" Cæsaris vexilla linquunt, eligunt signum Crucis; Proque ventosis draconum quæ gerebant palliis, PRUDENTIUS. LONDON: BELL & DALDY, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN. Recat, o 5-18-39 J. “ Constantine, decus mundi, lux aurea sæcli, OPTATIAN. PREFACE. The little treatise which gives its title to the present volume originated in an application made to me by our Regius Professor of Divinity to point out to him any history of the introduction of Christian types upon the Roman coinage. The only book of that nature to which I was able to refer him was Dr. Walsh's brief essay "On the Coins, &c. illustrating the Progress of Christianity in the Early Ages,' públished so long ago as 1828; and which, so far as I have been able to ascertain, remains the only work in any language that takes for its exclusive subject this truly interesting and fertile province of Numismatics. But its errors and incompleteness rendered it a very unsatisfactory guide to the enquirer, who consequently was obliged to trace out for himself the progress of Christian symbolism in coin-types by the aid of that invaluable, but, at the same time, bewildering, series, engraved by Bauduri in the plates to his ‘Numismata Imp. Rom. a Trajano Decio usque ad Palæologos’; by hunting up amongst the multitude of reverses the dispersed examples that offered any indication of the nature sought for—a task of considerable labour. Our repeated conversations upon various particulars in this research had the effect of turning my attention to the whole subject, and to the method in which it might most intelligibly and comprehensively be treated. Coins, especially Roman imperial, had always been a favourite study with me, and (as a matter of course with the English collector) those of the late period, supplying the information required, were those most abundantly brought under my notice through their perpetual disinterment in all parts of Britain. The foundation for any treatise of the nature contemplated had been already laid by that Coryphæus of Christian archæologists, the learned and laborious Father Garrucci. As it would be a mere impertinence in another to attempt to remodel what he has already done so perfectly in this line, I have commenced my work with a close translation of his memoir “Des Signes de Christianisme qui se trouvent sur les Monnaies de Constantin, &c.' supplemented by notes and remarks suggested by my own experience as a collector, or by my reading in the authors of |