LEGEND is also applied to the inscription of medals, which serves to explain the figures or devices represented on them. In strictness, the legend differs from the inscription; this last properly signifying words placed on the reverse of a medal, in lieu of figures.
It seems as if the ancients had intended their medals should serve both as images and as emblems; the former for the common people, and the other for persons of taste and parts; the images to represent the faces of princes; emblems their virtues and great actions; so that the legend is to be looked on as the soul of the medal, and the figures as the body.
Every medal has properly two legends; that on the front, and that on the reverse. The first generally serves only to distinguish the person by his name, titles, offices, &c.: the latter is intended to express his noble and virtuous sentiments, his good deeds, and the advantages the public has reaped by him. This, however, does not hold universally; for sometimes we find the titles shared between both sides, and sometimes also the legend.
In the medals of cities and provinces, as the head is usually the genius of the place, or at least some deity adored there, the legend is the name of the city, province, or deity, or of both together; and the reverse is some symbol of the city, &c. frequently without a legend, sometimes with that of one of its magistrates.
Legends generally commemorate the virtues of princes, their honour and consecrations, signal events, public monuments, deities, vows, privileges, &c. which are either in Latin or Greek, or a mixture of both, and are intended to eternize their names, and the benefits done by them to the empire.