THE COIN COLLECTOR - World eBook Library

THE COLLECTOR SERIES
extensive colonial series of Venice later on, we may
presume that it was the work of Italian moneyers, or
at least from dies approved by the representative of
imperial authority.
Thus it will be understood that Greece and Rome
are in an equal measure generic terms applicable at the
respective dates of highest prosperity to vast territories
extending over three continents, and embracing popu-
lations infinitely diversified in their climatic conditions,
their language, their customs, and the nature of their
allegiance. But the comparison fails altogether when
we begin to consider that these two great empires
obeyed diametrically opposite laws of political exist-
ence, and that while Hellas in ancient times never
possessed a central government, but passed through the
stages of separate republics, federalism, and a mixed
system of democracy and autocracy, fluctuating agree-
ably to current circumstances and the successive rise of
men capable of shifting the balance of power, Rome
remained, on the contrary, during several centuries the
metropolis of the then known world, round which all
the states and princes subject to her jurisdiction re-
volved. Not even excepting, perhaps, the older Asiatic
monarchies, the Romans set the earliest example of
centralised government, as it is now conducted in
Europe with very few and immaterial exceptions.
The Romans were a connecting link between the poli-
tical life of the past and of the present.
Some account will be found in the authorities of the
archaic method of computation by weight for pur-
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