into the Gulf of Tarentum, near Thurii, and others making it flow east into the river Neæthus, which empties itself into the sea between Croton and Petelia. The remarkable coin now added to the National Collection settles this doubtful point in favour of the former hypothesis. Livy, in his account of the death of Alexander, the son of Neoptolemos, says that an oracle of the Dodonean Zeus had warned him to avoid Pandosia and the river Acheron, probably in allusion to the lines

Αἰακίδη προφύλαξη μολείν ̓Αχερούσιον ὕδωρ
Πανδοσίαν θ' ὅθι τοὶ θάνατος πεπρωμένος ἔστι,

and that naturally supposing this to allude to the town
and river of that name in his native Epirus, and ignorant
of the existence of a town and river of the same names
in Italy, he had no scruples in accepting the invitation of
the Tarentines to pass over into that country to their
assistance against the Bruttians and Lucanians. This
prophecy was soon afterwards fulfilled, B.C. 326, when he
was slain near Pandosia by a Lucanian exile, while in the
act of crossing the river Acheron, and his body was
carried down by the stream into the camp of the Luca-
nians, whence they sent its mutilated remains to the town
of Consentia, the metropolis of the Bruttians, and after-
wards delivered up his bones to their enemies, the Greeks
of Metapontum, who restored them to his wife Cleopatra
in Epirus. A careful reading of this story leads me to
think that the Acheron must have flowed into the Crathis
at a point some distance above Consentia, towards which
place his body floated down, and not below that town, as
is supposed by some. (Smith's "Dictionary of Geography,"
s. v. Acheron). I should therefore be inclined to place
1 Livy, viii. 24.

1

Pandosia on some height near the junction of the Acheron with the Crathis a little above Consentia. The Crathis, as the principal stream, would naturally serve as a type for its money rather than the more insignificant Acheron.? PANDOSIA BRUTTIORUM.

22. Obr.-Head of Hera Lakinia, full-face, towards right, wearing ear-rings, necklace with pendants, and

stephanos adorned with honeysuckles and foreparts of griffins placed alternately.

Rev. [HAN]AOZIN Pan naked, seated on rocks, left, holding two spears; beside him, dog; in front, a bearded ithyphallic term of Hermes, holding a filleted caduceus; above, p. AR. 95; wt. 120.1 grs. On the trunk of the term are traces of letters, MAAYΣ? Pl. III. fig. 9.

The types of this magnificent didrachm, which are similar to those of the smaller silver coins of Pandosia, are borrowed from the money of Croton, the Herakles on the reverse being here replaced by Pan, recognisable by the Syrinx, which is visible upon the rock on some of the smaller specimens in the Museum.

RHEGIUM BRUTTIORUM.

23. Obr.-Lion's scalp; above the eyebrows are small circles enclosing three dots.

Rev.-RECINOS. Bearded figure naked to waist, seated, left, on stool holding sceptre; beneath stool, a dog, seated; the whole within a laurel wreath. AR. 1.2; wt. 267·6 grs.

The lion's scalp on the coins of Rhegium is copied from the coins of the Samians, a colony of whom settled in

2 The river Crathis is mentioned by Euripides (Troad, 229), ὁ ξανθὰν χάιταν πορσαίνων

Κράθις, ζαθέαις παγᾶισι τρέφων
εὔανδρόν τ' ὀλβίζων γᾶν.

also by Ovid, Met. 15, 315.

Rhegium, after the capture of Miletus by the Persians in B.C. 494. The seated figure on the reverse is generally supposed to represent the Δῆμος.

SER

.

Uncertain city of Lucania or Bruttii.

24. Obv.-MEP. Bearded Dionysos standing, left, naked, holding kantharos and branch of vine.

Rev.-Branch of vine with leaves and bunch of grapes.
A. 95; wt. 122:1 grs. Pl. III. fig. 10.

This rare coin is attributed by Sestini to Merusium in Sicily. The Duc de Luynes (Revue Num., 1859, p. 348) has the following note upon it :-"Cette pièce tombée par hazard entre mes mains à Naples, où elle me fut vendue en 1853, par un orfèvre ambulant venu de Calabre, a été publiée par Rasche (Lexicon totius rei Num., t. iii. part 2, p. 8) d'après un dessin que lui avait envoyé Torremuzza. L'identité de la pièce gravée par Rasche avec celle que je possède est évidente. Torremuzza l'attribuait à Meroë de Lycie : Sestini (Lett. t. vii. p. 7) la donnait à Merusium de Sicile; mais il est certain que la première lettre est un couché, et non pas un M, dont le dernier jambage est toujours très court sur les pièces archaïques." The Duc de Luynes consequently assigns the coin to the town of Sergention, in Sicily, an attribution which I consider more than doubtful, for Sergention (Ptol., iii. 4, 13) was a town in the interior of Sicily, which, if ever under Greek influence, could hardly have been so at the period during which this archaic coin was struck. The style, fabric, and weight of the piece, as M. Sambon, in his "Monnaies de la presqu'ile Italique" (p. 339) justly remarks, all point to Magna Græcia, and not to Sicily, and it bears a close resemblance in style to the coins of Kaulonia of the second period when they were struck on both sides. There can be no doubt, how

ever, that the Duc de Luynes is right in reading ΣEP, and not MEP. For the present, therefore, we must content ourselves with the attribution to some town of Lucania or Bruttii apparently commencing with the letters SER.

CATANA.

SICILY.

25. Obr.-Head of Apollo, full-face, towards left, laureated; in field, right, HPAKAEIAA.

Rev.-KATANAI?[N] (in exergue). Fast quadriga, left, driven by charioteer; above, wreath-bearing Nike, flying, right. R. 1; wt 259-6 grs. Pl. IV. fig. 1.

The name HPAKAEIAAZ, from the small size of the letters, appears to be the name of the artist, rather than that of a magistrate.

SEGESTA.

26. Obv.-ZELESTAIIA. Head of Segesta, right, wearing ear-rings and necklace; hair bound with sphendone, ornamented behind with stars.

Rev.-Akestes, right, naked but for chlamys thrown over left arm, resting his left foot on rock, wearing endromides and Phrygian hat, which has fallen back and hangs over his shoulders, supported by a string round his neck. Over his right shoulder

is a strap. He holds in right two knotted javelins. His left rests on his hip. At his feet are two dogs, and before him a bearded ithyphallic term of Hermes. R. 1.2; wt. 260 grs. Pl. IV. fig. 2.

The obverse of this beautiful tetradrachm probably represents Segesta, the daughter of Hippotes of Troy, who, that she might not be devoured by the monsters which infested that territory, was sent into Sicily by her father, where she became the mother of Akestes, by the rivergod Krimisos, who assumed the form of a dog. The figure on the reverse is doubtless this Akestes, who was the founder of the city of Segesta, and is represented as a

hunter. On the remarkable inscription, EEAESTA IA, see Friedländer in the Numismatische Zeitschrift for 1870, p. 17.

SYRACUSE.

27. Obv.-Head of the nymph Arethusa, full-face, wearing ear-rings and necklace, and with flowing hair, and band across her forehead, on which KIMON: in the background, or swimming amid her flowing hair, are four dolphins; border of dots, outside which, at the top of the coin, APEOOZA. Rev.-EYPAKOZION. Charioteer driving quadriga, left; above the heads of the horses, which she touches lightly with her feet, is a winged Nike, running, right, to crown the charioteer. In the exergue is a stalk and ear of barley. R. 1-2; wt. 266-3 grs. Pl. IV. fig. 3.

This lovely tetradrachm is perhaps the finest of the works of the great Syracusan artist, Kimon, not excepting his renowned decadrachms.

THRACE AND MACEDON.

ABDERA, THRACLE.

28. Obv.-ABAHPI. Griffin seated on haunches, left, forepaws raised.

Rev.-ПYOON. Tripod. R. '95; wt. 193.7 grs. Pl. IV. fig. 4.

This coin is a didrachm of the Æginetan standard, which appears to have been in use at Abdera for a short period before the adoption of the Persian standard, the didrachms of which weigh about 170 grains. (Brandis, Münz. Mass. und Gewicht's wesen, p. 518.)

3 Virgil, Æn. v. 35.

"At procul excelso miratus vertice montis

Adventum, sociasque rates, occurrit Acestes,
Horridus, in jaculis et pelle Libystidis ursæ :
Troïa Crimiso conceptum flumine mater
Quem genuit.'