Page:VCH Sussex 1.djvu/382

 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX religious rites and beliefs, an explanation which seems feasible, especially in view of the phallic character of the Cerne Abbas Giant. One writer, Dr. J, S. Phene, F.S.A.,* makes the ingenious suggestion that their purpose was sacrificial, and that they may be the actual figures described by Caesar, formed of osiers and filled with living men, the whole structure and contents being then destroyed by fire. The grounds upon which this gigantic figure can be assigned even approximately to any period are, it must be confessed, of a somewhat indefinite and unsatisfactory character. It is pretty certain, however, that it is not modern, and the general character of the form must be pronounced more in accordance with the art of the early than the middle ages. If, however, we may compare these enormous human figures with the gigantic figures of horses (which clearly have a likeness to the figures on ancient British coins), the balance of probability is in favour of referring the Long Men of Wilmington and of Cerne Abbas to the period immediately preceding the appearance of the Romans in Britain. Coins of the Ancient Britons The ancient British coins found in Sussex are of considerable importance both with regard to their numbers and their variety. They are of gold, silver, copper-gilt, and tin, and it will be convenient to divide them into two groups, viz., (i) those which are uninscribed, and (2) those which are inscribed. (i) Utiinscribed coins. — These are of various types, among which are several degraded forms of the horse copied and re-copied from the well-known pieces struck by Philip of Macedon in the fourth century B.C. On the obverse of the Macedonian prototype was a laureate head of Apollo, or possibly of the youthful Hercules. This head and the horses, biga, and charioteer of the reverse, have been converted by un- skilled artists into the large number of grotesque forms we now find on uninscribed British coins. The small group of tin coins found at Mount Caburn near Lewes are specially interesting from this point of view, because they are of native British manufacture, they belong to the Late Celtic period of culture, and exhibit very feebly drawn representations of what are supposed to be intended for a head (possibly helmeted) and an animal, perhaps a bull. The attenuated body of the bull may be compared with the White Horse at Ufiington. Uninscribed British coins have been found in upwards of twenty diiferent parishes in Sussex. (2) Inscribed coins. — The use of an inscribed coinage in Britain is believed to date from about the year 30 b.c, and from that time we are able to trace in the more or less abbreviated inscriptions on the coins the names of those princes or kings who ruled different parts of the land about the time of the coming of the Romans. » Roy. Iiutit. Brit. .-Irchit. Trans. 1872, pp. 19I-2. 324