Page:Craik History of British Commerce Vol 1.djvu/52

50 now in the condition of subjects, not of slaves; I have thought that such coins were first stamped for these uses; for greater cattle with a horse, for lesser with a hog, for woods with a tree, and for corn-grounds with an ear of corn; but those with a man's head see to have been coined for poll-money. Not but I grant that afterwards these came into common use. Nor can I reconcile myself to the judgment of those who would have the hog, the horse, the ear, the Janus, &c., to be the arms of particular people or princes; since we find that one and the same prince and people used several of these, as Cunobeline stamped upon his coins a hog, a horse, an ear, and other things. But whether this tribute-money was coined by the Romans, or the provincials, or their kings, when the whole world was taxed by Augustus, I cannot say. One may guess them to have been stamped by the British kings, since Britain, from the time of Julius Caesar to that of Claudius lived under its own laws, and was left to be governed by its own kings, and since also they have stamped on them the effigies and titles of British princes."

After the establishment of the Roman dominion in the island, the coins of the empire would naturally become the currency of the new province; and indeed Gildas expressly states that from the time of Claudius; it was ordained by an imperial edict that all money current among the Britons should bear the imperial stamp. These expressions, by the by, would rather seem to countenance the opinion, that coined money not bearing the imperial stamp had been in circulation in the country before the publication of the edict. Great numbers of Roman coins of various ages and denominations have been found in Britain. "There are prodigious quantities found here," observes Camden, "in the ruins of demolished cities, in the treasure-coffers or vaults which were hidden in that age, and in funeral urns; and I was very much surprised how such great abundance should remain to this day, till I read that the melting down of ancient money was prohibited by the imperial constitutions."

It is highly probable, also, that some of this imperial