The Celtic World (Routledge Worlds)

• Coinage -

Table 14.1 Principal Mediterranean prototypes for Celtic coinage

Model

Philip II of Macedon (359-336 Be) gold
staters (+ posthumous types until 3rd
century Be)
Philip II lifetime + posthumous silver
tetradrachms
Alexander III (356-32 Be) gold staters
Alexander III silver tetradrachms
Massalia 4th-century Be silver drachmae

Massalia 4th-century Be silver obols
Philip III (323-3I6 Be) silver tetradrachms
Tarentum (c.334-272 Be) gold and silver
Syracuse (Agathokles: 3 I7-289 Be) gold
Rhodes 3rd-century Be silver drachmae
Emporion silver drachmae (C.246-218 Be)

Roman Republican denarii (after c.rso Be)

Roman Republican silver

Where copied

I Third-early second century Be

Switzerland gold

Rhineland gold

Central Gaul gold

Romania/Danube Basin silver

Central Europe gold

Danube Basin silver

Northern Italy silver

Languedoc/ Aquitaine silver

Rhone valley/Alps silver

Bulgaria silver

Pi cardy gold

Normandy gold

Languedoc silver

Languedoc/ Aquitaine silver

2 Mid-late second century Be

N oricum silver

RhOne valley silver

3 First century Be

Britain, all metals (after C.20 Be)

history of the first coinages of north-western France early evidence for the martial

prowess of the ancestors of the Belgae whom Julius Caesar was much later to

encounter as formidable, almost invincible, opponents.

Celtic warriors did not enter mercenary service only for pay, but for the sake of any

booty to be won and for the prestige that would accrue to success. They not only

served for Mediterranean employers during the century of continuous warfare that

culminated in the wars between Carthage and Rome of 264-24I and 218-20I Be, but

also for one another. Roman conquests in the Mediterranean sphere provoked not only

the Greeks and Carthage, but also the Cisalpine Celts to hire transalpine mercenaries.

The two largest tribes [of Cisalpine Gaul], the Insubres and Boii, made a league

and sent messengers to the Gauls dwelling among the Alps and near the Rhone,

who are called Gaesatae because they serve for hire .... They urged and incited

their kings ... to make war on Rome, offering them an immediate large sum in

gold, and for the future pointing out the great prosperity of the Romans,

and the vast wealth that would be theirs if they were victorious. They had no

difficulty in persuading them ...

(Polybius, Histories II.22ff.)

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