Lectures on Ancient Indian Numismatics (Carmichael Lectures, 1921) c9.20.3

c9.20.3

Cyzicus, too, like Olbania, was a Greek autonomous city and depended for its wealth on its fisheries and trade. It too had its coins, but of electrum and not of bronze like those of Olbania. The coins of Cyzicus, again, were connected with the tunny fish. They, however, bore a representation of this fish on them and were not shaped like it as was the case with the coins of Olbania. The inhabitants of Olbania, though they were originally a Greek colony, were largely intermixed with the surrounding barbarians, and may, therefore, have felt some difficulty in replacing their barter unit by a round piece of metal bearing merely the imprint of a fish, while the pure-blooded Greek of Cyzicus had no hesitation in mentally bridging the gulf between a real fish and a piece of metal merely stamped with a fish, and did not require the intermediate step of first shaping his metal unit into the form of a tunny. Here then we have two Greek cities of one and the same period, viz. Olbania whose bronze coins were shaped like a tunny fish, and Cyzicus, whose electrum coins merely bore the imprint of the fish, the tunny fish being in both cases their medium of barter which their metallic currency afterwards superseded. The coins of Olbania were thus the *rūpas*, *i.e.* coins which were the figures or images of the fish, whereas those of Cyzicus were the *rūpyas*, *i.e.* coins on which the *rūpa*, *i.e.* figure or representation, of a fish was impressed.