=41=; fig. 15_e-l_). [Illustration: FIG. 15.--ROMAN COINS. 1:1.] Nero was the first emperor to reduce the weight of the _denarius_, and from his time the degeneration was rapid. A series of seven pieces, from Tiberius to Probus (14-281 A.D.), illustrates the debasement of the metal, which is apparent to the eye (No. =42=). By the time of Gordianus Pius (238-244 A.D.) no trace of silver is visible, and the coin of Probus here exhibited is plainly copper. Yet these pieces represent the only silver money which was then coined. Many of the coins which have come down to us have been preserved by the care or avarice of their former owners, who hid their wealth for security and were unable to recover it. Portions of two such hoards are shown at the end of the case. One consists of Athenian staters of the late fifth century B.C. (No. =43=), which were found in the Greek settlement of Naukratis, and the other is a large collection of late Roman coins of the fifth century A.D. (No. =44=). These were buried in another Egyptian town, Hawara, in the egg-shaped jug which is shown with them. At Pompeii, a city which was overwhelmed by the volcano in the midst of its daily life, money, like all other things, has been found ready to hand and actually in use. There is in this Case all that the fire has left of a Pompeian money-box, and among the coins which it contains is a brass sesterce of Nero, whose reign ended eleven years before the catastrophe. Shreds of a net purse are also visible in the box (No. =45=). =Special uses of Coins.=--A silver stater of Sikyon (No. =46=), is marked by an inscription punctured by the dedicator--_To Artemis in Lakedaemon_. A religious character attaches also to the bronze coin of Laodikeia in Phrygia, which is pierced and suspended from a wire loop for wearing as a charm against sickness, by virtue of the figures which it bears of Asklepios and Hygieia, the deities of health (No. =47=). A curious coin, struck for a special religious purpose, is the copper piece of Nemausus (Nîmes, in the South of France), which is made in the shape of a ham for dedication to the deity of the local fountain (No. =48=). The offering was probably originally paid in kind.