relations between Romans and Teutons the Swedes were not involved. But by the peaceful ways of commerce the influence of Rome penetrated to the people of the North. Great numbers of Roman coins have been found in Sweden, and also vessels of bronze and glass, weapons, etc., as well as works of art, all turned out of workshops in Rome or its provinces. Out of about 4,760 Roman coins of this time found in Sweden, no less than 4,000 were found in the remarkable Island of Gothland, in the southern half of the Baltic, 90 in the neighboring island of Œland, 650 in Scania, but only 23 on the mainland of Sweden, excluding Scania. About 250 were found in Bornholm, 600 in Denmark, but only 3 in Norway. It becomes evident from these finds that there existed a regular traffic over the Baltic, through Germany, between the Island of Gothland and the Roman provinces, from the epoch of the Marcomannic war down to the time of Septimius Severus. Similar finds have been made on the southern shore of the Baltic, showing that the traffic came from the southeast, along the valleys of the Vistula and the Oder. One of the most important discoveries of this period was the art of writing, which the inhabitants of the North seem to have acquired soon after the beginning of the Christian era. The earliest alphabetic symbols in Sweden, and the only ones used there during the whole of heathen times, were _runes_. These were probably invented a little before the Christian era by a South Teutonic tribe, in imitation of the Roman writing which the Teutons received from one of the Celtic tribes living just to the north of the Alps. The Roman characters were adapted for the use of inscriptions in stone and wood, the curves being changed into straight lines. The Runic characters, in use among all Teutonic tribes, were twenty-four in number; these older runes were, by the Scandinavians, later simplified and reduced to sixteen. There is a number of inscriptions in older runes in Sweden, dating from about 300 to 500 A.D. They are found chiefly on stones and gold bracteates, also in England, France, Germany, Wallachia and the west of Russia. All belong to about the same date, and are of Teutonic origin. The early Runic inscriptions do not contain any accounts of historically known persons or events. Yet they are of the greatest historical importance, for they show that during the Earlier Iron Age, in the fourth and fifth centuries, the language of Sweden, and consequently also the people, were Teutonic. These inscriptions in Sweden and neighboring countries give samples of the earliest known form of the Northern language, which is considerably different from its descendants, the Old Swedish, Danish, Norwegian and Icelandic, but very much resembling the language spoken by the Goths on the Danube during the same period.