The numismatic chronicle and journal of the Royal Numismatic Society

498 SIR ARTHUR EVANS.
AQ. PS at Aquileia, MD PS at Milan, SISC PS at
Siscia. To these, on the siliqua already referred to,
Magnus Maximus added AVC PS at the London mint.
From Honorius's time onwards the practice was also
adopted at Eome and Eavenna, as we see by the
frequent exergual legends RM PS and RV PS.
We have here then two silver ingots representing,
as appears from the inscriptions themselves, pound
weights, though of a very reduced kind, viz. 309-5
and 309'81 instead of 327 grammes. The gold value
of a pound of silver was fixed by a decree issued in the
name of Arcadius and Honorius at Constantinople in
A.D. 397 as five solidi, 104 and the weight of these solidi
was, as we know at this time, correspondingly re-
duced. It will be seen that these silver ingots are even
more closely assimilated to ordinary currency than
the gold bars. Not only do they bear the official
stamps of the Treveran mint certifying
the standard
purity of their metal, but they represent a fixed weight,
and that weight the equivalent of a fixed amount
of gold coin.
8. THE LATEST COINAGE OF ROMAN BRITAIN AND THE
RELATION OP THE MINT AND TREASURY OF LONDON
TO THE CURRENCY OF SILVER INGOTS.
That the London mint should have been largely
occupied with the assaying and certifying of such
bars and ingots is the more probable when we remember
the important part that the silver mines of
104 Cod. Theod., xiii. 2. 1, De Argenti pretio quod tliensauris
infertur :
" lubemus ut pro argenti summa quam quis thensauris
fuerat inlaturus inferendi auri accipiat facultatem, ita ut pro
singulis iibris argenti quinos solidos inferat."