178 TUMBLES OF A <DOfMINie 



along, and carved, in letters that have outlived the 

 ravages of time, stories of triumph, the numbers of 

 legions, and the titles of commanders. He has left on 

 record such details even as the building of a dyke along 

 the Severn, and the slaughter of a boar that had long 

 been the terror of the neighbourhood. 



No ancient British inscription of a date prior to the 

 Roman conquest has survived. Even the coinage bore 

 no lettering before the time of Caesar. Some tribal 

 kings later on, known to us through Latin writers, 

 added to the rude devices on their coins a few letters of 

 their names. After the conquest under Claudius, the 

 native coinage appears to have ceased, and until the 

 time of Carausius, A.D. 288, all money for circulation in 

 the island was struck in Italy or Gaul. 



The currency of the Britons was copied in the first 

 place from the coins of Macedon, rendered familiar 

 possibly by Greek or Phoenician traders. But in native 

 hands the horses on the didrachma lost by degrees their 

 original form, and degenerated finally into a mere cross. 

 A fine British coin found at Churchill, a little to the 

 west of the encampment, is clearly copied from a Mace- 

 donian stater. It is of gold, rather less in diameter 

 than a sovereign, but of greater thickness. 



Such treasures, alas ! are rare. More numerous are 

 the relics associated. with the burial of the dead. Many 

 barrows have been opened on various points of Mendip. 

 Some of those examined by Skinner early in the century 

 contained nothing more than a few handfuls of bones 

 and charcoal. In others were discovered weapons and 



