- Coinage -
discrete regional groupings took shape, each with its own characteristic repertoire
of types and styles, weights and metals (Allen and Nash 1980; Nash 1987). There are
still many areas, particularly in parts of continental Europe, in which coinage is
almost the only source of information for the Celts in the second century Be. This
is no accident: at that time many Celtic communities, like the immigrants to northern
Italy described by Polybius, seem to have invested a disproportionate amount of their
wealth in the sorts of movable or perishable goods and livestock that were necessary
to maintain social relationships and political hierarchies, but spent relatively little
on the sort of monumental building that readily attracted archaeological attention in
the past. In very recent years, however, painstaking archaeological research, aided
by aerial surveys, is gradually filling in the picture in selected areas.
One of the things that makes the absolute dating of Celtic coinages so difficult is
that they were almost certainly never issued on a regular annual basis, but were
instead produced in a series of discontinuous episodes, as and when they were
needed, to make distributions, mark special occasions, make customary payments or
alliance gifts, pay soldiers, and so on. Crises in political life, perhaps especially
surrounding changes of ruler, and periods of civil or external warfare were all likely
to be expensive times with very high coinage output, but almost nothing is known
for certain about the detailed history of the societies concerned that would help in
interpreting apparent fluctuations in the production of individual coinages. The
Gallic War with Caesar (58-51 Be) is one of the few adequately documented periods
of crisis that certainly did provoke enormous quantities of coinage in almost every
area of Gaul. It is therefore a valuable landmark in attempting to determine the
chronology of late Gaulish and early British coinage.
Caesar's successful conquest of Gaul in 52-51 Be brought an end to its inde-
pendent coinages. Gold went out of use immediately, and documentary evidence
suggests that a lot of what was then in existence was actually confiscated. The
Imperial biographer Suetonius reported the tradition that
in Gaul [Caesar] plundered large and small temples of their votive offerings,
and ... as a result collected larger quantities of gold than he could handle, and
began selling it for silver, in Italy and the provinces, at 750 denarii to the pound,
which was about two-thirds of the official exchange rate.
(Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Julius Caesar 54)
Suetonius may be suggesting that the price Caesar got for his gold was due to its
excessive quantity, but it should also be remembered that the standard Celtic gold
stater of the Gallic War period was debased by around one-third, which would also
account for a realistic lowering of bullion prices (Castelin 1974: 13). Within the new
Gallic provinces, several rather Romanized silver coinages and many local bronze
issues went on being produced until close to the end of the first century Be, when
Augustus's mint at Lugdunum took over as the sole official source of new coinage in
Gaul. At least another century was to elapse, however, before the last of the old
Celtic bronzes went completely out of circulation for everyday use.
Across the Channel, meanwhile, as Roman trading networks for slaves and raw
materials extended ever further afield, new centres of accumulated wealth emerged in
southern Britain, and the history of British coinage reveals some very interesting