THE COIN COLLECTOR - World eBook Library

ROME
copies of actual works of art existing at Rome when
they first appeared, like the figure of Hope on the first
brass of Claudius, which is found represented on some
of the subsequent money in inferior style. When we
come to the later reigns, we find the execution of the
secondary details more and more careless. As we pass
fiom the Roman to the Byzantine group, we become
sensible of a transition to a spirit and style half Greek
and half Oriental, and except that no collection can
pretend to be even representative without specimens of
the numismatic productions of the Lower Empire, there
is very slight importance beyond the occasional illustra-
tion of contemporary costume in the long succession
from the fourth century b.c. to the thirteenth century
of our own era.
Of the Emperor Otho there is no Roman brass, and
the gold is scarce. In the third brass, and in the size
intermediate between that and the second, there are
not a few rarities, but, as a general rule, not a year
elapses without swelling the already vast and over-
whelming volume of these pieces, which appear to have
been buried in large numbers in nearly all parts of
the ancient world. Intrinsically they possess the
highest value, and are for the most part carefully
executed. Those of Constantine the Great, from a
variety of mints (London included), are particularly
abundant and diversified, and there are several types
of his mother Helena, who is remembered as the dis-
coverer of the true Cross.
The coins relating to Britain, among which those
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