COINS. The invention of coined money in ancient times did not antedate the Lydian empire, which came to an end by 546 b.c. Prior to that time the ancient Near E carried on commercial transactions either by barter or by bullion weighed out in the scales. In the earlier period the chief medium of exchange was livestock, such as cattle, sheep or goats (esp. in nomadic communities), or else the products of agriculture, such as grain, olives and figs, or the liquid manufactures in the form of wine or olive oil. Taxes were ordinarily paid in oil or wine, judging from the Samaritan ostraca from the reign of Jeroboam II (793-753 b.c.) which list the number of jars paid by each taxpayer opposite his name. Even vassal kings like Mesha of Moab paid their tribute to the Israelite government in the form of sheep’s wool (at the yearly rate of 100,000 lambs and 100,000 rams—2 Kings 3:4).

On the other hand, it should be noted that silver bullion often was used in making purchases even as early as the beginning of the 2nd millennium, when Abraham bought the cave and field of Machpelah from Ephron the Hittite for 400 shekels of silver (Gen 23:15, 16). These shekels of course were not in the form of minted coins at this early period, but they were simply units of weight amounting to about .4 oz. or 11.5 grams per shekel. In an earlier ch. (20:14-16) King Abimelech of Gerar is said to have paid Abraham a thousand shekels of silver before he left his territories, along with sheep, oxen and slaves. Young Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers for twenty shekels (37:28). The term keseph, or “silver,” used in these transactions must have been intended for “shekels of silver,” even though the word sheqel is not mentioned until Moses’ time (Exod 21:32) and thereafter, apart from the aforementioned purchase of the cave of Machpelah. One other unit of weight is also referred to in a real estate transaction in the life of Jacob; he is said to have bought a parcel of ground near Shechem for 100 q^esīṭah (Gen 33:19)—a unit that may have represented the current rate of silver for a lamb, as some have suggested. The q^esīṭah is also referred to in Joshua 24:32 and Job 42:11.

The bullion used in such transactions may have been forged into standard shapes, for Egyp. bas-reliefs show bundles or piles of silver rings which were capable of being tied together for convenience’ sake, as the sons of Jacob did when purchasing grain in Egypt (Gen 42:35). As for the buying power of silver in Mosaic times (Lev 5:15), it is indicated that two shekels was the price of a ram, and fifty shekels for a homer (estimated at four bushels or more) of barley seed (Lev 27:16). In Elisha’s day, under favorable conditions of supply at least, a seah (or 1 1/2 pecks) of fine meal could be had for one shekel (2 Kings 7:16).

The normal subdivisions of the shekel mentioned are: the gerah (one twentieth), the beka (a half shekel), and the pīm (prob. two-thirds of a shekel; cf. 1 Sam 13:21). The multiples of the shekel were: the maneh of fifty shekels and the kikkar or talent of 3,000 shekels (i.e., sixty manehs). It goes without saying that no coin was ever minted which was equivalent to these higher values; even among the Greeks the largest silver coin was the decadrachma, which weighed less than three of the full-weight shekels of Israelite times.

The earliest minted coinage thus far discovered is that of the kingdom of Lydia, as mentioned above. These came out at first in electrum (a mixture of silver and gold), and featured the forepart of a lion confronting the forepart of a bull. The reverse of the coin bore a shapeless punch mark rather than any recognizable type, a custom which was followed from then until the advent of Gr. influence in the Near E. Somewhat later the Lydians also produced a silver siglos of about the same shape and design as the electrum prototype. After the Pers. conquest of Lydia (546 b.c.), prob. in the reign of Darius I (522-485) the Pers. imperial currency came out with a new standard type: the king kneeling and facing to the right, holding a spear in his right hand and a bow in his left. This was minted both in gold and in silver. It is interesting to note that the gold daric was the most frequently mentioned coin in the OT, if one regards the adarkōnīm of 1 Chronicles 20:2 and Ezra 8:27 as identical with the darkemōnīm of Ezra 2:69 and Nehemiah 7:70, 71, 72. Some recent authorities regard the latter as the Gr. term drachmē (or drachma), but this is more than doubtful, since the Greeks did not refer to gold coins as drachmas. Of course it may be that the daric was used as a unit of weight, rather than a minted coin, since Ezra 8:27 refers to gold basins of 1,000 darics each. Certainly the shekel was used as a unit of weight rather than as a coin throughout the Heb. Scriptures, except possibly in Nehemiah 5:15 (which refers to a time after the invention of minted money).

It was apparently in Greece that the first silver coinage made its appearance, even before it was minted in Lydia. The earliest silver staters from Aegina, an island near the coast of Argolis on the NE shoulder of the Peloponnesus, date from around 670 b.c., and show a sea tortoise on the obverse, with a mill incuse on the reverse. Aegina was a major mercantile center during the 7th and 6th cent., and its coinage was widely used. With the rising naval power of Athens at the beginning of the 5th cent. the Athenian tetradrachma took the field as the dominant silver coin in international trade in the eastern Mediterranean. This featured the head of the patron goddess, Athena, facing right, and on the reverse her sacred bird, the owl, with an olive spray behind it, and the inscr. ATHE (for Athēnaiōn, “of the Athenians”) to the right of it. Unlike the coinages of other cities, this Attic tetradrachma never reduced its weight from 270 grains, nor did it debase the silver from its original fineness. For this reason, as well as for the extensive political power of Athens (esp. under the leadership of Pericles), this coin enjoyed the widest circulation of any Gr. coin prior to the Alexandrian conquest. Hoards, including these tetradrachmas, have been unearthed all over the Mediterranean area, even in the Black Sea Hellenic settlements and the coastal districts of the Near E, including Pal. itself. In 230 b.c., after 300 years of use, this older type was replaced by a new style with a broader flan, containing the head of Athena Parthenos (the famous masterpiece of Phidias in the Parthenon) with the three-crested helmet. On the other side the owl is standing upon an overturned amphora or lekythos. The example illustrated has this inscr.: ATHĒ(naiōn) MĒTRO(poleōs) EPIGENE(s) SŌSANDROS (“Of the metropolis of the Athenians, Epigenes [and] Sosander”). To the lower left of the owl is a small eagle on a thunderbolt. The two magistrates named held office in 163, according to Barclay Head (but 158, according to more recent authorities).

Another widely used currency was that of the city of Corinth, whose colonies and mercantile connections spread from western Greece over Sicily and southern Italy. It minted a beautiful stater with a lovely head of Athena wearing an owl-type helmet, and on the reverse the winged horse, Pegasus, with the letter koppa (for Qorinthou “Corinth”) below its chest. Many of the colonies founded by Corinthian settlers used the same types on their staters, except that they substituted the initial letter of their own city name (e.g. lambda for Leucas, alpha for Anactorium, etc.). The smaller denominations of Corinth retained the Pegasus on the reverse, but varied the obverse type. Thus, the drachma bore the head of Aphrodite whose temple on the Acrocorinthos overlooking the city was said to maintain a thousand temple prostitutes for the convenience of her worshipers—a tradition of sexual impurity which continued until Paul’s generation in the 1st cent a.d.

The currency needs of Pal. itself were largely supplied by the Pers. imperial coinage described above, but also by the mintages of Tyre and Sidon in nearby Phoenicia. From the late 5th cent. onward the shekels of Sidon carried a sail ship or galley riding above the waves, and on the reverse a two-horse chariot occupied by the standing figure of the king and one or two attendants. The coinage from Tyre at this same period portrayed a hippocamp (or winged sea horse) ridden by a long-bearded Baal Melqart with waves indicated below. On the reverse a dignified owl stands in front of the traditional Egyp. symbols of kingly authority: the flail and the shepherd’s crook. In addition to these Phoen. currencies there was at least one mint in the province of Judah, perhaps located at Gaza, where a type of shekel was produced that bore a bearded Sem. head on the obverse, but on the reverse a crude imitation of the Athenian owl and the inscr. Y-H-D (or Yehūd) which meant “Judah.” This may have been a limited issue, since so few specimens have been unearthed in the excavations.

The groundwork was laid for the intrusion of Hellenic influence in the Near E by the brilliant reign of King Philip of Macedon (359-336 b.c.). Under his leadership the Macedonians developed an invincible army, centered in its heavy-armed phalanx and its disciplined cavalry, and skilled in tactics and maneuver on the battlefield. By clever political policies Philip was able to bring all of Greece (except Sparta) under his control, and so he was able to draw on their manpower and skills as he planned a great invasion of Asia. His gold staters found wide currency throughout the Gr. world and even up to the Celtic tribes of the Danube valley. They bore a beautiful head of Apollo on the obverse, and a two-horse chariot with a charioteer racing off to the right; above was the inscr.: PHILIPPOU (“of Philip”). His silver tetradrachmas also were widely circulated; these portray the head of Zeus on the obverse (possibly copied from the famous statue by Phidias in Olympia) and a prancing horse with a bareback rider or jockey on the reverse. In the illustrated example the PHILIPPOU is on the upper border, and a mint mark (lambda) below the horse’s chest. This series was apparently issued in celebration of Philip’s prizewinning horse at the Olympian games.

After Philip’s career was suddenly cut off by assassination, his young son, Alexander the Great, came to the throne, and proved to be one of the greatest military geniuses the world has ever seen, not only because of his daring and skill on the battlefield but also because of his personal magnetism, which inspired a passionate loyalty on the part of his troops. After putting down a serious rebellion in Greece (which resulted in the total destruction of the city of Thebes), he led an army of less than 40,000 seasoned troops (including over 5,000 cavalry) across the Hellespont and began his amazing conquest of the Pers. empire. In three major battles with the Pers. troops, Granicus in Asia Minor (334 b.c.), Issus in N Syria (333), and Gaugamela or Arbela in Assyria (331), he completely crushed the military might of King Darius III and pushed all the way E to Afghanistan and the Indus River valley region of India. Thus in seven years he acquired the largest empire of ancient times, stretching all the way from Yugoslavia to Pakistan, and from Romania in the N to Sudan in the S. He was magnanimous to all who surrendered to him, but ruthless toward cities like Tyre and Gaza which held out against him to the bitter end. The island city which lay almost a m. offshore from the mainland city of Tyre was finally reached by an artificial causeway and totally destroyed in 332. (The mainland city was later rebuilt in Hel. times and regained much of its former importance.) It should be noted that after his campaign against Gaza Alexander descended into Egypt, where he was welcomed as a deliverer from the hated Pers. yoke, and he was hailed as a son of Zeus Ammon, the chief deity of Egypt. Thus he became eligible to have his portrait on coinage (for only divine beings could be portrayed on Gr. coinage) and to wear the ram’s horn crown of Zeus Ammon. (He is thus represented on a coin minted by King Lysimachus of Thrace after his death in 323. The reverse of this beautiful tetradrachma, shows Athena seated and holding Nike in her right hand, with the inscr.: BASILEŌS LYSIMAKHOU, “of King Lysimachus.”)

Alexander’s portrait did not, however, appear on the coinage of his empire during his lifetime. His silver pieces, both the tetradrachma and the drachma, bore the familiar Macedonian type of the head of Heracles in his lion’s headdress (Heracles was the mythical ancestor of the Macedonian royal line), and on the reverse the god Zeus enthroned, holding an eagle in his right hand and a tall scepter in his left. Below the eagle is the mint mark, in this case the wreath, which represented Side in Pamphylia. The inscr. reads (to the right) BASILEŌS, and ALEXANDROU below; i.e. “of King Alexander.” His gold coinage was plentiful, for vast treasures of captured Pers. gold were melted down for currency purposes. The stater shows a lovely head of helmeted Athena, facing right, while the reverse displays the goddess of Victory, Nike, standing leftward, her hair bejewelled and put up in a stylish bun. The inscr. is the same: ALEXANDROU BASILEŌS.

After the conqueror’s untimely death in 323, his successors, or Epigonoi, revered his memory on their coinage. Not only Lysimachus of Thrace, as noted above, but also Ptolemy of Egypt (Ptolemy I was known as Lagos, or Sōtēr, “Savior”) in his earlier issues represented Alexander’s head in an elephant headdress, in a portrait less rugged than the more lifelike representation on Lysimachus’ coin, and on the reverse Athena Promachos (“Battle-champion”) advancing to the right with upraised shield, and an eagle at her feet. The inscr. is a simple ALEXANDROU. Later on Ptolemy was emboldened by Alexander’s example to claim divine status, and hence his own portrait appeared on his tetradrachmas during his lifetime. It was such an unflattering likeness that it must have been quite true to life. Yet the founder of this dynasty was so revered by his successors that they often retained his portrait on the coinage of their own reign, as was the case with his son, Ptolemy II Philadelphus (“Sister-lover”). The reverse of this coin was likewise similar to that of the preceding reign: the eagle perched on a thunderbolt, looking fiercely to the left, with the legend: PTOLEMAIOU BASILEŌS (“of Ptolemy the king”). It was under the reign of this king, incidentally, that the LXX of the Heb. Scriptures into Gr. tr. was begun; the Letter of Aristaeus even claims that it was under his royal patronage.

Apart from Pal. (which remained part of the Ptolemaic domain until 198 b.c.), the Asiatic territories of Alexander’s empire E of Asia Minor fell under the sway of Seleucus, who at first was merely satrap of Babylonia (and as such issued thick tetradrachmas with Zeus or Baal enthroned on the obverse, and a lion striding leftward with an anchor symbol above him, on the reverse. Later on, after the effort of Antigonus to control the entire Alexandrian empire was crushed at the Battle of Ipsus in 301, Seleucus consolidated his hold and asserted the title of king in his own right. In honor of his son, Antiochus, he founded the city of Antioch, which became the capital of his empire. After 306 he had begun to issue coins with a portrait of Alexander.

It may be assumed that the inhabitants of Pal. used Ptolemaic Egyp. coinage until their territory was taken over by Antiochus the Great in 198 b.c. His younger son, who began to rule in 175 b.c., was Antiochus IV Epiphanes, who made a supreme effort to extinguish the Jewish faith and to compel the Heb. people to become polytheists like the rest of his subjects. In 168 he forced his way into the Temple precinct in Jerusalem and converted it into a temple to Zeus Olympius, whose statue was erected within the Holy Place. He made it a capital crime to possess a copy of the Scriptures or to permit one’s child to be circumcised. The coin illustrated shows the obverse of his tetradrachma, with a flatteringly handsome portrait of the king; the reverse has Zeus enthroned, holding Nike in his right hand and the staff in his left and the title NIKĒPHOROU (“Victory-winner”) below his throne. To the right are the words: BASILEŌS ANTIOKHOU, and to the left: THEOU EPIPHANOUS—which means: “Of Antiochus the King, the god manifest.” Quite fittingly this man is predicted in Daniel 8 and 11 as the little horn emerging from the third kingdom of Daniel’s visions, and a type of the “beast” of the end time, the little horn who emerges from the fourth kingdom (Dan 7; 11:40ff.). With blatant arrogance Antiochus in this coin claimed to be God manifest in the flesh.

It was the achievement of the Maccabean family to lead the Jews in a successful revolt against the tyranny of the Seleucid government, maintaining their loyalty to the Scriptures, and setting up an independent Jewish state. The Feast of Hanukkah commemorates the rededication of the Temple to the worship of Jehovah after it had been cleansed of all vestiges of heathen idolatry in December 165. Jonathan Maccabaeus was appointed high priest by one of the rival contenders for the Seleucid throne, and this was confirmed to his successor, Simon Maccabaeus, by vote of the Jewish people soon after the beginning of his reign in 143. But, it does not appear that he minted any coins during his reign even though he was briefly granted permission to do so by Antiochus VII in 139; the coins formerly attributed to his reign have been verified as either First Revolt or Second Revolt as a result of recent archeological discovery. Thus, all coins bearing the Heb. inscr. “SHiMe’ōWN” refer to Simeon bar Koseba (or Barkokhbah) of the Second Revolt. It seems clear, therefore, that John Hyrcanus I (135-105 b.c.), the son and successor of Simon Maccabaeus, was the first Hasmonean ruler to issue Jewish coinage—indeed the first that the Jews ever minted, as far as is known. These came out only in small bronzes, the lepton (or “mite”) and the dilepton. Another coin shows a typical lepton of his, with a poorly engraved Heb. inscr.: (YH) WḤN/N HGDL/ḤBR H/YḤD, a shortened VS of: “Yehōḥānān hakkōhēn haggādōl w^eḥeber hayy^ehūdim” (“John the High Priest, and the Community of the Jews”). The other side displays two slender horns of plenty with a poppy in between. The lepta of his younger son, Alexander Jannaeus (104-78), often bear the same double cornucopia type, and some of them carried the same inscr. as the preceding, except that the name Yehō nātān is substituted for Yehoḥanan. Most of his coins carry an anchor on one side and a Gr. inscr.: BASILEŌS ALEXANDROU. The other two show the cornucopia and a flower as alternate types from his reign. His son, John Hyrcanus II (63-40 b.c.), is abundantly represented in the lepta unearthed in Pal. which closely resemble those of his grandfather of the same name. The types and inscrs. are identical, and since their names were the same, it is only possible to distinguish between them by the tendency of the later Hyrcanus to show thinner lines in the lettering of the inscr. and to cramp the letters more closely together.

Since the Hasmonean priest-kings minted only the small bronzes, it followed that the silver and gold currency in circulation in the Judean kingdom had to be imported from surrounding states. For the most part this supply came from Egypt to the S and Phoenicia and Antioch to the N. Until the Rom. conquest in 63 b.c. the tetradrachmas of the Ptolemies and the Seleucid kings must have served for the bulk of the commercial transactions requiring silver currency. No. 32 shows a typical Seleucid example from this later period: a tetradrachma of Philippus Philadelphus (92-83 b.c.) with his mop of curly hair; and on the reverse the traditional type of the seated Zeus holding Nike in his right hand, and: BASILEŌS PHILIPPOU EPIPHANOUS PHILADELPHOU (“of King Philip the Manifest [or Illustrious] Brother-lover”). A series more frequently found in Palestinian excavations is the Tyrian tetradrachma (or shekel) bearing the laureate head of Baal Melqart portrayed as a Grecian Heracles, and on the other side the Seleucid eagle striding fiercely toward the left with a palm of victory and the legend: TYROU (H)IERAS KAI ASY-LOU (“Of Tyre the Holy and a City-of-Refuge”). The treasure jar found by Roland de Vaux at Khirbet Qumran (and dating from about 10 b.c.) was filled with shekels and half-shekels of this mintage. Since this series continued to be struck until the 2nd cent. a.d., it is reasonable to suppose that most of the thirty silver pieces given to Judas Iscariot for the betrayal of our Lord consisted of these Tyrian tetradrachmas.

Jewish independence came to an end in 63 b.c. when Pompey the Great was asked by Aristobulus II to intervene on his behalf against his older brother, John Hyrcanus II, who had temporarily ousted him from the throne he had wrongfully usurped. Hyrcanus had secured the help of King Aretas of the Nabataean Arab state in this struggle with his brother, and so Scaurus, Pompey’s general, compelled the Nabataeans to submit and also took over custody of Jerusalem. In 63 Pompey annexed the territory to the Rom. empire, although he permitted Hyrcanus to remain on as puppet king. Plate no. 35 shows a Rom. denarius struck by the mint-master Publius Hypsaeus in 58 b.c. in commemoration of this conquest; the coin on the left hand side represents Aretas kneeling beside his camel in an act of surrender to Rome; the inscr. is AED(ile) CUR(ile)—the title of Scaurus’s office at Rome that year—and REX ARETAS below. The other side of this coin shows a quadriga (or four-horse chariot) with the name of the moneyer: P(ublius) HYPSAE(us). Another coin displays a portrait of Pompey himself with a pitcher and augur’s wand (the insignia of Pompey’s office as Pontifex Maximus, or chief priest of the Rom. hierarchy), and his title: MAG(nus) PIUS I(MPerator ITER): (“The Great, Pious Commander for the second time”). The reverse shows the legendary Catanaean brothers carrying their father to safety—an allusion to the loyalty of Pompey’s own sons in carrying on their dead father’s cause against the Caesarian party (i.e. Antony and Octavian) even in 40 b.c., the approximate date of this denarius, minted while Sextus Pompey was temporarily master of Sardinia and Sicily. The Biblical interest of this coin, of course, lies in its portrayal of the man who ushered in the fourth empire of Daniel’s prophecy in Daniel 2: Gnaeus Pompey.

Actually Pompey was the loser in a titanic struggle with Julius Caesar for mastery of the Rom. empire, for after losing the Battle of Pharsalus he had to flee to Egypt in 48 b.c., where he was treacherously murdered. Plate no. 37 shows Julius Caesar in the veiled garb of the pontifex maximus, and his name, CAESAR, DICT(ator)PERPET(uus), “Caesar permanent dictator.” The reverse shows the modestly garbed standing figure of Venus (the legendary ancestress of the Julian gens) and the name of the moneyer: P(ublius) SEPULLIUS MACER. This issue, interestingly enough, was prob. the first ever to bear the portrait of a living Rom.; before that only gods or the illustrious dead could appear on the coinage of Rome.

Although Pal. was a vassal state of the Rom. empire, it was permitted to endure the misrule of the Herodian dynasty for the rest of the 1st cent. b.c. Antipater the Idumean had proved a valuable helper to Caesar and Antony, and his clever son, Herod, managed to pick the victorious side when Antony and Octavian (later Augustus) clashed at the naval battle of Actium in 31 b.c. He was rewarded with the rule of all Pal., and showed his loyalty to Augustus Caesar by building up the port of Strato’s Tower on the coast below Carmel and renaming it Caesarea, and also by erecting temples to Augustus both there and in Samaria. Herod’s lepta featured the traditional types of the double cornucopia and the anchor (suggesting that the king was an anchor to the ship of state), with the Gr. inscr.: BA(sileōs) HĒRŌ(dou). In order to legitimize his dynasty, he married Mariamne, a descendant of the Hasmonean line; but he later had her murdered, for he was as ruthless toward his own family as he was to the innocent babes of Bethlehem after the birth of Jesus.

His oldest son and successor was Herod Archelaus, who ruled as Ethnarch of Judea from 4 b.c. to a.d. 6, and was afterward deposed by the Romans on account of his oppressive and unpopular rule. The reverse of his lepton shows a double crested helmet. After his removal from power Judea became a province ruled by a succession of Rom. procurators, who made Caesarea rather than Jerusalem their administrative capital. This condition of affairs was interrupted only during a.d. 41-44, during the brief reign of Herod Agrippa I (a grandson of Herod the Great) as king of all Pal. In Galilee and Perea another son of Herod the Great, Herod Antipas (“the Tetrarch”) held sway from 4 b.c. to a.d. 39. It was he who had John the Baptist executed in accordance with the wishes of his wife Herodias (who was also his niece and his sister-in-law).

Now turning our attention to the Rom. emperors themselves, we note that it was Caesar Augustus whose census decree (Luke 2:1) resulted in the birth of Jesus at Bethlehem (rather than at Nazareth, the normal residence of Joseph and Mary). Plate no. 42 shows a denarius (always rendered “penny” in the KJV) with a mature head of the emperor, and the legend: AUGUSTUS DIVI F(ilius), “Augustus, son of the divine (Julius).” This refers to the divine status which the Rom. senate had voted for Julius Caesar. Even before his assassination Julius had adopted his grandnephew, Octavian, as his heir (hence “son”), and later the Senate voted to confer on Octavian the title of “Augustus” or “Revered,” a title which was tr. into Gr. as Sebastos. Plate no. 43 shows a bronze sestertius (which was equal to one fourth of a denarius) with his portrait minted as a commemorative after his death, since it calls him DIVUS AUGUSTUS PATER (“The divine Augustus, Father”—i.e. father of his country).

The Lord carried on His adult ministry in the reign of Tiberius, the adopted son of Augustus (a.d. 14-37). It was in his fifteenth year that John the Baptist began his prophetic career near the banks of the Jordan (Luke 3:1). His denarius (Plate no. 44) bears the inscr.: TI(berius) CAESAR DIVI AUG(usti) AUG(ustus) (“Tiberius Augustus the son of Augustus”). The reverse shows a vestal virgin, possibly his own mother, Livia seated, and his own priestly title: PONTIF(ex) MAXIM(us). This would have been a new and current “penny” at the time when Jesus illustrated the obligations of citizenship by asking, “Whose image and superscription is this?” Hence, this coin is known in numismatic circles as the “tribute penny” issue. Plate no. 46 shows a golden aureus of his with the same portrait and inscr. on the obverse, but with a four-horse chariot and charioteer on the reverse and the legend: IMP (erator) VII, TRIB(unicia) POT(estate) XVII—which means that he had been acclaimed seven times as Commander (or “Emperor”) when an official military triumphal procession had been held in Rome; and also for the seventeenth term in office as invested with the power of Tribune of the People—which gives an exact date of a.d. 15 for this coin.

During the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius the need for small change was supplied by the local provincial mint in Judea operated under the authority of the various procurators. Typical of these was the lepton (Plate no. 48) from the governorship of Valerius Gratus (a.d. 15-26), showing a vertical palm branch with the name of Julia (the wife of Tiberius) in Gr. letters: IOU-LAIA, and the date L-AI (i.e. “year 11” or a.d. 24). In the governorship of Pontius Pilate for the first time a pagan symbol was used on a Judean lepton (Plate No. 49), the lituus or wand of the augur, with the legend TIBERIOU KAISAROS (Gr. for “Tiberius Caesar”). The reverse of this coin gives the year as “17,” which would come out to a.d. 30, the probable year of Christ’s crucifixion. Another coin (Plate no. 49), shows a second type issued by Pilate, three wheat ears bound in a cluster; its reverse has a simpulum or ladle used in pouring liquids on a burning sacrifice—another Rom. or non-Jewish symbol. These coins illustrate Pilate’s usual lack of concern for the feelings of his Jewish subjects.

After the death of Tiberius in a.d. 37 he was succeeded by the young great-grandson of Augustus, Gaius Caligula (a.d. 37-41), who in his short reign became a monster of infamy and sadistic cruelty. Herod Agrippa I was his boon companion, and used his influence to have Pontius Pilate removed from office and recalled to Rome in a.d. 37. The denarius of Caligula (Plate no. 50) shows his portrait with his titles: G(aius) CAESAR AUG(ustus) GERM(anicus) P(ontifex) M(aximus) TR(ibunicia) POT(estate). The reverse carries the portrait of the deified Augustus with accompanying stars, signifying his elevation to the heavenlies (by the authority of the Rom. senate).

After the removal of Pilate, Herod Agrippa was given increasing authority until he was appointed king over the entire region of Pal. from 41 until his untimely death in 44. It was he who martyred the Apostle James, son of Zebedee (Acts 12:2) and imprisoned Peter before his marvelous deliverance by the angel. A typical lepton of his (Plate no. 52) bears a conical umbrella fringed with tassels, a symbol of Oriental royalty, and the title BASILEŌS AGRIPA in Gr. The reverse has three fat wheat ears and a lambda or alpha at the lower right. After his death (which came upon him as a judgment from God from his impiety, Acts 12:23), the rule over Judea was again entrusted to Rom. procurators.

After Caligula’s assassination in a.d. 41, his uncle Claudius was chosen as emperor by the Prateorian Guard, and he reigned for thirteen years until he was poisoned by his wife, Agrippina the Younger. During his reign the Apostle Paul began his missionary career and later met with Aquila aand Priscilla after they had been temporarily expelled from Rome (18:2). Another coin (Plate no. 54) shows a denarius of Claudius with his titles: TI(berius CLAUD(ius) CAESAR AUG(ustus) P(ontifex) M(aximus) TR(ibunicia) P(otestate) CONS(ul). The reverse shows the winged goddess of peace holding the caduceus wand in her hand with the serpent and the inscr.: PACI AUGUSTAE (“to the Augustan peace”—in recognition of the peace Claudius had brought to Rome).

The city of Antioch, from which Paul was commissioned as a missionary, was permitted by Rome to mint both bronze and silver. Plate numbers 56 and 57 show a sample of each, bearing the portrait of Claudius, and a silver tetradrachma with the imperial eagle. The other side of the bronze shows a large SC (for senatūs consultō, “by order of the Senate”) within a wreath. On Paul’s first journey he preached in Cyprus and ended up in Paphos on the W coast of the island. Another coin (Plate no. 58) shows a tetradrachma of Paphos with the head of Vespasian and his titles in Gr.: AUTOKRATŌR OUESPASIANOS KAIS(ar), “Emperor Vespasian Caesar.” The reverse depicts the façade of the temple of Aphrodite with a conical, archaic statue in front, and a small altar. It was at Paphos that Paul had his dramatic encounter with the Jewish sorcerer, Bar-Jesus, in the presence of the Rom. governor, Sergius Paulus (13:6, 7).

Back in Rome the Emperor Claudius came to an abrupt end when his wife served him a dish of poisonous mushrooms (according to popular rumor, at least) and thus left the way free for her degenerate son Nero to assume the throne (a kindness which he later repaid by having her drowned in a spurious “accident”). A coin (Plate No. 60) shows Nero’s portrait and titles: NERO CAESAR AUG(ustus) P(ater) P(atriae); the reverse shows Salus (Health) seated. It was to this emperor that Paul appealed his case from the tribunal of Festus at Caesarea (25:11).

During Nero’s reign Paul had carried on his lengthy ministry at Ephesus, where the great temple of Artemis was the chief tourist attraction. It is interesting to observe that the coins of this city alluded to this cult by featuring symbols associated with Artemis. Plate no. 62 shows a drachma from the 2nd cent. b.c. with a honey-bee and EPH (for “Ephesians”) on its obverse, and on the other side a stag standing in front of a palm tree, with the name of the city magistrate for that year.

Paul’s arrest in Jerusalem took place around a.d. 58 and he was transferred to Caesarea for safekeeping under the protection of Antonius Felix, who kept him in prison until the end of his governorship in 60. His successor was Porcius Festus, who held office from 60 to 62, and who likewise held hearings on Paul’s case. Two lepta appeared (Plate number 64), one of Felix and the other of Festus. The Felix coin features two crossed shields and the emperor’s name, NERŌN, in Gr. The other coin has a palm branch and L-E KAISAROS (“year five of Caesar”) a date equivalent to 59/60, when Festus first assumed office.

The Rom. governors who succeeded Festus in Judea were greedy opportunists, until finally Gessius Florus goaded the Jews into a full scale rebellion in a.d. 66, a year which they designated as “Year One of the Liberation of Zion.” For the first three years they succeeded in defeating the Rom. legions sent against them until finally General Vespasian began a systematic reduction of the walled cities of Galilee and Judea and closed in on Jerusalem. During these four years of precarious independence the Jewish patriots issued an entirely new series of coins both in bronze and in silver. Plate no. 65 shows two typical lepta (or prūtōt) dating from a.d. 67/68, one showing the usual obverse: a libation cup used at sacrifices, with the Heb. inscr.: (Sh-N-T) Sh-T-Y-M (i.e. sh^enat shtayim, “year two”). The other is the reverse, bearing a vine leaf (an allusion to Israel as the vineyard of the Lord, Isa 5) and the continuation of the obverse inscr.: L-Ḥ-R-W-T S-Y-W-N (i.e. l^eḥērūt Siyyōn, “of the liberation of Zion”). Silver shekels were also minted; Plate no. 66 shows the obverse with the libation chalice, and above it a shīn and a gimel (meaning “year three,” or a.d. 68/69) and the legend: Sh-Q-L Y-S-R-'-L, or sheqel Yiś rā'ēl (“the shekel of Israel”). The reverse depicts a cluster of three pomegranates and reads: Y-R-Sh-L-Y-M H-Q-D-Sh-H, or Yerūshālayim haqqadōshāh (“Jerusalem the holy”).

In late a.d. 68 Vespasian was compelled to leave the campaign in Judea in order to make good his claim to the imperial throne. Rome had suffered through a succession of three emperors in that year: Galba, whose march on Rome caused Nero to commit suicide; Otho, who toppled Galba; and then a third general, Vitellius, who was destroyed by mob action as Vespasian’s legions neared the city. Yet Vespasian’s older son, Titus, stayed on to besiege and finally to capture Jerusalem in a.d. 70, after its defenders had nearly destroyed one another in internecine conflicts. The city was reduced to a smoking rubble except for two or three guard towers, and remained almost uninhabited until the reign of Hadrian. In celebration of this victory over the rebellious Jews Vespasian (who reigned until 79) struck a series of coins both in bronze and silver.

After Titus’s brief reign (79-81) his younger brother, Domitian, took the throne, and ruled until 96 with increasing severity in his policy toward the Christians. While he did not follow Nero’s example in using pitch-covered Christians tied to stakes as torches to illumine his garden, he nevertheless executed even members of his own family (such as Domitilla) who were suspected of embracing this faith. His most noteworthy victim was the Apostle John, who as a very old man was banished to the island of Patmos (where he wrote the Book of Revelation). A denarius of Domitian is shown (Plate no. 69) with the legend: IMP(erator) CAES(ar) DOMIT(ianus) AUG(ustus) GERM(anicus) P(ontifex) M(aximus) TR(ibunicia) P(otestate) XII. (His twelfth term with tribunician authority was a.d. 92; hence there is an exact date for this coin.)

In the reign of Hadrian (117-138) a final attempt was made by the Jewish people to establish their independence from Rome. It was stirred up by the declared intention of Hadrian to rebuild the desolate city of Jerusalem as a pagan center with a temple to Venus, and to rename it Aelia Capitolina. This resulted in the second revolt, which raged from 133 to 135 under the leadership of Simon Bar Coseba, who was acclaimed by the celebrated Rabbi Aqiba as the Messiah, and given the title Bar-Kokhbah (“Son of the Star”) or Barcochebas. A typical bronze from this period, minted by the Jewish patriots (Plate no. 70), bears on the obverse a large vine leaf with the inscr. shīn bēth (i.e. “year two” or a.d. 134) L-Ḥ-R-T Y-S-R-'-L l^eḥērūt Yiśrā'ēl, or “of the liberation of Israel”). The reverse has a date palm and some letters of the name Shime’ōn, or Simon, the first name of Barcochebas. Other coins were issued in silver, both in shekel and half-shekel size, mostly overstruck on tetradrachmas from Antioch or Alexandria or else on denarii from Rome. Their shortage of bullion restricted their source of supply to the Gr. and Rom. coinage they happened to have on hand at the time the rebellion broke out. For reasons of patriotic sentiment they were heated and restruck as Jewish coins for circulation in the State of Israel. The quarter shekel bore a grape cluster on the obverse (with Sh-M-'-W-N), and two straight trumpets on the reverse (with L-Ḥ-R-W-T Y-R-W-Sh-L-M). There was a slightly larger silver coin which may possibly have rated as a half shekel and which showed a three-stringed lyre with the same legend as the one last mentioned (meaning: “Of the liberation of Jerusalem”), and on the other side Sh-M-'-W-N (“Simeon”) within a wreath of pomegranates. The full shekel had a fourcolumned temple façade with a stylized Ark of the covenant inside between the two central pillars; and the inscr.: Sh-M-'-W-N. The reverse displayed a large lulab (that is, a bundle of twigs and citron) used in celebrating the Feast of Tabernacles or Succoth, and the “Of the liberation of Jerusalem” inscr. Thus it came about that in their final struggle for independence from Rome the Jewish people reached their highest productivity and variety in all their numismatic history. It is significant that virtually all of these types were finally adopted for the coinage of modern Israel in 1949.

Bibliography F. W. Madden, Coins of the Jews (1881); E. Rogers, A Handy Guide to Jewish Coins (1914); A. Reifenberg, Ancient Jewish Coins (2d ed.) (1947); F. Banks, Coins of Bible Days (1955); A. Reifenberg, Israel’s History in Coins from the Maccabees to the Roman Conquest (1953); L. Kadman et al., The Dating and Meaning of Ancient Jewish Coins (1958).