A HISTORY OF HERTFORDSHIRE Centaurs playing on the double flute, the Pegasus, the sea-horse or hippo- campus, the lion, and what may be a seated Venus, can hardly be regarded as indigenous. The heads on the obverses, some with beards and some without, may or may not be intended to be portraits of Tasciovanus. The legends on Nos. 7, 8, which together make up TASC, DIAS, show that the latter word has some meaning of its own distinct from the former, but what that meaning may be is matter for conjecture. Why a centaur should have been chosen for the type on the reverse is equally obscure. A centaur blowing a horn is to be seen on some copper coins of Cunobelinus. Nos. 10, ii give the name of the king both on the obverse and reverse ; the latter coin is of large module and twice as heavy as those of the ordinary size, so that it was probably current at twice their value. The armed horseman appears on Nos. 14, 15 in much the same style as on the large gold coins in Plate i. There is a general re- semblance between the coins Nos. 16 to 19, with a bearded head on the obverse and a hippocampus on the reverse, the inscription beneath which is sometimes VER or VIR, and sometimes TAS. On one variety the form VIIR occurs, showing that the substitution of II for E, such as frequently occurs in Roman inscriptions and occasionally on Roman coins, such, for instance, as those of Mark Antony, was also in vogue among the engravers of the dies for British coins, thus increasing the probability that these artists were Romans rather than Britons. On No. 20 the boar reappears on the reverse similar in character to that on No. 4. The weight however is only 19 grains in this case as against 39^ grains in the other. The value of No. 20 was therefore probably the half of that of No. 4. The types of the remaining four coins, Nos. 21 to 24, are essen- tially Verulamian, but they exhibit varieties of the mysterious legend RVFI, RVFS, RVLIS, or RVLA. Whatever may be the correct form, and whether or not a chief with some such name as Rufinus ever reigned at Verulamium, we have evidence of a popular British lady of the name of Rufina having existed at Rome in the days of Martial, 1 who flourished in the latter half of the first century of our era : Claudia caeruleis cum sit Rufina Britannis Edita, cur Latiae pectora plebis habet ? The small coins, No. 24, weigh but 14 and 10 grains, and seem to represent the value of half the coins of ordinary size. There are there- fore copper coins of Verulamium of at least three denominations, like the penny, halfpenny and farthing of modern times. There are also silver coins probably of two denominations, as well as two denominations of gold coins. The existence of at least six kinds of coins ranging in in- trinsic value from about fifteen shillings down to about a quarter of a farthing is indicative of an extensive and varied commerce such as is 1 Lib. xi. Epig. 54. 242
