“Although we have assigned the date of about 150 B.C. for the commencement of the British coinage,” Mr. Evans remarks, “it is hard to say with any degree of certainty in what part of the country it actually commenced. The study of this class of coins is to some extent like that of geology: we have no written testimony on which to fall back, and the annals of the past have to be reconstructed from the evidence of contemporary yet dumb witnesses disinterred from the soil. But the numismatist has none of those aids which the geologist derives from the order of superposition, and the mineral characters of the rocks in which his fossils are preserved; and, in the case of uninscribed coins, has nothing but the type and its geographical range on which to found any conclusion, unless, as in some rare instances it happens, the coins are associated with others of more certain date. The mere fact of finding a single coin of a certain class in a certain locality proves nothing; but when a considerable number of coins of much the same type are found at different times in places all within a certain district, the proof becomes almost conclusive that they were originally struck within that district. And this holds true even with gold coins, which, from their greater value and relative portability, have, as a rule, a much wider range than those of silver or copper.”
The districts into which it has been found most convenient (and undoubtedly as presenting an arrangement that may be looked upon as practically correct) to classify the inscribed coins are as follows:—
I.—COINS OF THE WESTERN DISTRICT, or country of the Dobuni, comprising the present counties of Somerset, Wilts, Gloucester, and part of Oxfordshire and Berkshire, and in which are classed the coins of—
| BODVOC | of uncertain date. |
| CATTI | " " |
| COMVX | " " |
| VO-CORIO-AD (?) | " " |
| ANTEDRIGVS | after 41 A.D. |
| SVEI | uncertain date. |
| INARA (?) |
II.—SOUTH-EASTERN DISTRICT, or country of the Belgæ, Regni, and Atrebatii, comprising the present counties of Hampshire, Sussex, and West Surrey, and in which are classed the coins of—
| COMMIVS | the earliest inscribed coin, 55 B.C. |
| COMMI F[IL] TINC[OMMIVS] | son of Commius. |
| VERICA or VIRICA son of Commius. | The first coin with REX inscribed. |
III.—KENTISH DISTRICT, or country of the Cantii, comprising the present counties of Kent and East Surrey, and in which are classed the coins of—
| EPPILLVS | son of Commivs. |
| DVBNOVELLAVNVS | temp. Augusti. |
| VOSE[NOS] | of uncertain date. |
| AMMINVS | " " |
| CRAB | " " |
IV.—The CENTRAL DISTRICT, or country of the Catyeuchlani and Trinobantes, comprising the present counties of Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Middlesex, Essex, Northamptonshire, and parts of Berkshire, Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire, and Oxfordshire, and in which are included the coins of—