but perhaps many which were absolutely unique. The destruction of these old coins is irreparable, for the ancients cannot, unfortunately, sit down and make new ones for us. But it is not only a loss for learning; it is that by the destruction of such small monuments of gold and of silver, life itself loses the expression of its reality. Ancient history would sound like a fairy-tale if its coins—the most actual of the realities of those times—did not exist to show us that the early races and their kings, of which we read such wonderful things, really existed—that they were no idle forms of fantasy, no mere creation of a poet's brain, as many writers assert, who would fain persuade us that all the history of olden time, with all its written records, were forged by monks in the Middle Age.[1] Against such assertions we had the most clearly ringing counter-proof in the cabinet of medals in Paris. But these treasures are now irreparably lost, and a part of the world's history has been at once stolen and melted, and the mightiest kings and races of antiquity are now vanished fables, in which man needs to put his faith no more.
- ↑ What would Heine have said could he have lived to the present day? Apparently all we are now waiting for is some sophist humbugger to persuade us that the monks themselves were all forgeries.—Translator.
