>!N 





;:..-.... .:-: 



..."".. 



of oummu..or ajreua, It wa. worth 

 the tup bw coin. are of jreOow maul 

 red; the 



red; the small. mUy red. No worfhle dimun 

 look nttee tffl the reign of Alexander 8w.ru.. 

 of aaxtho* its weight. and continued to dimi 



twopence English. AU 

 the middle braa.. yeUowand 



dimunitio.. of lhes.teHiu. 

 . when it lost upwards 



its weight. and continued to diminuh till the reign of 

 oa, whs* it totally raniahed. In thU reten the chief copper 

 in oee wwe the null bra., or aaaria, which, according to thr 

 writer, of the Lower Empire. were at but numbered t sixty to the 

 Mlnr clenwiiuL Under Valerian and (lallicniu. copper washed with 

 Mnr appeared. In the reign of Diocletian, a coin denominated the 

 foUU mipplMd UM pJac* of the wUrUu.; but the denarii osrei con- 

 tiaued quite coma** down to Conatentine I. H introduced a new 

 imhm ~n1 then the foUU had iU change" and iU subdivisions ; but 

 iteantellatiaa adhered to what hl nowbeoome the largeat bran coin 

 of the Roman empire, to the very latert notice* which we have of the 

 Bnaotine money. KF..III the time of Augustus to that of Gallicnus, 

 the imperial or direr denariu* contained sixteen asaria. Under Cara- 

 cal U a larger denariu. was .truck, which had a half more or twenty- 

 four aatria, and wa. called argenteui : the common denarius of silver 

 t^^g then termed minutus. Under Oallienui, however, the minutus 

 man rl. and the argentiui and denariu. then became only different name. 

 for the Roman silver coin, which at that time contained no leas than 

 oxty asaria. Conrtantine I. introduced the milliarenau, worth Mime- 

 where about a shilling of our money : but the argentei, or denarii, 

 were (truck a* late a. the reign of Heracliun. Aurei and aemi-aurei 

 were the aole piece* in gold for near three centuries. Till Sulla's time 

 the aureu* continued at thirty silver denarii In the reign of < Audit*, 

 . and afterward., it went for twenty-five ailver denarii. Under Philip, 

 aurei of two or three sixes first appear, of a rude fabric ; one claw of 

 which were called trientea. The weight originally given to the aureus 

 wa. 120 grain. ; it afterward, fluctuated to between 80 and 90 grains, 

 and wa. aometimee even of lea weight Constantine I accommodated 

 the. aureu. to hi. new carnage, and gave it the name of solidus, of six 

 in the ounce of gold. The solidus paated for fourteen milliarenses. It 

 went for rather more than twelve .hilling, of our money, and con- 

 tinued of the aame atandard to the very clows of the Byzantine empire, 

 The medallion, were struck both at Rome and in the province., whence 

 the diviaion of this class into Roman and Grecian. The term in 

 applied to all those production, of the Roman mint which exceeded 

 the coin, o 

 Medallion. 



tetradrachm [SUEKEI.]; and there were half and quarter shekels. 

 Hebrew coin, pretending to an earlier date than the Maccabees are 



are 

 the 



ordinarily current in sue, whether in gold, silver, or brass. 

 is, says Pinkerton, from the time of Julius to that of Hadrian 

 rery unc.rn.mmon and of vast price : from Hadrian to the close of 

 Western Empire they are less rare. The types of the Roman 

 medallions are often repeated upon common coin. Those struck in 

 the Grecian territories are the most numerous, and are distinguished 

 from the Roman by their thinness and inferiority of workmanship. 

 Many Roman medallions have . c. upon them, as being struck t>y the 

 senate ; other have not, as being struck by order of the emperor. The 

 Roman medals called Contorniati, it is the opinion of our first medal- 

 lUt., were no more than ticket* of admiasion for different places at the 



. . 



The third claw of ancient coin*, denominated Barbarian, consists of 

 those of Lydia, Persia, Judssa, Phoenicia, Numidia and Mauritania, 

 Carthage, Spam, Gaul, and Britain. The coins of Lydia and Persia 

 bar* been already .lightly noticed. The Darics, from their present 

 extreme scarcity, are supposed to bare been melted down for his own 

 coinage by Alexander the Great, upon his conquest of Persia, Pinkerton 

 assarts that all the real Darica were of gold, and that the silver coins 

 with the archer (the same type) are later. Nevertheless many of the 

 silver Darics are equally if not more archaic in appearance. Of Persian 

 coin* there is a second aeries, that of the Sasaanide, beginning about 

 AJ>. 210, when Artaxerxes overturned the Parthian monarchy; they 

 extend to the year OM, when Persia was -conquered by the Arabian 

 caliphs, The Hebrew coins were struck under the dominion of the 

 family of the Maccabees, and chiefly in the time of Simon the high- 

 priest, about the year 150 B.C. They are nearly all of copper, and 



Shekel of Silver. 



spurious. The Phoenician coins are in no instance considered old.-r 

 than the time of Alexander the Great, and are chiefly referred to the: 

 cities of Tyre and Sidon. The Numidian coins are those of Juba I. 

 and II. The Punic and Carthaginian coins are believed to have been 

 ntnick by Greek artists. Those of Spain agree in character with the 

 coins of the different nations by whom the several colonies of Hut 

 country were planted, Phoenicians, Greeks, and Carthaginians; and 

 many of them are inscrilwd with Phoenician, Greek, and Roman legends : 

 a few others are met with, distinguished by what are called Celtiberian 

 characters, not unlike the letters of the Runic and Etruscan alphabets. 

 Of the coins of Gaul, the most ancient have no legends at all ; they 

 have very rude devices, and many of them are in base gold ; after the 

 Gauls had intercourse with the Romans, some of their coins bear 

 inscriptions which look like Latin, mostly in single words, and 

 easy interpretation; they are not unlike many of those which are 

 called early British. Casar describes the Britons as a people just 

 emerging from barbarism, and no further acquainted with commerce 

 than to hare discorered that it could not be conducted l>y UOfU 

 barter alone. His account implies, that however they might have 

 known its use, the Britons had not proceeded so far as actually t 

 money; although they had a substitute for it in piece* of brass, or iron 

 rings, or plates regulated by weight. He says, " Utuntur aut sere, aut 

 annulis ferreis, ad certum pondus cxaminatis, pro nunmio." ('Bell. 

 GalL' v. 12.) The passage, however is corrupt; for annul!* some 

 manuscripts read taleit, and others lamina. Coins however are found 

 in this country which are usually attributed to the very early British 

 kings, in gold, silver, and the inferior metals ; ruder in fabric thai 

 would have been had the Britons learned the art of coining 

 the Romans. They are without legends, and many of them, like the 

 early Gaulish coins already mentioned, have unintelligible devices; 

 they seem to justify our antiquaries in thinking that Cteaar had not 

 sufficient information to make his testimony quite conclusive. Thf 

 use of a better sort of money was unquestionably taught the Britons 

 by the Romans very soon after Osar's second invasion, wl>. 

 types improved, and when no one who examines them carefully will 

 d'oubt that Roman artists were employed upon the die*. The earliest 

 coin which can, with the least appearance of probability, be attributed 

 to any particular British monarch, bears upon it the letters SEOO, 

 possibly for Segonax, one of the four Kentish monarchs who attacked 

 Cteear's camp at the time of the invasion we have just mentioned 

 also the word IASCIO upon it, which is seen upon numerous other coins 

 which are undeniably British. Cunobelin was a later monarch of 

 Britain, whose name is considered to be abbreviated upon tli< 

 which have CVN, cvso, and CVNOHKU upon them, together with the 

 words CAMV and CAMVL, the leading letters of Camulodanom, In- 

 capital city, supposed to be either Colchester or Maldon in Essex. 

 VKR, as well as VKRLAMIO at length, for Vi-nilain, occur upon 

 OobM of the same period. One has noovo, which m:.y or m.-.y not IK- 

 a coin of Bonduca or Boadicea, queen of the Iccni. It is probable that 



Copper mwkel of Simon. 



ly rude in workmanship ; the legend, are in Samaritan cha- 

 racters, and the symbols are those appropriate to the nation, such as a 

 prig, eoiKtdered a. Aaron's rod, sacramental cups, censers, Ac. The 

 Hebrew shekel, a* it is called, U of surer, about the value of the Greek 



Coin of Cunobelin. 



the British coinage closed with the money of Cunobelin ; for in n v, r\ 

 few years after his decease the second subjection of Britain touV 

 under Claudius, and wa. so complete and severe, tliat the country 

 became rather a Roman than a British island. Gildaa (' De !: 

 Britannic,' c. v.) expressly speaks of a Roman edict which or. i 

 that from that time all money current among the Britons - 

 bear the imperial stamp. That this prohibition was followed up l.y 

 the establixhmc-nt of Itoman mints in Britain i highly probable; and 

 certain initial letters, as r. LOS. for ptcimia Londttu, Ac., are brought 

 forward as evidence of the fact ; but most of these initials are equally 



