The type of supposed earliest coins of the Britons, derived, there can be no doubt, from those of Gaul, to which they had become accustomed, are uninscribed; those of Gaul having, in turn, originally and long before the days of Julius Cæsar, been derived from the _stater_ of Philippus of Macedon. This has been ably shown and insisted upon by various writers, and to it Mr. Evans, the highest and most enlightened authority upon the subject, has given his full adhesion. The Phocæan colony of Massilia (Marseilles), he says, “appears to have formed the centre from which civilization spread through Gaul, as well as to have been the emporium of its commerce. It was founded about B.C. 600, and from intercourse with its inhabitants the neighbouring Gauls first learned the usages of civilized life, and after a time became acquainted with the art of coining. The early silver coins of Massilia (and none in gold are known) were occasionally imitated in the surrounding country; but when, about the year B.C. 356, the gold mines of Crenides (or Philippi) were acquired by Philip II. of Macedon, and worked so as to produce about £250,000 worth of gold annually, the general currency of gold coins, which had before been of very limited extent, became much more extensive, and the _stater_ of Philip--the _regale numisma_ of Horace--became everywhere diffused, and seems at once to have been seized on by the barbarians who came in contact with Greek civilization as an object of imitation. In Gaul this was especially the case, and the whole of the gold coinage of that country may be said to consist of imitations, more or less rude and degenerate, of the Macedonian Philippus.”