Descriptive Catalogue of a Cabinet of Roman Imperial Large-Brass Medals (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Descriptive Catalogue of a Cabinet of Roman Imperial Large-Brass Medals

The large-brass series comprises the whole of what is termed the Higher Empire, from Julius Caesar to Gallienus, and exhibits Roman art from the dawn of its perfection to the eve of its decline. The facts thus recorded are also clear and satisfactory, not obscured by the dense mists with which the stream of time too often throws an impenetrable gloom over the pages of history; nor is the antiquary here uselessly labouring with a slender string of conjectures to fathom the depths of an interminable abyss, as frequently occurs in attempts to trace an object through the obscurity of remote ages, where the mind is too prone to follow glimmering and dubious lights. It is true that the Senate, in servile adulation, prostituted the arts by conferring honours on the most depraved of men; and while the obverse of a medal was made subservient to ambition, the reverse was degraded with flattery hence the Emperors were often represented as clothed with all the majesty of Jupiter himself, and the Empresses usually figured as those goddesses, whose attributes were ascribed to them by conceit or obsequiousness.

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