Trier/Milan/Britannia Connection

[John1]

A little before lock down I was lucky enough to be a part of finding a hoard of Roman coins in South Northamptonshire not far from Towcester. 

The coins are almost all 4th century, the youngest 402-ish. There is a distinct skew towards the mints of Trier and Milan. So a wild long shot.... are there any known units that might have roots in Britannia but were stationed in the Trier/Milan Areas towards the end of the 4th century. Or have there been any other hoards with this distribution found in the UK

The PAS report on the hoard can be found here:

https://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/.../id/974815

[Nathan Ross]

A little before lock down I was lucky enough to be a part of finding a hoard of Roman coins in South Northamptonshire not far from Towcester.

Exciting!

a distinct skew towards the mints of Trier and Milan.

Trier and Milan were the main mints for the western Roman empire, along with Lyons, so this isn't surprising. The London mint ceased production c.325, except for a brief period under the usurper Magnus Maximus.

We don't necessarily need a military explanation for the hoard - there's a belt of villas in the Towcester area that remained in occupation into the later 4th or even 5th century, so it was apparently an area of 'elite population'.

But several of the units from the late field army of Britain came from Gaul (and further afield) and one may perhaps have been billeted locally. Constantine III also took many units with him to Gaul in 406/7 - although I doubt any of them sent cash back home...

[MonsGraupius]

A little before lock down I was lucky enough to be a part of finding a hoard of Roman coins in South Northamptonshire not far from Towcester.

Nice find. All I can add is my personal thoughts, which is that a hoard like this probably was buried for safekeeping. In the same way as someone today might put their most valuable items in a safe before going on holiday, someone in the early 5th century, without modern safes would attempt to hide items by burying. But those hoards would be close to, or within houses.

But hiding wealth would be especially true of lone traders. Before going to a dodgy area, the trader would bury their accumulated wealth and proceed with the bare minimum to do business, so that if they were robbed, the bulk of their wealth could be retrieved. Unfortunately, they wouldn't survive all robberies - indeed people died just crossing rivers - and again, if you had to do business on the other side and return, you might bury most of your stash, for fear of losing it on the crossing and then pick it up on return.

Of course, some stashes are clearly religious as they occur around proven sacred sites.

[John1]

Thanks for these responses