Historical studies

to have been almost incredibly large : thus, in hoard
ii, buried after 165 A.D., out of 4344 coins, 2380
belong to the years 63 to 68 ; and yet, according
to the wastage table, only one-fiftieth of the
original coinage of these years should have been in
circulation when the hoard was buried. That the
number of coins of Nero present in this hoard is
not an isolated accident, due to some such cause as
the man who formed it having come on an earlier
hoard, is shewn by the approximately similar pro-
portion of these coins in other hoards covering the
same period. Some explanation may be found in
the probable tendency, noted above, to reserve
the oldest and best coins for a hoard. But it is
most likely that the wastage of tetradrachms in the
first century was actually less than in the third : for
one thing, the earlier coins were larger, which would
make them less liable to casual loss than the
smaller later ones ; also, in the first century there
was a considerable amount of bronze currency in
circulation, whereas in the third the tetradrachm
was the chief medium of exchange, and was the
only official coin issued, so that the comparative
liability of waste of the later tetradrachms would be
much greater. That tetradrachms were actually lost
more frequently during the third century than during
the first appears from the statistics of the coins
found in the excavations of Drs. Grenfell and Hunt
at O.xyrhynchus, which I gave in the Ntiinismatic
Chronicle (1908, p. 303). These coins all came from
the rubbish-mounds of the ancient town, and represent
the ordinary losses of daily life ; and the summaries
for the three centuries are :
First century . 1 1 tetradrachms 80 bronze
—
Second „ .8 „ 104 „
Third „ . 307 .. 5 ,,
So far, therefore, as wastage is determined by
casual loss, the wastage of the third-century tetra-
drachms would appear to have been far greater than
that of the first. There are, of course, many other
factors in wastage ; but it is fairly clear that the rate
discovered for the third century cannot be taken as
even approximately applicable for the first ; and it
remains for further evidence to be adduced in order
to shew how fast the first-century tetradrachms
wasted.
62. Irregularities of Hoarding. In the comparison
of the issues of different years, the totals of several
hoards are a safer guide than any single hoard, as the
proportions in any individual case may be affected
WASTAGE AND HOARDING OF COINS 33
by accidental circumstances. For instance, in hoard
XV, the figures are certainly abnormal at two points.
The man who collected this hoard seems to have had
a special fondness for the coins issued jointly by
Aurelian and Vaballathus,or by Vaballathus alone,—
possibly he was a Palmyrene,—and he accumulated
262 of these, thus swelling the proportionate numbers
for the first and second years of Aurelian in his
hoard far beyond those of any other. Then, in
the eighth year of Diocletian, he seems to have
secured a consignment of coins fresh from the mint,
and to have put them away promptly : the evidence
for this is that a large number of the specimens of
this year in the hoard are quite unworn, and further
present several instances of fairly long series of coins
struck from the same dies ; among
the 1 17 examples
of this date, there are series of 12, 16, 18, and 22
coins from the same obverse and reverse dies, which
would hardly have been found together if they had
passed into general circulation ; and, if the hoarder
added to his deposit in this year a special lot of
freshly struck coins, instead of such as casually
came into his hands, the result might again be a
disturbance of the proportionate total for this year as
compared with adjacent ones.
63. The Billoti and Bronze. There may be similar
disturbing factors, not so readily discoverable, in other
cases ;
but, subject to this possibility, the totals given
against each year furnish some index to the activity
of the Alexandrian mint as regards the issue of tetra-
drachms. It may be worth while to repeat here two
facts which I have previously pointed out {Fayrnn
Towns, p. 68) : firstly, that when this mint was busy
striking tetradrachms, comparatively little bronze
was coined ; the chief issues of bronze in the first
century A.D. were in the reigns of Augustus, Claudius
(latter part), Vespasian (latter part), and Domitian,
at which periods little or no billon was minted ;
and in the second century, while there was a
steady, but not large, output of billon from the
reign of Trajan to that of Marcus Aurelius, there was
a very considerable amount of bronze issued ; and,
secondly, that, as a rule, the larger the coinage of
tetradrachms in any year, the smaller was the number
of distinct types used. The latter point deserves
emphasizing, as an historical argument in regard to
the recognition of an emperor at Alexandria has
lately been founded on the fact that several different
types of his coinage of a particular year are known to
e.xist in different collections, from which it is assumed
that he must have issued a large number of coins in