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Notes on Plate of British and other Coins, older than the 

 Roman Conquest of Britain. By Miss Russell. 



The British and other coins in Plate XII are copied, by one of 

 the permanent photographic processes, from coins actually in the 

 British Museum ; casts being first taken in plaster, the dead 

 surface of which photographs better than metal. They are 

 selected chiefly in connection with the paper on the Catrail 

 printed by the Club in 1882, as illustrating the position of the 

 early Celtic races in Britain. There is much less Celtic left in 

 England than in Ireland, Wales, or Scotland, but on the other 

 hand, many varieties of coins have been found, older than the 

 occupation of the country by the Romans, with Celtic inscrip- 

 tions, and devices chiefly copied from Greek coins. The Greek 

 influence must have come very much through the Greek settle- 

 ment of Massilia or Marseilles. 



The early coins of England are so curious a subject, that so 

 little having been made of them by the historians must be attri- 

 buted to the fact, that we know very little of the people who 

 used them, except from the coins themselves. The two coins 

 engraved on the margin are copied from Gibson's Camden. 



No. 1 . of the plate is a gold stater of Philip II of Macedon, the father of 

 Alexander ; it is rather a mystery how he can have had such an enormous 

 coinage as he seems to have had ; these coins exist in numbers still, whUe his 

 conquests were only or chiefly in Greece, and curiously enough, he was 

 accused of bribing men of influence with the primitive currency of cattle, 

 and with timber. The convex side has the head of Apollo with a laurel 

 wreath ; the concave side, a chariot with two horses and a driver ; under the 

 horses is a trident, and the name of Philip, in Greek letters. The date must 

 be about B.C. 350, or rather later. 



No. 2. is a coin of the Greek town of Metapontum, on the Gulf of Taren- 

 tum in the south of Italy, which is a small town still. The beautiful head of 

 Ceres has not been done justice to in the autograph, the object being to have 

 the best light on the British coins. The reverse has an ear of com, an insect, 

 and the name META. 



No. 3. is a coin of Gaul, that is, France, which has been engraved for the 

 Club before. The head of ihe deity is tolerably imitated from the Greek, 

 but the chariot has a monstrous symbolical human-headed horse, which the 

 driver is urging over his prostrate enemies ; he holds something like a torque 

 or wreath. 



No. 4._is also from Gaul ; it is much more like the Greek model ; the head 

 is very fair, and the horse a normal one, though by no means handsome. 

 The object over the horse's back looks liked a winged Victory, but seems to 

 be meant for an eagle. There are three circles enclosing dots, which may or 



