The Romans seem at first to have been very deficient in composing their re verses, and by no means profited by the rich examples before them : it is, indeed,. difficult to account for the constant uni formity and repetition of cars, and prows of gallies, that prevailed till very nearly the Christian era, after which period a variety occurs ; and during the reign of the emperors they made ample amends for their previous neglect of this side of the medal. Mr. Pinkerton observes very justly, "that the medallist much values those which have a number of fi gures, as the puellze faustinianx of Fausti na, a gold coin no larger than a sixpence, which has twelve figures ; that of Trajan, regna adsignata, has four; the congiarium of Nerva, five; the allocution of Trajan, seven ; of Hadrian, ten; of Probus, twelve." There was a felicity of thought, and a happy mode of conveying a com pliment, adopted by those who struck medals at the time now under notice, which was accomplished by giving the representation of a virtue, and calling it that of the person commemorated ; in this particular, the Romans differed great ly from the Greeks; the latter people uniformly pointed out the effigies of their gods and genii by their generally receiv ed emblems ; but the former inscribed their names. It is entirely useless to par ticularize the deities and their insignia ; but, in order to facilitate the study of me dals, it may be proper to mention some of the symbols which are not commonly known ; branches of plants issuing from vases, forinstance, imply a reference to re ligious games; the serpent springing from a coffer denotes the mystic rites of Bac chus ; the anchor on medals infers that they are Seleucian, and struck at An tioch ; the tripod was placed, by the Sy rian princes, covered and uncovered, un der the figures of their deities ; to which may be added others, in the words of Mr.
Pinkerton : " the flowers of pomegra nates, for Rhodes ; owl, for Athens ; pe gasus, for Corinth ; wolf's head, for Ar gos; bull's head, for Bceotia ; minotaur's head, and the labyrinth, for Crete," &c. &c. Were we to pursue this part of the subject, it would lead to an incredible length of investigation, and it may be doubted whether many mistakes might not be created through the obvious ob scurity involving it.
The legends on coins and medals are of too much importance to require a re commendation of their study ; the ear liest coins of Grecian cities have either the initials, or their names at length ; and those of the princes of that country, their names, initials, or monograms. The im perial medals of Greece and Rome are distinguished by methods far more ex planatory, as they have words round the face, the reverse, and even in the centre of the latter in some cases. Medallists have divided the inscriptions into three terms, suited to the place of the words ; when they encircle the margin they are called the legend ; when they occupy the centre of the medal they are called the inscription : and when they are separat ed from the figure by a line near the bot tom, they are on the exergue. The va rieties and abundance of legends, &c. precludes a possibility of entering into their merits and peculiarities; some, be ing merely explanatory, cannot be sub ject either to censure or criticism ; others impute virtues, and convey compliments well deserved ; but it may justly be doubted, whether the majority do not speak every language except that of truth. One specimen may serve to con vince the most incredulous on this head : Julia, the consort of Severus, was termed