Bruttium

(Testi e foto tratti dal sito www.snible.org/coins/hn/lucania.html)

In Rosso le parti che riguardano Pandosia e Cosenza

The history of the coinage of the Bruttian peninsula falls into the following clearly marked divisions:—

(i) The archaic money of Croton, Caulonia, and Rhegium, before B.C. 480.

(ii) The rich and varied issues of these same towns, together with the exquisite productions of the Pandosian and Terinaean mints, extending through the finest period of Greek art down to the time of the invasion of the Lucanians, and the destruction inflicted upon the cities of Magna Graecia by the Tyrant of Syracuse, circ. B.C. 388. Of all the silver-coining states Croton alone survived the general ruin of that calamitous time.

(iii) The Locrian mint next rises into importance, about the middle of the fourth century B.C., and, with Croton, provides a sufficient supply of silver money for all Bruttium until the time of the Pyrrhic war, while for the commerce with Sicily the Corinthian stater was adopted as the most convenient medium of exchange. These coins were issued in large numbers at Locri, and scantily at the then dependent towns of Rhegium, Terina, and Mesma or Medma.

(iv) After B.C. 272 the Bruttians, on their submission to Rome, seem to have been allowed to monopolize the right of minting gold and silver, the very rare silver coins of Rhegium which belong to this period being, as their weight shows, only intended for the Sicilian trade. All the towns were, however, permitted to strike bronze money down to the close of the Second Punic War, B.C. 203.

(v) From this time onwards the bronze coinage of Petelia and Vibo Valentia, on the Roman semuncial system, with marks of value, and that of Rhegium on the standard of the Sicilian litra, were all that was left to replace the beautiful issues of past ages, until in B.C. 89 the Lex Plautia Papiria put an end to all coinage in Italy except that of Rome.

Consentia (Cosenza) was an inland town, situated among the hills near the sources of the river Krathis. Its coinage is wholly of bronze and belongs to the period before the rise of the Bruttians (B.C. 356), who made Consentia their metropolis (Strab. vi. p. 256). The town is not mentioned in history before the expedition of Alexander of Epirus, who lost his life in the vicinity (Livy viii. 24; Millingen, Num. de l'anc. Italie, p. 85).

Head of Artemis, hair bound with cord wound four times round it.	ΚΟΣ Bow and three crescents. Æ .85
Head of Ares in Corinthian helmet.	ΚΩΣ Fulmen and three crescents. Æ .75
Head of young river-god.	„  Crab and two crescents. Æ .75

The river here represented may be the Krathis, or possibly, as the crab seems to suggest, the Karkines, which rises about twenty miles south of Consentia, and empties itself into the bay of Skylletion. The chance coincidence of this type and inscr. with the well-known παρασημον of the island of Cos is curious.

Croton (Cotrona) was founded in B.C. 710 by a colony of Achaeans from the mother country, led by Myskellos. The town stood near the mouth of the little river Aesaros, and a few miles north-west of the promontory on which stood the magnificent temple of the Lakinian Hera.

The coinage here, as elsewhere in Magna Graecia, began about the middle of the sixth century. In fabric and weight it resembles the first issues of the other Achaean colonies, and furnishes striking evidence of the close relations which at that period existed among them. The territory of Croton, like that of Sybaris, extended across the peninsula from sea to sea, and we note that some of its early incuse coins are struck in the joint names of Croton and some neighbouring town, e. g. VM (Sybaris), ΤΕ (Temesa?) and ΠΑΝΔΟ (Pandosia).

FIG. 52.

Inscr. QΡΟ. QΡΟΤ. QΡΟΤΟ. QΡΟΤΟΝ. &c.

Tripod (Fig. 52). Symbols. crane, crab, cuttlefish, dolphin, lyre, pistrix, &c.	Tripod, incuse.
Tripod.	Flying eagle, incuse [B. M. Guide, Pl. VIII. 20].
„	Bull with head reverted, incuse, sometimes with VΜ (= Sybaris) [l. c. Pl. VIII. 21].
„	Bull with head reverted, in oblong incuse with ΡΑΝΔΟ( = Pandosia) [Babelon, Traité, Pl. LXX. 12, 13].
„	Helmet incuse (= Temesa ?) [Babelon, Traité, p. 1454].

Some of these incuse coins, probably after they had passed out of circulation, were utilized as votive offerings, and bear subsequent graffiti, e.g. ├ΙΑΡΟNΤΟ ΑΠΟ and ΝIΚΑ (Babelon, Traité, p. 1451)

The temple of this great goddess was by far the most renowned sanctuary in all Italy. To this shrine at stated times vast crowds would flock from all parts of the west, and for these festivals coins would be specially required. The goddess here worshipped was originally perhaps an earth-goddess of native Oenotrian origin, afterwards identified by the Greeks with Hera. One of her surnames, according to Lycophron (l. 858), was Οπλοσμια. She was probably therefore an armed goddess, closely allied to if not identical with the Hera Argoia, Argeia, or perhaps Areia (Strabo, vi. 252), whose temple stood near Poseidonia, on the banks of the river Silaros, and whose head is represented on certain coins of Poseidonia, Hyria, &c., precisely in the same manner as that of the Lakinian Hera on the coins of Croton, Pandosia, &c.

Pandosia was an inland town, on the small river Acheron, a tributary (affluente) of the Krathis (Fiume Crati), west of Croton, and apparently a dependency of that city in the fifth century B.C. (cf. Strab. vi. 256). Its earliest coins were struck in alliance with Croton, and date from about B.C. 480. They were probably struck, not at Pandosia, but at Croton (q. v.).

FIG. 58.

¹ Imhoof-Blumer, Die Münzen Akarnaniens, p. 6. ² Cf. ΣΤΑ—ΟΨΙ on coins of Laüs Lucaniae, p. 75.

This last coin is of the highest interest as it fixes the site of Pandosia near the river Krathis. The rev. may be compared for style with the coin of Metapontum (Fig. 36, p. 76). It also shows that the ancient forms of the letters Σ and Ι (Μ and I) were still in use in the middle of the fifth century, unless we suppose that they are intentionally archaïstic, which is more probable (cf. ΟIΚIΜΤΑΜ on a coin of Croton, p. 97, supra). The date of the general introduction of the ordinary forms of those letters into South Italy seems to have been coincident with the founding of Thurium (circ. B.C. 443); cf. the coins of the later Sybaris (p. 85).

FIG. 59.

Head of Hera Lakinia facing, with streaming hair, earring and necklace, and wearing stephanos ornamented with foreparts of griffins and honeysuckles (Fig. 59).	ΠΑΝ]ΔΟΣΙΝ Pan the hunter naked, seated on rocks; beside him, a dog: in front, a bearded term of Hermes with caduceus affixed. In field, Φ. AR Stater, 120 grs.
Similar.	ΠΑΝΔΟΣΙ Pan seated. Legend, ΝΙΚΟ. AR Third, 34 grs.

Similar.

ΠΑΝ Incense altar. Æ Size .45

The beautiful stater above described is one of the most exquisite productions of any Greek mint. The letter in the field may be a mint-mark; it occurs also on numerous coins of other cities—Velia, Neapolis, Thurium, Terina, &c. (see p. 114).

Soon after B.C. 400 Pandosia ceases to coin money. It was in the neighbourhood of this place that Alexander the Molossian lost his life in B.C. 326 (Strab. vi. 256; Livy viii. 24). It is again mentioned as a Bruttian town B.C. 204 (Livy xxix. 38), but no Pandosian coins are known later than the beginning of the fourth century B.C.