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Coinage in Rome’s Gallic protinces

Continental Belgie coinages. Close contact with Homan Gaul in the ensuing generation greatly influenced the development of British Celtic society, and this is refleeted in the very Romanized appearance of the latest coinages of the leading Southern king-doms under Cunobelin and Verica. As in Gaul, the Roman conquest brought native coinage Systems to an abrupt end in Britain. Within British provincial territory gold and silver coinage swiftly disappeared, and under the Claudian regime there was no place for provincial coinages of silver and bronze as there had been in Gaul until the middle of Augustus’ reign. Instead, metropolitan Roman coinage was the sole official currency in all the western provinces. The Romans seem to have remained tolerant of purely local bronze currencies, so long as they did not interfere in any way with the official economic managemen t of the provinces, but there is litde evidence for their production in Britain after the conąuest, with two notable exceptions. It seems likely that the potin coinage of Kent was still being produced at Canterbury under Nero (47), while the bronze cast coinage of the Durotriges (48) may be later still, issued for local use at Hengistbury Head at some point between the Conąuest and the time of Trajan. Elsewhere, however, adjustment to a Roman monetary economy seems to have taken place relatively ąuickly, catching up with the situation in Gaul by the end of the first century ad. During the period of transition, as earlier in Gaul, ensting pre-conquest bronze coinage still in circulation was supplemented by a very varied rangę of sometimes very low-weight local imitations of metropolitan Roman bronzes. This may in fact deserve to be regarded as a form of true local currency in places where it was produced in relative abundance. Thereafter, a persistant shortage of official Roman currency meant that in Britain morę than in Gaul Roman bronze coinage continued to be imitated locally throughout the first and second centuries ad, as finds from the Roman reservoir at Bath abundantly illustrate.

Chapter Three

Coinage in Celtic Society

We can now turn to look at coinage in the free Celtic world from the point of view of the Celts themselves, as an introduction to the morę detailed survey of the principal regions of the Celtic world which follows.

Celtic coins - like all other aneient coinages - were actual pieces of tribal, State, or eommunity treasure. The warrior Celts, who were the first to use coinage, invested relatively little in such things as buildings or civic monuments that might in other communities have occasioned much expenditure of treasure on materials and labour; instead, they spent heavily on movable goods, persona! retinues of warriors, and on the maintenance and entertainment of dependants of all kinds, for all of which funetions coinage was eminently well suited. Largesse was, of course, distributed in forms other than coined money before the adoption of coinage, and an example of this on the eve of its introduction is furnished by the story of Louernios of the Arverni in the mid second century bc:

Poseidonios, when telling of the wealth of Louernios, father of Bituis who was dethroned by the Romans, says that in an attempt to win popular favour he rode in a chariot over the plains distributing gold and silver to the tens of thousands of Celts who foliowe! him; moreover, he madę a square enclosure one and a half miles each way, within which he filled vats with expensive liquor and prepared so great a quan tity of food that for many days all who wished could enter and enjoy the feast prepared, being served without a break by the attendants. And when at iength he fixed a day for the ending to the feast, a Celtic poet who arriyed too late met Louernios and composed a song magnifying his greatness and lamenting his own late arrival. Louernios was very pleased and asked for a bag of gold and threw it to the poet who ran beside his chariot. The poet picked it up and sang another song saying that the very track madę by his chariot on the earth gave gold and largesse to mankind (Athcnaeus. Deipnosophists 4. 37).

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