AUTHORS PREFACE. IN a work like the NUMISALITA ORIENTALIA, which is designed to embrace the whole field of Oriental Numismatics, the coinage of the great Persian Empire holds of necessity an avowedly leading position. The famous Persian Darics, lthe archers, so frequently alluded to in the history of Grecce and of mhich tho influence was often so detrimental to the morality of the Hellenes, form the connecting link bctween the coinage of the Empire of Craesus on the one hand and that of Alexander the Great on the other. We are thus led to commence with the consideration of the coinage of the kingdom of Lydia, a thorough cornproheusion of mhich is primarily desirable for those who mould attain to a fuller knowledge of Persian numismatics than is to be gained by a mere contemplation of thc types of the coins. The Persian daric is the legitimate successor of the gold statcr of Crcesus, to whose administrative genius must bo ascribed the earliest idea of a double currency based upon the...