NUMISMATICS. The term numismatic, derived from the Greek voatapta, is applied to the study of ancient and modern coins. By the writers of the 15th and I6th centuries it was called the science of medals. It divides itself into the following principal branches : The study of coins considered in reference to the monetary systems to which they belong, or the study of the historical, mythological, and geographical allusions of inscriptions and types, and the discri mination of true ancient coins from modern imitations or forgeries. So vast is the extent of the subject that a perfect knowledge of all branches has never been attained by one individual. The value of ancient coins to the study of geography, history, and philology is considerable, for as they are monuments issued by public authority it must be assumed that the information they convey is correct; and they consequently offer many corrections to the orthography, in some instances they rectify the chronology, and even add to history and geography names which have disappeared from literature. Considered in reference to the arts they are valuable as showing their state at different fixed periods, while they present invaluable portraits of princes and illustrious personages, valuable representations of temples, statues, and localities, and important hints as to mythology and his torical events. The study of them is however generally subjective, and they require elucidation from rather than give it to literature. In some instances indeed they hand down the knowledge of obscure sites, or give a clue to the history of dynasties which have not been recorded on the pages of the historian. As religious monuments they transmit a history of the local deities, and representations of their shrines and statues and the religious ideas of the age in which they were struck, and they afford considerable insight into the autonomous or free, and imperial administrations of states and cities, and their political changes, monetary systems, and dialects. .But their great charm is their being
monuments of ages long past, ancient pictorial illustrations of classical authors, undeniable evidences of a past state, and links which con nect the familiar coins of the day with the first struggles of invention and the development of monetary systems. At the same time they are a most microscopical branch of archeology.
There can be little doubt that the Romans made collections of ancient coins, from the price paid for remarkable forgeries and the fact of their being inlaid and valued during the lower empire as gems by the laws. Petrarch, in 1374, was the first in the middle ages to collect them, Alphonse, king of Arragon, and Cosmo di Medici continued in the next century to do the same, and in the 16th century the study had so progressed that 200 cabinets were known in Holland alone. In the 15th century they were first introduced into literature by Angelo Poliziano, in 1490 ; and a series of writers the chief of whom wore Fulvius, A.D. 1500; A.D. 1526 ; Velo, A.D. 1560; Golzius, A.D. 1526-83; Agostiuo, A.D. 1586; Ursinue, A.V. 1600; and Patin, A.D. 1633; wrote chiefly upon and illus trated the imperial Roman aeries. In England the study commenced with Speed, A.D. 1522, and Camden, in 1586. The works of this century are not remarkable for their accuracy, and it is not till the following that the study of numisnaaties began to acquire the rank of a science. Frsilich,Corsini, and Cary availed themselves of medals to write history of the Bactrian, Armenian, and Bosphoran princes; but the most remarkable writers of the 17th and 18th centuries were Morell, A.D. 1703 ; Valliant, A.D. 1706 ; Sivinheim, A.D. 1661; Pellerin, A.D. 17o2 ; I lardouin, in 1729 ; Patin, in 1695. In the 18th century the critical Fackliel completely reformed the study of numismatics, A.D. 17:37-1506, while Mionnet, in 1770-1S42, gave a complete hat of Greek coins, and Ruche, a lexicon of important use for the study.