Page:Early Man in Britain and His Place in the Tertiary Period.djvu/504

476 writing, the Greek cultivation of the vine, Greek manu- factures, and the newly-discovered art of striking coins from metals. This coinage has been traced through Gaul into Britain, in the Iron age (see pp. 436-9), as well as over the whole of the area from Bohemia to the mouth of the Ehine, and it penetrated into northern Italy.

The introduction of stamped money marks an important change in the commerce of the world. It had passed from its first simple condition of being an exchange of goods, to a second and more highly-organised stage—that is to say, an exchange of goods for metal, which, instead of being weighed, was furnished with a stamp marking its true value. The earliest coins are those of Pheidon of Ægina, circa B.C. 660, or of the Lydians in the reign of Gyges, B.C. 700. A coinage of bronze was introduced into Rome in the reign of Numa or Servius Tullius, of silver in B.C. 269, in the First Punic war, and of gold about sixty years afterwards.

The main routes of this commerce are clearly defined by Strabo and Diodorus Siculus. The caravans passed from Massilia up the Rhone (see Route IV. of Map, Fig. 168), down the Valley of the Loire and of the Seine, and up that of the Saone into the Valley of the Rhine. The two first of these, according to Diodorus Siculus, were used for the trade with Britain; and the last was directed towards the amber of Schleswig and Holstein, from which probably the greater portion of the precious commodity was obtained. It may, however, have been partially derived from Samland. It is said to have been collected by the Gutones or Jutes, and to have been sold by them to the Teutones, through whom it passed into the hands of the Massilian traders.