Hill, George Francis: Historical Roman coins: from the earliest times to the reign of Augustus (London: Constable & Co. Ltd, 1909)

PREFACE

This volume is intended as a companion to
Historical Greek Coins, published three years ago.
The evidence afforded by Roman coins as to the
course of Roman history is of two kinds. The first,
and the more valuable, is contemporary evidence ; the
historian has to extract from the extant coins such
information as they provide concerning the circum-
stances in which they were cast or struck. But,
owing to the commemorative habit, which was strong
in the Roman race, a certain number of coins illustrate
the history of a period which was past when they were
issued. Such pieces give us evidence less trustworthy
than the first kind, although not infrequently there is
less opportunity of error in the interpretation of their
meaning. But they are incidentally of interest as
indicating the state of opinion which prevailed at the
time when they were issued. A case in point is the
coin, struck in the first century b.c., commemorating
the mission of Lepidus to Egypt at the end of the
third century. However, in the selection of coins for
this volume, preference has naturally been given to
pieces of the contemporary kind.
The dry, matter-of-fact temperament of the Romans