VOL. LXI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 101 



X, Explication of an Inedited Coin, tvith Two Legends, in Different Languages, 

 on the Reverse. By the Rev. Jolm Swinton, B.D., F.R.S. p. 78. 



This coin on one side presents the head of Jupiter, and on the other the prow 

 of a ship, ^^hich indicates the place where it was struck to have been a maritime 

 town. Above the prow of the ship are 2 characters, either Punic or Phoenician.' 



Besides these 2 there is a monogram, formed of the three Latin letters v, Aji','' 

 very indifferently preserved, in the exergue, with which the Punic or Phcentcian 

 elements perfectly correspond. Hence the learned will easily admit the medal in 

 question to have been struck, at Vabar, a maritime city of Mauritania Caesarien- 

 sis', after that place had been ceded to the Romans, and was inhabited by them. 



.1 .1 



and either the Carthaginians or the Phoeniciarii.' 



)llf fll'7' f 



XL Remarks on Two Etruscan Weights, or Coins, never before published. By 

 the Rev. John Swinton, B.D., F.R.S. p. 82. '" 



The first piece to be considered here is an Etru?can as, or weight, exhibiting 

 on one side the head of Janus,- covered with a cap; and on the reverse a club, 

 attended by the mark of the as, and a legend in Etruscan characters. Between 

 the two faces of Janus, the head of a buffalo, or wild ox, presents itself, as does 

 a sort of concha marina, or sea-shell, contiguous to the cap ; both of which have 

 not a little suffered from the injuries of time. The letters on the reverse are 

 more rude and barbarous than those of any similar Etruscan coins hitherto pub- 

 lished, which is an incontestible proof of the exceeding high antiquity of this 

 piece. The forms of several of them are likewise somewhat different from those 

 of the correspondent elements on all the other similar Etruscan weights, hitherto 

 communicated to the learned world. The concha marina, and perhaps the 

 buffalo's head, is a singularity that will anounce the weight to be an inedited 

 coin. The piece weighs precisely 5 ounces, and 12 grains; and is, in all re- 

 spects, except what relates to the concha and buffalo's head, tolerably well pre 

 served. 



The first riches of mankind were their flocks and their herds, and par- 

 ticularly their oxen. Hence the first money in Italy, from pecus, was 

 called pecunia, and the most ancient brass coins had the figure of an ox 

 impressed on them. Hence also the Greeks, in the days of Homer, esti- 

 tnated the value of their properties according to the number of oxen they were 

 equivalent to, as we learn from that celebrated poet. For he informs us, that 

 Glaucus's golden armour was worth 1 00 oxen, whereas that of Diomedes, for 

 which it was exchanged, did not exceed the value of 9 of those animals. The 

 figure of the ox on the most ancient money seems to have been soon converted 

 in Etruria into the symbol of the head of that beast connected with the head of 

 Janus, who is said to have first introduced the use of money into Italy. 



