soldier on the reverse, holding in one hand a trophy, and in the other a standard, the inscription being Victus exercitu Romanorum, "Conquered by the army of the Romans."

The common gold coin, or aureus, of Constantine, (in the latter period of the Empire, termed the solidus,) is a neatlyexecuted coin, and was issued with various devices.

His copper consists of second and third bronze, corresponding about, in size and value, to our modern halfpence and farthings.

On the coinage of his son Constantius, who became emperor in 353, and reigned till 361, Christian emblems first begin to appear. The principal one being the labarum, or sacred banner, bearing the monogram of Christ, which is held in the right hand of the emperor. The inscriptions do not refer to the Christian symbol, but are such as, TRIUMFATOR GENTIUM BARBARORUM (The conqueror of the barbarians), or GLORIA ROMANORUM, (The glory of the Romans). The legend respecting the labarum bearing the monogram of Christ, is that it was presented to Constantine on the eve of his great battle with Maxentius, and that by its influence he gained the victory which gave him the domination of the Roman world. Doubtless some circumstance of the kind forms the real foundation of the fable which caused Constantius and the immediate successors of Constantine to place the banner bearing that symbol upon their coinage, as a token of victory; for there is pretty good evidence that it was not from any deep convictions concerning Christianity.

The successors of Constantius placed the monogram alone on the reverse of the middle bronze coinage, where it occupies the whole field; the angles formed by the letter x are being occupied by the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet-the Alpha and Omega-an allusion, perhaps, to the declaration of Christ, referred to in the 22nd chapter of Revelations, "I am the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last." As in the former example, the inscription does not refer to the type. It exhibits, however, the different style of title adopted a little before the time of Constantius. The inscription on the coin under description stands thus-SALVS · DD · NN· AVGG, for Salus Dominorum Nostrorum Augustorum, (The health of our Lords, the Augustus's), alluding to the associated emperors, the

plural being expressed by two terminal letters instead of one, as AVGG for Augustorum, or Augusti; or DD for Domini, or Dominorum.

On the coins of Constantine, the inscription round the portrait frequently runs thus--DN CONSTANTINVS · MAX., for Dominus Noster Constantinus Maximus.

On another coin belonging to the period immediately following that of Constantine- -a third bronze-a Roman soldier is represented in a galley, holding the sacred labarum in his left hand, and in his right what appears to be a dove, with its head surrounded by a Nimbus, or Glory, while an angel steers the galley. The dove, however, is generally termed by numismatists a phoenix, and the angel a Victory. This type belongs to the mintage of Treves, as may be seen by the letters TRS in the exergue, for TR(everis), s(ignata). On the coins of the reign of Julian the Apostate, from 355 to 363 A.D., the Christian emblems of course disappear. He was the last of the Flavian family (that of Constantine), and his name and titles as they appear on the coinage, generally run, FL(avius) CL(audius) IVLIANVS. P(ater P(atriæ) AVG(ustus). His coins are principally third bronze, even the second class having now nearly disappeared. The gold and silver are less deteriorated at this period.

During the reigns of Jovian, Valentinian, Valens, and Gratian, which occupy the period between 363 and 383 A.D., the copper money became altogether insignificant, both in dimension, types, and execution; but the gold and silver still maintained some of the characteristics of the Constantine period. The medallions, however, not coined for circulation, and therefore beyond the limits of this volume, are as good, or nearly so, as those of the reign of Constantine.

A peculiarity of the inscriptions of this period is, that the word" Roma" is again placed upon the coinage, which had disappeared since the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius, and, in fact, since the close of the Republic, except in a few unusual instances in the reigns of the first emperors.

In the great days of the Empire, when all provincial and colonial coins bore the name of their place of mintage, those of Rome alone had no such indication of the place of their issue, as all without such provincial stamp were at once known to be issued from the great metropolis of the world.

In the reign of Theodosius, sole emperor from 379 to 395 A.D., one naturally expects to find some renewed vigour in the management of the Imperial coinage; but such was not the case. His gold and silver are much the same in execution as those of his immediate predecessors, while the copper is perhaps still more neglected. Coins in each metal are found of this reign, and are abundant; but they hardly repay the trouble of collection, certainly not as works of art; but as historical monuments they are valuable. The coins of the pretender who assumed regal power in Britain and Gaul are not very rare, nor are the coins of the sons of Theodosius, Arcadius and Honorius, between whom he divided the empire, Arcadius taking the East, and Honorius the West: they are found either in gold, silver, or small copper; but all are very poor.

The occasional division of the Empire into East and West had occurred as early as Dioclesian, but the permanent division may be said to have taken place after the death of Theodosius the Great, and at that period, I must at present leave the Eastern emperors to follow the coinage of the Western empire to its close.

During the weak reign of Honorius, as is well known, the barbarians who had been kept in check by the vigour and talents of Theodosius, suddenly broke into the Roman frontiers with renewed fury, and the hordes under Alaric actually captured the great capital itself, while the weak emperor was sheltering himself in Ravenna. But this was not the final blow. The enemy, after the death of Alaric, gave way, and a number of ephemeral emperors filled the Imperial throne of the West, from 425 to 476 A.d. were Valentinian III., Maximus, Aritus, Majorian, Ricimer, Anthemius, Olybrius, Julius Nepos, Glycerius, and finally Augustulus Romulus, who occupied, in rapid succession, the chief power in the gradually crumbling empire of the West.

These

Coins in gold, silver, and copper, the latter of very wretched workmanship, mark the reigns of these last native rulers of Rome. Those of Romulus Augustulus, expelled by Odoacer, King of the Heruli, who was proclaimed King of Italy, are the most rare, and are marked in catalogues "as gold, rare in the fourth degree; copper being even of the eighth degree of rarity," while no silver are known The

conquest of Rome by Odoacer was followed by the establishment of a Gothic kingdom in Italy, which was firmly cemented and ably administered by Theodoric, the Ostrogoth, who subdued Odoacer, and who, emulating the manners and refinements of the emperors of the great epochs of Roman power, wished especially to do so in his coinage, as we learn from the records of his secretary, Cassiodorus, who makes Theodoric say, at a public distribution of money after the manner of the ancient liberalities, "With the assistance of coins you teach posterity the events of my reign." From this passage it might be imagined that he had caused the victories and conquests to be represented on his coins as on those of Trajan and other Roman emperors; but if such coins were issued in the reign of Theodoric, they have been destroyed or lost, for none have reached our time except wretchedly executed silver of small dimensions, and still more wretched copper of the smallest class.

Theodahatus, Athalaricus, Witiges, and other barbarian princes, now assumed the supreme power over the whole or different parts of Italy, issuing small copper coins of less than half the size of a modern farthing, and with no device beyond the name of the chief, and sometimes the title of REX.

Justinian, now firmly established in the East, determined to attempt the recovery of Italy, and, sending an army under the command of Belisarius in the year 536 A.D., defeated Witiges, and for a time held the whole of Italy in subjection; but at the same time Gaul was acknowledged an independent Frankish kingdom, under Childeric, the grandson of Clovis, to whom similar privileges had been granted by Anastasius, A.D. 510, though not ratified by treaty. This acknowledgment of the independence of Childeric included the power to coin money, and all other rights and immunities of an independent sovereign; while similar concessions were made to Amalric, the Gothic king of Spain. Britain had been given up even in the reign of Honorius, and the Saxons, at the time of which we are speaking, (say the end of the career of Witiges, 540 A.D.,) were firmly established in possession of that island, so that the series of ancient coinages in the West may be said to have ceased, and those of the modern kingdoms of Europe to have commenced about that time; or probably, the accurate time to commence the modern series is

the year 537 A.D., when the independence formerly conceded to Clovis, was finally acknowledged by treaty in the reign of Childeric, his grandson, with the privilege to coin money as before stated.

The coins of the Gothic princes of Italy are frequently found with the head of Justinian on one side and the name and title of the Gothic king by whom they were issued, on the reverse, as on those of Witiges and others. On those of Witiges the name and title stand D. N. WITIGES REX, within a small wreath of foliage. This, with the suppression of the late Roman form, the D. N. " Dominus Noster," became the simple style of the names and titles on all the coinages of the early kings of the different countries of modern Europe. There are gold coins of the late Roman emperors of the West, even to Romulus Augustus; but of the Gothic kings only silver and copper are known, of which a list will be found in the Appendix, as well as of those of the Vandal princes, who conquered the Roman possessions in Africa.

COINS OF THE EMPERORS OF THE EAST, FROM THE SEPA RATION OF THE EASTERN AND WESTERN EMPIRES TO THE TIME OF THE TAKING OF CONSTANTINOPLE IN 1453 BY MAHOMET II.

The coinage of the eastern empire after the death of Justinian, and commencing with the reign of Justin II. in 565 A.D., may be said to belong, strictly speaking, to modern history, as it extends to the recent date of 1453, when this last portion of the Roman world, or rather its capital, which had for some time been nearly all that remained of the Eastern empire, fell before the furious onslaught of the Turkish conqueror, Mahomed II.; but as the Byzantine coins are of a distinct class from those of the kingdoms of modern Europe, and closely allied to those of the lower Roman empire of the West, it appears better to allude to them here, before proceeding strictly to the modern portion of the subject.

The series of Greco-Roman emperors, from Anastasius, 518 A. D., to Constantine Palcologus, 1453, are only interrupted by the French emperors as they are termed who held the city from 1205 to 1261 A.D., who occupied

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