The foundations of history . ol. iii. 5. * Matt. xxvi. 16. (211) 212 FIEST THINGS. are not so plenty. But ancient coins, bringing to our viewthe great rulers of the earth two thousand years ago ; pre-senting us the likenesses of Alexander the Great and his suc-cessors, of the kings of Syria, the Ptolemies of Egypt, andthe Caesars of Rome—coins commemorating the great eventsof their reigns, showing us the deities they worshipped, etc.—as we handle such coins, the money of their day, andlook upon the image and superscription, we are at oncecarried back to their times. Who can look at some of the
The foundations of history . ol. iii. 5. * Matt. xxvi. 16. (211) 212 FIEST THINGS. are not so plenty. But ancient coins, bringing to our viewthe great rulers of the earth two thousand years ago ; pre-senting us the likenesses of Alexander the Great and his suc-cessors, of the kings of Syria, the Ptolemies of Egypt, andthe Caesars of Rome—coins commemorating the great eventsof their reigns, showing us the deities they worshipped, etc.—as we handle such coins, the money of their day, andlook upon the image and superscription, we are at oncecarried back to their times. Who can look at some of thecoins of Titus, struck when Jerusalem was destroyed, bear-ing the words Judaea Capta, and the figure of the mourningcaptive under a palm tree, without being deeply moved,while touch and sight bring to mind the horrors of thatsiege, foretold, and so vividly depicted by Moses, sixteenhundred years before; and fix the fact of the destructionof that city, which will be dear in its associations as long asthe world shall TITUS. CONQUEST OF JUDEA. Coins are among the most certain evidences of the latter part of the Greek series, they illustrate thechronology of the reigns. In the Roman series, they fix thedates and the succession of events. The reigns of some ofthe Roman Emperors might almost be written from theircoins. Dent, xxviii. 52, FIRST MONEY — ANCIENT COINS. 213 The first account we have of the use of money Was forthe purchase of a grave. It is found in the touching storyof the buying of a burying-place by Abraham, to bury hisdead wife out of his sight. Money appears then to havebeen in common use. Before this, we read of AbimelecVsgiving Abraham a thousand pieces of silver.^ As cities can-not live without commerce, it is likely gold and silver wereused as currency in the city founded by Cain, to whom Jo-sephus attributes the first coining of money. At the present day among uncivilized nations, and even inmany of the thinly settled parts of the United S
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