HERTFORBSHIRE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 
XXX111 
commonly credited, and certainly they understood that part of the 
art of government which relates to a tampering with the currency 
remarkably well. 
The coins which have been termed the British prototypes are of 
remarkably fine gold, and weigh from 110 to 120 grains, the weight 
of the original Philippus being about 133 grains. Those which 
come nearest to this prototype, as, fpr instance, those of the types 
Pigs. 4, 5, and 20, usually weigh from 95 to 100 grains. Coins 
like Pigs. 14, 21, and 22 are commonly about 90 grains in weight. 
The coin engraved as Pig. 9 weighs about 86 grains, and by the 
time the cruciform ornament was established the weight was 
brought down to about 84 grains, at which point it became per¬ 
manent, or nearly so, though the gold was reduced in purity to 
such an extent that many coins, like Pig. 27, and of analogous 
types, do not contain a quarter of pure gold. 
It is evident that such a reduction as that from 120 to 84 grains 
could not have been sudden. It is far more probable that it was 
effected by gradual and almost insensible alterations, as is indeed 
suggested by the varying weights of the coins. 
Taken in conjunction with the type, the diminution in weight 
may give some idea as to the time necessary for the changes in the 
coinage to have been effected. The date of the Philippus is known, 
as is also that of some of the ancient British coins; and we may 
either take the amount of time necessary for the degeneration of 
the Philippus to the form of the British prototype, or for the 
metamorphosis of this latter into some other type of ascertained 
date, or both these means, to assign an era for the commencement 
of the British coinage. 
There are coins of Commius and his sons of much the same type 
as Pig. 21, but weighing only 84 grains; and as Commius was a 
contemporary of Julius, they probably date about 30 or 40 b.c. 
Dubnovellaunus, again, some of whose coins are given in Pigs. 23 
and 29, was a contemporary of Augustus, whose protection he 
sought probably in b.c. 21 or 22. 
Cunobelinus died about a.d. 40, and as his reign was of long 
duration, as was also that of his father, Tasciovanus, the date of 
b.c. 30 assigned for the commencement of the rule of Tasciovanus 
is probably not far wrong. One of bis early coins is shown in 
Pig. 16. Its weight, like that of the coin of Dubnovellaunus, is 
84 grains. 
Taking a hundred and twenty years as the time necessary for the 
change in weight and type from the British prototype to the coins 
just mentioned, the date b.c. 150 would be assigned to the proto¬ 
type. On the assumption that the Philippus was first imitated in 
the south of Gaul about b.c. 300, this would give a hundred and 
fifty years as the period for the change from Pig. 1 to Pigs. 2 and 3. 
If the reduction in weight took place at a uniform rate, and, com¬ 
mencing with 133 grains in b.c. 300, attained to 84 grains in b.c. 
30, the weight of the prototype, 120 grains, would be reached 
about b.c. 230 ; but this is probably too early. Looking, however, 
