The Origin of Some Ancient British Coin Types

Abstract

It has always been apparent that some (probably the majority) of the classicizing coin types of the British kings were taken from Roman republican and imperial issues. The best known example is, perhaps, the reverse of a stater of Tincommius which is thought to be the work of a Roman engraver. It shows a horseman with a javelin and is copied from a denarius of P. Crepusius. For cases of similar borrowings we may cite the head of Jupiter Ammon on bronze coins of Cunobelin, which appears on certain late republican denarii and aurei; the standing figure of Hercules on a silver coin issued by the same king, which was taken from a denarius of C. Vibius Varus; and a running lion on the reverse of a silver coin struck by Verica, that was almost certainly adapted from the reverse of a denarius issued in Gaul by Augustus for Legio XVI. This by no means exhausts the list, which also includes Neptune standing with his trident on another silver coin of Verica; the butting bull on issues of Tasciovanus, Cunobelin and Eppillus; the capricorn on a coin of Eppillus; Victory sacrificing a bull on an issue of Cunobelin; and virtually all the classicizing portraits on the obverses of the British dynastic coins.