A. 4.—­But the coins do more than testify to the widespread power of Cymbeline himself.  They show us that he inherited much of it from his father.  This prince, whose name was Tasciovan, is often associated with his son in the inscriptions, and the son is often described as TASCIIOVANI F. (Filius) or TASCIOVANTIS.  There are besides a large number of coins belonging to Tasciovan alone.  And these tell us where he reigned.  They are struck (where the mint is recorded) either at Segontium[116] or at Verulam.  The latter is pretty certainly the town which had sprung up on the site of Caswallon’s stronghold, so that we may reasonably conclude that Tasciovan was the successor of the patriot hero on the Cateuchlanian throne—­very probably his son.  But Cymbeline’s coins are struck at the Trinobantian capital, Camelodune,[117] which we know to have been the royal city of his son Caratac (or Caradoc) at the Claudian conquest.

A. 5.—­It would seem, therefore, that, Caesar’s mandate to the contrary notwithstanding, Caswallon’s clan, who were now called (perhaps from his name), Cattivellauni, had again conquered the Trinobantes, deposing, and probably slaying, Mandubratius.[118] This would be under Tasciovan, who gave the land to his son Cymbeline, and, at a later date, must have subdued the Atrebatian power in the south.  The sons of Commius were, as is shown by Sir John Evans, contemporary with Tasciovan.  But, by and by, we find Epaticcus, his son, and Adminius, apparently his grandson, reigning in their realm, the latter taking Kent, the former the western districts.  The previous Kentish monarch was named Dumnovellanus, and appears as DAMNO BELLA on the Ancyran Tablet.  This wonderful record of the glories of Augustus mentions, inter alia, that certain British kings, of whom this prince was one, fled to his protection.  The tablet is, unhappily, mutilated at the point where their names occur, but that of another begins with TIM—­probably, as Sir John Evans suggests, Tin-Commius.  Adminius also was afterwards exiled by his own father, Cymbeline, and in like manner appealed to Caesar—­Caligula—­in 40 A.D.

A. 6.—­Nothing came of either appeal.  Augustus did indeed, according to Dio Cassius, meditate completing his “father’s” work, and (in B.C. 34) entered Gaul with a view to invading Britain.  But the political troubles which were to culminate at Actium called him back, and he contented himself with laying a small duty on the trade between Britain and Gaul.  Tin, as before, formed the staple export of our island, and other metals seem now to have been added—­iron from Sussex and lead from Somerset.  Doubtless also the pearls from our native oysters (of which Caesar had already dedicated a breastplate to his ancestral Venus) found their way to Rome, though of far less value than the Oriental jewel, being of a less pure white.[119] Besides these we read of “ivory bracelets and necklets, amber and glass ornaments, and such-like rubbish,"[120]