During the first two centuries of the Christian era, and even after the disappearance of the silver punch-marked coins, perhaps about A.D. 200, the currency of the south consisted chiefly of imported Roman gold[39] along with the spherules already mentioned. A certain quantity of Roman silver must also have been in circulation, while the small copper pieces bearing Roman devices and legends—one of them seems to give the name of the Emperor Theodosius (A.D. 393)—were probably local productions. Conjecture has assigned the earliest coins connected with a local dynasty to the Kurumbas, a pastoral tribe inhabiting the present Arcot district. One type of these copper pieces with a two-masted ship on the obverse is evidently derived from the similar Andhra issues struck for the Coromandel coast, and so may belong to the third century A.D. [39] In 1850 a large number of Roman aurei, amounting, it is said, to five coolie loads, were unearthed near Kannanur: most emperors between Augustus, 29 B.C., and Antoninus Pius, A.D. 161, were represented. Cf. “Remarks on Some Lately Discovered Roman Coins,” _J.A.S.B._, 1851, p. 371. I. COINAGE OF THE DECCAN AND MYSORE The first great dynasty to dominate Southern India was that of the Chālukyas (a foreign tribe probably of Hūṇa-Gurjara origin), founded by Pulakeśin I in the middle of the sixth century, whose capital was at Bādāmī in the Bījāpūr district. His grandson, Pulakeśin II (A.D. 608-642), became paramount in the Deccan, but the kingdom was overthrown by the Rāshṭrakūṭas in 753. In 973, however, a Chālukya prince, Tailapa, retrieved the fortunes of his family and founded the Western Chālukya kingdom with its capital at Kalyāṇi, and this lasted till 1190, after which the Chālukyas of the west, overthrown by the Hoysaḷas, became petty chiefs. Meanwhile, in the middle of the seventh century another dynasty, known as the Eastern Chālukyas, had been established by Vishṇuvardhana, brother of the great Pulakeśin II, in Kaliṅga with its capital at Veṅgī, which lasted till the eleventh century, when it was overthrown by the Choḷas. The earliest coin assignable to a Chālukya prince is a base silver piece of Vishṇuvardhana (615-633), with a lion device and the king’s title in Telugu, _Vishamasiddhi_, “Successful in scaling the inaccessible places,” on the obverse, and a trident flanked by two lamps on the reverse. Certain pagodas, fanams and copper coins, perhaps of an earlier date, from the appearance on them of the boar, the cognizance of the Chālukyas, have been conjectured to belong to that dynasty. To the Eastern Chālukya princes, Śaktivarman (1000-1012) and Rājarāja (1012-1062), belong large flat gold pieces, also depicting the boar symbol, but with blank reverses (Pl. VII, 4).