'I beg leave once more to give you the trouble of a query upon an odd coin that was lately put into my hands, and which, I believe, will afford matter of speculation to the learned. It is an ancient Greek coin, perhaps seventeen or eighteen hundred years old, as near as I can guess from the fabrick of it.
The letters were not so fair as could be wished; but I can read it no otherwise (and I have viewed it in all lights) than ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΧΟΣΓΙΔΟΡΟΥ, a name that, I believe, is not to be met with in any author, Greek or Latin. I once imagined it might be the Persian word Chosroes, which is fometimes wrote Chosdroes, made Greek, and, I believe, a king of that name is found as high as Trajan's time. The monogram of Paros, or any other place, or the coat-armour, as it seems, on the reverse, give me no manner of light into the affair.
I wish you could recollect, whether you had ever seen any such coin in any cabinet, or whether any author has given one like it? for I would, if possible, get some satisctation in the point. In the mean time, I beg that you would not communicate a copy of this draught to any one; for, beside that it is very rudely done, I am willing that it should first be made public in my own book, which is now in the press.'
(Nichols 1781-1790, pp. 294-5; Burnett 2020b, pp. 444-5 n. 524)
