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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Terence Cheesman, post: 6361366, member: 86498&quot;]Only a Poor Old Man is correct there something about&nbsp; the coins of Metapontion (Different spelling Metapontum)&nbsp; that it the epitome of &quot;bread money&quot; From the beginning of their coinage to the end sometime during the Second Punic War the grain ear was the predominate symbol on the coins minted at that city.&nbsp; Furthermore the history of this coinage is a long one and unlike so many Greek cities does have some variety especially in the treatment of the obverse deities. Even though my collection of Greek coins is rather small I have something like 8&nbsp; coins from this mint. </p><p>Metapontion Ar Nomos 540-510 BC Obv. Ear of barley with rows of eight grains. Rv. The same incuse. Noe 19 HGC 1027 8.20 grms 28 mm Photo by W. Hansen[ATTACH=full]1251851[/ATTACH]This coin fall in with some of the first coins produced from this mint. It also follows in the rather unusual&nbsp; &quot;spread flan&quot; format that was popular at the time among the city states of south Italy. There are a number of theories as to why this may have happened, however it is likely that the citizens of south Italy wished to produce a very impressive looking silver coinage which would make them readily acceptable. However they soon tired of this. One reason was that these coins would be somewhat time consuming (thus expensive) to produce. The other might be phycological. As the weight of these coins are spread out over a larger area they feel &quot;lighter&quot; when placed in the hand.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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