r 250 ] 
ginary, and the fubftitution of the v, in its fleacf,, 
which the medal itfelf fully juftifies, will not, as I 
apprehend, leave the leaft room for fo precarious, not 
to fay abfurd, a fuppolition. Nor wifi many of 
the learned think this too harfh an appellation, as 
Pliftia (15) feems to have been an obfcure inland 
town ; whereas the fymbols on the reverfe of my 
coin plainly evince it to have been ftruck in a mari- 
time city, and a city of very confiderable note. It 
would therefore have been a little unlucky for a cer- 
tain Englifh writer (16) to determine in favour of the 
Italian author abovementioned, and aflign this piece, 
as well as all others fimilar to it, toPliflia, as he has 
done, had he been fully acquainted with the lubjedt he 
-wrote upon ; but as this feems not to have been 
the cafe, his character, as an adept in this branch of 
literature, will not be greatly affe died by the millake. 
With regard to the antiquity of the medal I am 
now upon, I fhall beg leave to remark, that the 
forms of the letters it exhibits, fo perfedlly fimi- 
lar to tliofe of the elements preferved by the coins 
of Papius Mutilus and Tiberius Veturius, heretofore 
explained, clearly indicate it to have been flruck 
about the time of the Social war. Pefides, that war 
is known to have raged in (17) Lucania ; and the 
Lucanians are laid to (18) to have been one of the 
(15) Phil. Cluver. Ital. Antiq. Lib. II. c, xv. p. 772. 
Lugd. Batavorum, 1634. 
(16) See The Ruins of Pajlum , p. 37. Lond. 1768. 
(17) Appian. Alexandrin. Dc Be!/. Civil, p. 375. See alfo 
Philo foph . Tranfafl. Veil. L 1 I. Part 1 . p. 29, 30. 
(18) Aut. Epit. Livian. LXXIi. LXXUI. 
princinal 
