438 EARLY MAN IN BRITAIN. [CHAP. xii. 



Victory has a torque, or armlet, in her hand instead of 

 a crown ; a fact which shows that those ornaments were 

 marks of distinction like crowns among the Greeks. 

 The meaning of the coins was to a great extent lost by 

 the time they arrived in Britain, and the crown of Apollo 

 became transformed into an ear of barley. Mr. Franks 1 

 considers that the designs of the Prehistoric Iron age 

 have been derived from classic originals, which have 

 been treated in the same way as the coins. 



Coins and Commerce. 



The date of the earliest British coins is fixed by Mr. 

 Evans between B.C. 200 and 150. 



The evidence of the coins proves that trade was 

 carried on with the neighbouring tribes of Gaul, and 

 that commodities from Britain were passed from tribe to 

 tribe until they arrived at Massilia. In later times a 

 more direct intercourse was carried on, and caravans 

 passed from the shores of the Mediterranean to the shores 

 of the English Channel. Coins of silver and brass ap- 

 pear, some struck in the same dies as the later series 

 of gold. Counterfeit coins also have been discovered, 

 composed of copper or bronze covered with gold or sil- 

 ver. British coins were first struck in the south-eastern 

 parts nearest to Gaul, and they are found as far west 

 as Cornwall, and north as Yorkshire. According to 

 Solinus, 2 money was not current among the Silures of 

 South Wales in the first century after Christ. Among 

 other traces of the trade with the Mediterranean we 



1 Congr. Int. ArcMol Prehist., Brussels voL, 1872, p. 516. 

 2 Monumenta Historica Britannica, p. x. 



