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The Numismatic Evidence for the Post-Agricolan Abandonment of the Roman Frontier in Northern Scotland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2011

Andrew S. Hobley
Andrew S. Hobley
Affiliation:
20, Ellison Road, Barnes, London SW13 oAD
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Extract

The series of forts which define the northern frontier of Britain after the recall of Agricola were abandoned before their construction had been completed. The latest coins found on these sites are bronze dupondii and asses of Domitian in mint or nearly mint condition, marked COS.XII (A.D. 86). It seems that as the coins were almost mint when lost these forts were abandoned in either late A.D. 86 or early A.D. 87 (see FIG. 1). There is now new numismatic evidence to support this and to cast further light on this period of Romano-British history. Recent work on the Roman coins from the Sacred Spring at Bath by David Walker has shown that the distribution by date of the bronze coins of Domitian follows a common and distinctive pattern throughout the province.

Type
Articles
Information
Britannia , Volume 20 , November 1989 , pp. 69 - 74
Copyright
Copyright © Andrew S. Hobley 1989. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 Frere, S.S., Scottish Arch. Forum 12 (1981), 89.Google Scholar

2 Pitts, L.F. and St Joseph, J.K., Inchtuthil, Britannia Monograph 6 (London, 1985), 276.Google Scholar

3 Pitts and St Joseph, op. cit. (note 2), 285; Robertson, A. S., P.S.A.S. cxiii (1983), 419.Google Scholar

4 Walker, D.R. in Cunliffe, B., The Temple of Sulis Minerva at Bath Vol. 2 O.U.C.A. Monograph (1988).Google Scholar

5 Unpubl. PhD on the distribution pattern of Roman bronze coins in the Western Empire A.D. 81–192, at the Institute of Archaeology, London.

6 The sites are Bath, Caerleon, Chester, Cirencester, Colchester, Lincoln, London, Richborough, Silchester, Verulamium and Wroxeter, with a total of 511 datable bronze coins of Domitian.

7 The dupondius of Domitian AD 95–6 from Camelon (Robertson, op. cit. (note 3), 409) came from an Antonine pit (V. Maxfield pers. com.) the only other possible exception is the coin from Inchtuthil, believed to be COS.XIII, recent examination has not confirmed this (Pitts and St Joseph, op. cit. (note 2), 285).

8 Coins nos. 163 and 170 in Curie, J., A Roman frontier post and its people — the fort of Newstead (Glasgow, 1911), 405–06.Google Scholar

9 Coin no. 160, Curie, op. cit. (note 8). There are also four other datable unstratified bronze coins of Domitian from Newstead.

10 Frere, S.S., Britannia, a History of Roman Britain (1974), 139 note 20.Google Scholar

11 Coins from Chester were examined by kind permission of Dr Lloyd-Morgan of the Grosvenor Museum, Chester. Material from Wroxeter can be found in the excavation reports of Bushe-Fox (1912–14).

12 The figures are AD. 86 (COS.XII) Chester 16 coins (348% of the site total), Wroxeter 17 coins (63%); A.D. 87 (COS.XIII) Chester 18 coins (39–1%), Wroxeter 2 coins (74%); site totals - Chester 46 datable bronze coins of Domitian, Wroxeter 27 coins.

13 Quite how many legionaries were at Wroxeter in 86 is another problem, Inchtuthil had sufficient accommodation in the legionary and labour camps for the whole of the XXth. (Pitts and St Joseph, op. cit. (note 2), 243).

14 Assuming that the legion is paid only in dupondii and asses (their ratio in the site finds is roughly 1:2), that it is 5,000 strong, and that all men receive 300 denarii the number of coins needed for one year's pay for one legion is over 18 million, a weight of some 210 tons.

15 Sea-transport from Rome to Marseille, river-transport up the Rhône and Saône, ox-wagon past Dijon to the Yonne, river-transport down the Seine to the Channel, then round Lands End and up the Severn; a legion would take almost 3 months to march this distance.

16 The figures are COS.XII (AD. 86) 35 coins, 53% of total; COS.XIII (A.D. 87) 6 coins, 91% of total; the total number of datable bronze coins of Domitian is 66.

17 Bushe-Fox, J.P., Fourth Report of the Excavations at the Roman Fort at Richborough, Kent (Oxford, 1949), 47.Google Scholar

18 Breeze, D., The Northern Frontiers of Roman Britain (1982), 62.Google Scholar

19 Robertson, A.S., ‘Roman Signal Stations’, Trans. Perths. Soc. Nat. Hist. (Special Issue 1973), 14–29.Google Scholar

20 S. Frere, op. cit. (note 1), 89–91.

21 Tacitus, Agricola, 22.

22 Agricola, 23.

23 Tacitus in the Agricola mentions the Orkneys (Chap. 10), Thule (10), Anglesey (14 and 18), the Tay (22), Clyde (23), Forth (23 and 25), Mons Graupius (29) and Truncelensis Portus (38), not exactly a detailed geography of Britain.

24 Agricola's governorship takes up 44% of the chapters of the book. A quarter of this is taken up with the battle of Mons Graupius, and another quarter with the pre-battle speeches, more pages of rhetoric than of history.