on the reverse the imitation Victory in the biga, the horse having a human head, and beneath the chariot a fallen Roman soldier. The Gaulish Victory holds the reins in her left hand, and in her right the torques, or solid armilla, with open and bulbous ends, replacing the Greek crown, thus shewing that among these people it was held in similar honour[1]. Another coin of the same metal in a more debased style of art, and not so distinguishable, also represents the Victory with the torques. The coin of mixed metal engraved in Ruding may also be intended to represent a figure holding the torques[2].
Virgil and Propertius[3] writing under Augustus mention the torques as terminating in hooks in the same way as many of the funicular torques are now found, and the Gauls send an enormous honorary torques of 200lb. Roman weight to conciliate the emperor's friendship[4]. Strabo writing under the same emperor and his successor mentions this decoration as worn by the British, some of them made out of the tusks of the sea-horse[5], and Florus[6] describes the torques as part of the spoils obtained by the elder Drusus from the German Sicambri and Cherusci. Boadicea was distinguished in the time of Claudius, according to the description of Dio Cassius writing under Severus, as wearing a large torques[7].
One of those anonymous third brass coins or medallets, struck about the time of Domitian, has on the obverse a laurel branch with IO IO TRIUMP[E], the cry in the triumphal procession, and on the reverse a torques, and two bracelets (armillæ) to indicate the people, probably the Germans, conquered by Domitian[8].
Pliny writing under Vespasian states the use of the gold torques among the Gauls, A.D. 79[9], especially as worn by the Druids. Under the Antonines it is seen on the sarcophagus of the Vigna Amendola representing the exploits of the Romans over the Gauls, Britons, or Germans, or possibly the
- ↑ Ruding, Annals of Coinage, Pl. 2. fig. 22.
- ↑ Annals, Pl. 4. fig. 77.
- ↑ Æneid. viii. Propert., lib. iv. Eleg. from the neck of Viridomarus, a Celt or Gaul.
- ↑ Quintilian vi. 4. To this period must be referred the torques on the Gaulish coins of Divona. Rev. Num. vi. 166—170.
- ↑ Lib. vi.
- ↑ I. 13. barbara spolia.
- ↑ Lib. lxii.
- ↑ Cf. Quintil. vi.
- ↑ xxxiii. c. 2.
