394 On the Ancient Roman Coins, [Sept. 



dulus, fancifully conferred upon them in their class books. We possess 

 none of what are usually called medallions of " large brass :" — 

 those beautiful specimens of the die-sculptor's art are supposed to 

 have been struck less with a view to circulation as coin, than as me- 

 morials of state events and families of note. The pieces found in 

 India are chiefly of the lower denominations, the common currency of 

 the eastern part of the empire, and if it were allowable to argue from 

 such insufficient data, the predominance among our specimens of the 

 copper coin of ^Egyptian fabrication confirms what is known from 

 history, of that country having been the principal channel of 

 commerce between India and the Roman Europe. Robertson says 

 that specie was one of the principal returns in trade for the 

 spices, precious stones, silk, &c. of India : it is not improbable, 

 therefore, that the coin of the empire circulated to a considerable 

 extent in India; and that there existed no native currency at an 

 early period among the Hindus, we have the authority of Pausanias, 

 and the silence of other authors on the subject : this supposition is 

 supported by the almost, nay, total absence of the remains of any an- 

 cient Indian coinage. The Indian coins of Kanouj and the Dekhan, de- 

 scribed by Mr. Wilson in the As. Res. and the Indo-Grecian coins of 

 Major Tod, are evidently descendants from the Bactrian coinage, from 

 the types of which they gradually progress into purely Hindu models ; 

 but these are comparatively scarce, and must soon have given place to 

 the coins of the Muhamedan conquerors. Coinage is certainly one of the 

 improvements which has travelled and is still travelling eastward. Thua 

 we see, at the present day, countries immediately to the east of us, Ava 

 and China, nearly destitute of fabricated money of their own ; into 

 the former of which our silver and copper currency is but now by 

 degrees beginning to penetrate, while the latter along the coast is 

 supplied with dollars from America; and, within perhaps a century 

 or so*, in its north-western provinces with coin struck by the neigh- 

 bouring frontier states of Nipal, Lahore, &c. for their use. But this 

 is a digression involving questions of deep research, foreign to my 

 present object, and which I am by no means prepared to discuss. 



The symbols on the Roman coins, unlike those of the Greeks, are 

 generally explained at once by the inscriptions encircling them : 

 thus salvs reipvb, or salvs avg, accompanies the type of a female 

 feeding the serpent of the goddess of health, at an altar : concordia, 

 abundantia,prosperitas, &c. are all marked by the cornucopia ; the ca- 



* The Chinese provinces north of the Himalaya, Tibet, &c. were supplied with 

 coin struck in the vailey of Nipal.— Dr. Bramley's Notes on Nipal Coinage. 



