The numismatic chronicle and journal of the Royal ... - IndianCoins.org

268 NUMISMATIC CHRONICLE.The historical significance of this date is consideredlater.A noticeable feature in the collection is the entireabsence both of coins of Domitian, as sole emperor, andof those of Nerva, and a consequent gap in the seriesextending from 80 to 98. On the other hand, the precedingsixteen years (64-80) are represented by no fewerthan forty-eight coins, and these include types of considerablerarity, whereas the coins of Domitian, absentfrom this series, were struck in large quantities, and aregenerally of frequentoccurrence. This circumstancemight suggest that we have to deal with two collections,of which one was amassed between the years 64 and 80,and the other between the years 98 and 159 ;that thewhole forms a hoard superimposed upon a hoard, andthat the second-century hoarder had acquired and addedto his stock a first-century deposit that had, for onereason or another, ceased to be added to after 80 A.D.But against this surmise must be set the fact that few ofthe early coins lack signs of wear. The absence ofDomitian and Nerva coins is no doubt due to circumstancespeculiar to the hoard, and cannot be explained oncurrency grounds but it isprobably useless to speculate;on those circumstances.One inference may, however, be safely drawn. Thewealth here accumulated began to be collected in the firstcentury. It seems unlikely, at the very least, that acapitalist of the reign of Trajan should have collected, inaddition to forty-eight coins of that reign, as many moreof Nero, his immediate successors, and the earlyFlavians. It is still more impossible to think that thecoins of the short-lived emperors, Galba, Otho, and Vitellius,survived in use to any extent into the second century,