WEIGHTS 107 



considerable. Mr. Smith's conclusions therefore entirely 

 establish the soundness of the text in Caesar B. G. 5, 12, 4 

 taleis ferrets ad certuin pondus examinatis fro numvio. 

 Details of his exceedingly important determination are 

 given by Mr. Smith in his paper on the " Ancient British 

 Iron Currency" {Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, 

 XX., 179, January 26, 1905), and in outline in the Guide 

 to the Antiquities of the Early Iron Age in the British 

 Museum, 1905, pp. 149f. Both the ]!^eath and the Mainz 

 specimens exhibit the same cheese or barrel shape which 

 appears in four Melandra specimens (1, 2, 5, 12) ; each of 

 the two is marked I on the face, but the Mainz specimen 

 has a further legend which no one yet has interpreted, 

 I O"^, the last sign apparently a Q tilted to the left. 



The peculiar importance of the collection at Melandra 

 appears at once from the table below (III., A. and B.), 

 which shows that we have here represented certainly seven 

 (including the unit), and quite possibly nine, denomina- 

 tions of this standard, whose sub-divisions have been 

 hitherto entirely unknown. 



The nature of the sub-divisions is also interesting. 

 Besides the duodecimal principle (in Nos. 2, 3, 8, 25, 

 and ? 21) following that of the Roman libra and uncia, to 

 which, if I remember rightly, Mr. May's article is to call 

 attention, I think we must recognise not less clearly the 

 quadratic (Nos. 2, 5, 8, ?12, 20, 28 and ?21), giving us a 

 division of the unit into 4, 8, 16, 32 and ? 96 parts. 

 Nos. 2, 3, 5, and 21 could belong to either, and 12 may just 

 conceivably be Roman and represent 10| drachmae, or 

 7 times the weight of an Antoninianus. 



It would be of course possible to interpret all these 

 weights as representing so many " British drachmae " (if 

 one may coin such a term for the sake of argument), 

 since 96 is a common denomination for both 12 and 16; 



