COINS OF THE BRITISH ISLES, COLONIES, AND COMMONWEALTH

Coins of the British Isles, colonies, and Commonwealth Ancient Britain The earliest coinage of Britain consisted of small, cast pieces of speculum, a brittle bronze alloy with 20 percent tin. These coins copied the bronze of Massilia (Marseille) of the 2nd century BC and circulated, mainly in southeastern Britain, early in the 1st century BC; their relationship with contemporary iron currency bars is uncertain. At the same time, uninscribed gold coins of the Gaulish Bellovaci, a tribe located near Beauvais, imitated from the famous gold stater of Philip II of Macedon, were being introduced, probably by trade. The first Belgic invasion, c. 75 BC, brought variants of these, from which arose a complex family of uninscribed imitations. The study of distribution in Britain has ascribed them to fairly well-defined tribal areas in the south and east; some are crude, but the best illustrate the peak of Celtic art in Britain. The gold was of variable purity. After the second Belgic invasion (following Caesar's raid in 55 BC) the coinage entered a historical phase through the addition (in Latin, and with Roman titles, etc.) of the names of kings. Roman influence under Augustus prompted the introduction of silver and copper to reinforce the gold and the Romanization of previously Celtic types. Claudius' conquest in AD 43 ended native coinage except for crudely cast billon pieces long continued in the Hampshire and Dorset area; the gold of the tribe of the Brigantes in what is now Yorkshire was the last to disappear. Roman Britain. Unofficial copies of Claudian bronze were produced in Britain to alleviate the shortage of official Roman coinage after the conquest. Thereafter, no coinage was produced until the reign of the usurper Carausius (AD 286293), who coined profusely in orthodox Roman fashion at Londinium (London) and elsewhere in gold, silver, and copper; the same was done briefly by Allectus, his murderer (AD 293296). Diocletian's London mint was continued under Constantine until AD 324; thereafter, except under Magnus Maximus (AD 383388), whose usurpation was legitimized by the Eastern emperor Theodosius I, Britain lacked an official mint, being supplied with coinage mainly from Gaul. Imitative bronze pieces, however, appeared in the 3rd century and continued to be made in the 4th.