[Illustration]
It is not possible to say, with any degree of certainty, at what
precise period our ancient British forefathers acquired a knowledge of
the art of coining, or into what part of our island that art was first
introduced. The probability, however, amounting almost to a certainty,
is that the use of money and, consequently, the art of making it,
was introduced into Britain from Gaul; and the Kentish coast being
the nearest to that country, and receiving friendly and bartering
incursions from the Belgic tribes, with whom, doubtless, the natives
traded, the natural assumption is that money was known to, and its use
appreciated by, the inhabitants of that county long before those of
the inland and more northern parts of the island had any knowledge of
such a medium as a substitute for ordinary product-barter. Kent may
therefore, I apprehend, be looked upon as the district in which money
made its first appearance in our country; and, probably, where also it
was first made by our Celtic progenitors.
[Illustration: “GOTHIC CROWN,” OF QUEEN VICTORIA.]
The period which may, with more than ordinary probability; be assigned
to the adoption of a home-struck currency among the tribes of our
country, is also, naturally, a matter about which only a vague
conclusion can be arrived at. The conclusion, however, that has been
come to after the most assiduous and searching attention to and
consideration of every possible circumstance of locality, analogy of
types, and weight, is that that period may be fixed at from a hundred
and fifty to two hundred years before the birth of Christ. This, then,
for general purposes may be looked upon as the most closely approximate
period that the present state of our knowledge has enabled those
numismatists who have made this branch of the science their special
study to arrive at.
The type of supposed earliest coins of the Britons, derived, there can
be no doubt, from those of Gaul, to which they had become accustomed,
are uninscribed; those of Gaul having, in turn, originally and long
before the days of Julius Cæsar, been derived from the _stater_ of
Philippus of Macedon. This has been ably shown and insisted upon by
various writers, and to it Mr. Evans, the highest and most enlightened
authority upon the subject, has given his full adhesion. The Phocæan
colony of Massilia (Marseilles), he says, “appears to have formed
the centre from which civilization spread through Gaul, as well as
to have been the emporium of its commerce. It was founded about B.C.
600, and from intercourse with its inhabitants the neighbouring
Gauls first learned the usages of civilized life, and after a time
became acquainted with the art of coining. The early silver coins of
Massilia (and none in gold are known) were occasionally imitated in
the surrounding country; but when, about the year B.C. 356, the gold
mines of Crenides (or Philippi) were acquired by Philip II. of Macedon,
and worked so as to produce about £250,000 worth of gold annually, the
general currency of gold coins, which had before been of very limited
extent, became much more extensive, and the _stater_ of Philip--the
_regale numisma_ of Horace--became everywhere diffused, and seems at
once to have been seized on by the barbarians who came in contact
with Greek civilization as an object of imitation. In Gaul this was
especially the case, and the whole of the gold coinage of that country
may be said to consist of imitations, more or less rude and degenerate,
of the Macedonian Philippus.”
The types of the Philippus are, on the obverse, a laureated profile
bust of Apollo, or young Hercules, and, on the reverse, a charioteer
in a biga, and the earliest Gaulish imitations are tolerably closely,
though more rudely, rendered. These, naturally, were introduced, and
became known, to the Britons, who, as naturally, imitated them, as
their neighbours had done the originals. But these imitations were not
always servile, but had occasionally additional features, as drapery, a
torque round the neck, a bandlet, or what not. The constant reproducing
of the dies by different workmen and in different localities also
resulted in the original design being at length almost lost, and what
now, to the uninitiated, appear a lot of unmeaning pellets and curved
strokes, serve only as indications, or faint traces, of the original.
Here, upon the coins (p. 5), is an example. First is the _stater_
of Philip of Macedon, with laureated bust and biga; next a British
coin on which there is an attempted reproduction of the head on one
side, and a rude imitation of horse and driver on the other; and on
the third a very degenerate example, on which only a trace of each
is discernible. These three, out of hundreds of examples, will serve
to show the descent of the type and the changes to which the design
has been subjected. Other types shared the same fate, and thus the
correct appropriation of Celtic coins becomes a matter of no little
difficulty. It is well to remember, as evidenced by these gradual
marks of degeneration, that the ruder coins are not, as might well be
(and indeed have usually been) supposed, the oldest, but are, in fact,
later than others of a higher and more artistic character. In other
words, some of these series of coins, instead of showing the onward
and gradual progress of art from a first rude attempt up to a highly
finished work, serve to exhibit step by step its gradual degeneracy and
decline down to ultimate extinction.
[Illustration]
Other coins were more or less imitations of Roman coins, but others
again have a true native character about them that shows that the
Briton, who was an admirable and accomplished worker in metals, was
also a clever die-sinker, and had in him considerable power of design.
Celtic coins are usually considered under two classes, the uninscribed
and the inscribed--that is, those which are without any inscriptions,
and those upon which names or other letters occur--and it seems to
be a generally received opinion that whenever an inscribed currency
was in use, an uninscribed one had preceded it. The uninscribed are,
unfortunately, the most abundant, and therefore, manifestly, it is
impossible to judge by them to what princes or tribes they belong.
The geographical arrangement--that of classifying the types according
to the localities in which they have been found--has therefore, as a
general and very convenient rule, to be adopted. Some coins, as the one
here engraved from my own collection, have the convex side perfectly
plain, while the reverse, concave, side bears a more or less rude
representation of a horse.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: _Figs._ A-J, TYPES OF ANCIENT BRITISH COINS.]
“Although we have assigned the date of about 150 B.C. for the
commencement of the British coinage,” Mr. Evans remarks, “it is hard
to say with any degree of certainty in what part of the country it
actually commenced. The study of this class of coins is to some
extent like that of geology: we have no written testimony on which to
fall back, and the annals of the past have to be reconstructed from
the evidence of contemporary yet dumb witnesses disinterred from the
soil. But the numismatist has none of those aids which the geologist
derives from the order of superposition, and the mineral characters
of the rocks in which his fossils are preserved; and, in the case of
uninscribed coins, has nothing but the type and its geographical range
on which to found any conclusion, unless, as in some rare instances it
happens, the coins are associated with others of more certain date.
The mere fact of finding a single coin of a certain class in a certain
locality proves nothing; but when a considerable number of coins of
much the same type are found at different times in places all within a
certain district, the proof becomes almost conclusive that they were
originally struck within that district. And this holds true even with
gold coins, which, from their greater value and relative portability,
have, as a rule, a much wider range than those of silver or copper.”
The districts into which it has been found most convenient (and
undoubtedly as presenting an arrangement that may be looked upon as
practically correct) to classify the inscribed coins are as follows:--
I.--COINS OF THE WESTERN DISTRICT, or country of the Dobuni,
comprising the present counties of Somerset, Wilts, Gloucester, and
part of Oxfordshire and Berkshire, and in which are classed the
coins of--
BODVOC of uncertain date.
CATTI " "
COMVX " "
VO-CORIO-AD (?) " "
ANTEDRIGVS after 41 A.D.
SVEI uncertain date.
INARA (?)
II.--SOUTH-EASTERN DISTRICT, or country of the Belgæ, Regni, and
Atrebatii, comprising the present counties of Hampshire, Sussex,
and West Surrey, and in which are classed the coins of--
COMMIVS the earliest inscribed coin, 55 B.C.
COMMI F[IL]
TINC[OMMIVS] son of Commius.
VERICA or VIRICA son of Commius. The first coin with
REX inscribed.
III.--KENTISH DISTRICT, or country of the Cantii, comprising the
present counties of Kent and East Surrey, and in which are classed
the coins of--
EPPILLVS son of Commivs.
DVBNOVELLAVNVS _temp._ Augusti.
VOSE[NOS] of uncertain date.
AMMINVS " "
CRAB " "
IV.--The CENTRAL DISTRICT, or country of the Catyeuchlani and
Trinobantes, comprising the present counties of Buckinghamshire,
Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Middlesex, Essex, Northamptonshire,
and parts of Berkshire, Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire, and
Oxfordshire, and in which are included the coins of--
ANDOCO[MIVS] contemporary with Tasciovanus.
TASCIOVANVS 30 B.C., who died 5 A.D.
VERULAMIUM which was the chief seat of Tasciovanus’s government.
RUFI or RVLI }
DIAS }
RICON } contemporary, but unknown.
SEGO }
EPATICVS son of Tasciovanus.
CVNOBELINVS son of Tasciovanus, _circa_ 40 A.D.
And several others whose legends are undecipherable.
V.--The EASTERN DISTRICT, or country of the Iceni, comprising
the present counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, and parts of
Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire, and in which are classed the
coins of--
ADDEDOMARVS, supposed to have been contemporary with Cunobelinus.
ECEN }
SAEMV-- }
ACSV } all unknown
ANTED }
CAV (?) or CAM }
DVRO }
VI.--The YORKSHIRE DISTRICT, or country of the Brigantes, comprising
Yorkshire and parts of the adjacent counties to the south, and in
which are included the coins of--
VOLISIOS.
DVMNOCOVEROS.
DVMN--TIGIP--SENO (?)
VEP--
CORF.
AVN T--
IISVPSV.
The parts of the country inhabited at one time or other by various
tribes may be tabulated as follows, and will be useful to students of
that early period of national history; the present names of counties,
as the most convenient, are given in the list. The tribes seem to have
been the--
ANCALITES, an early tribe who inhabited part of Berkshire.
ATREBATES, the main portion of Berkshire.
ATTACOTTI, a fierce Scottish tribe.
BELGÆ, the country from the southern coast to the Bristol Channel,
including Hants, Wilts, and Somerset.
BIBROCI, an early tribe, part of Berks, and Hants, Surrey, Sussex, and
the east of Kent.
BRIGANTES, the country from the Mersey and Humber to Scotland.
CIMBRI, the borders of Devonshire.
CANGI, North Wales, on the coast of the Irish Sea.
CANTII, Kent, which in Cæsar’s time was divided among four chiefs or
kings.
CASSI, Hertfordshire.
CATYEUCHLANI, Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, and Hertfordshire.
CŒNIMAGNI, Suffolk.
CORITANI, or CORITAVI, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire,
Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, and Rutland.
CORNABII, Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Staffordshire, Shropshire,
Cheshire, and part of Flintshire.
DUMNONII, or DAMNONII, Cornwall and Devonshire.
DEMETÆ, Caermarthenshire, Cardiganshire, and Pembrokeshire.
DOBUNI, Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.
DUROTRIGES, Dorsetshire.
GADENI, Cumberland and part of Northumberland; and Selkirk, and
adjacent portions of Scotland.
HEDUI, Somersetshire.
ICENI, Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, and Huntingdonshire.
JUGANTES, coast of the Irish Sea.
MORINI, Dorsetshire.
ORDOVICES, Flint, Denbigh, Montgomery, Merioneth, Caernarvon, and
Anglesea.
OTADINI, the land from the Tyne to the Forth. PARISII, the south-east
of Yorkshire.
REGNI, Surrey and Sussex.
REMI, supposed to be identical with the Bibroci.
SEGONTIACI, the greater part of Hampshire, and Berkshire.
SENONES, a portion of Hampshire.
SESTUNTII, Westmoreland and Cumberland.
SILURES, Herefordshire, Radnorshire, Brecknockshire, Monmouthshire, and
Glamorganshire.
TRINOBANTES, Middlesex and Essex.
VOLUNTII, Lancashire.
* * * * *
I now proceed to enumerate some of the inscribed coins referred to
under the geographical arrangement already given.