[171]. See “Land of the Midnight Sun.” The islands of Zeeland and Fyen are especially rich in Roman objects and show the existence of great intercourse with the Roman provinces; while Gotland is particularly rich in coins. In the hamlet of Ryk (Tanum parish), Bohuslän, a Roman coin struck A.D. 179 for the Emperor Marcus Aurelius was found in the ground. From the inscription on the coin the date can be accurately fixed, for it was said that it was coined in the year when Marcus Aurelius was Tribune for the thirty-third time, Imperator for the tenth time, and Consul for the third time.
A gold coin of Tiberius (14–37) was found in a stone-set coffin at Rorbœk; a silver denarius of Nerva (96–98) in the find of Fraugdegard, Fyen; and a silver denarius of Antoninus Pius (138–161), with a skeleton, in a natural hill at Bennebo, near Holbœk; a silver denarius of Lucius Verus (161–169), with a skeleton, in a hill at Gunnerugs, near Prestö; a barbaric imitation in gold of a Roman imperial coin, with a loop soldered to it, found with a skeleton at Aareslen in Odense amt, Fyen. One limit of time obtained by means of the coins is certain enough, for the graves cannot have been closed before the year of their coinage.
Pyteas mentions Guttanæ. The Gotlanders in the Sagas are called Gutar; they may have met him on some of their trading journeys. The two names seem to be sufficiently similar to make this a probable supposition. In the island of Gotland a Greek coin of copper was found, but it seems to have been struck at Panormus in Sicily. On the obverse is a female head looking to the right, on the reverse a horse galloping to the left; it has no Punic letters. (In the collection of Capt. C. T. von Braun, of Ystad.) Two Macedonian coins of silver were also found; one of them is a diabole of Philip II., similar to the coins described in Müller, “Der Macedoniske Konge Philipp II.’s Mynter,” p. 3, Nos. 14–16, and engraved Plate 1. (Both were in the collection of Capt. v. Braun, of Ystad; now only one remains there.)
Also Roman coins anterior to Augustus, found together about 100 years ago. A silver coin of the family of Lucretia; a silver coin of the family of Nævia; a coin of the family of Sulpicia. They are all unusually well preserved, but shorn on the border. (In the collection of Capt. von Braun Ystad.) A silver coin of the family Funa; a silver coin of the family Poblicia; one subærate coin of the family Postumia; one silver coin of the family Procilia; a silver coin of the family Tituria; a silver coin of the family Veturia. (In the collection of Capt. von Braun.) A silver coin of the family Nævia, given by Capt. Braun to the Museum at Uddevala; and a silver coin of the family Sicinia, both well preserved. (In the Wisby Museum; formerly in the collection of Mr. P. A. Save.)
[172]. Three hundred and forty-four silver denarii, coined by the emperors between Nero and Marcus Aurelius, among them many of Trajan, Hadrian, and Antoninus Pius, have been found at the mouth of the Elbe.
Under a large stone on a bank at Sengerich, in Hanover, 1,100 silver denarii were dug up, coined between the years 96 and 211.
In Mecklenburg the finds of imperial coins embrace the period from Augustus to Valentinian.
Finds of Roman coins from the first two centuries after Christ have also been made at the mouth of the Vistula and in its lower course, near the Oder.
An especially interesting discovery was that of a Greek denarius coined in Lycia by Trajan; the only Greek coin discovered in Hanover.
[173]. Apollo Grannus, to whose temple the vase once belonged, was worshipped by the tribes of Gaul and Belgium. The Roman historian Dio Cassius relates that he was one of the gods worshipped by the Emperor Caracalla, who was murdered in A.D. 217. The name has also been discovered in Transylvania on a stone which Quintus Axius Ælianus, Governor of Dacia at the beginning of the second century, had cut. It, however, happens that this Ælianus had before this resided in Belgium, whither he had probably brought with him the worship of the god.