour of presiding and this is duly chronicled. In addition to the four great Hellenic Games we find many of more recent origin instituted in honour of the Emperor, like the Actian games in honour of the victory of Augustus at Actium, celebrated at Tyre and other towns, the Philadelphian in honour of Caracalla and Geta at Nicaea, etc., or in honour of local deities like the Panathenaic at Athens, or the Heraclean at Perinthus commemo rated by a series giving the labours of Hercules. When two or more cities combined to have a joint festival, this is commem orated by a joint issue of coins. In conclusion we may mention a notable example of the preservation of a local tradition on a Greek imperial coin. On a coin of Septimius at Apameia in Phrygia we have as reverse type a man and woman in a chest or ark floating on water with a raven on the top and a dove flying above with a branch in her beak; to remove any doubt as to what scene is represented the ark is labelled NS 2€ and the coin is evidence of the local tradition that the ark rested on the mountain behind Apameia (Pl. 11.-2).