Constantius Invasion Coin

Nice coin, still has some silvering left.

Thanks echizento - it does look like where the surface isn't pitted ( darn bronze diesease - curse the Northern European climate!) most of the silvering remains.

I think I've just die matched it to one of Jamesicus's coins too Difficult to tell but if you look at the spacing and the angles of 'FL VAL CO' and 'NOB C' on the obverse I think its exactly the same. Lots of matching features on the reverse too!

In late 286 or early 287AD Carausius (A respected Roman military commander) declared himself Emperor of Britain and Northern France thus creating the Britannic Empire. He was forced into doing this as Rome had sentenced him to death as he was suspected of keeping captured treasure for himself and of allowing pirates to carry out raids and enrich themselves before he took action against them.

Rome was, as you might expect not very happy about this and in 288 or 289AD Maximian attempted to invade and recapture Britain, he failed, miserably. Almost a decade later Constantius (Constantine's Father) again attempted to recapture Britannica. He succeeded in September 296 killing Carausius's successor Allectus.

Before the invasion it is thought that a number of coins were produced at an unknown location (probably a field camp where the invading troops were massed) by Lyon mint workers. These coins would be carried across the channel by the invading army to pay the troops and other associated costs. These coins were also perhaps to 'fill' the Britannic economy and speed the removal of Carausius and Allectus minted coins.

There are around 4000 variants of 'GENIO POPVLI ROMANI' coins, 16 of which (4 coins each with 4 different reverse legend breaks) are considered these 'made for the invasion coins'

Many thanks, considering how rare they are to spot 2 in 2 days is pretty amazing! Unfortunately every time I decide to tighten my belt and stop spending nice coins take my eye - this must be my last purchase for a while now, I need to save my pennies!

HA - famous last words. I know!

Your right - It had slipped my mind and is important to note, a full currency flush would also have been one of the drivers behind these coins being produced.

Along with the RIC 14s and 17s ('Invasion coins') I have a theory about the 15s, 16s, 18s, 19s, and 20s. I feel these coins have never been fully explained satisfactorily.

When Constantius invaded nobody would have known the outcome, Maximian knew this only too well, he tried and failed a few years earlier. Could the 14s and 17s have been produced to cover only the initial invasion, if this was a failure then no more coinage would be needed. If he was successful more coins would be needed to quickly fill towns and economies until local mints were at full production.

As Constantius conquered more and more land and populations its sensible to assume more and more currency would be needed to replace the domestic coinage. Could these 'other' coins either be a deliberately delayed planned action from the 'continental field mint' or even the Lyons workers minting as they travelled Britain with the conquering invasion army?

I have no idea if this idea has been explored before but not found anything similar on the net so far.




I agree, I was surprised to find it. I have however suspected for a while that these coins are rarer than RIC would suggest (17b is 'S' the rest are 'C'). In actively seeking these coins I would certainly not label them common, perhaps this match is a hint towards that.

Yes - but unfortunately so are another 150ish variants from 3 different mints so finding them can be hard and confirming them can make your head spin. London used no mint marks for a number of years for example. The whole area is also not particularly well covered in RIC etc.

I had hoped to put a link in here to the site Jamesicus has on the web so people could read more if they wanted to but when I visited last night to get the links all the pictures were missing and some of the pages wouldn't load.

The rest of his sites still seem active so not sure whats going on.