e ancient buckler was of this form. Of such a figure was
the escutcheon of these states. Boeotia adopted for hers the shield of
Herakles, and Macedonia that of Ares. What tends strongly to confirm
this view, that the buckler was the model for the coin, is the fact that
for a long time Macedonian coins were finished upon the obverse, in
imitation of the national shield. This is to be seen in the decoration
of the border, even on coins that were struck long after Macedonia had
become a Roman province. May it not be the case that the buckler served
as model for the circular disk?

As Greek coins were issued under the sanction of some god, it was
natural that they should go out from his temple bearing his effigy and
the symbols of his worship. Apollo succeeded to the early worship paid
the sun and fire. He was the god of light and beauty. In his honor gold
coins should originally have been struck, and they should bear his
emblems. It will be of service to see what some of these were. This god
was, on the whole, beneficent, as the influences of the sun are kindly,
but he inflicted plagues by shooting his poisoned arrows among the
people, just as the heat of the sun engenders deadly fevers. We have
retained a trace of the old feeling, as our language betrays where
consciousness utterly fails. We attribute certain sudden attacks of
illness to _sunstroke_. That word "stroke" brings vividly before us the
smiting of the Greek camp on the plain before Troy. Representing the
sun, as Apollo did, the head of this god often appears radiated upon
coins, particularly upon the coins of Rhodes. This was as the poets
were wont to describe him. Catullus alludes to his flashing
eyes,--"_radiantibus oculis_." Tibullus speaks of him as this youth
having his temples bound with sacred laurel--"_hic juvenis casta
redimitus tempora lauro_" The use of the laurel was reserved to this
god, and in times of primitive Greek and Roman piety it was allowed to
men only whose successful general would celebrate a triumph. The
palm-branch is also connected with the worship of this god, in allusion
to the sacred palm-tree under which Leta gave birth to him and to
Artemis. The rays, the laurel, and the palm are the symbols of Apollo
upon our coins. Other nations have employed the bow, the lyre, and the
tripod, with many more equally familiar symbols.

The coinage of silver belonged peculiarly to Zeus, the god of the
thunderbolt. The question arises at once, Wa