[Illustration: FIG. 236.--Iberian. From Akerman.] [Illustration: FIG. 237.--British. From Evans.] [Illustration: FIG. 238.--From _Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism_ (Inman, I.).] [Illustration: FIG. 239.--Greek. From Barthelemy.] The generic term _coin_ is imagined to be derived from _cuneum_, the Latin accusative of _cuneus_, a wedge, "perhaps," adds Skeat, "allied to cone". It is, however, almost an invariable rule to designate coins by the design found upon their face, whence "angel," "florin," "rose," "crown," "kreuzer" (cross), and so forth. The British penny is supposed to have derived its title from the head--Celtic _pen_--stamped upon it:[413] the Italian _ducat_ was so denominated because it bore the image of a _duke_, whose coins were officially known as _ducati_, or "coins of the duchy"; and as not only the legend _cuin_, _cuno_, etc., appears upon early coinage, but also an image of an angel which we have endeavoured to show was regarded as the _Cun_ or _Queen_, it seems likely that the word _coin_ (Gaelic _cuinn_) is as old as the CUIN legend, and may have had no immediate relation either with _cunneus_ or _cone_. Nevertheless, the Queen of Heaven was occasionally depicted on coins in the form of a _cone_, as on the token here illustrated: on the coins of Cyprus Venus was represented under the symbolism of a cone-shaped stone.[414] The ancient minters not only customarily portrayed the features of their _pherepolis_ or Fairy of the City, but they occasionally rendered her identity fool-proof by inscribing her name at full length as in the ARETHUSA coin here illustrated: some of our seventh-century money bears the legend LUX--an allusion to the Light of the World; in the East coins were practically religious manifestos and bore inscriptions such as GOD IS ONE; GOD IS THE ETERNAL; THERE IS NO GOD BUT GOD ALONE; MAY THE MOST HIGH PERPETUATE HIS KINGDOM; and among the coins of Byzantium is an impression of the Virgin bearing the legend O LADY DO THOU KEEP IN SAFETY.[415] The early coinage of _Genoa_ represented a gate or _janua_; the Roman coin of Janus was known as the _As_, an implication that Janus, the first and most venerable of the Roman pantheon, was radically _genus_ or King As: in the same way it is customary among us to speak colloquially of "George," or more ceremoniously of "King George," and in all probability the full and formal title of the Roman _As_ was the Janus. On these coins there figured the _prow_ or forefront of a ship, and the same _prow_ will be noticed on the tokens of Britannia (_ante_, p. 120). It is remarkable that even 500 years after the coins of Janus had been out of circulation the youth of Rome used to toss money to the exclamation "Heads or Ships"--a very early instance of the _pari mutuel_!