The Celtic World (Routledge Worlds)

(Barry) #1

  • Coinage -


Celtic coinage began much earlier, during the third century Be in places, and by the
early second century was in existence over an enormous geographical area, from
Pi cardy, southern Germany, Bohemia and Transylvania in the north, to Languedoc,
Provence, northern Italy, Hungary, Austria and Bulgaria in the south.
Although a few overall regularities can be observed in the pattern of adoption and
development of Celtic coinage in many different areas, coinage was not in reality a
single, uniform phenomenon subject to the same interpretation in widely separated
times and places. Instead, it was one among many expressions of the social and
economic priorities of the elites who issued it, and the interpretation of any given
coinage inevitably depends upon some understanding of the particular cultural
context within which it was used. For this reason, Celtic coinage should always be
studied in the context of the general archaeological record of its times.
Almost without exception, the earliest coinages in each region were of silver and
gold, and of relatively large denominations. Such coinage was treasure, and as such
belonged to the sphere of elite circulation: official payments, taxes, tribute, and fines,
religious offerings, dowries, and other customary payments. The alloy, weight and
designs of gold and silver coinage were always carefully adjusted and controlled.
By contrast, small change, whether in the form of very small silver coins, some-
times weighing a mere fraction of a gramme, or low-value copper and bronze coins,
generally made its first appearance rather late in any given region's history of coinage
use. Early British potin (cast bronze) coinage is only an apparent exception to this
rule, as the way it was used suggests that, despite its appearance, it was treated as a
valuable material, with a special and essentially restricted range of uses (Haselgrove
forthcoming). Small change proper seems generally to have been used for a much
wider range of transactions than the larger denominations of silver and all gold
coinage, and probably by a much larger number of people. It tends, for instance, to
be found amidst general settlement debris, suggesting use in the course of everyday
life on nucleated settlements (d. Kraay I964).
Rare glimpses by Mediterranean observers of Celtic societies before and around
the time at which they first began to strike coinage of their own afford valuable
insight into the social environment within which the earliest Celtic coinages were
used.
The second-century Be historian of Roman affairs, Polybius, describing some
of the early Celtic immigrants to northern Italy, long before the introduction of
coinage, said,
Their possessions consisted of cattle and gold, because these were the only things
they could carry about with them everywhere according to circumstances and
shift wherever they chose. They treated comradeship as of the greatest impor-
tance, those among them being the most feared and most powerful who were
thought to have the largest number of attendants and associates.
(Histories I1.I7)
A later observer, Poseidonios, writing in around 80 Be, described how in the
mid-second century Be, King Louernios of the Arverni in central Gaul, 'in an
attempt to win popular favour, rode in a chariot over the plains distributing gold and
silver to the tens of thousands of Celts who followed him', and in addition laid on a

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