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The Coin of Arcadius from Heddon-on-the-Wall

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

C. E. Stevens
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Extract

Romano-British archaeologists are now generally agreed in supposing that the final abandonment of Hadrian's Wall occurred about the time of the usurpation of Maximus in 383. This theory was first put forward by Dr. H. H. E. Craster in 1914, and it is supported by the results of the Birdoswald Excavations of 1929. It rests mainly on negative evidence, but it is evidence which was formidable in 1914 and is still more formidable to-day, since no coin later than 383 has ever been reported from the Wall—except the one which is the subject of this paper. Moreover it becomes evident that the reason for the cessation is historical and not numismatic, when it is realised that at other sites, some quite close to the Wall, the coin-series extends beyond 383. Romano-British archaeologists, therefore, impressed by the weight of the evidence, have assumed that the one exception to Dr. Craster's rule, the coin of Arcadius from Heddon-on-the-Wall, is a stray, the presence of which does not imply a garrison on the Wall at the time of its issue. Dr. Schultz, however, writing in this Journal, seems to imply that it is not a stray, but a testimony to the maintenance of a garrison on the Wall down to the fifth century.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 26 , Issue 1 , 1936 , pp. 71 - 73
Copyright
Copyright ©C. E. Stevens 1936. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 E.g. R. G. Collingwood Roman Britain, ed. 2, p. 45; Sir George Macdonald Roman Britain, 1914–28, pp. 71–2.

2 Arch. Journ. lxxi, 25–44.

3 Proc. Cumb. and Westm. Ant. and Arch. Soc. 2 xxx, 171.

4 Cf. Arch. Ael. 3 V, 356, n. 10.

5 Collingwood, R. G. in JRS XII, 76Google Scholar.

6 JRS XXIII, 43.

7 Cf. xviii Bericht der Röm.-Germ. Komm., p. 93, n. 2.

8 JRS x, 131–154.

9 I do not understand what Schultz means by saying (l.c.) ‘the fact that it stands alone gives it peculiar importance.’

10 Arch. Ael. 2 ii, vii = Proc. Soc. Ant. Newc. 1 i, 95–6 ( = PP. 106–7 of reprint).

11 This ‘collection’ of coins from Heddon may be compared with the collection from Haydon Bridge containing coins of Theodosius (Collingwood, JRS XII, 90). Here about thirty years elapsed between discovery and publication.

Mr. G. H. Askew, Keeper of the Coins to the Newcastle Society of Antiquaries, has kindly informed me that the Heddon coins have been merged in the Society's collections and are not specifically identifiable.