A Catalogue of the Greek Coins in the Collection of Sir Stephen Courtauld at the University College of Rhodesia

The appearance of this catalogue completes the publication of the ancient coins presented by Sir Stephen Courtauld to the University of Rhodesia as a Foundation Gift in 1958. The Roman coins in the collection were published by Professor T.F. Carney in 1963. The Greek catalogue contains one hundred and sixteen coins. All of the coins are specimens in exceptional condition, and every piece is illustrated. The collection was formed as a small conspectus of the coinage of the Greek World and was presented to the University as an aid to the teaching of Ancient History. All of the most important issues of Greek coins are present, the silver of Athens and of Aegina, the rival currencies of Macedon and Persia, the electrum coinages of Miletus and Mytilene, the peculiar incuse silver of South Italy and the spectacular and varied silver of the Greeks in Sicily. These issues represent the main types of currency in the Greek World in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C.

The empire of Macedon under Alexander the Great created the Hellenistic world, and for this period also the principal types of coinage are present. The gold and silver of Alexander was a truly imperial coinage, uniform in its types throughout the empire. The coinages of all the successors to Alexander are in the collection, bearing for the first time the effigy of a living ruler, and issued in Macedon and Thrace, by the Seleucids in Syria and the Ptolemaic rulers of Egypt. A Bactrian coin of Eucratides shows the most extreme naturalism achieved in these Hellenistic silver issues.

Besides having representative coins from the most important historical issues, the collection contains other pieces of exceptional beauty and rarity. There is a silver tetradrachm of the festival issue of the Arcadian League, and a choice group from the Greek colonies in Sicily: decadrachms of Syracuse by Kimon and Euaenetus, a tetradrachm of Catana by Euaenetus and a tetradrachm of Naxos by the AetnaMaster. Thecoinsfrom the Northern and Eastern cities include gold staters of Panticapaeum, and an electrum stater of Miletus which is the rarest coin in the collection. Only six other specimens are known. 

The text of the catalogue is designed as an aid to the illustration of Ancient History from the coins. There are accounts of each region and city represented by the coins, with elaborate bibliographies for each entry. Every coin is carefully described, with its own references to relevant publications. The coins are all reproduced at natural size on fifteen plates, and there is a map of the principal mints mentioned in the catalogue, a table of the monograms on the coins, and full indices. The author is the Keeper of Coins and Medals at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.