THE PROCESS OF COINING AS SEEN IN A WALL-PAINTING AT POMPEII.

[From the London Numismatic Chronicle.]

N the course of the past year the explorers of Pompeii have brought to a successful conclusion their labors on the Casa dei Vetti, a mansion that may vie with the foremost among the luxurious dwellings of that fossil municipality. While its peristyle is crowded with marble fountains and statuettes, its walls are covered with far greater treasures, frescoes that reflect the glories of that Hellenic painting of which, without such aid, we could hardly form the vaguest estimate. The reflection may indeed be dim, and blurred by the copyist's lack of skill, and by the destructive agencies of weather and of time; but, imperfect as it may be, it is all that we are likely to obtain to eke out the scanty notices of Pliny and Pausanias as to the pictorial art of their own and of earlier days.

It is not, however, my intention here to discuss these more ambitious efforts of the Campanian artists. For the present purpose the inquiry may be limited to the less pretentious specimens of decorative art, forming the frieze in one of those gaily painted chambers that now again sees the sun after eighteen centuries of darkness.

Those who have read Helbig's Untersuchungen über die campanische Wandmalerei may remember that he divides Campanian wall-painting into two great classes, Realistic and Ideal.

Under the former head are classed certain pictures showing the processes of various trades, as that of the fuller or the baker-banausic enough,

perhaps, yet of the highest importance, not only for classical scholars, but for the wider research of those who study the history of civilization in general.

These prosaic specimens of realism contrast forcibly with the airy grace of a series of decorative friezes which repeat, from the ideal point of view, the panorama of industrial pursuits.

The ordinary mortals-often very ordinary-of the Forum are replaced by dainty Loves, who hover over the amphora or the oil press with a zeal that would well become the most praiseworthy artisan.

These plump and rosy infants have no doubt degenerated from the slender pensive youths depicted by the verse of Anacreon and the chisel of Praxiteles. Their long noses and chubby cheeks are innovations on the canon of regular features established in an epoch of purer taste; and they belong rather to the false Anacreon than to the true. Yet they have their attractions, and the student of ancient art is tempted to trace back these graceful flutterers to the Erotes of Aetion,' but we must not yield to such a temptation; we must confine our attention to one of these scenes, and in that direct it to the technical process rather than to the fairy craftsmen.

Putting aside, then, the fullers, the wreath-makers, the workers at the wine-press and the oil-mill, let us fix our attention on a picture representing the process of coinage, discovered within the last few months in the triclinium of the newly excavated Pompeian house.

On the extreme right we may see a Cupid with upraised wings, and anxious, not to say ludicrous expression of countenance, energetically working at something to reach which he has to stand on a raised platform.

At first sight he would seem to be working bellows, but more probably he is stoking, the circular object being the furnace door opened for that purpose. On the top of the furnace is a bearded head of Vulcan wearing his conical cap.

Facing the Cupid, on the other side of the blazing furnace, is his colleague, wearing the professional apron, presumably of leather. With his right hand he grasps the smith's tongs, holding a lump of metal in the fire, and heating it by means of the blow-pipe held in his left. His cheeks are swollen with vigorous puffing.

Back to back with him, and seated comfortably on a cushioned stool, with his feet on a footstool, a third winged artisan is intent on fashioning the ingot on a small anvil with a hammer of moderate size.

In front of him stands a solid table, or rather plinth, with certain trays or shelves upon it, the use of which it is not easy to determine. Perhaps they contain ingots, or, more probably, weights, for above them rise two balances, a larger and a smaller. It is to secure the accuracy of these balances that

1 Lucian (or his imitator) in his Herodotus, sect. 5, says Aetion's picture of the Wedding of Rhoxana and

Alexander was in Italy in his time.

the solid support is required. A third balance is poised by the right hand of the next Cupid, who, standing erect, touches with his left one of the scales to steady it. His expression of accurate examination is excellent.

Superintending his operations, with a gesture of authority, sits a somewhat solemn dignitary, whose full face and portly, serious look, imply a seniority in age as well as rank. Both are suggested by the extra size of his wings; while rank is clearly intimated by the ample, well-cushioned seat on which he sits, with his large and decorated footstool. In the arrangement of his drapery he reminds us of a seated Jove; and we feel that we are face to face with an official personage who is not to be trifled with. No doubt he is the monetalis, or officer responsible for the coinage.

Withdrawing from the presence of the monetalis, we come across a figure engaged in vigorous action. With right foot planted in advance, he is preparing to deliver an effective blow with a ponderous sledge-hammer swung with both hands.

The blow is directed to an object - presumably the upper die-lying on a large anvil and held in place by the last figure in our series. Against the anvil rest another hammer and a huge pair of tongs. The size of these hammers is probably not exaggerated; the number of cracked and damaged specimens in collections of coins, and the frequent change of die, suggest that heavy hammers were usually and necessarily employed.

It appears that there is no representation of casting the blank.

If we view the composition as a whole, it seems that the various steps of the process are placed quite in their proper order. This grouping is characteristic of Roman art, which was more matter-of-fact than the Greek, and represented things as they really occurred.

The two peacocks above the scene are the well-known symbols of Juno, and indicate that the minting operations represented are those of the Roman mint, first set up in the temple of Juno Moneta.

In any case we are gainers by the unearthing of this picture, which, with its varied action and expressive features, is of great interest to the artist and the archæologist. Its value to the numismatist, however, is far higher, for no such complete representation of the processes of coinage has, I believe, hitherto come down to us from antiquity.

Most of the labors and pastimes of the Greeks and Romans are well represented on their various monuments. The realistic paintings of the amphitheatre of Pompeii, and the stucco-reliefs on the tombs, bring vividly before us the sports and struggles of the arena.

Preparations for war and actual warfare are chronicled on monuments of every kind and date, from the Mycenæan potsherd to the balustrade of Athena's temple at Pergamos and the arches and columns of Imperial Rome.

Greek vases introduce us to the sculptor's studio, the school, and the exercises of the palaestra.'

The wholesale baker Eurysaces has left in the carvings on his tomb a panorama of his craft, from the reception of the corn to the sending out of the loaves; and this is supplemented by the paintings of his retail brethren at Pompeii. With the art of coining it has been far otherwise.

The number of Greek and Roman coins that have come down to us far exceed all other classes of monuments put together, and have the advantage over many of bringing us face to face with the original artist and the original composition. Yet, with regard to the process by which these coins were brought into existence, our monumental evidence has been of the most meagre description. The tongs and anvil and hammer are to be found on a denarius of the Carisia gens,' but for any satisfactory view of the method of coining we have had to wait for this Pompeian wall-painting.

TALFOURD ELY.

ANALOGY BETWEEN “PIÉFORTS" AND ROMAN BRONZE MEDALLIONS.

BY F. PARKES WEBER, M. D., F. S. A.

[Member of the London Numismatic Society.]

To the Editors of the American Journal of Numismatics :

In Monsieur H. Hoffman's Monnaies Royales de France (Paris, 1878, p. 24) it is stated that piéforts made their appearance in the reign of Philippe IV, Le Bel (1285-1314), and probably served as patterns to the moneyers. Since the publication of Hoffman's book it is said that piéforts have been discovered of as early a date as the reign of Philip Augustus (1180-1223). That such pieces were originally intended as patterns or models for the use of engravers or moneyers, rather than to serve as presentation pieces, appears probable from the fact that they occur in base silver or billon.

Gradually, as Art progressed, the purpose of the piéforts apparently somewhat changed. They came to be "pattern pieces" in our modern sense of the term (the sense in which the term is used when speaking of Thomas Simon's "Petition crown" etc.), and probably served the double purpose of being specimens of the engraver's skill and of being beautiful and curious presentation-pieces. The "piéfort" form in which the pieces continued to appear was doubtless retained (especially so in the case of the piéforts of 1848) as a mere relic of the time when the thickness of the flan was the only sign which distinguished pieces intended to be kept as models from the ordinary current coins.

1 For examples, see two red-figured kylikes in the Berlin Antiquarium; for the studio, No. 2,294; for the school, No. 2,285 (by Duris). For athletes train

ing, see the third Vase Room in the British Museum, passim.

2 See Prof. Gardner's Types of Greek Coins, p. 18.

The number and variety of the later piéforts and patterns depended doubtless on the artistic taste and skill of the engravers, and on the patronage of the sovereign and mint authorities, and the attention paid by them to such subjects. Thus fine piéforts exist of Henry II, Charles IX, Henry III and Henry IV, during whose reigns the medallic art was much patronized, and skillful engravers existed.

In a paper "On Some Rare or Unpublished Roman Medallions" (Num. Chronicle, 1896, p. 45), Sir John Evans suggests that Roman Bronze Medallions may have served the purpose of moneyers' patterns for securing uniformity in the Emperor's portraits, and indeed, the facility with which coins may so often be assigned at once to the proper emperor, merely by a glance at the portrait, though they were issued at mints far distant from each other, makes it probable that some such models were employed.

It is equally probable that some of the Roman bronze medallions owe their existence [like some later piéforts and pattern pieces, such as Simon's famous Petition crown] to the desire of ambitious engravers, at their own initiative or not, to show off their skill in die-engraving to the greatest possible advantage, and so to obtain for themselves the special patronage of those in power. Doubtless the medallions afforded much greater opportunity for practicing and displaying the art than did the smaller pieces. The art-loving emperors probably took an especial interest in the production of medallions, which moreover glorified themselves; and this may be the real reason why most of the bronze medallions differ from the ordinary Roman bronze coins, in being struck at the Imperial, instead of at the Senatorial mint, as the absence on the medallions of the letters S. C., seems to show was the case.

is

The suggestion that Roman bronze medallions were "proofs" or "pattern pieces" is of course not new, and as Sir John Evans has pointed out, especially probable in the case of those medallions struck in two metals, but I do not know if the comparison with piéforts has been likewise made. This analogy is certainly worth considering, though it can only be partially true; for the early piéforts did not of course serve as models for a portrait, but for a type; and later on, in the 16th century, when they became more artistic, the introduction of struck medals had taken place, and medals already shared with piéforts and pattern-coins in affording die-engravers scope to show their skill.

That Roman bronze medallions were also employed by the Emperors as presentation-pieces, is, I believe, generally allowed, and it is not my purpose to discuss it.