passes without some officer or other of the institution receiving an offer, for the Museum cabinet, of the presumed lost coin, sometimes estimated at the value of 5007.; sometimes at 6007.; and, on one occasion, as high as 1000l. The Lords of the Treasury, and even his Majesty, have been addressed upon this supposed rare coin; and an example was quoted, in which the error of the Queen Anne's Farthing was made a ground of serious litigation at the Quarter Sessions of Dublin, in the year 1814, when a person was sentenced to be imprisoned twelve calendar months; and, afterwards, to find sureties, for borrowing and detaining from a friend the supposed third farthing. The thanks of the Society were ordered to be returned to the author of this communication. The Society then adjourned to Thursday, the 23d of February. Thursday, February 23d. At the Second Ordinary Meeting of the Society, held in the apartments of the Royal Astronomical Society, on Thursday evening, the 23d of February, 1837,— Dr. LEE, President, in the chair, The Minutes of the last Meeting were read and confirmed. The Treasurer announced to the Meeting, that he had opened an account with Messrs. STONE, MARTINS, and STONES; and that he had received Subscriptions to the amount of fifty pounds. The following papers were read :— I. A communication addressed to the President by Mr. Akerman, "On the Oversights to which Historians and Antiquaries are liable, from the prevailing neglect of the Numismatic Branch of History." This deficiency in many of our best writers, was enforced by a recent example of considerable interest. A disquisition by Mr. Hogg was read before the Royal Society of Literature, at the meeting of February 9th, on an inscription preserved on a stone in the wall of the Barberini Palace at Rome, relating to the conquest of Britain by the Emperor Claudius Cæsar, a copy of which, as restored by Gauges de Gozze, in Donati's "Roma Antiqua," is given in the abstract of Mr. Hogg's memoir (see "Athenæum," No. 486, page 122). The learned writer first observes, that although the prænomen IMPERATOR is omitted, it belongs to Claudius; and secondly, he replaces the restored date, TRIB. POT. IX. COS. V. IMPERATOR XVI. by TRIB. POT. XI. COS. V. IMP. XXII.; whereas, independently of the direct testimony of Suetonius (in vitâ Claudii), that Claudius "abstained from the prænomen of Emperor," reference to the numerous coins of this prince would have determined that he never used that prænomen; while, those struck in commemoration of the conquest of Britain, bearing a triumphal arch, and inscribed DE BRITANNIS, have on the obverse the words inserted by De Gozze, who would therefore appear to have taken his dates from the best authority-the coins of Claudius. II. A portion of a memoir, "On the Medo-Persian Coins named Darics, or Archers," by Mr. Cullimore. These earliest examples of an Oriental coinage, which may be compared in value to our guineas and shillings, and the appearance of which connects the most ancient of them with the second age of the coinage of Greece, have hitherto been universally viewed as the representatives of the national currency of Persia, in the age of the Achæmenidæ, or line of Cyrus and his successors, preceding the Macedonian conquest. This theory the writer first objected to, as an anomaly in the history of nations, in a communication on the Jewish shekel, which he addressed to Dr. Lee, in the second number of the "Numismatic Journal;" and, in the present memoir he submits the further results of his inquiry to the Society's consideration. Hieroglyphic discovery has established the fact that there was no national Egyptian coinage until that art was introduced in its perfection by the successors of Alexander. The extant Jewish shekels, compared with biblical history, both canonical and apocryphal, are conclusive that no Jewish coin existed before the line of Maccabean princes; while the epoch of the Seleucidæ marks the highest limits to which any coin of Syria, Phoenicia, and the neighbouring nations can be traced; and the Macedonian conquest precedes other indication of a coined currency from the Mediterranean to the Ganges. The ruins on the Euphrates and elsewhere in Upper Asia, speak the same language with those on the Nile; whereas, in Asia Minor, where the Darics are found, in the Islands, in Greece and Italy, monetary history may be traced in all its stages, up to the first rude attempts of the art. Although Egypt was a Persian province for two centuries before the Ptolemies, no remains of a Persian currency presents itself. If the Ptolemies recoined the Persian money, they may have equally done so with that of the previous native dynasties; so that no argument can be grounded on such an hypothesis. In effect, the Darics are discovered in those countries only which can be proved to have had a coinage of their own, and that derived from Greece, the parent of some of them, and the relative of all, before subjection to the Persian power. Besides, although the stamp is Persian, the standard weight and value are strictly Grecian; so that it is almost a necessary consequence that they were recoined from the money previously current, with a view only to a circulation within the former territorial limits, under authority of the royal stamp of Persia. The facts of the total absence of inscriptions in the native arrow-head character, which would have been unintelligible in the conquered provinces, and the presence of local inscriptions, both Greek and Phoenician, of the maritime states of Asia Minor, together with the com mercial emblem of the galley, which appears on the reverse of a great proportion of the Darics, were adduced in fuller confirmation of this view; so that, from the combination of circumstances, it does not appear that the kingdom of Persia offers any exception to the simple Oriental equivalent by weight, which prevailed from the days of Abraham (Gen. xxiii. 16), until the introduction of coined money by the Macedonians, among the inhabitants of this and the surrounding countries, who were alike allied in lineage, habits, and wants. The existence of the Darics was next shewn, from contemporary and consequential evidence, to ascend precisely to the foundation of the Medo-Persian empire by Darius Medus, and Cyrus, B. c. 560-538, when the conquests of these princes brought the nations of Lesser Asia, who possessed the art of coining, under their domination, and put an end to the proverbial poverty of the conquerors. III. A communication from Sir Henry Ellis to the President, "On the Siege Pieces of the time of Charles I." the authenticity of some of which is questionable, in consequence of the silence of contemporary documents, and the uncertainty of the places where they were struck. That such is not the case with the shillings struck at Pontefract, in Yorkshire, Sir Henry proves from a contemporary notice hitherto unseen by numismatic writers. It is contained in a newspaper, "The Kingdome's Faithfull and Impartiall Scout," February 5th, 1648; in which some of the square Pontefract shillings, found on a royalist prisoner by the republicans, are described as being stamped on one side with a castle, and the letters P. O.; and on the other with a crown, having C. R. on each side of it. Sir Henry reminds collectors that, by the letters P. O., are to be understood P. C., the form of the C being carried round like that of an O, either from bad striking or battering, as is evident from some of the extant pieces. The thanks of the Society were voted to the authors of these communications. BENJAMIN MOXON VARLEY, Esq., was proposed as a Member. The Society then adjourned to Thursday, the 16th of March. March 16th, 1837. At the Third Ordinary Meeting of the Society, held in the Apartments of the Royal Astronomical Society, on Thursday evening, the 16th of March, 1837,— Dr. LEE, President, in the chair,— The minutes of the last Meeting were read and confirmed. Mr. H. W. DIAMOND presented to the Society, De Bie Imperatoram Romanorum Numismata Aurea. Mr. JOHN BATE presented Eighteen Specimens of Medallic Engraving, by his improved Machine. Mr. WILLIAMS presented a Manilla. The thanks of the Society were ordered to be returned to the donors. The following communications were read :— I. A letter, addressed to the president, by Mr. John Williams, with the above-mentioned specimen in iron, of the ring or bracelet money, named Manilla, which forms the commercial medium on the Gold Coast of Africa, and is usually manufactured in Europe; the present being from Birmingham, and the form similar to that of the ancient rings of gold, silver, and other substances, frequently exhumed in Ireland. |