Page:Origin of metallic currency and weight standards.djvu/106

 Passing northwards by the Pennine Alps, the regular road in ancient days from Italy into Switzerland, into the valley of the Rhone, the so-called Vallis Poenina, the modern Canton of Valais, we come to the Helvetii, whom Posidonius of Apamea, the famous Stoic philosopher who travelled in Western Europe about 100-90, describes as "wealthy in gold." This gold was probably derived from the same Alpine region. The Helvetii struck both silver coins in imitation of the silver coins of Massalia with the Lion type, and gold ones after the type of Philip's staters. We may now pass on to Gaul Proper, many peoples of which were famous for their wealth, especially the Arverni, who have left their name in Auvergne, and the Tectosages, whose chief town was Tolosa (Toulouse). The former, whose original home was on the upper waters of the Loire, probably had no gold in their native mountains (for if they had, Strabo would hardly have failed to mention it), but in the second century they became the most powerful state of Central and Southern Gaul, for "they extended their dominion even as far as Narbo (Narbonne) and the borders of the territory of Massalia (Marseilles), and they likewise had the control of all the tribes as far as the Pyrenees, and as far as the Ocean and the Rhine. And it is said that Luerius, the father of Bituitus, who fought against Maximus and Domitius (121 ), came to such a pitch of wealth and luxury that on one occasion, making a display of his riches to his friends, he drove on a waggon through a plain sowing broadcast gold and silver coin, while his friends followed him gathering it up ." It was the Arverni who first struck gold coins in imitation of the gold staters of Philip II., a fact explained by the passage just quoted, which shows that their empire extended up to the frontiers of the great Greek emporium of Massalia, by which they would be brought into immediate contact with all kinds of Greek currency; furthermore their conquests put them in possession of those districts where we have direct evidence of the existence of gold fields.