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Photo Copyright Classical Numismatic Group, LLC
It’s sometimes said that Roman coins were the newspapers of their time, with the reverses carrying information about the emperor’s activities and conquests. The headlines on the coins of 46 AD announcing that Britain had been conquered were, with hindsight, a little bit premature, and the province continued to appear in the news (and on the coins) for the next three hundred years, leaving us with many coins that feature Britain in one way or another. This article is going to take a look at those coins.
Photo Copyright Classical Numismatic Group, LLC. Auction 460 lot 1047
All in all, fifteen emperors, spanning 300 years, minted coins about Britain. Some of the emperors minted a large number of coins about Britain, and some of them minted just one. Some of the coins explicitly mention Britain, while others are thought to refer to events in Britain without explicitly saying so. Some associations with Britain are just downright disputed, and I’ll go into the details why.
Photo Copyright Numismatica Ars Classica NAC AG Auction 106 Part I, Lot 991
A broad outline of what we’re going to cover is:
43 AD
79-81 AD
119-121 AD
134-136 AD
- The provinces of the Roman Empire in female form
- His arrival in various provinces (Adventus coins)
- The armies of the empire (Excecitvs coins)
142-144 AD
154-155 AD
184-185 AD
208-211 AD
269-271 AD
286-293 AD
293 AD
297 AD
307-314 AD
343 AD
Before we get started, this is a big article and I’m sure I will have missed something or made a mistake. Please get in touch if you have any comments to make.
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