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Coinage in Celtic society

genealogies, providing jurisdiction, and manufacturing status objects. Stamped ‘hallmarks’ on tempered iron weapons madę by superb craftsmen in third- to second-century Switzerland bear sonie similarity to early coin types, and may have some similar significance, perhaps indicating for whom the weapons werc madę or distributed. These stamps, many of which may represent the work of a single craftsman, include a palm tree w i tli two wild goats, the name Korisios, and a human footprint; as well as cattle and a horseman, themes familiar on Celtic coins. Bards performed important functions in promoting the reputation of the nobles to whom they were attached. Appian (Gallic History 42) recounts an incident from 121 bc:

The chiefs of the Salyi, a people vanquished by the Romans, took refuge with the Allobroges. When the Romans asked for their surrender and it was refused, they madę war on the Allobroges, under the leadership of Cn. Domitius. When he was passing through the territory of the Salyi, an ambassador of Bituitus, king of the Allobroges [he means Arvemi] met him. arrayed magnificently, and followed by attendants also adorned, and by dogs; for the barbarians of this region use dogs also as bodyguards. A bard too was in the train, who sang in barbarous fashion the praises of King Bituitus, and then of the Allobroges [?=Arverni], and then of the ambassador himself, celebrating his birth, his bravery, and his wealth; and it is for this reason chiefly that ambassadors of distinction take such persons along with them. But this one, although he begged pardon for the chiefs of the Salyi, accomplished nothing.

‘Men of siali’ such as these did not pay tribute to the nobility (Caesar BG 6. 13), and did not ofBcially bear arms, but could perhaps found a noble linę of their own. If so, this would account for the eagerness with which first-century Gallic noble families sent many of their sons to train as druids in Britain (Caesar BG 13), for this would simplify the division of estates among the remaining heirs. Celtic nobles needed to compete for the attendance of such prestigious dependants, who were not permanently attached to any particular noble house, and could cross tribal boundaries with impunity. It seems they were handsomely rewarded for their services, and it may be that precious metal coins came in due course to be included in their fees. The relationship between the Celtic tribal nobility and its ‘men of skill* was one of the most distinctive features of their society.

Next in social standing came free men who possessed sufficient

land and movable wealth to qualify as infantry warrlors. These formed the core of any tribal army, armcd with spear and shield. Free warriors would attach themselves by base contract to a spoci lic noble for the sake of his protection, and the opportunity to gain the military experience that was necessary for social advance-ment. Nobles and free warriors alike were preoccupied with warfare as a prime source of prestige and econotnic gain; indeed in many areas of northern Gaul, where there were few natural resources with which to trade profitably with the outside world, military activity was the most important single source of public and private revenue, over and above the subsistence produced from the land.

Because free men could choose their leaders there was competition among the nobility for the attendance of warriors, and here coinage came into its own. Julius Caesar mentions Celtic leaders such as Dumnorix, Orgetorix, Indutiomarus, and Vercingetorix using their iiberality' and ‘money’ to attract military forces, and in the context of mid first-century Caul there can be no reasonable doubt that coinage was used by them for its most fundamental purpose - to pay soldiers. Silver coinages were perhaps especially well suited to making payments to compatriot warriors; where gold and silver coinages coexisted, silver is generally confined to specific tribal territories, hinting at its use to pay this grade of Celtic warrior. Gold, by contrast, often travelled outside tribal territories in payments to foreign soldiers.

A renowned noble leader might attract warriors from far afield for an important enterprise, and one of the earliest of all Celtic gold coinages, distributed across a wide area of central Caul, may tentatively be linked with the history of the ‘Gaesatae’ described above. This late third-century coinage was evidently struck from a centre somewhere in the upper Rhineland or western Alps (within the home territory of the Gaesatae), and its wide distribution may well indicate the catchment area of one of the leading warrior kingdoms of that area. The Insubres and Boii approached the leaders of the Gaesatae with ‘much gold’ in 231, but the forces were not ready to invade Italy until 226. Could some of this coinage have been struck from that Cisalpine downpayment? In Southern Britain the earliest of all native gold coinages (British A), struck around the time of Caesar’s campaigns in Caul, has a remarkably similar distribution pattern, emanating in that case

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