The earliest known coins were issued by the Greeks in the 7th century before the Christian era. By the 4th century the whole civilized world used money q. This has continued to be the case to the present time; so that now there are few nations without a metal currency of their own, and of these but a small proportion are wholly unacquainted with the use of coins. Coins, although they confirm history, rarely correct it, and never very greatly. The earliest belong to a time and to nations as to which we are not otherwise wholly ignorant, and they do not afford us that precise information which would fill in any important details of the meagre sketch of contemporary history.
We gain from them scarcely any direct historical information, except that certain cities or princes issued money. When in later times the devices and inscriptions of the coins give more detailed information, history is far fuller and clearer, so that the numismatic evidence is rarely more than corroborative. There are, indeed, some remarkable exceptions to this rule, as in the case of the Bactrian and Indian coins, which have supplied the outlines of a portion of history which was otherwise almost wholly lost.
The value of the corroborative evidence afforded by coins must not, however, be overlooked. It chiefly relates to chronology, although it also adds to our knowledge of the pedigrees of royal houses. But perhaps the most interesting manner in which coins and medals illustrate history is in their bearing contemporary, or nearly contemporary, portraits of the most famous kings and captains, from the time of the first successors of Alexander the Great to the present age, whereas pictures do not afford portraits in any number before the latter part of the middle ages; and works of sculpture, although occupying in this respect the same place as coins in the lastmentioned period and under the Roman empire, are neither so numerous nor so authentic.
There is no more delightful companion in historical reading than a cabinet of coins and medals. The strength and energy of Alexander, the ferocity of Mithradates, the philosophic calmness of Antoninus, the obstinate ferocity of Nero, and the brutality of Caracalla are as plain on the coins as in the pages of history.
The numismatic portraits of the time following the founding of Constantinople have less individuality; but after the revival of art they recover that quality, and maintain it to our own day, although executed in very different styles from those of antiquity.
