40 Stone head found on the Acropolis at Athens 253 (_Athenische Mitteilungen_, 1879) 41 Vase in Attic black figure style found on the Quirinal 254 (_Monumenti Antichi della R. Acc. dei Lincei_, XV) 42 The Capitoline wolf 254 (How and Leigh, _Hist. of Rome_. By arrangement with Messrs Longmans Green & Co.) 43 Dipylon vase 314 (_Companion to Greek Studies_, Cambridge) 44 Proto-Corinthian vase 315 (_Journ. of Hellenic Studies._ By permission of the Council of the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies) 45 Dipylon Ships 322 (_Rev. Arch._ XXV, 1894; _Athenische Mitt._ 1876; _Arch. Zeitung_, 1885; Perrot and Chipiez, _Hist. de l’Art dans l’Antiquité_) 46 Vase painting signed by Aristonothos 323 (Walters and Birch, _Hist. of Ancient Pottery_) τοῖσι ἐμφανέσι τὰ μὴ γιγνωσκόμενα τεκμαιρόμενος. HDT. II. 33. Chapter I. _Introduction_ Δόξαιεν γὰρ ‹ἂν› οὐδὲν λέγειν δίκαιον οἱ διὰ τὸν πλοῦτον ἀξιοῦντες ἄρχειν. ARISTOT. _Pol._ III. 1283_b_. Φαῦλον τὸ τὰς μεγίστας ὠνητὰς εἶναι τῶν ἀρχῶν. ARISTOT. _Pol._ II. 1273_a_. [Sidenote: The seventh century B.C. is the age] The seventh and sixth centuries B.C. constitute from many points of view one of the most momentous periods in the whole of the world’s history. No doubt the greatest final achievements of the Greek race belong to the two centuries that followed. But practically all that is meant by the Greek spirit and the Greek genius had its birth in the earlier period. Literature and art, philosophy and science are at this present day largely following the lines that were then laid down for them, and this is equally the case with commerce. [Sidenote: (_a_) of the first known metal coins,] It was at the opening of this epoch that the Greeks or their half hellenized neighbours the Lydians brought about perhaps the most epoch-making revolution in the whole history of commerce by the invention of a metal coinage like those that are still in circulation throughout the civilized world.