cleft. In later coins of Ægina, the turtle has been changed to a tortoise, and the fissure on the other side converted into a device. The coins of Lydia probably come next in point of antiquity, and then the early Darics of the Persian kings, which occur both in gold and silver, and bear a strong resemblance to the coins of Ægina in the mode of striking: these, if they are to be referred to Darius the First, must have been coined between B. c. 522 and 486. The richer the metal, the smaller and more portable was the quantity required for the coin. There are coins in gold of the early kings of Persia, similar in type to the silver Darics, and of very minute size.

The study of coins is not to be considered as the province of the antiquary alone. Coins are among the most certain evidences of history. In the later part of the Greek series they illustrate the chronology of reigns. In the Roman series they fix the dates and succession of events. Gibbon observes that if all our historians were lost, medals, inscriptions, and other monuments, would be sufficient to record the travels of Hadrian. The reign of Probus might be written from his coins. In illustrating the history and chronology of sculpture and ancient marbles, coins enable the scholar and the artist not only to discern those peculiarities which characterise style, as it relates to different ages and schools, but to ascribe busts and statues to the persons whom they represent. The personation of the different provinces, too, forms another point of interest upon the Roman coins. Coins are frequently essential to the illustration of obscure passages in ancient writers; and preserve delineations of some of the most beautiful edifices of antiquity not existing now even in their ruins. Addison, in his 'Dialogue on the Usefulness of Ancient Medals,' has long convinced the world of the connexion of this science with poetry. As a branch of the fine arts, it may be sufficient to say, that some of the medals of Sicily belong to a period when sculpture had attained its highest perfection. We would particularly refer to the coins of Syracuse. In every quality of art, too, the Roman coins, to a certain period, yield to the Greek alone. From Augustus to Hadrian the Roman mint was the seat of genius: and coins of admirable execution are found even down to the time of Posthumus.

The generality of numismatic writers divide coins into Ancient and Modern; the Ancient, into the great divisions of Greek, Roman, and Barbarian.

The Greek they divide into cities and kings. Of the first they can make no chronological arrangement: it is alphabetical, under the different countries. The kings commence with the age of Alexander the Great, and belong to the four kingdoms into which his empire was divided, besides the kingdom of Epirus. This series, in a chronological point of view, closes with the extinction of the dynasty of the Lagidæ in the Augustan age. The coins of the Greek cities were impressed either with appropriate symbols or the heads of deities. The coins of the monarchs bore the heads of the respective princes. Pinkerton observes that the first copper coins of Greece known are those of Gelon, king of Syracuse, about 490 years before our æra. These were called Chalci, pieces of brass; others, of a more diminutive size, were called Lepta, or Kerma, as being change for the poor. He considers there is

no proof of the coinage of gold in Greece before Philip of Macedon. Athens had no gold money at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war.

The Roman coins are divided into consular, imperial, and medallions. The subdivisions of the consular are into Roman asses and coins of the families. Of the imperial there are two subdivisions, Roman and Grecian; the latter being again subdivided into those of provinces, colonies, and municipia. The medallions are likewise divided into Roman and Grecian. The earliest coinage of Rome was of copper, and took place in the reign of Servius Tullius, probably about five centuries before Christ. The Romans are supposed to have borrowed the art from their neighbors, the Etruscans. Of the as, its divisions and its compounds, we have already spoken in a former article. On some of the later Roman, as well as on what were called the Italian asses and their parts, the practice became prevalent of placing the names of many of the principal families of Rome upon the fields of the coins. These form the division which are called family coins. The silver coinage of Rome was introduced in the year 266 before Christ, when the denarius was so termed from its being equivalent to ten asses. Pliny informs us (Nat. Hist. xxxiii. 13, edit. Hard. ii. 612) that the coinage of gold was introduced sixty-two years after that of silver. The largest piece of gold was called aureus [AUREUS.] The imperial coins of Rome form the most complete and most interesting series of any extant. Those of copper being found of different sizes, are distinguished into first, second and third brass: in historical importance, as well as for the devices, the largest series is to be preferred. The largest imperial brass coin was the sestertius, and from the Augustan age went by the name of nummus, or æreus. It was worth two pence English. All the large brass coins are of yellow metal; the middle brass, yellow and red; the small, mostly red. No sensible diminution of the sestertius took place till the reign of Alexander Severus, when it lost upwards of a sixth of its weight, and continued to diminish till the reign of Gallienus, when it totally vanished. In this reign the chief copper coins in use were the small brass, or assaria, which, according to the writers of the Lower Empire, were at last numbered at sixty to the silver denarius. Under Valerian and Gallienus, copper washed with silver appeared. In the reign of Diocletian, a coin denominated the follis supplied the place of the sestertius; but the denarii ærei continued quite common down to Constantine I. He introduced a new coinage, and then the follis had its changes and its subdivisions; but its appellation adhered to what had now become the largest brass coin of the Roman empire, to the very latest notices which we have of the Byzantine money. From the time of Augustus to that of Gallienus, the imperial or silver denarius contained sixteen assaria. Under Caracalla a larger denarius was struck, which had a third more, or twenty-four assaria, and was called argenteus: the common denarius of silver being then termed minutus. Under Gallienus, however, the minutus ceased, and argenteus and denarius then became only different names for the Roman silver coin, which at that time contained no less than sixty assaria. Constantine I. introduced the milliarensis, worth somewhere about a shilling of our money: but the argentei, or denarii, were struck as late as the reign of Heraclius.

Aurei and semi-aurei were the sole pieces in gold for near three centuries. Till Sulla's time the aureus continued at thirty silver denarii. In the reign of Claudius, and afterwards, it went for twenty-five silver denarii. Under Philip, aurei of two or three sizes first appear, of a rude fabric: one class of which were called trientes. The weight originally given to the aureus was 120 grains; it afterwards fluctuated to between 80 and 90 grains, and was sometimes even of less weight. Constantine 1. accommodated the aureus to his new coinage, and gave it the name of solidus, of six in the ounce of gold. The solidus passed for fourteen milliarenses. It went for rather more than twelve shillings of our money, and continued of the same standard to the very close of the Byzantine empire. The medallions were struck both at Rome and in the provinces, whence the division of this class into Roman and Grecian. The term is applied to all those productions of the Roman mint which exceeded the coins ordinarily current in size, whether in gold, silver, or brass. Though generally conceived to have been struck upon similar occasions to those on which we ourselves coin medals, there are still various circumstances which lead to the belief that they were intended for circulation as money. Medallions, says Pinkerton, from the time of Julius to that of Hadrian are very uncommon and of vast price: from Hadrian to the close of the Western Empire, they are less rare. The types of the Roman medallions are often repeated upon common coin. Those struck in the Grecian territories are the most numerous, and are distinguished from the Roman by their thinness and inferiority of workmanship. Many Roman medallions have s. c. upon them, as being struck by the senate; others have not, as being struck by order of the emperor. The Roman medals called Contorniati, it is the opinion of our first medallists, were no more than tickets of admission for different places at the public games.

The third class of ancient coins, denominated Barbarian, consists of those of Lydia, Persia, Judæa, Phoenicia, Numidia and Mauritania, Carthage, Spain, Gaul, and Britain. The coins of Lydia and Persia have been already slightly noticed. The Darics, from their present extreme scarcity, are supposed to have been melted down for his own coinage by Alexander the Great, upon his conquest of Persia. Pinkerton asserts that all the real Darics were of gold, and that the silver coins with the archer (the same type) are later. Nevertheless many of the silver Darics are equally if not more archaic in appearance. Of Persian coins there is a second series, that of the Sassanidæ, beginning about A. D. 210, when Artaxerxes overturned the Parthian monarchy; they extend to the year 636, when Persia was conquered by the Arabian caliphs. The Hebrew coins were struck under the dominion of the family of the Maccabees, and chiefly in the time of Simon the high priest, about the year 150 B. c. They are nearly all of copper, and extremely rude in workmanship; the legends are in Samaritan characters, and the symbols are those appropriate to the nation, such as a sprig, considered as Aaron's rod, sacramental cups, censers, &c. The Hebrew shekel, as it is called, is of silver, about the value of the Greek tetradrachm. Hebrew coins pretending to an earlier date than the Maccabees are spurious. The Phoenician coins are in no instance considered older than the time

of Alexander the Great, and are chiefly referred to the cities of Tyre and Sidon. The Numidian coins are those of Juba I. and II. The Punic or Carthaginian coins are believed to have been struck by Greek artists. Those of Spain agree in character with the coins of the different nations by whom the several colonies of that country were planted, Phoenicians, Greeks, and Carthaginians; and many of them are inscribed with Phoenician, Greek, and Roman legends: a few others are met with, distinguished by what are called Celtiberian characters, not unlike the letters of the Runic and Etruscan alphabets. Of the coins of Gaul, the most ancient have no legends at all; they have very rude devices, and many of them are in base gold: after the Gauls had intercourse with the Romans, some of their coins bear inscriptions which look like Latin, mostly in single words, and not of easy interpretation: they are not unlike many of those which are called early British. Cæsar describes the Britons as a people just emerging from barbarism, and no further acquainted with commerce than to have discovered that it could not be conducted by simple barter alone. His account implies, that however they might have known its use, the Britons had not proceeded so far as actually to coin money: although they had a substitute for it in pieces of brass, or iron rings, or plates regulated by weight. He says, 'Utuntur aut ære, aut annulis ferreis, ad certum pondus examinatis, pro nummo.' (Bell. Gall. v. 12.) The passage however is corrupt : for annulis some manuscripts read taleis, and others laminis. Coins however are found in this country which are usually attributed to the very early British kings, in gold, silver, and the inferior metals: ruder in fabric than they would have been had the Britons learned the art of coining them from the Romans. They are without legends, and many of them, like the early Gaulish coins already mentioned, have unintelligible devices: they seem to justify our antiquaries in thinking that Cæsar had not sufficient information to make his testimony quite conclusive. The use of a better sort of money was unquestionably taught the Britons by the Romans very soon after Cæsar's second invasion, when the types improved, and when no one who examines them carefully will doubt that Roman artists were employed upon the dies. The earliest coin which can, with the least appearance of probability, be attributed to any particular British monarch, bears upon it the letters SEGO, possibly for Segonax, one of the four Kentish monarchs who attacked Cæsar's camp at the time of the invasion we have just mentioned; it has also the word TASCIO upon it, which is seen upon numerous other coins which are undeniably British. Cunobelin was a later monarch of Britain, whose name is considered to be abbreviated upon the coins which have cvN, CVNO, and CVNOBELI upon them, together with the words CAMV and CAMVL, the leading letters of Camulodunum, his capital city, supposed to be either Colchester or Maldon in Essex. VER, as well as VERLAMIO at length, for Verulam, occur upon other coins of the same period. One has BODVO, which may or may not be a coin of Bonduca or Boadicea, queen of the Iceni. It is probable that the British coinage closed with the money of Cunobelin; for in a very few years after his decease the second subjection of Britain took place under Claudius, and was so complete and severe, that the country

became rather a Roman than a British island. Gildas (De Excidio Britanniæ, c. v.) expressly speaks of a Roman edict which ordained that from that time that all money current among the Britons should bear the imperial stamp. That this prohibition was followed up by the establishment of Roman mints in Britain is highly probable: and certain initial letters, as P. LON. for pecunia Londini, &c., are brought forward as evidence of the fact; but most of these initials are equally applicable to other places in the Roman empire where mints were established, and therefore do not afford a proof quite so conclusive as is wanted. The coins of Carausius and Allectus, the seat of whose empire was in Britain, have a strong claim to be considered as the production of British mints. Those who wish to see under one view the 'Coins of the Romans relating to Britain,' will find the fullest information in a little volume recently published under that title by Mr. John Yonge Akerman, 12mo., London, 1836.

MODERN COINS are those which have been struck since the fall of the Western Empire; but it is impossible, in the space to which the present article is necessarily confined, to enter into minute details respecting the series of coins in each country. We shall be brief in our notices of the greater part, that we may devote a larger space to the coins of England. The series of the coins of Italy, under the Ostrogoths began soon after the year 480 of the Christian æra. The French series commences with Clovis, A. D. 490. That of Spain with Liuva, Prince of the Visigoths, soon after the middle of the sixth century, or about A. D. 567. The states of Germany appear to have struck money very shortly after the age of Charlemagne; as well as the independent Lombard cities, and the Neapolitans. The Papal series of money begins with Pope Hadrian I., A. D. 772. Denmark has coins of an early date, but few of them are intelligible before the time of Canute; contemporary with whose date are the coins of the petty kings of Ireland. In Sweden coinage is said to have begun under Biorno, A. D. 818; and in Norway with Olave or Olaf, A. D. 1066. The Russian coinage is of a later date than the other coinages of Europe. Of Scotland pennies exist ascribed to Alexander I., A. D. 1107: those of William the Lion, A. D. 1165, are numerous. Pennies were the earliest coins in most of the European kingdoms, and a prevailing device upon them was a cross.

The Coins of England form the most complete modern series extant. At what time the circulation of the Roman money ceased, we are ignorant: but Sceattæ (from the Anglo-Saxon sceat, shot, money) are known of the early kings of Kent, some of which must have been struck within the sixth century; and there are others so similar to them in type as to justify their appropriation to the same people, but which from their symbols were evidently coined before their conversion to Christianity. They are too rude generally to admit of description, are of silver, and found of different weights, from seven grains and a half troy to twenty and upwards: their most common weight is from fifteen to nineteen grains. Several plates of these coins are engraved in Ruding; they appear to have been current chiefly from the years 500 to 700. A sceatta of Ethilberht I. of Kent is the earliest Saxon coin which can be appropriated: he reigned from A. D. 561 to 616. Sceattæ also are the only