the throne in the year 360 before our æra, or about 100 years after the death of that Alexander, was so elated at having gained the prize of the chariot race at the Olympic games,that he caused coins to be struck, with a chariot upon them.* It has been pretended that his son and successor Alexander the Great, forbade his own effigy to be put on the coins, and that all the gold money struck during his reign, had on one side a head of Minerva, on the other a figure of Victory; and the silver coins a head of a young Hercules on one side, and on the reverse Jupiter, in a sitting posture. The author, however, remembers to have seen a piece of silver Macedonian money, about the size of a half crown piece, which was found in the north of India; and from what he recollected of a bust which he had seen of Alexander, the head on the coin appeared to him to be exactly the same: and he was

* Of these several are to be met with in the cabinets of the curious: one of them is in the author's possession.

confirmed in the belief of its being the effigy of that monarch, on examining the fine Grecian bust of him in the Museum at Paris, which opinion was corroborated by what is said by the Chevalier Visconti in his Iconographie Grecque.* The gold coin of Macedonia, even under Philip, and before the conquests of Alexander, must have been very considerable, as the gold procured by him annually from the mines in Thrace, is stated at a thousand talents, or 3,300,000 pounds, English money.+

But, about a century before that time, money must have been in considerable quantities in other parts of Greece, and particularly at Athens; as at the breaking out of the Peloponnesian war, in the year 431 before our æra, Pericles, when giving an account of the revenue and resources of the Athenian state, after observing that it was free from debt, says, that six thousand talents were lying in the treasury in the

Acropolis;* that the sum there deposited had amounted to 9,700 talents, but that 2000 had been expended in erecting the building named the Propylæa, and 1,700 in the war with the Potidœans.

Copper money is said to have been first employed at Rome, under Numa Pompilius, a little more than 700 years before our æra, but in pieces of that metal of a certain shape and weight, without stamp or effigy. It only began to be stamped under Servius Tullius about 180 years afterwards. Silver coin was first introduced about 259 years before our æra,†

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*In speaking of Grecian money, we shall follow the value given to Attic money, by Bernard:

£. 8. d. 0 0 84

If the silver talent be here meant, the sum deposited in the Acropolis, amounted to 1,237,500 pounds sterling; but if the gold talent be meant, to 21,800,000 pounds.

+ Populus Romanus ne argento quidem signato, ante

and gold coin must have been brought into use some years later; though neither the exact epoch, nor under whose authority it was first struck, is known. Pliny says: "Proximum scelus fecit, qui primus ex auro denarium signavit: quod et ipsum latet actore incerto."* Both, however, date above a hundred years after the death of Pericles; -a circumstance that seems extraordinary, when we consider the abundance of gold and silver coins at Athens at that epoch, and the connexion which had so long existed between the Italians and Greeks. Placing the effigy of the chief of the state on Roman coins, was a distinction granted by the senate to Julius Cæsar,+ and after

Pyrrhum regem devictum, usus est. Librales (unde etiam nunc libella dicitur, et dupondius), appendebantur asses.-Plin. Hist. Natur. lib. xxxiii. c. 3.

* Plin. lib. xxxiii. c. 3.

+ "Il existe des monnoies d'argent et d'or avec l'effigie de César, qui ont été frappées de son vivant, l'an 709, et l'an 710, de la fondation de Rome. Dion, (lib. xliv. c. 4) nous apprend que le sénat avoit accordé à César le privilége d'avoir son effigie empreinte sur la

wards practised under the emperors that succeeded him. In the time of Augustus money was in great abundance at Rome, and continued for some time even to increase. Brerewood, quoting Suetonius, says: "Tiberius Cæsar corasit et reliquit vigesies septies millies Sestertium. Quod totum ante annum Caligula dissipavit;"

monnoie Romaine; et plusieurs médailles nous assurent que ce décret fut mis en exécution.

"Les médailles de César avec sa tête, frappées de son vivant, sont celles qui présentent du côté de la tête les légendes Cæsar Imperator, Cæsar Dictator quarto, Cæsar Dictator perpetuo, Cæsar Parens Patriæ, et se trouvent gravées dans le Thesaurus familiarum Romanorum de Morellius, sous les familles Emilia, Cossutia, et Mettia; car Lucius Emilius Buca, Marcus Mettius, et Caius Cossutius Mariclianus sont les magistrats qui les ont fait frapper. Sur la plupart de ces monnoies, le type du revers est Vénus victorieuse, Venus victrix, qui avoit été le mot de l'ordre dans la bataille de Pharsale.

"Un plus grand nombre de médailles à l'effigie de César ont été fabriquées après sa mort, et la plûpart sous les triumvirs. Alors la légende offre ordinairement l'épithete de Divus attribuée à César."-Letter from Chevalier Visconti to the Author, dated 17th August, 1814.