'After From Nero unto Severus Pertinax wherein was a tranquillitie of the empyre, All medalls are well wrought.
Above Nero & under Com’odus wee rarely find peeces of speciall workmanshipp.
After Alexander Severus the peeces most peeces were of red copper or potin mixture.
It is rare to find great medalls Roman medalls of gold or sylver.
The great coyns of the lowe empyre are much esteem’d & the litle of the high.
Great consulare coyns especially of copper are very rare.
medallions esteemable of Emperor soever(?) & have not ordinarily SC as the great medalls.
All ancient medalls Gr. or Rom. or of fine Gold as in the Republick & the first Emperors, afterward degenerating unto & growing worse, as lowe as Alexander Severus, whoe much cam abased them. & soe degenerating unto the time of Dioclesian, so that insomuch that between Galienus & Dioclesian you wee find few butt of copper sylverd; under Diocle. & after ward all of fine sylver unto Heraclius.
A peece rare & esteemable wh have an head on each side, or 2 heads in one side.
why Claudius his head looking \turning left/ from the right hand in the great coyns & the lesser to the left.
medalls of Com’odus rare in gold.
medalls Greek more rare then Latin.
Princes heads in coyns before they were emperors excepting those of Marc. Aurel. & Com’odus are comnly under the name of ‘caesar’ without Augustus, & without a crowne.
Among the Greek coynes some have Latin inscription; among the Latin consulare ones some Gre have Greek.
to find any left hands ioynd.
The raritie of & esteeme of the Imperiall coynes ariseth from their materialls greatnesse weight, inscriptions, & countrys wherein coyned.
Few or noe Greek coynes \or colonies/ in gold since the empyre & those are rare wch are in sylver.
butt the coyns of princes Greek princes before are more rare in copper then in sylver or gold, & those of citties more common in copper then sylver.
the denarii untill about Neros time are heavier than those after, the ones beeing greater before.
Great & large peeces of Aug. & Tiberius very rare more rare then of the emperors wh. succeeded them.
The raigne of Probus.
the coyns of Corn. Laelianus I have none, though Camden delivers they are only found in England.
Some copper peeces of Tiberius not acknowledged by the senat nor marked with SC v. Erizzo.
noe leaden mixture of in the copper coynes of the emperors before Septimius Severus.
The most copper coynes after Septimius Severus hold some lead or tinne, as triable by putting them into fire.
Adrian the first emperor with a bird beard.
2 heads on a side of a coyne are to bee seen in Aug. & Agrippa in many more, butt 2 emperors heads not before. Antoninus & Verus were first that ioyntly ruled under the name of Augusti.
All that lookes like fine is not soe, butt are subaerates, or made of copper or Iron with a leaf of sylver of them.
Many in high times of the high empire & republick.
Butt not all subaerates, but some subferrates as verifiable since by Loadstone.
Subaurates there are none, because the wayght will different discover them.
corinthian those taken for Corinthian brasse are guilded Copper & brasse; none conceaved to have been true after Claudius & the stock of that metall to have been exhausted by that time.
Of consulare coyns few in sylver copper fewer much in gold & ///// first has peece of //////.
Fulvius Ursinus in his 750 hath butt 25 of copper, 12 of gold.
Peeces of electron I have not seen, though ’tis delivered that Severus coyned divers & those of base gold.
Of white copper there are also some in the high empyre.
The letters SC seeme to bee found in Gold very seldome, in sylver of ours these have them.
[added later] To obtain that medall of Nero with the Inscription deo Judaeorum.'
(London, British Library, Sloane MS 1882, ff.15r, 16v-17r, 18v; transcription from Burnett 2020b, pp. 750-1)
