THE COIN COLLECTOR - World eBook Library

ROME
part of the peninsula centuries before any gold or even
silver coinage was introduced. Again, the Consular
series of denarii, quinarii, aurei, no less than the so-
called Romano - Companion gold (twenty, forty, and
sixty scsterti't), are for the most part of Hellenic fabric,
and represent the best and purest period of Italian
numismatic art prior to the Renaissance. In the Roman
imperial series the two leading features and attractions
are the portraits of the emperors and empresses, and
other august personages, and the reverses significant of
historical events, for which they are sometimes the sole
existing evidence. The execution of the likenesses,
from the Auo-ustan era down to the fall of the Western
Empire, is artistic yet lifelike ; the series of empresses
and other Augustce is a most interesting gallery for the
costume and head-dress as well as the features ; and we
turn with curiosity to many an obscure name in the
later portion of the annals for the lineaments of a man
whose reign was reckoned by weeks or days, but whose
earliest care was to stamp his effigy on the money.
Rome was originally, and through the entire period
of prosperity remained, the official and political centre
from which all acts of government took their initiative.
As Paris is said to be France, and as London is really
the United Kingdom, so Rome was the Roman empire,
till a combination of agencies led to its disruption.
The coinage of the Romans for their Greek colonies
and Asiatic and African dependencies resembled in its
fabric and complexion that for internal use, and if
it was not sti'uck at home, as was the case with the
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