MECKLENBURG-STRELITZ, a grand duchy in the north of Germany. It is composed of two portions of the old duchy of Strelitz and the principality of Ratzeburg, and has some territory intermixed with that of other states. It extends over 796 square miles, and comprehends nine cities and towns, 219 villages, 245 princely domains, and 10,805 houses, with 45,500 inhabitants, chiefly employed in cultivation, who all adhere to the Lutheran church, with the exception of about fifty Catholics and 750 Jews. The income of the state amounts to £50,000 annually, chiefly arising from the ducal domains. The public debt is so interwoven with that of Mecklenburg-Schwerin that its exact amount is not known, but by the operation of a sinking fund it is decreasing. The regular forces consist of a battalion of infantry and a division of hussars, numbering together 772 individuals. The courts of law for both Mecklenburgs are united. King George III. having married a princess of the house, has connected it with the royal family of England. The capital is the city of Strelitz, with 5350 inhabitants. There are in the duchy mines yielding silver, lead, and iron; the last of these is worked into the various articles for which it is adapted at the several manufactories of the duchy. The only manufactures, besides, are those of linen and the several kinds of leather. The chief foreign trade is by the Rhine with Holland, whence supplies of sugar and coffee, and the other colonial wares are obtained. The duke, in 1817, established a kind of representative legislature of two houses of nobles and burghers. The income of the state is about £188,000 annually; the public debt amounts to £500,000; the annual expenditure is £155,000; and the surplus of income is applied to diminish the debt. The regular troops are 2800, besides which there is a numerous militia or landsturm, in which all males from nineteen to twenty-five years of age are bound to serve.
Medals. MEDAL denotes a piece of metal in the form of a coin, such as was either current money amongst the ancients, or had been struck upon any particular occasion, in order to preserve to posterity the portrait of some great person, or the memory of some illustrious action. Scaliger derives the word medal from the Arabic methalia, a sort of coin having on it a human head. But the generally received opinion is that of Vossius, viz. that it comes from metallum, metal, of which substance medals are commonly made.
There are few studies of more importance to history than that of medals; the sole evidence we can have of the veracity of a historian being only such collateral documents as are evident to every body, and cannot be falsified. In modern times these are found in public memoirs, instructions to ambassadors, and state papers of various kinds. Such memorials, however, are subject to various accidents, and, besides, commonly remain in the countries where they are first published, and cannot therefore give to the world at large that perfect and entire satisfaction which ought to be derived from genuine history; and hence more durable and widely diffused monuments are still to be wished for. Such are public buildings, inscriptions, and statues; but these, excepting a few instances of the two last, are always confined to particular countries; and medals alone remain as infallible documents of truth, capable of being diffused throughout all countries in the world, and of remaining to the latest ages.
The first who showed the importance of medals in ascertaining the dates and arranging the order of events in ancient history, was Vaillant, in his History of the Kings of Syria, printed at Paris in 1681. By means of medals alone he has been enabled to fix the chronology and important events in the history of the three most ancient kingdoms of the world; namely, Egypt, Syria, and Parthia. Since his time there have been discovered many coins which confirm the accounts he has given. He was followed in this method by Father Hardouin, though with much less success. Hardouin's best work is his Herodiades, or series of successors to Herod king of Judæa. The same plan was pursued by Noris in his Treatise on the Syro-Macedonian princes, and by Bayer in his History of Orchoene, as well as by Froelich in his Annales Regum et Rerum Syriæ, Vienna, 1754, and Kevenhuller's Regum veterum Numismata Anecdota, auctore Perrara, Vienna, 1752, 4to, of which Froelich was properly the author. Corsini and Cary likewise published works of a similar nature; that of the former appeared in 1744, under the title of De Minisfari, aliorumque Armeniæ Regum, Nummis; the latter published, in 1752, Histoire des Rois de Thrace, et du Bosphore Cimmérien, éclaircie par les Médailles.
The study of the Greek coins does not show the dates of events, though it illustrates the chronology of reigns. This defect, however, is abundantly supplied by those of Rome, which commonly mark the date of the prince's consulship, and the year of his tribunician power; giving also, upon the reverse, the representation or poetical symbol of some grand event. The year of the tribunician power is sometimes imagined by antiquaries to be synonymous with that of the emperor's reign; but this is not the case; and Mr Pinkerton is at some pains to set them right in this respect. He finds fault with Julius Cæsar, when he assumed the sovereign authority, for taking upon him the title of Perpetual Dictator, as being synonymous with that of king
or absolute governor, which the Romans abhorred. "He ought," says our author, "under the disguise of some supreme magistracy of annual election, to have lulled the people with a dream that they might terminate his power when they pleased, or that he himself would resign it when the necessities of state, which had required his temporary elevation, had subsided." To this error Mr Pinkerton ascribes the assassination of the dictator, and commends the policy of Augustus, who, with far inferior abilities, continued in possession of the most absolute authority as long as he lived. The tribuneship was an office of annual election, and, if put into the hands of any others than plebeians, must have been the supreme power of the state, as it belonged to that office to put a negative upon every public measure whatsoever. Augustus, being of senatorial rank, could not assume this office; but he invested himself with the tribunician power, which had the advantages of appearing to be only a temporary supremacy, though in truth it was continued during his whole lifetime. Towards the end of his reign, he frequently assumed his intended successor, Tiberius, as his colleague, though in the beginning he had enjoyed it alone. This, with the artifice of resigning his power every ten years, and re-assuming it at the desire, as was pretended, of the senate, secured his sovereignty as long as he lived. His example was followed by his successors; so that most of them have the inscription Tribunicia Potestate upon their medals, with the date affixed to it; thus, Tr. Pot. VII. Yet though this date generally implies the year of the emperor's reign, it sometimes happens that the emperor, by special favour from a former prince, had been endowed with this title before he came to the throne, as being the successor to that prince; of which we have already given an instance in Tiberius. Besides the tribunician power, the emperors very frequently enjoyed that of the consuls; and the date of their consulship is frequently expressed in their coins.
The office of Pontifex Maximus was likewise assumed by the Roman emperors, in order to secure themselves in their authority; an artifice which, Mr Pinkerton observes, was one of the most efficacious they could have fallen upon. "In the Greek heroic times," says he, "king and priest were carefully united in one person; and when sovereigns arose in Denmark and Sweden, the same plan was followed, as appears from Snorro and other writers. Nothing could lend more security to the person of the monarch than an office of supreme sanctity, which also confirmed his power by all the terrors of superstition. Even the Christian system was afterwards debased by a mock alliance with government, though it be clear from the whole New Testament that such an alliance is subversive of its genuine institution, and the greatest of all its corruptions. But the Roman Catholic clergy, in the dark ages, were the authors of 'no church, no king,' for their own interest; whilst the Roman emperors only sought to strengthen their power by the mystic awe of superstition. The title of Pontifex Maximus was so important, that it was retained even by the Christian emperors till the time of Gratian. Its influence in the state was indeed prodigious. Cicero observes, that to this office were subject temples, altars, penates, gods, houses, wealth, and the fortune of the people." That of augur is also borne by many emperors; and its authority was such that, by the law of the twelve tables, no public business could be transacted without a declaration from the augur concerning its event. The proconsular power was also given to Augustus and the other emperors. It conferred a direct authority over all the provinces, and
Medals. implied that the emperor was chief proconsul or governor of each and of all. Another special power assigned to the emperors, but not occurring on coins, was the Jus Relationis Tertie, Quarta, &c. or the right of making three or four motions in the senate on the same day, whilst the senators could only propose one.
Hence it has been inferred that medals afford the most authentic documents of the Roman history, in particular, that could have been invented by man. The histories of Nerva and Trajan are much better elucidated by medals than by authors; for the history of Suetonius ends with Domitian, and the Historia Augusta Scriptores begin with Hadrian; so that the reigns of the two emperors just mentioned are almost unknown, and Mr Pinkerton is surprised that none of the learned have attempted to supply the defect. "Capitolinus," says he, "in his life of Maximinus Junior, is quite puzzled to know if Maximus and Pupienus were two emperors, or two names for the same. Had he happened to consult any of those coins which bear M. CL. PUPIENUS MAXIMUS AUG. he would have seen at once that Maximus was only another name for Pupienus."
Medals are useful in other sciences besides history. In geography, we find the situation of towns determined by their vicinity to some noted river, mountain, or other physical object. Thus, ΜΑΓΝΗΤΩΝ ΣΗΜΑΤΩΝ shows that Magnesia is situated under Mount Sipylus. In like manner, it is shown from a medal that Ephesus stood on the river Cayster; and there is extant a medal bearing an inscription which signifies Alexandria on the Scamander, a name given to Troy by Alexander the Great. The reverse has upon it the famous Apollo Smintheus of Homer. In natural history, also, medals are useful chiefly from the coins struck on the celebration of the secular games, in which the figures of various animals are preserved; and thus it may very often be determined whether any animal was known to the ancients or not. On many of the Greek medals are several uncommon plants and animals. Thus, on most of the medals of Cyrene is the figure of the celebrated Syphium; and on those of Tyre, the shell-fish from which the famous Tyrian purple was procured. By means of medals, also, the exact delineations of many noble edifices are preserved, though not even a vestige of their ruins be now in existence; so that the uses of them to the architect are very considerable. To the connoisseur they are absolutely necessary; because by them alone he is enabled to ascribe ancient busts and statues to their proper persons, with multitudes of other points of knowledge which cannot be otherwise determined. The elucidations of obscure passages in ancient authors, by means of medals, are so numerous and well known that it is needless to insist upon them.
Mr Addison has treated the connection between medals and poetry at considerable length; but Mr Pinkerton finds fault with him for preferring the Latin to the Greek poets. He observes, also, that the knowledge of Greek medals is most necessary for a sculptor, and perhaps an architect; but an acquaintance with Latin ones is preferable for a poet, or perhaps a painter. The reason of this difference is, that the former generally have on the obverse the head of some king, god, or goddess, of exquisite relief and workmanship; but the reverse seldom exhibits much fancy of symbol in the early Greek coins, and in the imperial Greek coins is chiefly impressed with the temples of their deities. To a person of poetical imagination, however, the Roman coins afford the greatest entertainment, from the fine personifications and symbols to be found on their reverses. Of this the following are instances.
Happiness has sometimes the caduceus or wand of Mercury, which, Cicero tells us, was thought to procure every wish. She has, in a gold coin of Severus, heads of poppy, &c. exoress that our prime happiness consists in the oblivion
of misfortune. Hope is represented as a sprightly girl, walking quickly, and looking straight forward. With her left hand she gathers up her garments, that they may not impede the rapidity of her pace; whilst in her right hand she holds forth the bud of a flower, an emblem infinitely finer and more poetical than the trite one of an anchor, which is the symbol of Patience, and not of Hope. This personification, with some others, must have been very familiar to the ancients; for often in this, and in a few more instances, no name, as SPES AUG. or the like, is inserted in the legend. Abundance is imagined as a sedate matron, with a cornucopiae in her hands, of which she scatters the fruits, and does not hold up her cornucopiae and keep the contents to herself, as many modern poets and painters make her do.
The Emperor Titus having occasion to import a great supply of corn during a scarcity at Rome, that supply, or the Annona, is finely represented as a sedate lady, with a filled cornucopiae in her left hand, which she holds upright, to indicate that she does not, however, mean to scatter it, as Abundance has a title to do, but to give it to Equity to deal out. This last particular is shown by her holding a little image of Equity, who is known by her scales, and hasta pura, or pointless spear, in her right hand, over a basket filled with wheat. Behind the Annona is the prow of a ship decked with flowers, to imply that the corn was brought by sea (from Africa), and that the ships had had a prosperous voyage. The best poet in the world could scarcely have given us a finer train of imagery; and the best painter might have been puzzled to express so much matter in so small a compass.
Security stands leaning upon a pillar, indicative of her being free from all designs and pursuits; and the posture itself corresponds to her name. Horace, in describing the wise man, mentions his being teres atque rotundus, round and polished, against all the rules of chance; an idea seemingly derived from the column upon which this ideal lady reclines. The emblems of Piety, Modesty, and the like, are equally apposite and poetical.
The happiness of the state is pictured by a ship sailing before a prosperous breeze; an image than which the exquisite genius of Gray could find none more appropriate, and he has accordingly used it in his principal production, The Bard, with due success.
The different countries of the then known world are also delineated with great poetical imagery. It affords patriotic satisfaction, in particular, to a Briton, to see his native island often represented upon the earliest imperial coins, sitting on a globe, with a symbol of military power, the labarum, in her hand, and the ocean rolling under her feet; an emblem almost prophetic of the vast power which she was destined afterwards to obtain by establishing her dominion over the sea.
Coins also present us with Achaia, Africa, Alamannia, Alexandria, Arabia, Armenia, Asia, Bithynia, Cappadocia, Dacia, Dardania, Egypt, Gallia, Hispania, Italia, Judea, Macedon, Mauritania, Pannonia, Parthia, Phrygia, Sarmatia, Sicily, Scythia, Syria, and the rivers Danube, Nile, Rhine, Tiber. This personification of provinces seems to have arisen from the figures of provinces carried in triumphs; as the personification of our old poets sprung from the ideal persons actually represented in the mystical plays. There is one colonial medal, rudely executed, of Augustus and Agrippa, which has a high claim to merit in displaying the ancient poetical imagery. It is inscribed IMP. and DIVI. F.; and on the reverse the conquest of Egypt is represented by the metaphor of a crocodile, an animal almost peculiar to that country, and at that period esteemed altogether so, which is chained to a palm tree, at once a native of the country and a symbol of victory.
As the reverses are so useful for knowledge of personi-
Medals. fication, symbols of countries and actions, and the like, so the portraits to be seen on old coins are no less important to a painter, the high merit of a great number of them, in every character, justly entitling them to be regarded as the best studies in the world; not to mention that, to an historical painter, the science of ancient medals is absolutely necessary, that he may delineate his personages with the features which they really bore whilst in existence. This can only be attained in the way here mentioned, or from statues and busts, any one of which will cost as much as hundreds of medals; and indeed a collection of such is only attainable by princes.
The same circumstances which render the study of medals important to a painter, do still more so to a sculptor; and, in this particular, the study of the Greek coins is remarkably useful. The skill of the Greeks in the art of sculpture has always been admired throughout the world; and on their coins the heads of several deities are represented in the most exquisite alto relievo. Pinkerton, therefore, thinks it strange that the Grecian coins should have hitherto been so little attended to by men of learning and taste. They may have been looked upon, he supposes, as belonging only to the province of the antiquary; but he assures us that the Greek medals will afford satisfaction to the persons who value them only as pieces of workmanship. In most respects they greatly excel those of Rome, even in its best times, which is usually supposed to have been from the days of Augustus to Hadrian. In the days of Hadrian, in particular, the Roman mint seems to have been the very seat of art and genius; witness the vast number of exquisite personifications, engraved with equal workmanship, which swarm on the medals of that prince. Yet from his time down to Posthumus, coins of admirable workmanship are to be found. Those of the Faustinas and Lucilla deserve particular mention. There is one, and not an uncommon one, of the latter, in great brass, which yields to nothing of the kind. The reverse is a Venus, with the name around her. The portrait of the obverse seems to spring from the field of the coin; it looks and breathes, nay talks, if you trust your eyes. The coins of Tarsus are, as Froelich observes, extremely remarkable for a kind of perspective in the figures. On others are found triumphal arches, temples, fountains, aqueducts, amphitheatres, circuses, hippodromes, palaces, basilicas, columns and obelisks, baths, sea-ports, pharoses, and the like. These furnish much pleasure and instruction to the architect, and serve to form his taste to the ancient manner; that manner which unites perfect simplicity with sublimity and grace, and which every age admires, in proportion as it has genius to imitate.