CHAPTER III. THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE OX AND THE DISTRIBUTION OF GOLD.

But before we cross the Pyrenees, we shall conclude our survey of the ancient gold fields of Europe in the north-west by glancing briefly at Britain. When Julius Caesar invaded the island he found the natives using gold not simply as ornaments, but in the shape of coins, for he says, “They have great numbers of cattle, they use for money either bronze, or coins of gold, or rods of iron of a fixed standard of weight. Tin is produced there in the inland, iron in the coast districts, but the supply of the latter is scanty; the copper which they use is imported⁵⁸.” Caesar’s statement is fully confirmed by the existence of ancient British coins, chiefly in gold and copper; although silver coins are likewise found, they are for the most part imitations of the types of Roman denarii, whilst the gold are the descendants of the Philippus, from which the Gauls got their chief gold type. All the Britains did not employ coins, but only the Belgic tribes in the south and east, who had crossed over at a comparatively late period. About a century before our era a king of the Suessiones (Soissons) by name Divitiacus ruled over all Northern France and a large part of Britain⁵⁹. Coins similar in type and weight are found on both sides of the Channel, indeed the French numismatists claim them as struck in Gaul, whilst their English brethren have maintained that they are of British origin. Those found in Kent are regarded by Dr Evans, in his Coins of the Ancient Britons, as the prototypes of the whole British series. Hence we may infer that the Belgic invaders brought the Philippus type of coin into Britain, as it is most probable that the time when the same coins were in circulation on both sides of the Straits of Dover corresponds with the period when Divitiacus held sway on both sides of the sea⁶⁰. Strabo substantiates Caesar’s account; “It (Britain) produces wheat