Claudius, at Nicæa, in Bithynia, and has her portrait with an inscription, which may be translated "Messalina Augusta, the New Juno," on the reverse, a temple with the name of the proconsul, C. Cadius Rufus, and NEIKAEON, "of the

Nicæans."

The finest collection of these coins is that contained in the Bibliothèque Nationale of Paris, which accounts for their great predominance in the illustrations to Pellerin's work.

The Imperial Greek coinage is frequently found countermarked in a similar manner to the Greek coins of the Independent, or Autonomous period.

Roman money was coined in the Greek provinces, with Latin inscriptions, which was used exclusively for the payment of the army, with a view, perhaps, to keep up their interest in the old language and national recollections during a long residence at foreign stations.

ROMAN COLONIAL COINS.

The Roman colonial coins, by far the greatest number of which belong to Spain, have a few features which must not be passed over here, though like the Greek Imperial series, few of them are well executed. They have almost invariably the letters coL. for colonia, and indicate by their types whether the colony by which they were issued was an agricultural or military one. The former is distinguished by a figure driving a plough drawn by oxen, in which manner it was customary to mark out the boundary of a new colony. The military colonies, however, have seldom this type, but have instead, one, two, or three legionaries bearing their ensigns, with their numbers, and suitable inscriptions. Vaillant published a work exclusively devoted to Roman colonial coins, which is still perhaps the most copious book of reference on the subject. The colonial was a form of provincial government which prevailed principally in the Augustan age.

Spain-where the greater number of colonial coins were issued was also the chief seat of Western Municipia, or towns governed by their own laws. The privilege of striking their own coins was, however, withdrawn from many of these cities, as early as the reign of Caligula; and after the time

of Galienus both colonial and municipal coins, with very few exceptions, entirely disappear. The best known Spanish coins of this character belong chiefly to Carthago Nova, now Carthagena; Cæsarea Augusta, corrupted Saragossa; and Emerita, the present Merida.

The quantity of Roman copper money in Spain must have been enormous, numbers of ancient Roman coins being in circulation even to the present day, worn, it is true, in most cases, to flat pieces of copper. The lively author of "The Gatherings of Spain" informs us that "the maravedi, or small copper money, is represented by anything; even an old button passing among multitudinous specimens of Spanish mints of all periods, Moorish and even Roman money being still current."

Among the most remarkable colonial coins are those of the colony of Nemausus, in Gaul, the only colony permitted to strike silver, and those of Panormus, now Palermo, in Sicily, Carthage, Corinth, Philippi, and Pella in Macedonia, and Iconium, &c. in Asia Minor. Many other places might be cited as the seats of colonial coinages, more or less remarkable, but an extended list would be incompatible with the limits of this work.

There are many Spanish and Carthaginian coins of the Imperial period, still bearing Punic characters, showing them to have been still understood and in use at that period. Pellerin says that there is more difficulty in distinguishing the characters that are Punic, than those having the pure Phoenician characters.

Some few of the types of colonial coins are singular; for instance, a crocodile chained to a palm tree, or those of Nemausus, emblematic of the subjection of Egypt-a type common and appropriate on the coins of Augustus and Agrippa, but apparently inconsistent on those of Nemausus; the fortified gate of the city of Emerita bearing the inscription Emerita Augusta. The sacred stone called El-gabal, with ar. eagle standing on it, carried to Rome by Heliogabalus, from which he took his surname, occurs on the colonial coins of Emissa; and other coins of the same place show the stone placed within a temple on an altar. On the Imperial Greek coins of Samos is seen a deity o. Archaic form, representing the Samian Juno.

The Roman colonial coins frequently bore Latin inscriptions even when the language of the country was Greek, in which case they have the word Colonia abbreviated as COL., which, when in Greek characters, is written KOA. The following is a description of an autonomic colonial coin, a colony governed by its own laws, of a late date; it is of the city of Viminiacum, in Moesia. It bears the portrait of the Emperor Gordianus Pius, with the inscription IMP(erator) PIVS. FEL(ix) AVG(ustus); on the reverse is a female figure holding two standards, inscribed with the respective numbers VII. and IIII.; at her feet are a lion and a bull. The numbers are those of two legions represented by the two standards, and the lion and bull are their respective symbols; beneath the figure is AN. IIII., "the year 4" of the colony, or the reign of the emperor. The privileges of an autonomous colony were conferred upon this place by Gordian; it is situated in Upper Moesia, on the river Ister. The inscription of the reverse is P. M. S. COL. VIM., to be read "Provinciæ Mosiæ Superioris Colonia Viminiacum" (of the province of Upper Moesia, the colony of Viminiacum). Great numbers of the coins of this colony are found in the Austrian and Hungarian territories.

In the exergue, or lower part of the coin, where AN. IIII. stands in the above woodcut, colonial coins have generally three initial letters of the place of mintage, as P. LON. which is supposed to be P(ecunia), LON (dinensis), or "money of the London mint," which is only found on coins of the late epoch of Constantine; sometimes it is M. L. Other provincial and colonial mints marked the coinage in a similar manner.

The Emperor Commodus, among other extravagances, declared that he would make the city of Rome itself a colony, and honour it with the title of Colonia Commodiana. In illustration of this threat he positively caused coins similar to colonial ones to be struck on this occasion, and that, with the consent of the Senate! How were the "conscript fathers"

fallen from their high estate. On these coins the emperor is seen with a sacerdotal veil as a priest driving a plough round the circuit of the " Colonia Commodiana." From this ancient custom of marking out the limits of a city, it is supposed that urbs, or urbis, is derived from orbis, alluding to the circuit first marked out. In yoking the cattle for this purpose, a bull was placed outside and a cow inside, indicating the duties of the men to be abroad, and those of the women at home. The drivers were called Colonus-whence the term colony-and also, possibly, its corruption is the modern word clown, which originally meant a tiller of the soil.

CHAPTER XXIV.

COINAGE OF ROME FROM THE REIGN OF AUGUSTUS TO THAT OF

GALLIENUS.

HAVING now briefly described the nature of Greek Imperial and colonial coins, I must at once proceed to the Roman Imperial series of sestertii, commencing with those of Augustus; at the same time giving a brief occasional notice of the gold and silver of each successive reign, when of remarkable character.

In preceding chapters I have endeavoured to trace the origin and progress of the Roman coinage, from the massive copper pieces, which formed the first money of Rome, to the subsequent introduction of silver and gold, and the various modifications which the coinage exhibited towards the close of the Republic. It was not till the reign of Augustus that the coinage of Rome assumed that definite character which it preserved with but slight variation till the end of the reign of Gallienus-a period embracing nearly three centuries; and, with the exception of the disappearance of the large sestertius of bronze, it maintained even to the final breaking up of the Western Empire.

The form of coinage which became firmly established during the reign of the first emperor and his immediate successors, was that which laid the foundation of the coinage of Modern Europe after the fall of Rome, and which, in fact,

continued to be issued from Roran mints until the last fragment of the Eastern Empire, the city of Constantinople, was taken by the Turks in the year 1453 of our era.

It has been shown that the principal silver coin of Rome was the denarius, originally founded on the Greek drachma, but eventually made to correspond in value with certain pieces of the existing copper coinage, while the principal gold piece was termed an aureus, and was of the value of twenty denarii. These coins were now firmly established as national, and were issued with slight modification in weight, &c., till the end of the Empire. Therefore, when, in the coinage of the following reigns, the silver is spoken of, it refers to the denarii, and when the gold is spoken of, the aurei are referred to.

The greatest interest of the Roman coinage is, however, now centered in the successive issues of the great bronze sestertius, commonly termed by collectors "first brass," (but more correctly "first bronze,") to distinguish it from the dupondius, of half the size, which I have termed "second bronze," and the reduced "as," which I call "third bronze."

It is upon the superb series of the money of Imperial Rome, comprised in the successive issues of the bronze sestertius, that the best examples of Roman monetary art are exhibited, and upon which the greatest number of important historic events are recorded. It was this series of coins which first attracted the attention of modern antiquarians, and the beauty of execution frequently displayed, combined with the high historic interest of the inscriptions and types thus preserved, caused this class of coins, or medals as they were at first improperly termed, to be sought with the greatest avidity; while their study laid the foundation of numismatic science, for our knowledge of the Greek coinage is of much more recent origin. The copper coinage during the Empire, as in the early periods of Rome, was still the national coinage, and though gold and silver were issued by authority of the emperors, the ancient coin of the realm, the national bronze, continued to be issued, ex Senatús Consulto; "by decree of the Senate."

The great number of interesting and important records found on the Roman sestertii induced Addison to compare their issue to that of a state gazette-a remark, the force o.