For the farther illustration of what has been here advanced, it will be requisite to observe, that two æra’s were antiently followed at Sidon; the æra of Seleucus, and another peculiar to the inhabitants of that city[196]. On the Greek brass coins of Sidon, according to F. Frœlich[197], both these epochs seem to have been used. However, the supputation pointed out to us by the date on the Greek medal above-mentioned was undoubtedly made according to the æra of Seleucus; since otherwise the year exhibited by that date must have been nearly coincident with the 266th of CHRIST, which by those versed in this kind of literature will never be allowed. For had the piece presented to our view so recent a date, as Sidon first became a Roman colony in the reign of Elagabalus[198], above forty years before; the reverse ought to have been adorned with some other letters intimating this, as were those of the Sidonian[199] coins posterior to that event. As certain is it that all the Phœnician medals of Sidon, whose numeral characters have been interpreted here, acknowledge no other epoch than the proper one of that city, which commenced in the year[200] of Rome 643. This, I flatter myself, from the following considerations, exclusive of others that might, with equal facility, be offered, will even to demonstration appear. 1. The fifth year mentioned by the oldest of these coins cannot be the fifth year of the æra of Seleucus, because the Sidonians were then subject to Antigonus[201], in whose territories the supputation according to that epoch did not take place; and consequently the piece itself must have been struck in the fifth year of the proper æra of Sidon, nearly coincident with the 648th of Rome[202]. 2. No dates ever occurred upon the medals of the Syrian kings presiding over the people of Sidon, either to F. Frœlich or Dr. Vaillant[203], who have so eminently distinguished themselves in this branch of literature, before the year of Seleucus 112; and therefore neither the Phœnician dates preserved on the aforesaid Sidonian coins whose numeral characters do not amount to 112, nor the Greek dates on others falling short of that number, can rationally be supposed to bear any relation to the æra of that prince. This certainly must be considered as a strong presumption, or rather an incontestable proof, that the last-mentioned Phœnician dates were deduced from the commencement of the proper Sidonian epoch, as from their genuine cardinal point. Which reasoning will by analogy extend, as the numeral characters exhibited by all the coins here explained are of the same kind, to every one of the rest.