Blair Collection > Critical dissertations on the origin, antiquities, language, government, manners, and religion, of the antient Caledonians, their posterity the Picts, and the British and Irish Scots

of the Caledonians , PiSls and Scots. 1 2 1
■'The Britons of the South began to underftand
the u("e of the mint foon after the Romans came
firft among them. There are extant to this day
feveral coins belonging to their own native Kings,
particularly Cunobiline and Caradacus. The firft
of thefe Princes was cotemporary with Auguflus,
and the latter with Claudius. If there were any
pieces of money coined in North Britain within
eight or nine centuries after that period, they arc
entirely loft or deftroycd.
The ri<:hes of the Caledonians confifted wholly
in cattle. The cafe was much the fame in feverat
other countries, long after the world had been
fufficiently peopled. An ancient author obferves,
in his account of Geryon, King ot Spain, whom
Hercules plundered of his cattle, that in thofe times
herds were accounted the only wealth *. And
Varro, the moft learned writer of his age, derives
pecunja, the Roman word for money, from pecus,
which fignifies cattle.
It is after property is long eftablifhed, and
Tome degree of commerce introduced, that money
becomes the ftandard of wealth among nations.
In the beginning of fociety, mankind do not think
a piece of metal an equivalent for their flocks
and herds. Should I be permitted to give my
opinion concerning the origin of coin, I would
trace it to that fuperftition which is inherent in
human nature in rude times. The firft coin was
probably a portable image of a Divinity, which
was worftiipped by a community. The beauty
of the metal, and the facred awe arifmg from the
figure of a God, firft gave value to that kind of
♦ Juftin. Ep. lib. xliv. cap. 4.
medals