vii.] INSTITUTE OF BANKERS. 209 



coins were not inscribed, but afterwards they generally 

 bore the legend " Soma," not as a geographical expres- 

 sion, but as a recognition of sovereignty. The same 

 feeling which rendered the Greeks so long reluctant 

 to put any human head on their coins, influenced 

 the Eomans also : to have done so would have indicated 

 a claim to sovereignty, which, under a republic, would 

 of course have been totally inadmissible. During the 

 earlier period of Eoman history, indeed, such coins were 

 unknown. In the year 58 B.c. M. iEmilius Scaurus 

 represented himself on a small scale, in the act of 

 receiving the submission of Aretas, king of the Naba- 

 theans. We find also Marius, Sylla and Pompey on 

 their triumphal cars, but not even they ever ventured 

 to put their likenesses on the coins. This feeling 

 extended with still greater force to female heads. Even 

 the representation of the women belonging to the 

 imperial family under the earliest emperors were not 

 only posthumous and commemorative, but were more- 

 over at first introduced under the disguise of goddesses. 

 Thus Julia was represented as Diana. Tiberius, in 

 honour of his mother Livia, attached her features to 

 heads of the goddesses Pietas, Justitia and Salus 

 Augusta. Agrippina was not satisfied with this, and 

 placed herself on coins with her husband Claudius, 

 though she did not venture to have one struck with her 

 ■, own effigy alone. The rule was first broken by Drusus, 

 who struck coins in honour of his wife Antonia. 



The Greeks appear to have introduced banking into 

 Italy, at least if we may judge from the fact that in 

 early Latin writers most of the words relating to 

 banking and finance are of Greek origin, and were 



p 



