Ancient Britain and the Invasions of Julius Caesar

by T. Rice Holmes

Coinage.

Foreign commerce as well as domestic trade were greatly stimulated by the introduction of coinage and by the development of a ruder form of currency. Towards the end of the fourth century before the Christian era the Greeks of Massilia had introduced into Gaul gold coins of Philip of Macedon, which bore on the obverse a representation of the head of Apollo wreathed in laurel, and on the reverse a charioteer driving a pair of horses with the name Philippos stamped underneath. On these coins the Gallic coinage was modelled, and the British coinage was derived mainly from that of Gaul or through Gaul from a Macedonian stater; for certain peculiarities are noticeable on our earliest coins which distinguish them from those of Gaul.[1020] Evidently a considerable time must have elapsed before the new art travelled from Southern to Northern Gaul, and again before it crossed the Channel; and it is only natural to find that the oldest and heaviest British coins weigh no more than a hundred and twenty grains, or thirteen grains lighter than the Philippus, although, on the other hand, they are heavier than Gallic coins which belong to the latter half of the second century before Christ.[1021] Until about a quarter of a century after Caesar’s invasion the British coins were uninscribed: indeed uninscribed coins were still current during the earlier years of the Roman occupation.[1022] Their weight gradually diminished; and gradually, owing to successive copying, the head of Apollo and his wreath, the charioteer, the chariot, and the horses became more and more conventionalized and degraded, the head in certain cases passing ultimately into a cruciform pattern or even into a four-leaved flower, the charioteer being evolved into pellets, and the pair of horses becoming first one, then more and more grotesque until it lost all resemblance to a quadruped. Die-sinkers (who were doubtless few) would use the same dies or follow the same general type during their working career; and new types appeared when their successors came to engrave new dies. By estimating the time which would have been required for these successive alterations, it has been calculated that the earliest British coins must have been struck about a hundred and fifty or perhaps two hundred years before the birth of Christ.[1023]

For many years the only coins of Britain were gold of two values, the smaller being a quarter of the weight of the larger;[1024] and it may be gathered from the testimony of Strabo[1025] and Tacitus[1026] that they were made, at all events in part, from metal extracted from the alluvial deposits of the Cornish peninsula. Coins of silver, bronze, and even tin were afterwards circulated, but probably not before the era of redoubled commercial activity which began when the British islands became more closely connected with the Continent in consequence of Caesar’s invasion: indeed many of the silver coins are little earlier than the time of Claudius.[1027] Specimens of all these metals are much scarcer than those of gold. Only two British tin coins are known to exist; and in the western counties no bronze coin has ever been found.[1028]

Specimens of the prototype of British gold coins have been found more frequently in Kent than in any other county; and it may be inferred that, as might have been expected, they were first struck in the more civilized district which was nearest to the Continent.[1029] For a long period indeed the gold currency was confined to the southern and eastern districts: before Caesar’s time there is no evidence that any tribes coined money except those whose territories lay south of a line drawn from the Wash to the Bristol Channel; and even from these the peoples of Gloucestershire, Northern Somersetshire, and Northern Wiltshire must probably be excluded.[1030] Uninscribed coins have indeed occurred as far north as Yorkshire,[1031] and as far west as Cornwall;[1032] but they had found their way thither from other tribes.[1033]

Many coins of British origin which have been discovered in France, especially in the Belgic territory,[1034] and many Gallic coins in South-Eastern Britain, bear further witness to the development of international trade.[1035]

Iron currency bars.

But coins were not the only medium of exchange. Caesar, in his description of the manners and customs of the Britons, remarked that some of them made use of iron bars of specified weights as a substitute for coins.[1036] Until a very recent period antiquaries were waiting for some lucky find which might corroborate the accuracy of Caesar’s statement, not knowing that the evidence was before their eyes and only needed interpretation. Within the last eighty years a large number of iron bars have been unearthed in Berkshire, Northamptonshire, Worcestershire, Gloucestershire, Somersetshire, Dorsetshire, Hampshire, and the Isle of Wight. Many of them were found on well-known sites of the Early Iron Age, such as the lake-village of Glastonbury, and the forts of Hod Hill and Spettisbury; and some of the hoards comprised very numerous specimens—amounting in two cases to about one hundred and fifty, and in a third to three hundred and ninety-four—which had been buried deep in the ground. A tiro might take them for swords; but to the experts who compare them with the known swords of the Late Celtic Period it is evident that they contain too much metal; and, moreover, they may be arranged, according to their weight, in three groups, the heaviest being twice as valuable as the intermediate, and four times as valuable as the lightest. Not a single specimen has come to light in the eastern and south-eastern counties, in which coins are most abundant.[1037]

Mining.

The British iron-mines of which Caesar speaks were situated in the Wealden Forest; and although they were not finally abandoned before the nineteenth century, it is probable that some of the pits which mark the site of the works were excavated by British miners.[1038] But the iron from which some of the currency-bars were wrought was obtained, in the opinion of an eminent metallurgist, from the Forest of Dean,[1039] and, as we shall presently see,[1040] those which were found in Northamptonshire may have been manufactured on the spot. Mining indeed was one of the principal industries of Britain. Tin was still exported, if not in About 100 B.C. Caesar’s time, at least as late as that of Posidonius;[1041] copper was still needed for bronze ornaments, horse-trappings, sword-sheaths, and other objects, and indeed in certain districts for cutting-tools;[1042] and although the numerous ‘pigs’ of lead which have been found in Staffordshire and Cheshire belong to the time of the Empire, the discovery of leaden celts and sword-pommels of the Bronze Age[1043] raises the presumption that the mines of those districts, of the Mendip Hills, Flintshire, and the neighbourhood of Matlock may have been worked even by the Britons.[1044]

Looking at all these tokens of industrial enterprise, one is prepared to find evidences of increased comfort and more Agriculture. settled conditions of life. Since the Bronze Age agriculture had undoubtedly made a notable advance. It is impossible to tell whether the Britons, like the Gauls, recognized private property in land;[1045] but archaeology has furnished abundant evidence, which confirms Caesar’s statement, that at all events in the south-eastern districts corn was grown in plenty. When he made his first expedition to Britain, his army, numbering at least twelve thousand men, reaped enough wheat in the near neighbourhood of Walmer to supply its wants for a fortnight or more; while in the following year he requisitioned from the people of Essex grain for four legions with their auxiliaries and seventeen hundred cavalry, which was delivered within a few days.[1046] An iron sickle and a ploughshare found in Bigbury camp near Canterbury;[1047] traces of terrace cultivation on the Sussex downs;[1048] grain of several kinds stored in Worlebury Fort, in the Glastonbury lake-village, and in Hunsbury, where also were found fragments of stone querns in such profusion that every family may well have possessed its own, bear witness to the industry of the British farmers.[1049] So also perhaps do the famous dene-holes of Kent, Essex, and Norfolk, whose purpose has been a theme of voluminous controversy, but of which the most satisfactory explanation seems to be that they were for the most part subterranean granaries, which may have been used as refuges in time of danger, and that the chalk extracted in the process of excavation was used, as Pliny says, for manuring fields.[1050] Under the necessity of cultivating fresh land considerable progress must have been made in clearing the forests; and axes, saws, and bill-hooks, with which the woodmen worked, are still to be seen.[1051] It is true that even in the more civilized south the great Wealden Forest, in which swine, guarded by fierce dogs, fed secure among wolves and foxes, badgers, and deer, still extended beyond the chalk downs from the neighbourhood of West Hythe to the eastern border of Hampshire, reached northward as far as Sevenoaks, and skirted the Surrey Hills; while great parts of Essex were overgrown with wood; another forest overshadowed the valley of the Kennet from Hungerford to Windsor; and the Isle of Ely was surrounded by broad meres, swelled by the heavier rains which fell in those days.[1052] But even in Essex much timber must have been removed to make room for the cornfields from which the Trinovantes supplied Caesar’s legions, and in Kent to form the denes in which cattle grazed; while of those myriad homesteads which Caesar passed on his devastating march not a few must have been built upon reclaimed land.