e, and indeed in the former country the
silver coinage was first called into existence by the Romans and
based on the Roman standard;(46) but there exist good grounds for
the supposition, that even in these two countries, at least from
the beginning of the seventh century, the provincial and urban
mints were obliged to restrict their issues to copper small money.
Only in Narbonese Gaul the right of coining silver could not be
withdrawn from the old-allied and considerable free city of
Massilia; and the same was presumably true of the Greek cities in
Illyria, Apollonia and Dyrrhachium. But the privilege of these
communities to coin money was restricted indirectly by the fact,
that the three-quarter -denarius-, which by ordinance of the Roman
government was coined both at Massilia and in Illyria, and which
had been under the name of -victoriatus- received into the Roman
monetary system,(47) was about the middle of the seventh century
set aside in the latter; the effect of which necessarily was, that
the Massiliot and Illyrian currency was driven out of Upper Italy
and only remained in circulation, over and above its native field,
perhaps in the regions of the Alps and the Danube. Such progress
had thus been made already in this epoch, that the standard of the
-denarius- exclusively prevailed in the whole western division of
the Roman state; for Italy, Sicily--of which it is as respects the
beginning of the next period expressly attested, that no other
silver money circulated there but the -denarius---Sardinia, Africa,
used exclusively Roman silver money, and the provincial silver
still current in Spain as well as the silver money of the Massiliots
and Illyrians were at least struck after the standard of the -denarius-.

It was otherwise in the east. Here, where the number of the states
coining money from olden times and the quantity of native coin in
circulation were very considerable, the -denarius- did not make its
way into wider acceptance, although it was perhaps declared a legal
tender. On the contrary either the previous monetary standard
continued in use, as in Macedonia for instance, which still as
a province--although partially adding the names of the Roman
magistrates to that of the country--struck its Attic -tetradrachmae-
and certainly employed in substance no other money; or a peculiar
money-standard corresponding to the circumstances was introduced
under Roman authority, as on the institution of the pro