This paper considers a new corpus of 490,154 Roman coins (site finds) which have been recorded from England and Wales. The corpus provides British and regional means to aid in the preparation of coin reports in line with Historic England guidelines, along with spatial data providing new opportunities for research. The methods of data collection will be detailed and some of the possibilities this dataset can provide presented through a number of case studies. Through the consideration of applied numismatic analyses, the social distribution of the material and, crucially, the spatial distribution of Roman coinage, we can identify new trends and patterns. Case studies evaluating the fourth century will emphasise the changing importance of settlements in Roman Britain and identify those linked with the late Roman state. Furthermore, the retraction of coinage distributions in the second half of the fourth century will be explored. Building on the national and site type means explored within the paper, the full dataset has been made available in a range of forms on the Archaeology Data Service and in an interactive map developed by Maploom.

This paper presents a new approach to an old problem, the provincial reception of the image of Roman emperors. Applying 3D computer modelling, we captured the portrait features of Hadrian as represented on coinage minted for the British province, produced a 3D model from a coin and compared it with the bronze head of Hadrian found in London. The aim was to test the possibility, previously posited by other scholars, that the London portrait might have been produced by an artisan who used coin portraits of the emperor as his main – if not only – model. More generally, the paper examines the dependencies of coinage and sculpture on shared models and applies new technology to Roman portrait studies.

Following a review of the etymology and modern usage of the term ‘arbitrage’, this article explores the relevance of historical context to possible instances of ancient arbitrage activity. Types of possible ‘arbitrage’ associated with the use of overvalued coinage in regions of Greek influence are considered. Comparison with Roman civilization reveals the relevance of social attitudes and legal institutions to the ability to execute arbitrage trades. Specific attention is given to the possibility of arbitrage across the Roman frontier to India and the impact of debasements during the imperial period. Recognizing that sources prior to early modern times are scant, numismatic, epigraphic and literary evidence that is available to make inferences about ancient arbitrage activity is assessed.

Fiscal explanations often given for Rome's first coins fail to account for the shape of monetary development. Nothing in the mid-republican budget matches the small scale and sporadic production of Roman coins during the early third century, or coinage's rapid expansion in the lead-up to the Second Punic War. Instead, I locate early Roman coinage within a broader reconfiguration of wealth and political power during the early phases of imperial expansion. Coins facilitated the exchange of wealth in the absence of strong social ties; conquest opened up Roman society to vast wealth of this order while also sparking debate about wealth's integration into the political community. Archaeological and textual evidence permits us to trace the contested and uneven development of elite accommodation to impersonal wealth during the third century. This context, I argue, offers the best explanation for Rome's initial coins.

This paper makes two arguments. The first is that Trajan deliberately orchestrated the dedication of his Column on 12 May, the anniversary of the dedication of the Temple of Mars Ultor, to coincide with the beginning of a new war against Parthia in a.d. 113. The second is that although most modern commentators focus on the function of Mars Ultor as avenger of Caesar, the evidence of his actual invocation from the late first century b.c. through the third century a.d. more strongly supports another interpretation: as agent of vengeance against foreign enemies, and against Parthia/Persia in particular.