S5004000

The Celts outside Gaul

uith other Iron Age artefacts in central European graves and hoards yields a chronology that also brings the coinage into an iliuminating relationship with the written historical record. It has, therefore, generałly been adopted herc. I hus it sccnis that marked changes in both central European gold coinage systems began to take place early in the second century (a time when changes also occurred in the Danubian silver tradition), marking the transition to the second phase, at a time when a sharp drop in the weight and fineness of the coins can perhaps be related to the sudden termination of supplies of Mediterranean coinage in the aftermath of Rome’s conquest of Macedon.

Pannonia and Noricum

Pannonia (Hungary) was the easternmost fully Celticized area of central Europę, and here the Danubian siver tetradrachm was the staple currency, suggesting a fundamentally eastwards economic orientation. Pannonian coinage is found in relatively well defined local groupings, for instance around Lakę Balaton (the triskeles group) (62), and the primary prototype was the tetradrachm of King Patraos of the Thracian kingdom of Paeonia (335-315 bc), a contemporary of Philip III, who evidently maintained connec-tions, presumably military, with the Pannonian Celts. His succes-sor Audoleon (315-286 bc), contemporary with Lysimachus of Macedon, had a comparable influence upon the tetradrachm coinage to the north of the knee of the Danube and in Noricum. For this area, therefore, contact with the kingdoms of Macedon and Thrace between the 330s and the 280s had the most important impact upon Celtic coinage, and the contact seems to have ended around the time of the Callić invasion of Creece in 279, an expedition whose failure was an important turning-point in the fortunes of the eastem Celts.

Pannonia was the only eastern Celtic area to introduce a bronze coinage - the so-called Dunaszeckso type (63) - at some point during the second century bc, suggesting that a third-phase coinage eventually developed there, but traditional Pannonian coinage came to an end in the early years of the first century bc. After c.76-74 bc, Roman Republican denarii and their imitations, especially those inscribed ravis or ravit (64) (perhaps naming the Eravisci), replaced the earlier Celtic silver currency of the area, reflecting the growing importance of Pannonian trade in barbar-

ian slavcs with the adjacent Roman provinces. Whereas in Gaul first-century Italian traders seem to have purchased native slaves primarily with winę, in these eastern arcas silver denarii scem to have been used, presumably in response to an avid nativc thirst for Mediterranean silver.

Noricum First entered into diplomatic relations with the Roman Republic at the beginning of the second century bc, when the Roman conquest of Cisalpine Gaul was well under way. Krom that time onwards Romę relied upon its Celtic kings to protect Itaiy from incursions by remoter warrior communities, while granting them privileges which included the right to trade for horses at the head of the Adriatic. Here, two series of silver tetradrachms developed in parallel along the axes of the rivers Drava and Sava (65-6). Neither was particularly early, perhaps not before the establishment of contact with Romę and the consequent aggran-dizement of the Nórican kings, and the exaet authorship of both coinage series remains uncertain, though the Celtic Taurisci were probably responsible for one of them. An initial uninscribed coinage with beardless head and horse gave way to a set of inscribed series mainly to the west of the area, and the tetradrachms were accompanied by fractions with a cross on the reverse, perhaps influenced by second-century silver obols of Massilia (67). The series as a whole seems to come to an end late in the second or early in the first century bc.

Bohemia and Slocakia

It was in Bohemia and Slovakia that the central European gold and silver zones actually met. In Slovalda the most striking regional coinage, and the last major series of silver tetradrachmsanywhere in Celtic Europę, was the so-called Bratislava type, issued during the first century bc around Bratislava itself (68). Its authors were literate, and sixteen coin legends name various loca) chiefs or their representati ves. The changing types of this coinage were inspired by Roman denarii, but the coins themselves are emphatically Celtic. At c. 17.40 g. they were a conspicuous form of barbarian wealth, very unlike the coinage of the contemporary Roman world, and were doubtless designed for traditional use within a Celtic warrior society, as such large medallic coins could make handsome payments. The late datę of this coinage can be established from the prototypes which inspired some of its types:

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