LEGEND is likewise 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, which properly signifies words placed upon the reverse of a medal, instead of figures.
It seems as if the ancients had intended their medals to serve both as images and as emblems; the former for the common people, and the latter for persons of taste and parts; the images to represent the faces of princes, and the emblems their virtues and great actions. Hence the legend is to be looked upon as the soul of the medal, and the figures as only the body.
Every medal has properly two legends; that upon the front, and that upon the reverse. The former generally serves to distinguish the person by his name, titles, offices, and the like; the latter is intended to express his noble and virtuous sentiments, his good deeds, and the advantages which the public has reaped from them. This, however, does not hold universally; for we sometimes find the titles shared between both sides, and sometimes also the legend.
In the medals of cities and provinces, as the head usually represents the genius of the place, or at least some deity adored there, the legend contains the name of the city, province, or deity, or of both together; whilst on the reverse is some symbol of the city, frequently without a legend, sometimes with that of one of its magistrates.