Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 1, 1890.djvu/110

104 but likewise of Britain. If we place the date of this monarch at about 100-90 B.C. we shall probably not be far astray. How much further back extended this kingdom of the Belgæ on both sides of the Channel we have no means of judging.

Now it would seem that the peculiar position of this kingdom, extending on both sides of the sea, affords us the best explanation of the fact that we find the same coin-type in both regions. The weights of the coin are also of importance. The earliest British coins, designated the prototypes by Dr. Evans (p. 37), usually weigh from 120 to 107 grains, and herein they coincide with the standard of the Gaulish series. But very few coins of this standard are found in Britain. There is very soon a drop to 96-90 grains, and finally to a very well-defined standard (for gold) of 84 grains. The inference to be drawn from this fact seems to be that at the time when there was the same weight as well as the same type on both sides of the Straits, there was one and the same sovereign authority on each side, or at least very close political and commercial relations. When, however, the people on the British side became independent of their Gaulish overlord, the standard dropped until it reached the point at which, under the workings of natural laws, the British gold standard was finally fixed.

We saw above that in the time of Pytheas Corbilo was the great emporium on the west coast of Gaul. By the time of Polybius, 150 B.C., its importance had waned, whilst by the time of Cæsar’s conquests it must have ceased to be of any note, as he never mentions it; and Strabo, when speaking of it, seems to regard it as no longer existing. How are we to account for the decadence of this once important city? If the line of trade shifted from Armorica and the Isle of Wight to the short sea passage across the Straits—that is, to either of the two northern crossings mentioned by Strabo, that from the mouth of the Seine or that from the land of the Morini—as a matter of course the