altogether an useless blank, although he accidentally occasioned the total ruin of the ancient form of government, by assuming those prerogatives which had been the principal motive to the contests of Marius and Sylla. He opened his reign with mildness, justice, and clemency, and was so far an enemy to pride and ostentation, that he steadily refused the title of Imperator, as a prænomen. Amongst other public works, he undertook and completed a convenient haven at the mouth of the Tiber, an enterprize which had baffled the efforts of Cæsar; he also partly succeeded in draining the lake Fucinus; and he finished an aqueduct of stupendous magnitude, by which the city was supplied with delicious water. But his better qualities lost their effect through the deficient energy of an impassive mind; until his character became radically debased, and his personal conduct stamped with imbecility and contradiction,-and even his naturally humane disposition became sanguinary by an habitual attendance at the infernal combats of gladiators. With such defects, he was little adapted for arbitrary sway, in so turbulent and licentious an age; and, instead of wielding his sceptre, he became the easy dupe of the most odious wretches that ever pestered a state. The acts of those arrogant minions, Pallas, Callistus, and Narcissus, are lost in the unparalleled rapine, massacre, and monstrous depravity of the libidinous Messalina; and we could heartily wish to be sceptical as to the unblushing enormities which attended her misrule.

Claudius aimed at military fame, and to earn a triumph he passed over into Britain, where, fortunately for him, some excellent officers were employed the abject Senate rewarded his few-days-service with a magnificent pageant, and the surname of Britannicus was decreed both to himself and his son.* While speaking of British affairs we may add, that he evinced the latent generosity of his heart, when, charmed with the noble boldness of the captive Caractacus, he ordered the liberation of that prince and his family ;-an act, the merit of which will be immediately felt, on calling to mind the horrid fate too often reserved for royal captives. Indeed the evidence upon his character may be summed up in the distich of Ausonius :"Libertina tamen, nuptarum et crimina passus, Non faciendo nocens, sed patiendo fuit."

:

The medals of Claudius are easily procurable; those of the three sizes in brass are common and it is a peculiarity of this reign, that the date of the tribunitian power is omitted, in the legends. There are no Latin coins in honour of any of the wives of Claudius, except those of Agrippina; but I have met with the head of Messalina on a colonial one ;-its expression was rather that of a fine, than a handsome or intelligent woman; the hair was plaited close round her head, like a fillet, instead of hanging down the back of her neck, as with Agrippina.

* Upon this occasion Claudius ascended the steps of the Capitol on his knees:-may not this have afforded a hint to the devotees of the Santa Scala ?

F

XXXVIII.

Obverse. TI. CLAVDIVS CAESAR AVG. P. M. TR. P. IMP. (Tiberius Claudius Cæsar Augustus, Pontifex Maximus, Tribunitia potestate, Imperator.) The laurelled head of Claudius, with a portraiture differing very widely from the impressions received from historians, and bearing no trace of the "Portentum hominis, nec absolutum à naturâ, sed tantum inchoatum," said to have been uttered by his mother. This medal is singularly coated with dense yellow patina, and was procured of my friend Mr. Burgon, in 1826. Reverse. EX. S. C. OB CIVES SERVATOS. (Ex Senatus Consulto, ob cives servatos.) Inscribed in an oaken garland. This honour appears to have been awarded to Claudius, for his recalling those who had been banished by Caligula, without sufficient cause.

XXXIX.

Obverse. TI. CLAVDIVS CAESAR AVG. P. M. TR. P. IMP. (Tiberius Claudius Cæsar Augustus, Pontifex Maximus, Tribunitia potestate, Imperator.) A fine and intelligent head of Claudius. This superb medal is in surprising preservation; it is coated with a bottlegreen patina, and, from the absence of the P. P. was probably of the coinage of A. D. 41. For its possession I am indebted to Sidy Mohammed Dighiz, who presented it to me, at Tripoli, in 1817.

Reverse. SPES AVGVSTA. On the exergum S. C. Hope is here personified by a lively female, clothed in flowing and transparent drapery, which she is holding back with her left hand, in order that her progress may be unimpeded; and she is in an advancing posture to shew that Hope presses towards her desired object. The whole figure is uncommonly graceful,—the head is crowned with a diadem, and the right hand holds a lotus, or lily, signifying that blossoms give hopes of fruit. Several medalists have considered this as a symbol of Flora; but Spes is covered with vestments, whereas the impure goddess was always represented naked to the waist, and holding a bunch of flowers, instead of a single bud. Shakspeare, who probably never consulted coins, inclined to the classical idea, rather than the allegory which is now represented, with an anchor,-an emblem more suitable to Security, than Hope :

A cause on foot

Lives so in HOPE, as in an early spring

We see the appearing buds; which to prove fruit,

Hope gives not so much warrant, as Despair

That frosts will bite them.

This medal was probably struck in anticipation of a milder sway than that of Caligula. The type, which is very expressive, was especially honoured by Claudius, because he was born on the day allotted to the rites of this deified moral attribute.

XL.

Obverse. T1. CLAVDIVS CAESAR AVG. P. M. TR. P. IMP. P. P. (Tiberius Claudius Cæsar Augustus, Pontifex Maximus, Tribunitia potestate, Imperator, Pater Patria.) The laurelled head of Claudius, as in No. XXXVIII, but struck after he had assumed the honoured title of Father of his Country.

Reverse. EX. S. C. P. P. OB CIVES SERVATOS. (Ex Senatus Consulto, Pater Patria, ob cives servatos.) Inscribed in an oaken garland, as commemorative of clemency. This coin is in fine preservation, and covered with a dark-green patina. It was procured from a friend, in London, in 1829. XLI.

Obverse. TI. CLAVDIVS CAESAR AVG. P. M. TR. P. IMP. P. P. (Tiberius Claudius Cæsar Augustus, Pontifex Maximus, Tribunitia potestate, Imperator, Pater Patriæ.) An excellent portrait of the emperor, with a laurel wreath. This medal is of pale-yellow brass, is in good preservation, and was procured at Bizerta, near Tunis, in 1822.

Reverse. NERO CLAVDIVS DRVSVS GERMAN. IMP. (Nero Claudius Drusus Germanicus, Imperator.) S. C. In the pious regard which Claudius bore towards the memory of his father, he instituted equestrian games on the anniversary of his birth. And here we have a triumphal arch, surmounted by a statue of Drusus on horseback, between two military trophies, which represent the spoils of the German victories.

XLII.

Obverse. TI. CLAVDIVS CAESAR AVG. P. M. TR. P. IMP. P. P. (Tiberius Claudius Cæsar Augustus, Pontifex Maximus, Tribunitia potestate, Imperator, Pater Patriæ.) The laurelled portrait of Claudius, looking to the right. This medal is in secondary conservation, and was procured of M. Carstensen, the Danish Consul General at Tripoli, in 1816. Reverse. SPES AVGVSTA. On the exergum S. C. The figure of Hope, attired in light robes, holding a flower to three soldiers. It has been thought that this reverse denoted the favour which Claudius found from the cohorts;-but that is more indisputably shewn on two coins, struck in gold and silver. The first shews the Emperor within the walls of a camp, with IMPER. RECEPT. over the gate; -on the other he is taken by the hand, by an aquilifer, or eaglebearer, with the legend PRAETOR. RECEPT. But the medal I am describing has but little claim upon this demonstration of gratitude, especially as the P. P. was not immediately assumed by Claudius: it was more probably intended for the hope held out to the army, on their expedition to Britain.

BRITANNICUS.

Tiberius Claudius Germanicus, the son of the emperor Claudius, by the most infamous Messalina, was born on the 12th of February, A. D. 42; and the name of Britannicus was given him in the year following, as proper instead of all others, on account of the prosperous proceedings in Britain. He was considered a very hopeful youth, and therefore greatly beloved by the people, as presumptive heir to the empire; but he was excluded from the succession, by the artifices of Agrippina, who made Claudius adopt Nero, to the prejudice of his own son, A. D. 50. Though this adoption was applauded by the servile Senate, yet almost every citizen was affected at the hard lot of the unhappy Britannicus, whom Agrippina, under colour of tenderness, kept locked up in a nursery, though he was now nine years old. By degrees she removed from him all his former attendants, putting in their room persons who were entirely at her devotion. She would never allow him to appear abroad, nor even to wait upon his father, giving out that he was disordered in his senses, and troubled with the falling sickness. He was poisoned A. D. 55, in the first year of Nero's reign, during the feasts of the Saturnalia, in the hour of hospitality, and under the eye of his mortal enemy.

We are told, that the young prince had sufficient discernment to perceive the designs which Agrippina masked under officious kindness; and he displayed an instance of early acuteness, in moving general sympathy, when Nero, to cast him into ridicule, had publicly commanded him to sing. But here he committed two fatal faults: on the one hand he maintained his pretensions to the throne so as to alarm the tyrant; and on the other he displayed a very superior voice,—a qualification which rendered him equally odious as a rival. From that instant he was condemned, and as it was necessary to proceed by artifice, the detestable Locusta was

pillage, and she disposed of honours, governments, employments, and 'armies, with a haughty contempt of propriety and justice. The whole of her craft and influence was directed to secure the power she obtained; and, according to Tacitus, she did not blush to prostitute herself in order to promote her son's elevation, and to gratify her insatiable longing for gold. As some of her measures, resulting from turbulent anxiety, were prosecuted with but little precaution, Claudius was apprised of their dangerous nature. In the paroxysm of terror and anger which followed the communication, the Emperor vented some threatening expressions, which procured him the dish of mushrooms that promoted him to divine honours.

The accession of Nero was followed by the usual consequences,—the mother who wrought the elevation aiming at uncontrouled power, and the son opposing her inclinations, but at the same time heaping honours upon her: all the artillery of reinonstrance, angry invective, and tender caresses, were alike ineffectual; for, in addition to the natural inclination of the young prince to be released from thraldom, the ambitious designs of Agrippina were thwarted by the influence which his tutors, Seneca and Burrhus, had over him. In following her objects she seems to have hesitated at nothing; Tacitus, to be sure, acquits her of participation in the murder of Britannicus, but we wish, for humanity's sake, that she could also be cleared of the detestable charge transmitted by Cluvius, and others. By rapid gradations the influence of the unhappy mother vanished; her credit and authority fell to nothing, and she was abandoned by the crowd of flatterers who had offered her incense, albeit she left nothing unattempted, which thirst of power could suggest, to retain her wonted dominion. At length affairs reached such a crisis that Nero, instigated by Poppæa Sabina, resolved to remove the incumbrance; and, the better to accomplish his ends, affected returning regard, and invited his mother to Baiæ, to pass the festival of the Quinquatria. Here a most treacherous, and we may add very lubberly attempt, was made to drown her, in a scuttled galley; but she escaped by swimming to a boat, after her attendant was killed, and she herself wounded, by being struck at with oars when in the water. The crime could no longer be concealed; and it became necessary to complete what had been begun. Accordingly a party of assassins, who, we grieve to say, were called mariners, surrounded her place of refuge, and despatched her by many mortal wounds; and, we are told that she bared her body to the ruffians, boldly bidding them plunge their swords into the part which had harboured so vile a monster as their master. She was buried the same night, but had no tomb nor monument while Nero lived, for with active hatred he delighted in blackening her memory, and even procured that her nativity should be placed among the days of bad omen,

AGRIPPINA JUNIOR.*

This remarkable princess, the daughter of Germanicus and Agrippina, was born in a town afterwards called Colonia Agrippinensis, (now Cologne,) A. D. 16. She was bred up with her grandmother Antonia, who endeavoured to inspire her with sentiments of honour and goodness, but in vain, for, as Dio says, vice made its appearance before reason began to dawn. She was married, at the early age of thirteen, to the brutal and debauched Cneius Domitius Enobarbus, and from this profligate couple proceeded Nero. Her incestuous commerce with her brother, and promiscuous adulteries were notorious; but an intercourse which she had with Lepidus, the conspirator, brought down the vengeance of Caligula, and she was banished to Pontia, after having been obliged to carry her paramour's ashes, in an urn, from the place where he was executed to Rome. On her recall, by Claudius, she was united to Crispus Passienus, a celebrated orator, whom she destroyed as soon as she had obtained possession of his wealth. After the downfall of Messalina, she was assisted by Pallas-the modest slave, as Pliny terms him,—in inveigling the Emperor into marriage; and a vote to legalize the unnatural union was passed by the senate, through the agency of the supple Vitellius, A. D. 49. In the following year, the same obsequious body dignified her with the sublime title of Augusta, on the adoption of Nero into the Claudian family; and, after succeeding in most of her ambitious schemes, she was barbarously murdered by that execrable matricide, A. D. 59.

Agrippina had received from nature all the advantages of mind and person which could command regard, and a double tooth on the right side, according to Pliny, presaged her success. But though her beauty, wit, and literary accomplishments were undeniable, all these good qualities were clouded by violence, baseness, and sordid avarice; and for her vindictive cruelty, we need only cite the sending for the head of Lollia Paulina, to glut her eyes with, on which occasion she brutally opened the mouth, with her own hands, to ascertain by the teeth, that no imposition had been practised upon her. The vanity of Agrippina was evinced by her equipage, jewels, and splendid vestments, as well as by the triumphal chariot in which she obtained leave to visit the capitol; and she received the homage of Caractacus, seated upon an elevated throne, between the Roman standards and eagles, in gorgeous magnificence. She was popular from having recalled Seneca from banishment; but this act was lamentably counterbalanced by murder, proscription, and

* In following the example of calling females Senior and Junior, I do not mean to defend its propriety. Some medallists publish them Major and Minor, to which also objections may be taken.