L'66 Contrilution towards the assaying of Corns. 



and destroyed by Lucius Mummius. It is Iiowever possibI& 

 a similar metallic mixture mav have been accidentally pro- 

 duced during the conflagration of that rich city^ but no 

 proof of this has ever been found by actual examination. 

 It appears rather from Plin\^, that the expression (es Co- 

 rinthium was a term of art applied to a metallic mixture in 

 high estimation among the Romans, and which, in conse- 

 quence of a more careful choice in the ingredients, and 

 more exactness in the proportions, may have been difterent 

 from aurkhalcum. But if the opinion of antiquaries, that 

 the coins struck in the time of Tiberius of a gold colour 

 were of real Corinthian brass be well founded, the mixture 

 has now been determined by assaying*. 



In regard to the small quantity of tin and lead contained 

 in the coins of Vespasian and Trajan in mixture with the 

 zinc, the addition of these does not appear to have been a 

 rftle. What Pliny says of the metal destined for statues 

 and tablets, that a third part of old copper was added to it, 

 was in all probability the case also in coins, and the mass 

 must therefore have been different according to the different 

 nature of thg fragments of copper cipployed for the mix- 

 ture. 



My researches in regard to the metallic mixture of the 

 antient coins was confined to a small number, and there- 

 fore are not sutiicient to admit of general conclusions to be 

 drawn from them respecting the coins of every nation at 

 different periods, and according to the different changes in 

 the mixtures. For this purpose a much greater number of 

 docimastic experiments would be necessary. 



They are, however, sufficient to excite doubts in regard to 

 the abundance of gold and silver which are supposed by 

 some to be contained in the antient coins, and to show that 

 the hardness of the Greek coins, and of various edged 

 and sharp-pointed instmments of the antients, cannot be 

 ascribed either to any art now lost, nor to a supposed addi- 

 tion of arsenic or iron, but merely to a mixture of tin f. 



XLV. On 



'- In order that I might observe the real colour and appearance which 

 these coins had when first struck, I caused two of them to be btruck 

 anew. The first, which was a coin of Tiberius, with a Ceres in a sit- 

 ting posture on the reverse, wss fused, and then rolled flat, and struck 

 into a coin. The other with the head of Vespasian, and on the reverse 

 a sitting figure, with the inscription Roma, was only smoothed, and 

 then struck anew, I then caused some artificial imitations of Corinthian 

 brass to be struck also, that 1 might compare them with these antient 

 coins. 



t The latest chemical analysis of current coins with which I am ac- 



cjuainted 



