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The Verulamium (1960) Hoard of ‘Barbarous Radiates’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2011

Harold B. Mattingly
Harold B. Mattingly
Affiliation:
University of Leeds
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Extract

This small hoard was found in the clay and rubble filling of a shallow cellar in a house in Insula XIX. It had presumably been lost in the course of demolition and rebuilding. It cannot match either in interest or importance the famous Verulamium Theatre Hoard which Tessa Wheeler published in 1937, but it is still well worth notice. The Theatre Hoard showed conclusively that even the crudest or smallest of radiate copies were in circulation before c. A.D. 300 and made it hard to argue any longer for the production of such coinage in post-Roman Britain. Other evidence has since proved that all radiate imitation was more or less contemporary—in Britain as in Gaul.

Type
Articles
Information
Britannia , Volume 2 , November 1971 , pp. 196 - 199
Copyright
Copyright © Harold B. Mattingly 1971. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 I would like to thank Richard Reece for first telling me about this hoard and Professor S. S. Frere for allowing me to study it at leisure, with a view to publication. The hoard was found in Trench XII, which is marked in Insula XIX on the plan in Antiq. Journ. xli (1961), 73.Google Scholar

2 See T. V. Wheeler, Num. Chron. 1937, 211–26: Mattingly, H. B., N. Staffs. Journ. Field Studies iii (1963), 26 f, with Num. Chron. 1964, 190–9 and 1967, 62 ff.Google Scholar

3 For the Bonosus attribution see RIC v, 2, p. 579 with Pl. xx, 15–16. For the disproof see J.-B. Giard, Rev. Num. (1967), 155 f. and 174 f. with Pls. xvi, 17–21 and xvii, 1.

4 For further illustration of this group see N. Staffs. Journ. Field Studies iii (1963), Pl. ii, 5–15: Num. Chron. 1964, Pl. xvi, 31–33 and 1967, Pl. vii, 43 f.Google Scholar: Sussex Arch. Colls, cv (1967/1968), Pl. i, 19–27Google Scholar. For discussion see ibid., 60.

5 For this group see Num. Chron. 1964, 191 and 1967, 67.

6 See N. Staffs. Journ. Field Studies iii (1963), Pl. iii, 14–18 and my discussion in Num. Chron. 1964, 198f.Google Scholar

7 For these figures see Num. Chron. 1937, 215 and Pls. xiii–xxx.

8 See Num. Chron. 1967, 62–69 (Paternoster Row) and N. Staffs. Journ. Field Studies iii (1963), 25–27 (Lightwood).

9 For this dating of the hoards see N. Staffs. Journ. Field Studies iii (1963), 21; Num. Chron. 1964, 195 and 1967, 63 f.Google Scholar

10 The average module of the Whitchurch hoard coins is 9 to 10 mm.: see Sutherland, Num. Chron. 1934, 94. The Mere hoard (Num. Chron. 1934, 94 and 300 ff.) has 56 copies in the range from 12·5 to 10 mm., 34 between 9·5 and 6 mm. These two are about halfway between the Calverton and the Worthing hoards.

11 See Sutherland's good remarks in Num. Chron. 1934, 99 ff. There were only nineteen copies of each type in the Paternoster Hoard, two copies of the Altar reverse and six ol Pietas Augg. in Verulamium (1960). My notes on the Lightwood hoard record nine copies of the Altar type and thirty-seven of Pietas Augg. The two types are heavily represented in the Calverton, Hove and Worthing hoards—often on minims. In the Theatre Hoard nos. 1–58 are Altar copies, nos. 93–265 derive from Pietas Augg. See Pls. xiii–xviii.

12 See Num. Chron. 1964, 191 and 196 with n. 5.

13 See Mattingly, H. and Stebbing, W. P. D., Num. Notes and Mon. lxxx (1938), pp. 5 and 48 f., no. 172 (with Pl. iii, 15). The other two left-facing busts are nos. 271 and 507. For the Paternoster specimen see Num. Chron. 1967, 62 and Pl. vi., 5.Google Scholar

14 For Coygan Camp see G. C. Boon in G. J. Wainwright, Coygan Camp, Cambrian Arch. Ass. 1967, 116–23. A few copies in Verulamium (1960) seem to preserve traces of silvering. Normally such an enriched surface is dislodged during cleaning.

15 See op. cit., 122 f. Boon thinks that the counterfeiters may have foisted their minims on the public at a time when not enough genuine reform coins had come into circulation and when there may still have been uncertainty as to what exactly the reform denomination was.