goods as silver ornaments or scraps may be weighed out in an Indian bazaar to-day. Their normal occurrence in 'hoards' is a natural corollary. Indeed, the term 'hoard' is in this context largely a misnomer; the so-called hoard being doubtless a unit of stamped silver or gold to a total weight agreed for some specific purchase, or at least the bulk reserve from which such units could be detached. Monetary circulation in the ordinary sense was not in question. The fact that the precious metal was already subdivided into known and stamped sub-units (coins) would nevertheless facilitate the trader's accounting and at the same time carry prestige with the customer. Pliny (VI, 85) tells a relevant story of the admiration expressed by the king of Ceylon for Roman honesty, on the ground that among the money found on a Roman castaway (Plocamus' famous freed-man) the denarii were all equal in weight, although the various figures on them showed that they had been coined by several emperors.

This respect for Roman integrity was evidently shaken in India, as in Free Germany, by Nero's debasement of his silver coinage in A.D. 63. The third of our points above needs no additional explanation. Just as in Free Germany the older pre-Neronic issues in pure silver were sought in preference to the alloyed issues subsequent to the year 63, so in India silver issues later than Nero hardly occur, whilst several hoards end with his reign or that of his predecessor. And to this shaken confidence on the Indian side in the bullion value of the newer denarii may certainly be added export restrictions at source, arising from the expressed anxiety of the Roman treasury at the enormous outflow. That the India trade continued or even increased after the time of Nero is clear from Ptolemy and from the recent archaeological evidence of Arikamedu, which will be considered below. But it continued mainly in manufactured goods and raw materials with only a modest reinforcement from Roman gold and (much later) base metal.

This brings us to our fourth point, the mutilation of the gold coinage. The facts are as follows. Apart from occasional coins pierced for use as ornaments or charms, in at least six of the hoards the gold coins have, wholly or mostly, been defaced by an incision across the imperial head; and, since no other feature of the design, even when representation of the human figure is involved, has been singled out for this treatment, the purpose of the defacement was definitely not iconoclasm, but the cancellation of the piece as a coin-issue. The defaced coins cover a wide range of time, including issues of Claudius, Nero, Vespasian, Hadrian and, apparently in one case, Constantine I.

For this mutilation there is no need to question the explanation