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Coin Hoards and the Pattern of Violence in the Late Republic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2013

Michael Crawford
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Extract

There is nothing surprising about the fact that coin hoards are among the commonest material remains of classical civilisation. In the absence of anything like modern bank accounts it was inconvenient to hold money except in the form of coin. The uncertainty of life in the ancient world is an adequate explanation in general terms of the loss of caches of money and hence of their survival to be discovered in modern times. But there are great fluctuations from one period to another in the numbers of hoards known to us and it should be possible to point to the circumstances which led in certain periods to an increase in the number of caches buried and not recovered by those who had deposited them.

A cache of money was doubtless only buried in exceptional circumstances. The normal place to keep money was in an arca, armarium, loculus or olla somewhere in the house. It was thus available for use as need or opportunity arose. Burial was only undertaken for special reasons, vel lucri causa vel metus vel custodiae. Plautus' Aulularia illustrates burial because of fear, his Trinummus burial for safe-keeping. Burial (as opposed to simple holding of money) for the sake of gain is hard to envisage. The parable of the talents in the New Testament explicitly rejects the idea. That it was abnormal to bury a cache of money appears also from the fact that most of the hoards which have been discovered were not associated with traces of habitation. The evidence of Plautus shows that burial indoors and burial out of doors were both possible. But hoards are only occasionally found during excavations of settlements and those that turn up casually do not often seem to be accompanied by remains of buildings.

Type
Research Article
Information
Papers of the British School at Rome , Volume 37 , November 1969 , pp. 76 - 81
Copyright
Copyright © British School at Rome 1969

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References

1 The expression ‘coin hoard’ is not entirely satisfactory since it carries implications about the way in which the cache of money was put together. It should be understood as referring simply to a group of coins deposited on one occasion. Speculation on the history of coin hoards prior to their deposition, on how they were put together and what type of hoards they were, seems futile.

2 For instance, Cicero, , ad Att., i, 9Google Scholar, 2 (arca); pro Cael., 52; pro Clu., 179; in Verr., iv, 27 (armarium); Martial, xiv, 12, 1 (loculus); Cicero, , ad Fam., ix, 18Google Scholar, 4 (olla, the contents surely intended for immediate use). The Greeks used a κιβωτός, for instance, Lysias, xii, 10.

3 Digest, 41, 1, 31, 1.

4 Plautus, Aul., 608–9; Trin., 149–51.

5 Matthew 25, 14.

6 Hoards linked with the destruction of a settlement are more numerous—see Appendix.

7 It is true that the accidental discovery of a hoard, probably followed by an attempt not to surrender it to the police, does not make for perfect recording of the archaeological context.

8 Cicero, de sen., 21.

9 Plautus, Aul., 6–14.

10 Appian, , BC, iv, 73Google Scholar; cf. Diodorus, xix, 107, 4, for Agathocles demanding money at Gela; Cicero, , ad Att, xi, 25, 3Google Scholar; A. Blanchet, RN, 1936, 265 for a hoard from Württemberg buried with the note: ‘Der Schwedt ist komme, hat alz mitgenomme, hat auch wolle hawe, I habs vergrabe. 1634. Bozehart.’

11 Tacitus, , Ann., xvi, 1–3Google Scholar.

12 For hoards directly connected with violence see Appendix.

13 The attempt of Th. Fischer, Schw. Münzblätter 1968, 9, to establish formal criteria for distinguishing hoards buried after an interval seems to me wholly unsuccessful.

14 Crawford, M. H., Roman Republican Coin Hoards (London, 1969)Google Scholar, no. 118.

15 For a detailed discussion of this date see Crawford, M. H., Roman Republican Coinage (CambridgeCrossRefGoogle Scholar, orthcoming), Introduction.

16 M. H. Crawford, Roman Republican Coin Hoards, no. 390.

17 An unduly pessimistic view is taken by H. Gebhart, etc., Jahrb. Num. Geldgeschichte, 1956, 67.

18 The pattern of the hoards must always be presented in its entirety—the presentation of isolated examples by J. Gricourt, Rev. Ét. Anciennes, 1954, 366 is highly unsatisfactory. For a tabular presentation of Romano-British coin hoards, though without detailed analysis, see Robertson, A. S., Essays in Roman Coinage presented to Harold Mattingly (Oxford, 1956), 263–4Google Scholar.

19 The exiguous number of purely Greek hoards from Italy, etc., in this period are not included—they can in any case not be closely dated.

20 The dates are those adopted in M. H. Crawford, Roman Republican Coin Hoards, Tables i–xviii. It is worth noting that the intelligibility of the pattern of the hoards provides some corroboration of the dating there worked out.

21 Contrast the paucity of the hoard material and historical documentation available to Christ, K., Antike Münzfunde Südwestdeutschlands (Heidelberg, 1960), 140–3Google Scholar.

22 Plutarch, Caes., 33, 1; Appian, , BC, ii, 35Google Scholar. On recruiting in the late Republic, see P. A. Brunt, JRS, 1962, 69. See also Digest, 41, 2, 44, pr. Peregre prqfecturus pecuniam in terra condiderat.

23 See Polybius, xxxv, 4, for officers' reluctance to serve in Spain in 151, presumably because the mortality rate was high.

24 S. Bolin, Ber. Röm.-Germ. Kommission, 1929, 96 rejects this need for caution. For some sensible remarks, marred by an undue concern with supposed economic reasons for burial of hoards, see Thirion, M., Les Trésors monétaires gaulois et romains trouvés en Belgique (Bruxelles, 1967), 26–31Google Scholar.

25 Dio, xli, 38, 1. The ban, which would surely just lead to increased hoarding, formed part of Caesar's debt-legislation, on which see M. W. Frederiksen, JRS, 1966, 128.

26 Tabaczynski, S., Annales, xviii. 2, 1962, 231Google Scholar, suffers from this illusion.

27 I should like to thank P. A. Brunt for valuable comment; the conclusions remain my responsibility