no ROMAN COINS FOUND AT LITTLE CHESTER. 



however, hoped that this attempt to supplement what had been just 

 begun b)' Lysons' and Glover will not be without interest and 

 value, especially as copies of the best of those we have so far 

 been able to get together, battered and worn and corroded 

 though (with a few exceptions) they were, have been reproduced 

 of the exact size of the originals, and with all defects, so that it 

 may be easier for those who possess, or may eventually come 

 into possession of such coins, to decipher them, should they be 

 imperfect like these, as is most likely. 



We give examples of ist, 2nd, and 3rd Brass, together with three 

 silver coins — denarii — Nos. i, 2, and 6. Plates I. and II. Of 

 actual brass we have only one, that of Nero, No. 3 ; but whether 

 this is of the fine and much-esteemed yellow brass known to the 

 Romans as Orichalcum we cannot decide. We had several more 

 coins of a very much inferior kind of brass, but so much corroded as 

 to be undecipherable, though they appear to have been interesting 

 from what small remains are left on them. The coins we have 

 been able to enumerate here, though they show great gaps in the 

 years, and are examples of but a very small part of those in use 

 during the Roman occupation, will yet be found to range pretty 

 nearly over the whole time from Tiberius Caesar to Valentinian II, 

 or III., about which time the Roman power had seen its best 

 days, and had begun to go down. 



The efifect produced upon Britain by the Roman government 

 was much greater than we are now able to fully realise ; but if 

 we carry our minds back to the time when Julius first landed, 

 and consider what our ancient fathers were then, and what they 

 had become when the Romans left them, it will be more evident 

 that 400 years of training under such disciplined men, possessed 

 of so many accomplishments as the Romans were, could not fail 

 to exert a great influence. Evidences of this influence are not 

 wanting to this day, and possibly we are what we are to-day 

 because they came so long ago, and made our forefathers what 

 they did then. We are at any rate much more able now, since 

 so much archaeological interest has been felt in the various 

 excavations of Roman cities and settlements which have been 



