XXVI 
PKOCEEDINGS OE THE 
Roman province of Gaul. No doubt the annexation of Britain might 
have taken place at an earlier period than it did, had not Augustus 
purposely avoided extending the Roman Empire to Britain. More 
than once, however, he was induced to undertake the task, though 
he allowed himself to be diverted from it. On one of these occasions 
it was by British ambassadors, who deposited offerings in the 
Capitol, and are said by Strabo to have brought the Whole island 
into friendly connection with the Romans. The Britons, indeed, 
are said to have agreed to pay duty on all exports and imports 
from or to Gaul, and this was considered preferable to garrisoning 
the island. 
That Rome was here as elsewhere recognized as the mistress of 
the world was evinced by Adminius, a son of Cunobelinus the 
British chief, seeking refuge with Caligula, as did also one Bericus 
at the court of Claudius, and as had formerly another British prince 
at the court of Augustus. 
It can therefore well be imagined that Roman a? became known 
in Britain, and that probably artists trained eithey in Italy or Gaul 
settled in this country. It is certainly not surprising to find devices 
borrowed from Roman coins superseding or modifying the more 
purely native types. 
Although numerous British tribes are mentioned by early historians, 
it is difficult in most cases to assign particular coins to them. This 
is partly owing to the names of the tribes but rarely occurring upon 
the coins, and partly to the difficulty in assigning exact limits to 
their territories, which, from conquests or other causes, appear to 
have been continually varying. 
It has therefore been thought safer to treat of the coins under the 
head of districts rather than of tribes. The study of this class of 
coins is to a certain extent like that of geology ; we have no written 
history on which to rely, and the annals of the past have to be re¬ 
constructed from the evidence of contemporary but dumb witnesses, 
disinterred from the soil. With gold coins, the geographical range 
of which is, as is well known, wider than that of those in the baser 
metals, it is unsafe to argue from only one or two instances ; where, 
however, numerous coins of any given type have been found, we are 
able to fix their original home, and, by means of the types, to arrive 
at some conclusion as to the chronological order even of uninscribed 
coins. 
The coinage of the several districts was next described, and dia¬ 
grams of various specimens exhibited, some of which are reproduced 
in the accompanying plate (Plate VII) * 
The inscribed coins of the western district, comprising Somerset¬ 
shire, Gloucestershire, and Wilts, and parts of adjoining counties, 
give the legends BODVOC, CATTI, COMVX, VO-CORIO, EISV, 
etc., which are of doubtful interpretation. There are also coins of a 
prince Antedrigus, of which a specimen is engraved in Eig. 7. 
* The drawings are taken from Mr. Evans’ work “Ancient British Coins,” 
8vo., 1864, to the plates of which reference is also occasionally made. 
