BRITAIN, THE DUROTRIGES, billon stater, circa 60 BC – 20 AD

DescriptionThe Durotriges occupied part of the southern coast of Britain, where they farmed and made coins. They were in a good position to be middlemen between Continental traders and the British hinterland. But they were also the first to be conquered when the Romans invaded.Celts in Europe found that they liked the idea of coins and started making them themselves. Imitations of Greek and later Roman coins eventually developed into indigenous types.The Celts came out of northern Central Asia as part of the horses and iron nomadic wave of the 8th century BC and later. They found that they liked the pretty Greek coins and made sometimes fanciful imitations of their own.“Ancient Coins” includes Greek and Roman coins and those of neighbors and successors, geographically from Morocco and Spain all the way to Afghanistan. Date ranges for these begin with the world’s earliest coins of the 8th century BC to, in an extreme case, the end of Byzantine Empire, 1453 AD.