CARAUSIUS AND ALLECTUS:

THE BRITISH USURPERS

 CARAUSIUS AND
ALLECTUS
The British Usurpers

P.J.Casey

With translations of the texts by R.S.O.Tomlin

B.T. BATSFORD LTD • LONDON

 © P.J.CASEY 1994
First published 1994
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.
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available from the British Library

ISBN 0-203-97435-2 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0 7134 7170 0 (Print Edition)

 Contents

List of Figures v
List of Plates v

Introduction 1
1 The Roman Empire in the Third Century 6
2 Britain in the Third Century 14
3 The Date and Duration of the Revolt 29
4 The Literary Narrative 36
5 The Ideology of Carausian and Allectan Coin Types 45
6 The Evidence of the Coinage 59
7 Narrative and Archaeology I: the Revolt 79
8 Narrative and Archaeology II: the Second Continental Episode 96
9 The Shore Forts 105
10 Allectus 116
11 Aftermath 129
12 Ships and Naval Warfare 145
13 Carausius II 157
14 Carausius and Allectus in the Post-Roman World 162

Appendix: The Literary Sources— select translations 185

Bibliography and Abbreviations 193
Index 201
 List of Illustrations

Figures

1 The decline of the gold and silver coinage 19

2 Sixth-century Christian tombstone, Penmachno 38
3 Finds of Carausian coinage in Gaul 62
4 Finds of coins of the Rouen mint in Britain 64
5 The British legions in Gaul 84
6 The Carausian defences of Boulogne 98
7 The topography of the Roman port of Boulogne 102
8 The Saxon Shore forts 106
9 Reculver fort 107
10 Burgh Castle 109
11 Pevensey Castle 109
12 Late third-century coin deposits in Saxon Shore forts 113
13 Finds of Allectan coins in Gaul 117
14 Allectan building sites in London 123
15 Tetrarchic building inscription from Birdoswald 136
16 A hippago 147
17 The Roman myoparonis 152

Plates (Between pages 80 and 81)

Coins of Aurelian, Tetricus I, Carinus, Constantius I, Diocletian, Maximian

Coins of Carausius
Coins of Carausius, Maximian
Coins of Carausius, Maximian, Allectus
Coins of Carausius, Maximian, Diocletian, Allectus
Coins of Carausius, Maximian, Diocletian
Medallions of Constantius I, Constantine I
Coins of Allectus, Postumus, Constantius I
Coins of Diocletian, Constantine I, ‘Carausius II', Constantius II, Constantine
I, Giovanni Pesaro
a St Peter’s Hill, London, foundations of Allectan date
b St Peter’s Hill, London, foundations and oak piles
c Milestone of Carausius
vi

d Portchester Castle
e Fourth-century boat from Nydam
f Mosaic of Aeneas from Low Ham villa
g The title page of de Peyster’s work on Carausius
h Engraving of the assassination of Carausius
i Boulogne in the eighteenth century
j Boulogne: the setting of the Roman fortress
 INTRODUCTION

THIS BOOK BRINGS TOGETHER THE evidence from the literary,

numismatic and archaeological spheres of a relatively little known yet
extraordinary episode in the history of Roman Britain. For a decade the island
achieved an independence which threatened the stability of the empire, brought
the constitutional and administrative reforms of Diocletian into question and
almost certainly delayed their full implementation. On two occasions, during
these ten years, coastal areas of Gaul formed part of the separatist dominion. The
urgent need to bring the revolt in Britain to an end led to the creation of a second
tier of imperial rulers, designated heirs to the joint emperors. In the West
Constantius Chlorus was promoted specifically to suppress the revolt. In the East
Galerius was selected to deal with the encroaching threat of Persia. Constantius’s
success was instrumental in opening the road to power for his son Constantine,
who used the province recovered by his father as the base for his own bid for
imperial recognition. It was the battle-hardened army of the father which threw
its support behind the son who, it can be argued, through the adoption of
Christianity as the state religion shaped the world in which we still live.
The independence of Britain during the rule of Carausius and his successor
Allectus was based on naval power. These rulers controlled the sea lanes of the
English Channel and the North Sea and maintained what was probably the most
effective naval force to exist in the Roman world after serious naval warfare
ceased in the reign of Augustus. There had been previous attempts to found
regimes based on naval power, notably by Demetrius Poliorcetes and Sextus
Pompey, but neither of these charismatic leaders secured popular support nor did
they enjoy the resources of a fertile land base, equipped with an administrative
and industrial infrastructure of sufficient sophistication to support their naval
forces. Indeed the absence of such resources drove them to piratical expedients in
search of the wherewithal with which to maintain their forces. In the aftermath of
the defeat of the rebellion strategic decisions were taken which had an impact on
the north-western provinces in the fourth century and which, arguably, made
them less resilient to the naval attacks mounted on them by Scots, Saxon and
Pictish raiders. The abolition of a unified naval command such as that enjoyed by
Carausius, and its replacement by individual fleets attached to coastal forts,
reduced Roman response to seaborne raiders to a reactive strategy rather than an
2 THE BRITISH USURPERS

aggressively campaigning one. Despite rhetorical protestations to the contrary

the coasts of Gaul and Britain were subject to frequent and devastating attack
throughout the century following the overthrow of the British regime.
Whatever the truth behind the causes of the revolt of Carausius, and these
remain obscure, it serves to highlight one of the growing contradictions in the
continued existence of Rome’s empire, the increased diversity of its constituent
parts submerged below a thin covering of generalized romanitas. This diversity
was recognized by Diocletian himself whose division of the empire between an
eastern half, over which he retained direct control, and a western half which
devolved to Maximian, effectively acknowledged the existence of a Hellenistic
and a Celtic/Germanic empire. Within the context of the latter, Britain retained a
distinctive character of its own which was recognized in antiquity and
commented upon, with contemptuous irony, by a number of contemporary
commentators. The very location of Britain placed it beyond the bounds of
Ocean, the sea which encompassed the land mass of the ancient world. Despite
the fact that daily commerce existed between Britain and Gaul before and after
the establishment of Roman power on the Channel coast, Britain continued to be
regarded as outside the bounds of the civilized world. In spite of Julius Caesar’s
well-publicized expeditions to Britain, in AD 43 Claudius’s invasion army
refused to embark on the grounds that they were being taken beyond the known
world. The inhabitants themselves enjoyed a poor reputation, though Tacitus said
that they were cleverer and more adaptable than the Gauls. A document of the
Trajanic period, found in a fort on the northern frontier, refers to them with the
demeaning epithet ‘Britunnculi’—little Britons—poor fighters who run around
shaking their spears ineffectually. Generally comment is adverse: the climate
dismal, the inhabitants dishonest; but the wonder of the inclusion of even distant
Britain within the empire of the Roman people never diminished.
Ownership of Britain, a disappointment in terms of mineral resources, a drain
on the finances of the state, populated by natives who even made poor slaves,
was regarded, in a perverse way, as a measure of the virtus of the Roman people
and their qualification to hold imperial power elsewhere. Invested with such
symbolic value, Britain was not a territory to be abandoned casually, the fact of
possession of Britain being too deeply embedded in imperial ideology. The
recovery of the island, according to the panegyric which celebrated the
reconquest in AD 296, rectified a situation which was an affront to the empire as
a whole; the eternal light of Romanitas was restored to an island which had been
benighted under the shadow of revolt. Her peoples were not to be abandoned to
unlicensed savagery but once again to be enfolded in the embrace of imperial law
and civilized human relationships. These blessings were restored as the result of
sacrifices made on behalf of the Britons by their fellow citizens of the empire.
Despite the seriousness of the event in Roman terms, it is no surprise that the
reigns of Carausius and Allectus have failed to take root in the British historical
psyche. The sources are scant, the episode virtually suppressed by contemporary
imperial historians and the protagonists survive as shadowy figures illuminated
 INTRODUCTION 3

only by the feeble light of hostile commentators. Access to the story is made
difficult by the nature of the surviving non-literary evidence, which is almost
entirely numismatic. The numismatist is normally thought of by historians and
archaeologists less as a contributor of primary evidence, ideas or historical
synthesis and more as a classificatory specialist. A scientist in his own right, the
numismatist has been marginalized in the evolution of the explication of the
historical process and thus a primary source of information has been largely
neglected. This factor must loom large in any consideration of the relative neglect
of Carausian studies; the body of coin material is formidable, apparently
confused, poorly documented in the available catalogues and contaminated, in
the minds of literary scholars, by its whimsical use in the past. Overcoming these
prejudices requires a clear statement of numismatic methodology, a careful
weighing of the value of individual components of coin evidence in relation to
other sources and, it must be bluntly stated, some small effort on the part of the
reader.
Britain is rich in national heroes, some fictional some of historical reality, who
enshrine national characteristics. From time to time these iconic beings find
sublime expression in literature or political debate, but for the most part they
exist in a hazy limbo. Nevertheless, popular heroes are powerful figures in
defining national consciousness. The transmission of the specific legend is a
matter of historical chance and the defining element may in itself be trivial. King
Alfred’s lack of culinary skill hardly constitutes his most important achievement,
which must be accounted the stemming of the Norse conquest of England, whilst
Boudica’s revolt against Rome is a relatively unimportant episode in either
British or Roman imperial history; yet, under the name Boadicea, she has a place
in popular legend, a commemoration in leaden verse by Dibdin and a much
photographed statue in the shade of Big Ben; the name of Tacitus, the historian
who immortalized her, is known only to scholars. Carausius and Allectus have
not made it to the iconic first rank but have from time to time surfaced as
representatives of national aspiration or political factions. The full treatment of
this aspect of the Carausian episode occupies the second half of this book. In the
centuries during which insular political debate was paramount, the Carausian
episode held its place in literary and historical discussion, and legendary
accretions were grafted on to the bare historical framework in order to
manipulate the present by recourse to a fictitious past. By contrast the academic
debates of the eighteenth century accurately reflect the trivialization of classical
scholarship and a downgrading of the legendary past in a period of dynamic
commercial and industrial growth. When, in the nineteenth century, scholarship
was again turned to social use, to intellectualize the acquisition of empire and to
educate its rulers, it was to well-documented episodes of the ancient past, that
were seen as being of a morally elevated nature, that the tutors of the colonial
administration turned for their material, not to squalid manoeuvrings from what
was perceived as a period of imperial degeneracy. Thus events which defined the
insularity of Britain fell in desuetude, since they served no socially useful
4 THE BRITISH USURPERS

intellectual purpose. The revival of Carausian studies coincided with a return to

insularity and a redefinition of political horizons.
In attempting to summarize current knowledge of the Carausian episode one
must be only too aware of the potential for criticism. Archaeologists may find the
dependence on texts, with all the problems of credibility which they throw up, to
be a retreat to the practices of a former age of scholarship; an exercise in
historicism of a sort which many fervently hoped had passed away from the field
of Romano-British studies for ever. On the other had, classicists may find the
reliance on archaeological evidence equally distasteful with, to their minds,
unsupported speculation deriving from mute and ambiguous material remains.
For their part numismatists may find the use of their specialism over optimistic,
if not utterly jejeune. Having set up these hypothesized critical strawmen an
attempt should be made to justify to them the choice of material and explain the
theoretical stance from which it has been approached.
As for the choice of material itself the justification must be bluntly stated: that
is that, for the present, there is no more. Like Nennius, the author has ‘heaped up
all that I could find’. The quality of this material is generally poor and the
literary sources, specifically the panegyrics, should be approached with a caution
which some might claim should verge on incredulity. The numismatic material
may seem equally ambiguous to the non-specialist, but it has an ambiguity
independent of the literary evidence and in its spatial distribution offers an insight
into events not otherwise vouchsafed. Insofar as the coin evidence offers direct
evidence for the political motives and actions of the protagonists, a path of
reserve and caution has been pursued. On the other hand, where the occurrence of
dated coinage in well-founded contexts is available, such as in the case of the
coinage of the Rouen mint, this has been exploited to the full. The very richness
of the coinage of Carausius and Allectus, the variety of known types, the
multiplicity of iconographic detail and the rapidity of new discovery, imposes
limitations on its use in a work which tries to strike a balance between the three
branches of evidence—literary, numismatic and archaeological. A work entirely
devoted to the coinage would be both unhelpful to the general reader and quite
beyond the abilities of the present author. Indeed, it has been the aim of this work
to demonstrate that the use of a variety of classes of evidence, no one of which is
as strong as the combination of the whole, can be used to achieve a coherent
picture without resort to speculation of the ‘we should surely be justified in
assuming that…' school of history. At best we can claim that we are decoding
some sort of telephone message from the past—albeit on a very poor line.
This book falls into a number of sections. Following a general sketch of
Britain in the century of the revolt and a discussion of the military resources of
the island, the ‘accepted’ version of events is stated. This is then examined in the
light of recent advances in numismatic and archaeological studies in both Britain
and France. A new translation of the contemporary sources is provided and these
are examined in the light of the independent coin and excavation data. An attempt
to view the aftermath of the revolt without accepting the constraint of a belief in
 INTRODUCTION 5

an invasion of northern Britain as a concomitant of the fall of Allectus permits a

re-examination of many of the accepted views which still make their appearance
in the standard works on Roman Britain.
The study of Carausius and Allectus from the post-Roman period to the
modern period has thrown up both the sophisticated and the bizarre manipulation
of the episode for political purposes. The unedifying spectacle of British
scholarship in the eighteenth century scrambling for social advantage in the
wreckage of classical scholarship is offset by the touchingly patriotic use of the
Carausian myth at times of savage warfare and national danger. That the myth
has had no impact in the arts is evident from a study of the relevant
documentation which reveals no play based on the revolt, and the sources for
musical drama show that any operatic potential was not exploited. Two modern
novels, The Emperor of the Narrow Sea by John Gloag and The Silver Branch by
Rosemary Sutcliff, the latter a children’s story, carry the theme into the last
decades.
A number of people have contributed to the completion of this work, though
they are not responsible for the opinions expressed or the theories put forward.
Pre-eminent among these is Dr R.S.O.Tomlin whose translations of the texts
form part of this book and whose profound knowledge of this period has been
freely put at my disposal. Malcolm Line made available his important work on
Pevensey and has allowed me to use it before publication. Drs Xavier Loriot and
Helene Huvelin, my colleagues in Carausian studies in France, have put their
research at my disposal and it is the former’s research which is represented by
the maps illustrating the spread of Carausian and Allectan coins in Gaul. I should
also like to thank Dr Andrew Burnett (The British Museum), Dr Richard Reece
(London University), Dr J.L.Davies (University College, Aberystwyth), Dr
Kevin Greene (Newcastle University), the Librarian of the Royal Geographical
Society, Tom Eden (Sothebys), Martin Schøyen (The Martin Schøyen Collection,
Oslo/London); Colin Richardson, of Carlisle Museum, supplied the photograph
of the Gallow’s Hill milestone and Stephen Minnitt of Taunton Museum the
photograph of the Low Ham mosaic. Plates a and b are © the Museum of
London. Plate d is © English Heritage Photographic Library and plates i and j are
© Royal Geographical Society. The plans and diagrams are the work of Yvonne
Beadnall of the Department of Archaeology, Durham University, the bulk of the
photographs are the work of Trevor Woods and the bibliography was typed by
Julia Bowder of the same department; all responded to the author’s usual
confusion and demanding schedule with their normal cheerful tolerance. The
Photographic Department of the British Museum supplied a number of the coin
illustrations in this work. Finally, the author would like to thank Norman Shiel—
though he was not consulted—whose steady publication of stimulating new
discoveries has been a feature of Carausian studies for many years.
Department of Archaeology,
University of Durham
 1
THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE THIRD
CENTURY

THE CENTURY BETWEEN THE DEATH of Commodus and the accession of

Diocletian saw a transformation of the empire founded by Augustus. Although
the names of institutions and offices survived, as did the old way of life in some
remote areas of the empire and among some classes of society, the empire which
Diocletian ruled was one that was clinging to the wreckage of the classical world.
Fundamental to this change was the worsening military situation of the empire.
Confronted by militarily inferior enemies, Rome had expanded in a matter of two
centuries from a middle-ranking power in the Italian peninsula to rule over a
landmass which extended from Britain in the west to beyond the Euphrates in the
east. In northern Europe the frontiers lay on the lines of the rivers Rhine and
Danube, in Africa on the edge of the Sahara desert. In Egypt and Palestine the
deserts again served as the limits of Roman settlement. Beyond the area of direct
rule diplomatic activity or the threat of military intervention extended Roman
influence into the territory of adjacent tribes or kingdoms.
In the east a diiferent situation prevailed; here the Roman state confronted the
Persian empire. Until the early third century the River Euphrates served to divide
these imperial enemies, and areas of conflict, essentially Armenia, were ruled by
nominees of Rome or, at times of military success, by candidates more
sympathetic to Persian policies. After the invasion of Persia by Septimius Severus
the frontier was extended beyond the Euphrates with fateful consequences.
The conquest of this vast territory had been achieved by the Roman legions,
which consisted of citizen soldiers, and regiments recruited from allies or
conquered peoples. On the Rhine Parthians served as frontier forces as did
archers recruited in what is now Jordan, Britons were sent to the Balkans and to
Egypt, and Germans were found in Britain. In these frontier districts they served
the empire and received the reward of Roman citizenship on completion of their
term of recruitment. The emperor Caracalla changed this situation when he gave
citizenship to all free men in the empire, thus diminishing the attraction of an
army career to unenfranchised provincials. Around the vast frontiers, an army
protected the heartland of the empire which it never saw, a Rome whose rulers
wanted nothing more than to keep the army away from the centres of political
power. In the event as military crisis followed military crisis, it was political power
which moved from Rome to the armies, and the capital was reduced to a
 THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE THIRD CENTURY 7

symbolic seat of government, visited at infrequent intervals by rulers celebrating

victories or the ceremonial aspects of imperial power.
The frontiers protected a great miscellany of peoples, unified by Roman rule
while maintaining their own national characteristics. They shared whatever
benefits might be derived from Roman technology and economic tolerance and
were protected, to a greater or lesser extent, depending on their social standing,
in their private and commercial lives by Roman law. Many of these imperial
citizens were unwilling recruits to Roman hegemony and periodic revolts, such
as that of Boudica in Britain and the Jews in Palestine, exemplifying the
resistance which could be mobilized when government became intolerable. But
revolts were normally a feature of the least Romanized parts of the empire, the
bulk of which enjoyed a cultural inheritance derived from the Greek world. Here
cities, once truly independent, maintained a quasi-autonomy under discreet
Roman rule. A traditional culture, based on a formalized literary education,
bound the provincial urban ruling classes to an ideal of public service which
found expression in the provision of amenities for their native cities and
charitable care for their fellow citizens. Throughout Asia Minor, Africa, Italy and
the Balkans cities flourished and politically motivated benefactors employed
their fortunes to provide their native towns with the adjuncts of city life,
libraries, theatres, bath-houses, stadia for athletic festivals, and temples to house
the benevolent gods.
In the north-western provinces of Europe, Rome attempted to graft this culture
on to a very different sort of society. In the south of Gaul, and in Spain, areas
which had been settled at an early date by migrants from Greece and later Italy
itself, a flourishing version of Hellenistic civilization was implanted on the
fringes of a deeply-rooted native population. In northern Gaul, Britain and
Germany, Romanization had a more exiguous existence. The towns were built
and the theatres, baths and temples provided, either by the state or by imperial
coercion of the small native elite; but these arrangements were ephemeral and
most of society retained its traditional values. None the less cities had to be
maintained, since the functioning of the empire depended upon local
communities performing essential administrative functions on behalf of the state.
Among these functions were taxation, recruitment and, increasingly, the
provisioning of the army.
If Roman rule offered autonomy and a formalized liberation for some and
‘compulsory’ autonomy for others, to those who participated what lay outside
this framework hardly bore thinking about. On the other side of the frontiers was
‘barbaricum’, a howling wilderness where untrammelled lawlessness and cruelty
held sway, where mere impulse governed men’s actions in a world of unreason.
Better the benefits of the Roman peace, with all its defects, than anarchy.
In reality, the peoples of the frontier areas were complex societies in their own
right and not unappreciative of the material benefits of the empire with which, as
archaeology has demonstrated, they conducted a vigorous trade, providing the
empire with such commodities as amber, furs, exotic animals and slaves. In
8 THE BRITISH USURPERS

return they imported finished goods, pottery, wine and silver coinage. But
frontiers of themselves create problems. Given a single external political factor
in their lives, quite disparate peoples find a common cause for unity of action and
political sentiment. Such appears to have been the case on the German frontier
and in Britain where the individual tribes, attested in first-century literary
sources, appear to have been transformed into larger entities by the third century.
A further factor in this transformation was the westward expansion of peoples
originating in the east. Opinions are divided as to the reason for the tribal
movements which were to convulse Europe in the third and fourth centuries;
factors such as climatic change and population increase have been adumbrated.
As a contribution to the latter factor it might be observed that population increase
could be encouraged by the dampening down of inter-tribal warfare brought
about by the threat of Roman intervention on behalf of allies beyond the frontier.
The first great attack on the frontiers was mounted in the reign of Marcus
Aurelius (161–82) when the tribes on the Danube crossed the river to seek land
within the empire. Pressured by movements from the east, they penetrated as far
south as Athens and northern Italy before being defeated after years of warfare
during which the Roman army came close to complete disaster on more than one
occasion. In the most celebrated of these incidents the army was only extricated
by a miraculous downpour of rain which obscured their retreat. Some thirty years
later the emperor Caracalla fought a confederation of German tribes, the
Alamanni, at the junction of the Rhine and Danube frontiers and, though the
campaign was a success, he paid the tribes subsidies in gold to secure peace in
Germany.
But it was the eastern frontier which was to destroy the Roman peace.
Septimius Severus’s campaigns in Persia destabilized the ruling Arsacid, or
Parthian, dynasty, causing contempt for it among both the aristocracy and the
mass of Iranians. Early in the third century the Arsacids were overthrown by the
Sassanids, who sought to avenge three centuries of Roman military success in
the east. Militarily efficient, they were masters of siege warfare, and riding on
the crest of a national religious revival, the new Sassanian regime consolidated
its position by a series of outstanding victories over Roman armies. Three Roman
emperors were defeated in the field: Gordian III (238–44); Philip (244–9); and
Valerian (253–60). The first of these may have died in battle, the last was taken
prisoner. Forces to fight these campaigns had to be drawn from the western
frontiers to which they did not return. The depletion of these defences
exacerbated a worsening situation on the Rhine and Danube. Severus Alexander
(222–35) was murdered for failing to maintain adequate forces to deal with the
threat to Germany, and his successor, Maximinus (235–8), had to campaign hard
to restore the situation.
While external threats rallied the empire to a sense of romanitas they also served
to create a new problem at the provincial level. In order to maintain their safety
the individual provinces demanded military leadership from those who would
give priority to their cause. In the west the Gallic Empire represented just such a
 THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE THIRD CENTURY 9

move, while in the Balkans a successful general could count on being offered, or
forced to accept, imperial power by local civil and military interests. The result
was civil war, the decline of the civil administration, desertion of agricultural
land and the collapse of the currency. By shortly after the middle of the third
century the state was in the grip of hyperinflation with the silver coinage debased
to a mere token of its former worth. This apocalyptic situation came to a head in
the reign of Gallienus (253–68). Faced by a collapsing Rhine—Danube frontier
and an invasion of the east by the Sassanian king Shapur (241–70), Valerian led
his army to defeat and himself into Persian captivity. Meantime his son, Gallienus,
coped with the crisis in the west where the Franks crossed the Rhine and struck as
far south as Spain. Germany, Gaul and Britain seceded from imperial rule to
defend themselves under their own emperor, Postumus. Roman territory lying
between the Rhine and Danube was given up, the garrisons withdrawn. In the
east the defeat of Valerian exposed the richest and most cultured provinces of the
empire to occupation; Antioch, the third largest city of the empire, was sacked.
Occupation was averted by the intervention of the allied city of Palmyra whose
forces turned back the Persian threat and assumed rule over large areas of Roman
territory, nominally with imperial acquiescece. Odenathus, the Palmyrene king,
was granted unprecedented titles—Leader of Romans, Victorious General,
Restorer of the Whole Orient and King of Kings.
At the same time as Persia attacked previously peaceful provinces from the
east, another attack was to fall on Asia Minor from the north. Hitherto the rich
oriental provinces had been spared direct military threat, the areas affected
having been the European provinces; nevertheless events did impinge. Already
pressed by the demands made upon them by emperors and usurpers for finance to
prosecute wars and to pay the army, the administrative classes of the empire may
already have retrenched from their former municipal liberality. Demands for
troops probably led to labour shortages on agricultural estates, while failure in
warfare led to the enslavement of Roman troops in Persia rather than the
acquisition of slaves, the traditional means of supplementing the work force of
the empire. The depreciation of the currency inhibited trade and commerce,
while the decline in disposable income abruptly curtailed spending on goods
produced by craft industries. For example, by the middle of the third century
privately erected inscriptions are rare in many provinces of the empire. By the
end of the reign of Gallieus the civic coinage issued by scores of the cities of
Asia Minor had all but ceased to exist.
Disaster fell on the cities of the eastern empire with the invasion of the Goths
and their allies. Having gained control of the Kingdom of Bosporus, a Roman
ally controlling the north-eastern coast of the Black Sea and the Crimea, the
Goths came into possession of a navy and skilled Black Sea sailors to man it for
them. In 256 and 257 Gothic naval expeditions attacked Roman cities in the
eastern Black Sea region, culminating in the capture of Trebizond, on the coast
of Asia Minor, and Calcedon at the mouth of the Bosporus. A foothold on the
Asiatic mainland opened the way for the destruction of the inland sites of
10 THE BRITISH USURPERS

Nikomedia, Nicea, Apamea and Prusa, all opulent cities. In 267 a combined fleet
of Goths and Heruls broke out of the Black Sea into the Aegean. Splitting into
three groups they simultaneously attacked northern and southern Greece and the
west coast of Asia Minor. Thessalonika, Athens, Corinth, Argos, Sparta and
Olympia fell to the attackers. In Athens P.Herennius Dexippus, a historian and
local aristocrat, recruited two thousand Athenians and inflicted serious losses on
the raiders. In the south Rhodes was attacked and the temple of Diana at Ephesus,
the seat of eastern government, was destroyed. The city of Side and the islands
of Cyprus and Crete all suffered before the raiders turned for home.
Campaigns, led personally by Gallienus, resulted in the defeat of the Goths in
northern Greece and, following his assassination, his successor, Claudius II, won
outstanding victories, gaining the title ‘Gothicus’. Claudius died of the plague in
270 and it was left to Aurelian (270–5) to clear the Balkans of enemy forces.
Pursuing them across the Danube he inflicted a defeat which eliminated the
western Goths from participation in Roman affairs for a century. But further
territory had to be given up: the province of Dacia (modern Romania), which had
been added to the empire by Trajan, was evacuated. A last attack by the eastern
Goths in 276 and 277 was made on the provinces of Pontus, Cilicia and Galatia;
on this occasion barbarian forces penetrated as far inland as Ancyra (modern
Ankara) in the middle of Anatolia.
The military problems faced by Aurelian did not end with the Goths. Two
great campaigns and numerous small wars occupied the reign. A German
invasion of Italy, which threatened the capital itself, was defeated and the city
provided with defensive walls for the first time since the kings had ruled in
Rome. In the east the kingdom of Palmyra continued to exercise authority over
parts of the Asiatic provinces. With the death of Odenathus his widow, Zenobia,
promoted the claims of her son to imperial status and seized Egypt and further
areas of the east. Two campaigns resulted in the capitulation and destruction of
Palmyra and the overthrow of the separatist regime. In the west the last of the Gallic
emperors, Tetricus, capitulated in face of certain defeat by Aurelian’s forces. The
territorial integrity of the empire had been restored.
To an extent the economic system was also restored, with an attempted reform
of the inflated currency. But half a century of warfare had an irreversible impact
on Roman society. No longer were emperors aristocrats, rather they were drawn
from a pool of experienced army commanders of no social pretensions. No longer
did the ruined urban aristocracy compete to spend their fortunes on civic
amenities; cities had more need of strong walls than theatres and if the stock of
accumulated monuments was sufficient they could be sacrificed to provide
building materials. If the fields needed to be cultivated to feed the armies but
labour was in short supply then the surviving peasantry had to be reduced to
quasi-slavery to serve a compulsory attachment to the land; areas of desolation
and depopulation could be reinhabited by migrating barbarians or captives.
A few areas remained largely unaffected by invasion, notably Britain and
Africa; none the less they too bore the costs of recovery. Part of this cost was a
 THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE THIRD CENTURY 11

strengthened pursuit of social conformity. For instance the law was applied in
different ways to different social classes and religion was employed as a weapon
in the war to save civilization. The fragile state was conceived to be held
together by a pact between Rome and her gods and the disasters of the third
century might by some be ascribed to a failure of observance. Notably blamed
for this crisis were the Christian communities, especially the large ones in the
east. Trajan Decius (249–51) actively pursued a policy of religious revival,
endorsing the worship of deified emperors and initiating persecution of
Christianity. Valerian, too, persecuted Christianity to maintain pagan orthodoxy.
The policy of these emperors stemmed from the need to suppress a religion
which was professedly less concerned with the ‘here and now’ and more with a
future state of bliss. Emperors fighting for the survival of the state needed few
things less than a burgeoning movement which preached a doctrine concerned
with deferred gratification rather than with the present crisis, especially one
which despised the gods of Rome and thus directly threatened the divine
compact which was the theological basis of the state.
The success of Aurelian maintained the impetus of restoration which was to
culminate in the reign of Diocletian. This process was interrupted from time to
time by the perennial problem of hostile incursion. Thus Probus (276–82) was
personally active on the German frontier, in Gaul and on the Danube. Further
campaigns were conducted to suppress revolts in Asia Minor and it is a measure
of the degree of renewal enjoyed by the empire that the luxury of revolt and
military mutiny could flourish with a new vigour in the last quarter of the third
century. In this regard it is a telling fact that successive emperors were concerned
to carry warfare into the Persian empire itself, a policy which could not be
contemplated since the reign of Valerian. Aurelian himself planned such a
campaign before his murder, while Probus was on his way to the east when
lynched by mutinous soldiers. Carus (282–3) pursued war with Persia with such
success that he destroyed Ctesiphon, the enemy capital. Here he died, allegedly
struck down by a bolt of lightning, a metereological phenomenon which cynics
said had been forged in a legionary workshop.
Thus at the accession of Diocletian the Roman world had turned full circle.
Internal dissent, civil war and external threats had brought the empire to the
verge of destruction. The external threat had been met but the problem of random
violence to the ruler had not been addressed and the threat of civil war which this
engendered had not been overcome. From time to time a solution had been
sought by sharing rule with other members of the imperial family: Valerian with
Gallienus, Carus with his sons Carinus and Numerian; but the essential problem
of the succession in a military monarchy had not been solved since military
ability and political astuteness are not necessarily genetic gifts. Nor could a
single ruler effectively maintain an imperial presence throughout the length and
breadth of the reunified empire, though necessity forced emperors to march and
countermarch from crisis to crisis.
12 THE BRITISH USURPERS

Diocletian sought solutions to a number of problems: to restore the integrity of

the frontier defences; to tax the empire efficiently in order to support the military
effort; to protect the emperor himself; and to devise a system of succession
which would deter would-be aspirants to the throne. The solution of the last
problem was not new, in that division of power had been tried before; what was
new was the complete rejection of dynastic and family ties in choosing a co-ruler
and in making provision, on the same principles, of designated heirs apparent.
The scheme soon broke down, mainly because two of the principals had
ambitious sons who were excluded from power by these arrangements. But for
the couple of decades for which the scheme operated, a relative peace was
maintained in which the reconstruction of the state, the economy, army and
administration could be undertaken. It must be emphasized that the peace was only
relative, enemies continued to operate on the frontiers, Persia remained a
persistent problem and ambitious or desperate officers, such as Carausius, still
raised internal revolts. But these crises could be met by one or other of the four
rulers without jeopardizing the fabric of the state.
On the other hand it can be argued that the abolition of dynastic rule actually
encouraged ambitious officers to stake a claim in the ruling caste now that
membership was released from the restraint of family blood-ties. Access to the
emperor was made the more difficult by withdrawing the ruler from public view
and by introducing rituals from the Persian monarchy which elevated the emperor
from the traditional role of ‘first citizen’, itself a fiction, to that of an oriental
ruler.
In presenting a generalized picture of the Roman empire in the third century in
terms of military events and struggles for imperial power we have inevitably
neglected many other aspects of life in this tumultuous period. Some of these
aspects, especially the economic, have been illuminated by archaeology.
Unfortunately few parts of the empire have been studied, or indeed published,
with the detailed intensity of Britain.
But whatever the emphasis given, problems arise from the sources themselves
with their inevitable concentration on the activities of rulers and their armies.
Further, many of the ancient sources have been corrupted in transmission or are
the products of incompetent historians who hung out their ignorance and
prejudices like tattered banners. We must try to deduce the reaction of the
unrepresented sections of society to events from other evidence, for instance from
the artefacts they discarded or the coins and wealth they concealed and failed to
recover, or from the failure or success of individual towns and communities to
maintain their public buildings or to reconstruct them after neglect or
destruction.
By these criteria Diocletian ushered in a period in which materially the Roman
world flourished. Not on the scale of previous ages though. The currency system
never did regain its former stability and though the cities were rebuilt it was
often on a smaller scale than their original size. The armies were reconstructed
and re-disciplined but they were no longer the legionary armies of the early
 THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE THIRD CENTURY 13

empire. One outstanding success was the new administrative system which
provided the Roman empire, for the first time, with a professional civil service
which was to prove one of the most enduring institutions of the Roman world.
 2
BRITAIN IN THE THIRD CENTURY

ARCHAEOLOGISTS TAKING THE LONG VIEW of events see the origins of

observable material changes in society as being the result of complex and
widespread trends. On the whole they do not look favourably on the idea that
events are made by people; on the contrary, a widespread academic stance is that
personalities are the product of processes and not the other way around. What
this boils down to is that, in the absence of a system of interventionist religious
belief, the inconsequential nature of events can be understood only within the
framework of an inexplicable succession of natural causes. This philosophical
stance is particularly appropriate to a science which relies for its very existence
on mute and frequently unrepresentative material remains. The events with
which this book is concerned are seen as part of a historical process and, it is
contended, they cannot be understood unless placed in the context of their age
and culture. The context is the development of Britain in the third century
relative to the empire as a whole and specifically in relation to the neighbouring
north-western provinces.
The conquest of Britain ground to a halt only in the early years of the third
century. Until the death of Septimius Severus at York in 211, while campaigning
against the tribes in the unconquered territories beyond Hadrian’s Wall, the
option of taking the whole of the island under Roman control had presented itself
to successive rulers. When Hadrian (117–38) built his Wall across Britain and
severed the tribes of the North from access to the province, it might have
appeared that Rome had conceded the extremity of the island to native political
interests. But his successor Antoninus Pius (138–61) immediately abandoned the
newly completed Wall and advanced into Scotland, where he created the
Antonine Wall across the Forth—Clyde isthmus. Strategic rigidity was not a
characteristic of the administration of Roman Britain and this flexibility is
further demonstrated by the decision of Pius’s heir, Marcus Aurelius (161–80), to
give up his adoptive father’s conquests and once again occupy Hadrian’s Wall.
Not for long were frontier affairs left in this state, for in the first decade of the
third century Septimius Severus (193–211) reverted to a policy of total conquest
last pursued in the period in office of the Flavian governor Gnaeus Julius
Agricola (77–83).
 BRITAIN IN THE THIRD CENTURY 15

Severus’s motives for being in Britain are obscure; one writer suggests that his
campaign was as much inspired by a desire to sort out the personality defects of
his sons, Caracalla and Geta, by getting them away from their vicious life style in
Rome, as to remedy a serious military problem in the Roman empire’s most
distant province (Dio, lxxvii.11). Whatever the motives, the results of Severus’s
exertions failed to solve his domestic problems (Caracalla subsequently
murdered his brother, stabbing him to death in their mother’s arms), but did have
a profound effect on the stability of the northern areas of Britain and the
economic development of the province as a whole.
Perhaps most significant in the long term was the decision to divide the island
into two provinces, Britannia Inferior and Britannia Superior, each with its own
administration and governor. The date of this decision is disputed, the third-
century historian Herodian says that the new arrangement was implemented
immediately after the defeat of Albinus in 197 (Her., iii–8.2) but modern
scholars have, characteristically, found this categorical statement of a
contemporary historian difficult to reconcile with epigraphic evidence pointing to
the division of Britain as having taken place in the reign of Caracalla, rather than
in that of his father (Birley, 1981). Whenever the event, the result was the same:
Britannia Inferior had its southern boundary on a line from north Wales to the
Wash and within this area was stationed the bulk of the military forces in the
island. At York Legio VI Victrix (whose commander was also governor of the
province) formed the backbone of the northern army; brigaded with it were the
garrisons of Hadrian’s Wall and its outpost forts, comprising some twenty
regiments of infantry and cavalry, while further units held selected forts in the
Pennine region, where barely Romanized rural communities offered a persistent
threat to military communications and the graver one of actual revolt.
The southern province, Britannia Superior, held two legions stationed at
Caerleon in south Wales (Legio II Augusta) and Chester (Legio XX Valeria
Victrix). As we shall see, the southern legions were probably quickly depleted by
changes in the nature of the legion and by postings of detachments to elsewhere
in Britain and abroad. A few troops were employed as the governor’s guard,
probably stationed in London, and auxiliary forts were garrisoned in north Wales
(Casey & Davies, 1993). As the third century progressed more troops were
stationed in the south but, on paper, the balance of forces always remained in the
northern province.
The motive for the division was purely political. Severus himself had been
governor of Pannonia (effectively modern Hungary) with three legions under his
command. In the civil wars which brought him to the throne Severus fought with
two other provincial governors of three legion provinces, Pescennius Niger of
Syria and Clodius Albinus of Britain. Determined to prevent commanders of
large provincial armies, such as himself, endangering the throne, Severus
initiated the division of the larger provinces. In doing so he sought to remedy the
situation by which a small number of powerful provincial commanders
threatened imperial stability. But the effect was catastrophic in the longer term.
16 THE BRITISH USURPERS

Instead of three commanders who were in a position to threaten revolt because

they ruled three legion provinces, there were, by the end of the reign of Caracalla,
as many potential threats as there were governors in provinces with two legions.
The history of the third century is essentially a record of Severan political
shortsightedness.
The division of Britain had a further economic effect. With the north tied to
the army and the south virtually free of a military presence, two economies
began to crystallize, one operating in a free market and the other circumscribed
by the limited demands of a low technology army. As the century advanced and
the currency was devalued, the demand of the army for goods and services in
place of depreciated coin, which could not buy those goods and services on the
free market, ensured that the northern economy was fixed into a rigid productive
framework. The army needed basic foodstuffs, metals and organic raw materials
such as hides and timber. These the northern countryside could supply without
materially improving the basis on which such commodities had been produced
since the late Iron Age. The absence of villas in areas of the north where the
military presence was most in evidence is a graphic demonstration of this early
‘North-South’ economic divide.
While a distinctive character, albeit one already visible in early periods, was
reinforced by the division of the island into separate administrative spheres, the
position of Britain relative to its nearest provincial neighbours also underwent
change in this century. At the same time these neighbours moved further and
further out of the ambit of the central empire.
Archaeologists and ancient economic historians see the changes of the third
century as developments characteristic of all extended empires, in which there
are a number of stages in the creation and disintegration of complex imperial
states. In the earliest stage, of course, comes conquest. This is a dynamic period
in which expenditure is matched, or more than matched, by the acquisition of
resources from the conquered territory. If, as in the case of Britain, the acquired
territory is rich in raw materials or human resources the period of exploitation
may be prolonged but in the long term a form of provincial autonomy will be
achieved which extends into the economic sphere. The technology of the
advanced core of the empire will be transferred to the peripheral areas. Building
techniques, advanced metalworking, sophisticated pottery production methods
and a local capital market are all available in the provinces. Thus the exchange
of raw materials for finished goods with the centre of the empire becomes
unnecessary. While this is detrimental to the central provinces, and, especially in
the case of the Roman empire Italy, a reversal in the terms of trade is beneficial
to the distant provinces. Wealth created in the provinces tended to stay there and
though some of this was needed to maintain the army the stagnation of
provincial armies tended to ensure that even this expenditure was recycled into
the local economy. Archaeologists can trace this process through variations in
the range of artefacts found on provincial sites which can be traced back to their
production source. It was because of the growth of self-sufficiency that in the
 BRITAIN IN THE THIRD CENTURY 17

third century Roman London declined as a port handling imports and exports
(Milne, 1985). Similarly, the decline of Italy as a recipient of provincial products
can be traced in the declining fortunes of the port of Ostia which served Rome
itself (Garnsey, 1983). While these tendencies can be traced on a broad scale in
most provinces, or groups of provinces, they are particularly evident in Britain
because they were further intensified by events in north-western Europe in the
middle of the third century.
Delivering judgement on the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon saw its golden
age as being confined to a period extending from the end of the first to the third
quarter of the second century:

During a happy period of more than four-score years, the public

administration was conducted by the virtue and abilities of Nerva, Trajan,
Hadrian, and the two Antonines [sc. Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius].
(Gibbon, 1771)

Despite this literary golden glow in which it participates, the reign of Marcus saw
the first barbarian incursions across the frontiers of the western empire to a
degree which threatened the heartland itself. In the reign of Marcus Aurelius
(161–80) the Marcommani crossed the Danube frontier and penetrated as far
south as northern Italy, where they attacked the Adriatic port city of Aquileia.
The threat brought reinforcements to the area from an number of provincial
armies, possibly even from Britain. For the second half of his reign Marcus made
his base, and ruled the empire from the fortresses of the frontier rather than living
in Rome itself. A long, slow and financially costly campaign was needed to re-
establish the integrity of the frontier.
The third century saw a growing threat to the Rhine as well as the Danube
frontiers. A number of serious barbarian incursions were instrumental in bringing
about the rise of a succession of emperors, each proclaimed by the provincial
armies, to deal with the regional problems of the frontier provinces. In the west
these crises culminated in the creation of a separatist regime holding power in
Germany, Gaul, parts of Spain and Britain. The Gallic Empire under its founding
emperor Postumus (260–9) and his less effective successors Laelianus, Marius,
Victorinus and Tetricus (271–4), demonstrated the need for effective regional
leadership in times of crisis and constituted a model for the later Diocletianic
system of devolved government. While fully involved in these events at the
political level Britain was not directly so in a military sense (Birley, 1936).
Though Gaul might be raided by land-based forces from across the frontier,
Britain was safe behind her natural defence, the sea. The garrison of the island
might be stripped down to supply troops for service overseas but there is no
evidence of military activity in Britain, far less the sort of destruction found as far
south as the Pyrenees in Gaul. Indeed it is likely that Britain gained a new
industrial self-sufficiency in this period as overseas trade was disrupted by
events taking place on the Continent. The pottery industry, for instance, achieved
18 THE BRITISH USURPERS

a level of market penetration for fine wares that had been previously enjoyed by
imports from Gaul. On the other hand, urban development declined as towns lost
their function as distributive centres for imports and British producers moved their
goods directly to the rural and military markets.
None the less, Britain was not completely immune to the military events which
affected its near Continental neighbour provinces and, as we shall see, provision
was made on a limited scale to fortify the coasts of Britain as early as the middle
of the third century. Contributing more directly to the development of the island
was the economic crisis which gripped the empire in the third century and which
reached its peak in the third quarter of the century.
We have already noticed a structural change in the economy of the empire in
the third century, whereby the peripheral provinces grew at the expense of the
central areas. But this was a gradual process and not uniform in all areas; a much
more immediate problem to the state was the collapse of the currency system
throughout the empire. The rapid decline of the intrinsic value of the Roman gold
and silver coinage can be plotted through a series of debasements which start in
the late second and accelerate in the third century (Fig.1). The reasons for this
collapse are complex but a large factor was that of sustaining the pay of the army.
Military pay had been fixed by Domitian at a level which, for the army of the
period, cost the Roman state approximately 70,000,000 denarii per annum. This
expenditure rose under Marcus Aurelius, who raised two new legions at an
additional cost of about 2,300,000 denarii per annum. The cost of the
Marcommanic War bankrupted the emperor’s resources and Marcus was reduced
to auctioning imperial property to raise cash. The continuous debasement of the
silver coinage starts in this period.
An acceleration in the depreciation of the currency followed the accession of
Septimius Severus, who consolidated his throne by raising the pay of the soldier
so that the annual cost of a legion rose to about 2,470,000 denarii. His son
Caracalla further raised military pay, taking to heart Severus’s deathbed advice
as recorded by the historian Cassius Dio: ‘take care of each other, pay the
soldiers and damn the rest’ (Dio, lxxvii.15.2).
Following a further pay rise awarded by Caracalla (211–17), the annual cost
of a legion had risen to about 3,712,000 denarii by the end of the reign. Meantime
the standard silver coin, the denarius, had fallen over a period of a quarter of a
century, to about 50 per cent of its former intrinsic value. Ever innovative in
securing revenue, Caracalla introduced a new denomination of silver coin which
effectively institutionalized debasement. The so-called antoninianus was struck
from the same alloy as the denarius (i.e 50 per cent silver) but was tariffed as a
2-denarius piece. Its weight, however, was that of only one and a half denarii.
Thus an effective debasement of 25 per cent was achieved by circulating the new
coin. Caracalla’s other bold financial stroke was to give Roman citizenship to all
free men in the empire, and at the same time he doubled to 10 per cent the rate of
death duty charged on the wills of Roman citizens. This change was specifically
designed to enhance the military treasury. Thereafter the decline of the intrinsic
 BRITAIN IN THE THIRD CENTURY 19

1 The decline of the gold and silver coinage. Claudius—Gallic Empire. (After Casey,
1984.)

value of the coinage was a steady progression from the barely acceptable to the
ultimately rejected. It is noticeable that every attempt was made to keep the
traditional relationship between the silver coin and the gold, in this instance by
lightening the weight of the aureus as the silver content of the denarius and
antoninianus fell (Casey, 1984).
The effects of such steady and unremitting financial difficulty were felt
throughout the empire. From the middle of the century the failure of the coin to
20 THE BRITISH USURPERS

keep its intrinsic value drove up prices as expressed in terms of that currency. The
grip of inflation fuelled a cycle which demanded more actual coins to be
circulated in order to meet the needs of commerce. More coins meant more
debasement, more debasement higher prices.
In a situation of ever-increasing inflation individuals can adopt a number of
strategies in order to protect their wealth. Since Roman coinage had an intrinsic
value, more valuable specimens could be hoarded as they achieved a monetary
premium against later, baser issues. Numerous hoards dating from the 230s to the
270s show that this was an expedient resorted to by those who could afford to
immobilize their wealth. On a higher financial plane were those who could turn
depreciating cash into property. It is in this period that the foundations were laid
for the fortunes evidenced in Britain by luxurious villas in the fourth century. On
the other hand, in hyperinflation the poor get poorer, and the evidence for rural
discontent, amounting to peasant revolts, is found in the historical sources
throughout the third century.
We may postulate further effects such as the decline of urban slavery, since
slaves are an expensive luxury to keep in hard times and small urban craftsmen
are likely to have been the first to suffer in an economic downturn. On the other
hand, there might be a rise in slavery in rural areas with the growth, in real
terms, of the wealth of primary producers such as farmers. The quasi-
enslavement of tenant farmers to landlords may also be anticipated as well as a
rapid decline in the place of the army in fuelling the provincial economic machine.
The army’s sharply declining purchasing power might also be accompanied by a
decline in morale and self-esteem, especially since the army of Britain was
inactive for most of the century. The less militarily effective an army becomes,
the more likely it is to assuage its inadequacy by imposing its declining power on
those it was designed to protect. The Roman army is not an exception to this
observation and as it began to depend more and more on the produce of the
farming sector to provide it with goods and services in lieu of cash taxes, the
identification of interests between landowner and army became a feature of
provincial political life.
The rise of the Gallic Empire, which lasted to within twelve years of the revolt
of Carausius, brought changes to the military forces. While the Gallic provinces
had to sustain themselves against both the depredations of barbarian invaders and
the attacks of the central empire striving to recover lost territory, Britain suffered
no military crises and it seems inherently likely that troops were deployed from
Britain to the Continent. There is no direct evidence to show that units were
withdrawn permanently or in their entirety, but the archaeological evidence from
Hadrian’s Wall suggests that garrisons were run down after the middle of the
century.
Although there is a great deal of epigraphic evidence for small foreign units
being posted to the northern frontier in the earlier third century, by the middle of
the century recruitment into the main body of auxiliary regiments that had served
long in Britain was largely from the local population (Casey & Noel, 1993).
 BRITAIN IN THE THIRD CENTURY 21

Hadrian’s Wall was garrisoned by units who, although they bore exotic ethnic
titles derived from their original place of recruitment, consisted of soldiers who
were locals, born and bred in the civilian settlements which grew up outside the
forts. A method of depleting these garrisons would be to direct recruits from the
vici to overseas regiments rather than into their local units. This policy would
both supplement the forces of areas under direct military threat and allow a
rational control of the size and composition of units on the peaceful frontier in
Britain.
There may have been a decline in offensive effectiveness but there is no
evidence to suggest that the function of garrison troops in local policing
declined. To provide a force which could deal with larger local problems a
number of large forts were constructed on the main north-south roads in the
hinterland of the frontier zone: these garrisons could be deployed to the frontier
itself should the need arise. Little excavation has taken place in these forts which
have, hitherto, been dated to the early years of the fourth century.
There is no evidence to suggest that the army of Britain was reinforced after
the collapse of the Gallic Empire, though the emperor Probus (276– 82) drafted
an unspecified number of Burgundians to Britain ‘because they would be useful
to him there’. The Burgundians were prisoners captured in Gaul and their posting
to a distant province might reflect a desire to isolate them, rather than a need for
more troops in Britain. In the event, their usefulness did stretch to the
suppression of a governor who attempted a revolt (Zos. 1. 68). By the end of the
third century, however, there is evidence of defence problems arising in Britain
which probably culminated in a campaign of pacification by the emperor Carinus
(283–5). These problems were not ones which could be dealt with by the
traditionally distributed land forces which were deployed to deal with incursions
across the land frontiers of the north and to police the still unruly peoples of the
northern uplands. The new threats came from overseas and called for the
construction of fortifications to house coastal defence units. But these new
threats were slow to be appreciated and, on the whole, the first half of the third
century treated Britain well. In the second half of the century it was spared the
destruction wrought on the Continent by barbarian attacks and was probably
modestly enriched by the economic changes being felt detrimentally by the
empire as a whole.
Looking at the second half of the third century in detail it is in the military
sphere that the most information is available, though even here the situation is
little understood and not much studied. After the Severan campaigns little is
recorded in the very sparse surviving literary sources. The normal resource of
inscriptions dries up; like the rest of the empire Britain lost what has been called
the ‘epigraphic habit’. Pottery studies cannot yet define closely enough the
differences in techniques and fabrics which might differentiate wares made in the
middle of the third century from those made at the end, or even material from the
first quarter of the next century. Easily classified fabrics such as samian ware had
long since ceased to be imported. Finally, in this recital of archaeological woes,
22 THE BRITISH USURPERS

it must be acknowledged that coin evidence presents very difficult problems of

interpretation.
After the collapse of the currency system in the 270s reforms were initiated by
the emperor Aurelian (270–5). The reformed coinage system was a complex
attempt to re-establish a denominational structure similar to that which had been
in use before the collapse of the system. A stable gold coinage was accompanied
by base metal sestertii and dupondii, while the retariffed billon coin (silver/
bronze alloy) was probably valued as a 4-denarius piece (Pl. 1, nos 1, 5). The
issue of this coinage was recorded by the historian Zosimus who says that
Aurelian ‘officially issued new money after arranging for the state to buy in the
debased coinage to avoid confusion in financial dealing’ (Zos. 1.61). In fact, an
equally cogent reason for withdrawing the old coin was that most of what was
circulating in the north-western provinces bore the images and propaganda of an
illegal, separatist regime which had held power in Gaul, Germany, Spain and
Britain for the previous decade.
The withdrawal of the coinage appears to have been a less than completely
successful operation since large numbers of Gallic Empire coins formed a
component of the currency until Carausian issues achieved sufficient volume to
drive them out of circulation. A further complication arises because the reformed
coinage was supplied only in minute quantities to the territories of the former
Gallic Empire; a profound shortage of coin resulted. This shortage was made
good by the production of an informal, but apparently officially countenanced,
coinage consisting of copies of the very coins the reform sought to eliminate (Pl.
1, nos. 2–4). Thus between 274 and the mid-280s there was little official coin in
circulation. This is reflected in the poverty of such coins in archaeological
deposits in the period running up to the revolt under review.
Bearing in mind these problems we can essay a survey of the military
resources in Britain at the time of the revolt. When conquered in 43 Britain
became unwilling host to an army of four legions, each consisting of
approximately 5500 soldiers; there was probably an equal number of auxiliary
troops organized in regiments of infantry, cavalry or a mixture of the two. This
army of 44,000 troops was depleted by the permanent removal of Legio II
Adiutrix in the reign of Domitian.
By the middle of the second century the remaining legions were permanently
based in their fortresses at Caerleon, Chester and York. The disposition of the
auxiliary units varied from time to time but by the middle of the third century a
certain level of stability had been achieved. Wales had been largely denuded of
troops, with the exception of the forts on the north coast and a small selection of
stations in the rugged interior. In the Pennines occupation was still intensive and
was to undergo major review in the period under discussion. The northern
frontier of the province was Hadrian’s Wall, with its five outpost forts screening
the approaches to Roman territory down the routes from Caledonia on the eastern
and western side of the island. In the south there is little evidence of garrisoning
at this time with the exception of four sites. At Brancaster on the Wash (but see
 BRITAIN IN THE THIRD CENTURY 23

below p. 124) and at Reculver in Kent on the Thames estuary, forts are thought
to have been built in the 240s; these forts were antecedent to a series extending
from the Wash to the south coast of Wales which were erected later in the
century. At Dover a fort provided accommodation for the sailors of the Classis
Britannica, the Channel fleet; another in London housed the bodyguard of the
imperial governor. At Richborough the triumphal arch erected by Domitian, to
commemorate what he mistakenly thought was the completion of the conquest of
Britain by the governor Gnaeus Julius Agricola, was converted into a
watchtower.
The nominal strength of this army was probably similar to that of the Flavian
period, but the reality was clearly different. Unfortunately the excavation of forts
and the publication of the results has not reached a stage at which the density of
occupation of the majority can be estimated. A few sites, however, have been
examined in detail and conclusions reached which suggest that manning levels of
some forts and fortresses were very low. Of the three legionary forts Caerleon,
the base of II Augusta, has been the most thoroughly examined. The picture
established here is of steady decline from the end of the second century, which
complements the epigraphic evidence for parts of the unit being posted abroad,
or elsewhere in Britain, and squares with the known changes in legionary
formations in the third century (Casey, 1990). During this century the legions
were stripped of their cavalry who were upgraded into superior units from their
messenger corps status. Also removed were the new highly trained light
legionary infantry, the lanciarii, who became independent regiments. It is
possible that by the time of the Carausian revolt the muster of the legion may
have been only 1000 men. If Chester and York yield the same sort of evidence
we would dispose of a force of 3000 legionary troops in Britain, though the York
base might have been maintained at a higher manning level because of its
proximity to the frontier.
Looking in detail at a number of auxiliary forts we can see some evidence that
they too were physically run down and had understrength garrisons. In Wales the
fort at Caernarfon (Segontium), which was one of the north Wales stations still
maintained, accommodation for a unit of 1000 men had been reduced to being
sufficient for less than half that number; by the later third century nearly half the
interior of the fort had been given over to industrial activity and rubbish dumping
(Casey & Davies, 1993). At Birdoswald, on Hadrian’s Wall, an inscription dating
from the first years of the fourth century records that the commanding officer’s
house had decayed to a point where it was a soil-covered heap (RIB 913). At
Halton Chesters, also on the Wall, the unpublished excavations suggest a very
diminished occupation in the last quarter of the third century. A few miles south
of the Wall a study of Lanchester suggests that the fort, which was built to hold a
thousand troops, was accommodating only half that number, if not less (Casey &
Noel, 1993). The fort at South Shields, designed for a garrison of 500, had been
converted to a fortified grain store in the early years of the third century;
gradually accommodation was reintroduced but the site never again offered
24 THE BRITISH USURPERS

housing for a unit as large as that for which it had been originally designed.
Elsewhere the abandonment of the civilian settlements, or vici, which, stimulated
by Septimius Severus’s relaxation of the ban on army marriages, grew up around
forts, suggests that large-scale troop movements took place in the third century.
For instance at Chesterholm, just behind the Wall, the vicus was abandoned a
year or two before AD 270 and, though the fort continued to be manned, the
absence of civilians suggests movement of a significant part of the garrison
troops and perhaps the accommodation of remaining civilians within the fort
(Bidwell, 1985). Coin studies also suggest that vici were abandoned at various
times in the third century over a wide area of the north (Casey, 1982).
There is thus a consistent picture of the delapidation of forts and the decline in
numbers of the garrisons wherever excavation has made information available.
The reasons are not far to seek. Britain avoided the disastrous barbarian attacks
which characterize the history of the north-western provinces in the third century.
Rather, Britain had served as a reservoir of reinforcements for the armies fighting
on the Continent. Troops were withdrawn by Gallienus for his German wars and
by the emperors of the Gallic Empire for their own campaigns on the Rhine and
to help resist the encroachments on their territory by the central empire. A
realistic estimate of the garrison of Britain at the time of the takeover by
Carausius might be something under half of its nominal strength, still a
formidable force if it could be concentrated at a single point. But this was not its
function; this army was designed as, and refined into, a force for piecemeal
disposition on local policing duties. The fact that Septimius Severus had to bring
an independent campaign army with him in 209 emphasizes at what an early date
the immobility of the bulk of the provincial army rendered it useless as a coherent
offensive force capable of unified response to non-local events.
To whom did this army owe its loyalty? The brief answer should be to the
emperor who, as supreme commander, embodied the Roman empire and the
Roman people. To reinforce loyalty the state evolved a religious cult of devotion
to the emperor which was celebrated by the army through communal
observance. A list of the religious rites observed by the army in the first quarter
of the century demonstrates with what importance this cult was regarded by the
imperial authorities, with ‘church parades’ scheduled several times a month and
the liberal provision of oxen, bulls and cows for sacrifice (Fink, 1940). Animals
which, after serving the gods, served the mess tables of the appreciative soldiers.
Individual emperors took a very close personal interest in the army,
ostentatiously caring for the welfare of the soldiers through gifts of money and
the conferment of legal privileges. The imperial image was paraded to the army
on banners, and the emperor’s statue was to be found in every fort, to confirm his
presence in the midst of his soldiers. Honorific titles were awarded to the
regiments in apotropaic ritual. For instance, the regiment at Birdoswald, the
Cohors I Aelia Dacorum, was given the title Gordiana (Gordian’s Own) in the
reign of Gordian III (238–44); later they were similarly honoured by the Gallic
emperors Postumus (260–9) and Tetricus (271–4) (RIB 1893, 1883, 1885).
 BRITAIN IN THE THIRD CENTURY 25

Possibly these honours were accompanied by monetary gifts to the soldiers after
meritorious action.
The award of these unit titles and honours was ineffective; the majority of
imperial names attached to regimental titles are those of emperors who were
murdered by, or with the acquiescence of, their own troops—Caracalla, Severus
Alexander, Gordian III, Gallienus, Probus, Aurelian and Postumus. As each
emperor fell and his memory was vilified the regiments sent out fatigue parties to
smash the statues and erase the now embarrassing name from the honorific
inscriptions.
Table 1 demonstrates the frailty of army loyalty in the third century by listing
the usurpers and mutinous commanders, each of whom was supported by a
larger or smaller component of the army. Any such list must derive a great deal
of its detail from the Scriptores Historiae Augustae (SHA), a fourth-century
compilation of biographies of third-century rulers. The SHA is a notoriously
difficult source and scholars pick and chose from its contents in a rather arbitrary
manner, accepting what is convenient to their argument and rejecting what appears
to conflict. The possibility of sheer invention and duplication of personalities in
the SHA should not be discounted. Usurpers whose existence outside the SHA is
in doubt are listed thus Silbannacus(?).

Table 1 Usurpation and revolt 218–300

Date Name Place Ruler
218 Elagabalus Syria Macrinus
218/22 Seleucus Syria Elagabalus
Uranius ″ ″
Gellius Maximus ″ ″
Verus ″ ″
222/35 Taurinus ? Sev. Alexander
Maximinus Thrax Germany ″
235/8 Magnus Germany Maximinus
Quartinus ″ ″
Gordian I/II Africa ″
Balbinus/Pupienus Italy ″
238/44 M.Annius Sabinianus Africa Gordian III
M.Iulius Philippus Persia ″
244/49 T. Cl. Pacatianus Pannonia Philip
lotapianus Syria ″
Marcus ″ ″
M.Silbannacus (?) Germany ″
Sponsianus (?) ?Pannonia ″
Trajan Decius Pannonia ″
26 THE BRITISH USURPERS

Date Name Place Ruler

249/51 T. Iulius Priscus Thrace Trajan Decius
Iul. Valens Licinianus Italy ″
253 Uranius Antoninus Syria Treb. Gallus
M. Aem. Aemilianus Moesia ″
P. Lic. Valerianus Germany Aemilian
253/59 Mareades Syria Valerian
260/68 Ingenuus Pannonia Gallienus
P. Cornelius Regalianus Illyricum ″
T. Fulvius Macrianus Persia ″
T. Fulvius Macrianus, jun. ″ ″
T. Fulvius Quietus ″ ″
C. Piso Frugi (?) Thessaly ″
Valens Macedonia ″
Ballista Syria ″
Mussius Aemilianus Egypt ″
Memor Egypt ″
M. Aelius Aureolus Italy ″
Trebellianus Isaura ″
Celsus (?) ?Africa ″
Saturninus ? ″
Postumus Germany ″
270/75 Domitianus ?Illyricum Aurelian
Urbanus ? ″
Septimius Dalmatia ″
Firmus Syria ″
276/82 Bonosus/Proculus Germany Probus
C. Iul. Saturninus Syria ″
283/84 M. Aurelius Iulianus Pannonia Carinus
Sabinius Iulianus Italy ″
Diocles (M. Aur. ″ ″
Diocletianus) ″ ″
284/305 Domitius Domitianus Egypt Diocletian/
Maximian
Aurelius Achilleus Egypt ″
Eugenius Syria ″
Iulianus Italy ″
Carausius Gaul/Britain ″
 BRITAIN IN THE THIRD CENTURY 27

In the discussion above we have seen that the bulk of the troops were stationed
in the north or in the upland areas of the Pennines and Wales. By contrast,
clustered in the lowland areas of the Midlands and the south was the
overwhelming majority of towns and substantial rural settlements. A number of
these towns had defences in the shape of earthwork ramparts erected, for
unknown reason, in the late second or early third centuries. A few high-status
centres such as London, St Albans (Verulamium), Colchester, Lincoln and
Gloucester boasted stone walls, but more for symbolic reasons than for military.
None of these towns normally held garrison troops with the exception of London
which housed the provincial governor’s guard. A few soldiers may have been
allocated to the supervision of taxation, customs duty or the acquisition of
military supplies; they did not constitute a force which could, or would, defend
the ramparts of a fortified town.
Like the forts and fortresses, the towns appear to have been, if not in decay, at
least at a low stage of their development. Large inner city areas of London had
ceased to be used for housing and deposits characteristic of decay, or
horticultural use, overlay what had in the second century been attractive
residences furnished with mosaic floors (Perring, 1991). Investment in urban
amenities diminished as money lost its value and craftsmanship declined for lack
of patronage. The once proud symbols of self-government, the municipal
basilicas, were in decay. At Silchester the building in which the local political
elite had managed the affairs of their town and its rural community was sublet
for metalworking (Fulford, 1985). Parts of the basilica at London, the largest
building in the Roman world north of the Alps, was dismantled, the porticoes
demolished and metalworking hearths were installed; where once the
commercial affairs of the province were conducted the very fixtures and fittings
were reduced to reusable metal (Milne, 1992).
This survey is drawn from a small sample and necessarily presents a dystopian
view, but the picture given by excavation is ratified by other evidence which
suggests that Britain was neither militarily nor economically dynamic. A
depressed level of commercial activity is suggested by the volume of low-value
coinage in circulation in comparison to gold. Finds of third-century gold coinage
in Britain are insignificant when compared to those from Gaul. If this accurately
reflects the volume of high-value money circulating in Gaul, despite its political
and military problems, then Britain is shown to be of secondary economic status
(Brenot, 1992). Dated private building activity is also rare and the use of
decorative mosaics virtually unknown in the period (Smith, 1969).
If the symbols of quasi-autonomous administration disappear it may be
conjectured that a more authoritarian system dominated affairs and that the hand
of central government was felt more directly. Laws drafted in the next century
imply that this trend was recognized to be a mistake and attempts were made to
reverse the trend and maintain the institutions of local government against the
will of the participants, who were expected to pay the expenses of urban
magistracies. Any centralizing tendencies were regretted as throwing a financial
28 THE BRITISH USURPERS

burden on the state. The tribal structure which had formed the basis of regional
self-government was probably attenuated after a century and a half of imperial
control to a point where it was a nugatory element in the political framework of
the provinces. When the island was further divided into four provinces in the next
century no cognisance seems to have been taken of tribal boundaries. In any
event, a steady process of homogenization had taken place in the population; the
influence of the military recruitment of non-British auxiliaries led to the creation
of a large non-indigenous population in the military zone. The deportation of
foreign populations to Britain is recorded on two occasions, and for all we know
there may have been more. The first of these deportations, in the reign of Marcus
Aurelius, was of 5500 Sarmatian cavalry from the Danube region who were
settled in the region of Ribchester, in Lancashire (Richmond, 1945). The second
deportation was that of an unknown number of Burgundians and Vandals by the
emperor Probus. Earlier, in the third century, a number of German units were sent
to Hadrian’s Wall where they were brigaded with loyal auxiliary units in their
forts. These units may have been made up of captives taken in the German wars
of Caracalla or Maximinus Thrax (Casey & Noel, 1993).
Despite urban and military problems Britain remained economically strong in
the sense that its agricultural industry was unimpaired; neither the invasions of
barbarians nor the peasant revolts which characterize the history of Gaul and
Germany had impinged upon Britain. The island was self-sufficient in
foodstuffs, and imports of Mediterranean products, as evidenced by amphorae,
ceased. A decline in the size of the army certainly led to an increase in
agricultural surpluses. There is evidence that by the next century this surplus was
being exported to northern Europe. Industries also expanded to the detriment of
foreign imports, with domestically produced pottery achieving mass-production
levels in some centres and overseas fabrics being virtually absent from excavated
assemblages. By the time that the emperor Diocletian promulgated his Edict of
Maximum Prices in 301, the price of British textiles was quoted in the official
government price index posted in the markets of towns of the farthest eastern
provinces (Giacchero, 1974).
 3
THE DATE AND DURATION OF THE
REVOLT

THERE IS CONFUSION IN BOTH the ancient sources and in modern histories

as to the date at which Carausius came to power; there is no less confusion as to
when he met his death and was succeeded by Allectus. Further there are
adherents to two different dates for the defeat of Allectus by Constantius.
A number of apparently contradictory ancient sources exist from which dates
have been calculated, and modern scholars have accepted or rejected these dates
without discussion of the reason for their choice of one or another. All the
contemporary, or near-contemporary, sources agree that the inception of the revolt
should be placed in either 286 or 287. The three main modern contributors to
Carausian numismatic studies differ among themselves over the choice of either
of the ancient dates.
Webb, in his earliest work, unequivocally states that ‘The history of the short-
lived British empire which was founded by Carausius in 287…terminated on the
death of Allectus in 296' (Webb, 1906). This opinion was carried through to
Webb’s volume of Roman Imperial Coinage, which covers the issues of the
usurpers (Webb, 1933). This date was also accepted by Shiel, with a compression
of the dates of issue of mintmarked coins (Shiel, 1977). By contrast
R.A.G.Carson’s date of 286 has received wide acceptance, especially as it is
linked to a coherent scheme of dates attached to the various sequential
mintmarks which are a feature of the coins of the London and Colchester mints
(Carson, 1959).
Carson based his choice of year on the only ancient source with a calendar
date, St Jerome’s translation and continuation of the Chronicle of Eusebius. In
Carson’s words, ‘Jerome’s account limits it [i.e. the accession of Carausius] to
Diocletian’s third year, i.e. between 17 September 286 and 17 September 287.
Since good reason can be shown for placing the fall of Carausius in the latter
part of 293, if we accept the duration of the reign as the stated seven years, we
can guess that the reign of Carausius began in the last three months of 286.’
But this statement does not square with the manuscript tradition of Jerome’s
Chronicle in which, in the earliest surviving copy, dating to the fifth century AD,
the revolt is placed not in the entries for the third but in those for the fourth year
of Diocletian (Helm, 1984). Here it is stated that ‘Carusius [sic] sumpta purpura
Brittanias occupavit.’ (‘Carausius assumed the purple and occupied [the
30 THE BRITISH USURPERS

provinces of] Britain.’) On a revision of Carson’s system of reckoning the regnal

years, this places the event between 17 September 287 and 16 September 288.
Although few would dispute St Jerome’s sanctity there are certainly some who
would dispute his chronological consistency. For instance, further confusion is
added to the issue because Jerome equates Diocletian’s fourth year with the start
of the 267th Olympiad, which ran from 289 to 293. The reason for this confusion
is clear. Jerome allocated Diocletian a reign of twenty years whereas in reality
the emperor had twenty-two regnal years from his accession on 20 November
284 (not 17 September, as stated by Carson) to his abdication on 11 May 305. In
common with other chroniclers of the late Roman period, Jerome ignored two of
Diocletian’s regnal years by subsuming those which were less than a significant
part of a calendar year into the nearest full year. Since regnal years could be
calculated from the date of accession to the end of the year and from the
beginning of the last year to the date of death or, this case, resignation, the regnal
years of Diocletian can be read as follows (Jones & Casey, 1988).

Table 2
Regnal Year
I Nov-Dec 284
II Jan-Dec 285
III ″ 286
IIII ″ 287
V ″ 288
VI ″ 289
VII ″ 290
VIII ″ 291
IX ″ 292
X ″ 293
XI ″ 294
XII ″ 295
XIII ″ 296
XIV ″ 297
XV ″ 298
XVI ″ 299
XVII ″ 300
XVIII ″ 301
XIX ″ 302
XX ″ 303
XXI ″ 304
XXII Jan-Sept 305
 THE DATE AND DURATION OF THE REVOLT 31

In this framework the accession of Carausius should fall at some time in 287 on
the corrected Jerome reckoning.
Before accepting this date, with the concomitant revision of Carson’s widely
accepted dating scheme based on a mintmark sequence starting in 286, we should
examine the collateral evidence for the date of the revolt. There are a number of
lines of approach. Firstly, we can examine the generalized accounts of the period
to see whether they offer any relative dates. Secondly, we can look at the
numismatic evidence, especially that associated with the celebration of the
suppression of the revolt, to see whether it is possible to reference backwards
from dated events.
The accounts of Aurelius Victor and Eutropius are at odds with each other.
Aurelius Victor says: ‘He [i.e. Carausius] was overthrown six years later, by the
treachery of someone called Allectus’, whereas Eutropius states that: ‘After
seven years his own ally Allectus killed him, and himself held the British
provinces for three years.’ Eutropius also records that ‘…whilst matters were in
great disorder throughout the whole of the Roman world and Carausius was
raising a war in Britain, Achilleus in Egypt, the Pentapolitans harassed Africa,
Narseus made war upon the East, Diocletian raised Maximianus Herculeus from
the dignity of Caesar to that of Emperor, and made Constantius and (Galerius)
Maximian Caesars…’.
In these accounts we have the choice of either a six-year reign (Victor) or a
seven-year (Eutropius) reign for Carausius. The Eutropian account is duplicated
by Orosius, but this has no independent evidential value, being itself derived
from Eutropius or the Eutropian source.
We are also told by Eutropius that Carausius revolted before Maximian was
raised to the rank of Augustus, an event which is dated to 1 April 286. The
passage containing this information is a conflation of events which, in reality,
occupied an extended period and were not simultaneous as the text implies. For
instance, the revolt in Egypt took place in the Egyptian calendar year 287/8
(Thomas, 1976, 1977). Jerome, incidentally, dates this revolt to 292, further
undermining his credibility.
Of the other occurrences conflated by Eutropius, Constantius and Galerius
were promoted in 292 and the Pentapolitans, or Quinquegentianae, rose up in
North Africa in the same year. Clearly the date of Carausius’s insurrection must
be treated as a non-specific reference and merely as part of a generalized account
of events in the early years of Diocletian’s reign.
Jerome does not record the death of Carausius but does give a duration for the
revolt in an entry under the fifteenth year of Diocletian’s reign: ‘Post decem
annos per Aescepliodum praetorio Brittaniae recepta.’ (‘After ten years [the
provinces of] Britain were recaptured by Asclepiodotus the praetorian praefect.)
As we have already seen, Jerome’s chronology needs to be adjusted to take into
account the missing two years of the reign. In reality his fifteenth year runs from
January to December 298. But even this corrected date is clearly erroneous
because the defeat of Allectus was celebrated in a panegyric delivered in 297,
32 THE BRITISH USURPERS

though this date in itself is only a terminus ad quem and not evidence that the
defeat was inflicted in that year. To establish a date for the vanquishing of
Allectus and the date of the death of Carausius, we need to turn to the coin
evidence and then look at the literary evidence again.
Attention has already been drawn to a series of coins which allude to the
events surrounding the death of Carausius, the capture of Boulogne by
Constantius, the invasion of Britain and its repossession by the central empire
(Burnett, 1984a). A crucial piece of evidence is the coin issued by the Colchester
mint in the name of Maximian which commemorates the consulship which he
held in 293. Since no coins were issued for the legitimate emperors by Allectus
we can be confident that this issue was sanctioned by Carausius and that it
constitutes irrefutable evidence that his reign extended beyond 1 January 293, the
date at which the consulship commenced. It is usually assumed that the fall of
Carausius was brought about by the loss of Boulogne, though this has been
questioned (Huvelin, 1983). The panegyric which celebrates the fall of the town
says that it fell by siege ‘immediately’ after the elevation of Constantius to the
rank of Caesar on 1 March 293. We may deduce from this that Carausius fell in
the spring or early summer of 293.
Were this to be accepted, the various statements of Aurelius Victor and
Eutropius can be reconciled if we regard the former’s claim of a six-year reign as
being a statement that Carausius held power for a period of about 72 months,
whereas Eutropius’s seven years are regnal years, counting part of 287 as a year
and January to March 293 as another regnal year.
All, then, apparently points to 287 as being the year of the revolt, but two
further pieces of evidence suggest an earlier date, one as early as the middle of
286. It was then that Maximian abruptly suspended the production of gold coin
at the imperial mint of Lyons (Lugdunum). There seems little reason to remove
the gold stocks from the principal mint of Gaul, presumably to Rome, if there
was not some threat to its security. This threat cannot have been from the
Bagaudae who had already been defeated, but may have been the presence of
Carausius, or his supporters, on the Continent.
There is a further piece of numismatic evidence which points to a problem in
Gaul. Hoard evidence from Britain shows that the last coin issues of the Gallic
mints in the names of Diocletian and Maximian to reach the island before the
severance from legitimate rule, date to no later than the middle of 286. This
suggests that normal connections between Britain and Gaul were interrupted at
this time. Evidence of a coinage produced on the Continent very early in the
reign of Carausius (below p. 90) also suggests that there was an episode which
has left no record in the main literary sources. The panegyric addressed to
Maximian on the eve of his attempt to reconquer Britain in 289 contains a
suggestive passage: ‘Vestrae, inquam, fortunae vestrae felicitas est, imperator,
quodiam milites vestri ad oceanum pervenere victoria, iam caesonum in illo
litore hostium sanguinem reciproci fluctus sorbuerunt.’ (It is proof of your good
fortune, your success, Your Majesty, that your soldiers have already reached the
 THE DATE AND DURATION OF THE REVOLT 33

Ocean in victory, that the tides have swallowed the blood of enemies slaughtered
on that shore.)
Maximian’s attempt to recover Britain failed and in consequence Carausius
was able to establish a considerable enclave of territory in north-western Gaul.
Although written three years after the event, the passage quoted above must refer
to events before the defeat of Maximian and the occupation of Gaul. It follows
that in an unrecorded episode Carausius held parts of Gaul before the
unsuccessful invasion of Britain in 289. This opens up a number of possibilities,
the most attractive of which is that the revolt took place in Gaul in the middle of
286 but that most of the historians regarded this as a minor phase of the episode
and based the computations of the reign from the date at which Carausius was
established solely in Britain. Despite his chronological inconsistencies St Jerome
appears to give credibility to this view when he says ‘Carausius assumed the
purple and occupied Britain’. The word order suggests that the occupation of
Britain followed on the decision to rebel and was not the occasion for the revolt.
Thereafter the Continental episode is ignored and the focus switches to Britain.
In summary, while at first sight the bulk of the documentary sources suggest a
date of 287, the independent numismatic sources point towards the earlier date.
The panegyric of 289, which predates all other chronological sources, implies an
early phase of the revolt centred in Gaul itself which is unnoticed by the later
sources.
If we turn to Allectus we find equally disparate calculations for the duration of
the reign, its start and its termination. Allectus came to power as a result of the
assassination of Carausius though, as has been noted, the equation of the loss of
Boulogne with the death has been questioned. It is true that Carausius is not
mentioned in relation to events during the siege but does this demonstrate that he
was already dead and that it was Allectus who lost the regime’s Continental
possession? This suggestion quite over-looks the fact that no one is named in the
account of the fall of Boulogne; the adversaries of the legitimate emperors are
simply ‘pirates’ or ‘robbers’, not dignified with names. The ancient sources are
not united on the length of Allectus’s reign. Aurelius Victor states that he fell
shortly (brevi) after the death of Carausius, while Eutropius gives him three
years of power. Further inconsistencies arise when comparison is made between
the accounts of the total duration of the British empire. Victor says that
Carausius ruled for six years of the ten-year revolt, implying a four-year reign
for Allectus. Eutropius allocates Carausius seven years, so assigning Allectus
three. In a variation Orosius claims that Britain was ‘recovered after ten years’,
possibly suggesting that Allectus survived into an eleventh year.
The coins issued by the victors after the defeat of Allectus offer some insights
into the problem. These have been summarized by Burnett (Burnett, 1984b). The
series of gold commemorative medals issued to celebrate the recovery of Britain
is best known by the so-called Arras Medallion which depicts the Caesar,
Constantius, entering London (Pl. 7, no. 4), but a number of gold pieces were
issued at the same time. On the obverse of one of this series Constantius is
34 THE BRITISH USURPERS

shown in the robes of a consul, an office which he held in 296 (Pl. 7, no. 3). The
medal provides a terminus ad quem for the recovery of the island and since the
consular office was entered upon on 1 January, it follows that Britain must have
been recovered in 295 or 296. It is unlikely that the medal was issued later than
the date of the consulship, as a sort of retrospective award, and a date of 297 for
this piece must be rejected. This is supported by the issue of coins of minor
denomination whose iconography can be interpreted as celebrating an imperial
victory in 296. At Trier and Lyons, coins issued in 296 bear imperial busts of
military style in which the ruler is represented in armour with spear and shield.
An issue of Trier, solely for Constantius, depicts a figure of Victory on the shield.
The assumption of the title Britannicus Maximus by Diocletian and his colleagues
on the completion of the war does not, of itself, offer a firm date for the end of
hostilities. The earliest inscription recording the title is dated to Diocletian’s
thirteenth tribunician year (CL VIII. 21550). The date of the inscription depends
on whether the emperor counted these years from his dies imperii (20
November) or from the start of the consular year (1 January) and whether, in any
case, the title was taken in conjunction with this event. If Diocletian took the title
with the assumption of the thirteenth tribunician power and that power dated
from 20 November then Allectus’s defeat and death must have preceded
November 296.
Another area of numismatic evidence is found in the coinage of Roman Egypt.
Here the coinage system, until it was reformed by Diocletian, was unique to the
province and had no circulation elsewhere in the empire, though a few examples
reached the west through travellers. For chronological purposes the products of
the mint of Alexandria have the incomparable advantage over other Roman coins
of bearing a date in the form of the regnal year of the issuing ruler. Studies of
this coinage show that Alexandria accurately reflects, by choice of types,
imperial campaigns and victories throughout the empire (Casey, 1987). If we
look at the coinage of Egypt in this light a number of issues appear to allude to
the activities of Constantius. Burnett draws attention to a series of coins which
do not appear to have been shared by the co-Caesar, Galerius. For example, an
issue of Year 3 shows Constantius spearing a fallen enemy (Pl. 1, no. 7).
Another, of the same date, depicts Constantius wearing a helmet decorated with a
figure of Victory and carrying a trophy over his shoulder (Pl. 1, no. 6). A third
example, once again of Year 3, shows the Caesar in military dress, holding a
figure of Victory on a globe, with bound captives at his feet (Pl. 1, no. 8).
Burnett’s view is that these coins commemorate a victory won ‘before the end
of August 295’, the end of the calendar year which coincides with Constantius’s
third year. He acknowledges that this victory might have been achieved before
the reconquest of Britain over hostile forces on the Rhine, as recounted in the
Panegyric of 297, but comes down firmly in favour of a British inspiration
because ‘no other victory is recorded for Constantius on the abundant
Alexandrian coinage of the next year’. Attention may also be drawn to an issue of
Maximian which depicts the emperor of the West helmeted, holding a spear and
 THE DATE AND DURATION OF THE REVOLT 35

bearing a shield decorated with a flying Victory. This coin is dated to the tenth
year of Maximian in the Egyptian system, 295/6.
While the evidence is tentative, the cumulative impact of the Egyptian coins
and the consular gold medallion, issued in 296, is strongly in favour of an early
date for the defeat of Allectus either in the first eight months of 295, or at latest,
by early 296. Of these two dates the latter has the virtue of easing the problem of
reconciling the coin evidence with Orosius’s claim of a three-year reign for
Allectus. On the other hand, Orosius may have simply been wrong. In summary,
the cumulative literary and numismatic evidence points to the revolt having taken
place in mid-286 and to have been suppressed by 296. Carson’s scheme for the
dating of the coinage can be maintained as a general framework for any
discussion of the internal chronology of the episode with suitable slight
downward adjustment of the date of the very last issue of the reign of Allectus.
 4
THE LITERARY NARRATIVE

THE LITERARY SOURCES GIVE A reasonably coherent story of events at the

start of the reign of Carausius though they are partial in every sense. They are
also very informative about events relating to the siege and fall of Boulogne and,
to a lesser extent, those surrounding the fall of Allectus. They give only a
superficial account of the revolt itself and the reasons for that revolt. There is no
account of the manner in which Britain fell to the usurper, of why a part of the
army on the Continent joined his cause. We are told nothing of his administration
of Britain, of the reasons for his overthrow or the reign of his successor except
that it was claimed to be oppressive by the panegyricist. But, as the lady said on
another occasion, ‘He would, wouldn’t he?’
Let us examine these accounts in detail in order to extract from them their
narrative of events. After this we can look to see whether it is possible to
supplement or change that narrative from the archaeological and numismatic
evidence, testing the authority of the historical sources by recourse to non-
literary studies.
We notice at once that only the later historians actually name either Carausius
or Allectus; the contemporary and near-contemporary panegyrics offer no
biographical details of the usurpers and refer to them only through periphrases
and in demeaning epithets. This is entirely consonant with the contemporary
practice which deliberately avoided dignifying criminals or enemies of the state
by the use of their names. In a society which held that the remembrance of the
dead mitigated the condition of their afterlife existence there was a metaphysical,
or at least superstitious, intention to abolish reality through denying it concrete
existence. In the most extreme case, that of the damnatio memoriae of fallen rulers,
measures extended to erasing names from monuments, destroying statues and
images and even abolishing their laws and enactments. Carausius and Allectus
are normally apostrophized as ‘pirate’, ‘robber’, ‘desperate creature’ or ‘the
standard bearer of the criminal rebellion’. This, in Roman terms, is mild stuff; a
recent study has shown that political enemies were often addressed in terms of
very explicit sexual abuse in a ritualized exchange of insults. Even a statesman
of the calibre of Augustus ritually insulted his enemy Mark Antony (Adams,
1982).
 THE BRITISH USURPERS 37

For details of the life of Carausius, and such few comments we have about
Allectus, we must turn to Aurelius Victor and Eutropius. Both texts are assumed
to derive from a lost imperial history dating to the first quarter of the fourth
century and, since they offer slightly differing accounts, we may be sure that they
have used their mutual source selectively. Because the two accounts derive from
a single progenitor we may be justified in using them as a single source in
reconstructing a composite narrative.
Both Victor and Eutropius name Carausius and Allectus but do not give their
full names, and to this day that of Allectus is unknown. In the case of Carausius
some of his coins give an abbreviated full name in the form IMP C M AVR M
CARAVSIVS (‘The Emperor Caesar Marcus Aurelius M(…) Carausius’). A
milestone, the single epigraphic record of the British emperors, found at Gallows
Hill near Carlisle (RIB 2291), gives a fuller version of the name by expanding
the M. CARAVSIVS of the coins to MAVS CARAVSIVS (Pl. c). The abbreviation
MAVS does not readily give a common Latin name and scholars have proposed
an expansion to MAVSEVS or MAVSAEVS, with the latter being the more
acceptable version (Birley, 1981). Thus the full titulature of the emperor would
read IMPERATOR CAESAR MARCVS AVRELIVS MAVSAEVS CARAVSIUVS
PIVS FELIX AVGVSTVS. The names Marcus Aurelius are very common in the
third century being adopted by a large proportion of the population when
enfranchised by Caracalla (Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Pius). Carausius may
already have had these names or they may have been adopted on accession to the
throne. The names Marcus Aurelius were borne by Diocletian himself as well as
by Probus, Carus, Carinus and Numerian among emperors in the years leading
up to the reign of Diocletian.
Discussions of the etymological origins of the names Carausius and Mausaeus
have been inconclusive. Mauseus, or Musaeus, has genuine Roman antecedents
and Carausius has been ascribed to a Celtic or Germanic origin without much
conviction (Shiel, 1977). It may be significant, however, that the only epigraphic
record of the name other than in the context of the revolt, and on an enigmatic
coinage issued in Britain in the middle of the fourth century (discussed below), is
on an early Christian tombstone (Fig.2) from Penmachno in the Celtic west of
Britain which reads CARAVSIVS HIC IACIT IN HOC CONGERIES LAPIDVM
(‘Carausius lies here in this cairn’) (Nash-Williams, 1950). The tombstone
probably dates from the late fifth century and has no connection with the usurper
(Fig.2).
Aurelius Victor states that Carausius was a ‘cives Menapiae’ (a ‘citizen of
Menapia’), this being the coast of Gallia Belgica, incorporating the coast of
modern northern France, Belgium and Holland. This region saw very dramatic
changes in fortune in the third century. During the reign of Marcus Aurelius, in
c. 172–4, it was devastated by the raids of two German tribes, the Chauci and the
Chatti, the former attacking the area by sea and the latter from across the Rhine.
An imperial policy of restoration of settlements and the construction of forts did
not enjoy success for very long. Frankish and Alamannic raiding in the 260s, again
38 THE LITERARY NARRATIVE

2 Sixth-century Christian tombstone from Penmachno.

from across the Rhine, was so intensive that it appears to have led to the start of a
depopulation of coastal areas. This trend was brought to a climax by a marine
transgression which flooded the coastal plain in c. 270, leaving it uninhabited
and uninhabitable (Thoen, 1981).
This, then, was the background of Carausius’ early life: on the edges of the
empire in a province which was threatened with, and periodically subjected to,
barbarian attack and natural calamity. As a frontier area it was a zone of ethnic
inter-activity where Germanic, Celtic and Romano-Gallic populations
intermingled freely and where social and business mores might not conform to
the niceties of metropolitan Roman society. It was also an area where the
mercantile classes had intimate commercial contacts with Britain. At the mouth
of the Rhine stood a temple of the goddess Nehalennia, whose worshippers
included merchants carrying on trade with Britain. It was in this environment, we
are told by Aurelius Victor, that as a young man Carausius earned his living as a
sailor. The text uses the phrase ‘gubernandi gnarus’ which means literally
‘helmsman’ and has been glossed by some writers to mean ‘pilot’. There can be
 THE BRITISH USURPERS 39

little doubt that the profession of pilot existed in the shipping trade of Menapia
and that the shifting sands of this coast might well necessitate the service of
knowledgeable coastal guides but there is no certainty that this extension of
Carausius’s status is justified. Dr Roger Tomlin, in discussion of this complex
text, notes that the educated Aurelius Victor would know that in the Aeneid
Palinurus, who steered Aeneas’ ship, is described as ‘gubernator’. He further
notes that in military contexts gubernator was a non-commissioned rank though
acting as second-in-command of a ship in the fleet (Tomlin, pers. comm.). In a
broader context the phrase might be interpreted as a periphrasis indicating a
general naval expertise, especially as the text contrasts his naval talents with
those he displayed in the land war against the Bagaudae, citing them as the
qualification for promotion to the command of a fleet. Eutropius adds that
Carausius was ‘a man of very humble origin’, perhaps more a comment on his
social status than any reference to his economic background. In the context of
imperial antecedents in the period, humility of background was no bar to high
office: Diocletian was probably the son of a freedman, and Galerius, his Caesar
and later ruler of the Eastern Empire, is alleged to have started life as a mere
herdsman.
There is no further information vouchsafed about Carausius’ life before the
events leading up to his revolt; we do not know when he was born nor the names
of his parents. On the former point a guess can be hazarded from the age
structure of military and imperial commands held during his lifetime. There
seems, on the slight evidence available, to have been a rough age correlation
between office and rank.

Table 3 Age and rank of emperors 268–93. (Source: Kienast, 1990)

Ruler Birth date Age at elevation Last pre-imperial rank
Claudius II c.214 c.54 Dux Illyrici
Probus 223 44 Dux Orientis
Aurelian c.214 56 Dux equitum
Carus 224 58 Praetorian prefect
Diocletian 245 39 Imperial guard commander
Maximian 250 35 Unknown
Constantius I 250 43 Praetorian prefect

The highest offices appear to have been achieved by men in their mid-40s and
50s; both Diocletian and Maximian were relatively young and neither had achieved
very high rank when they were promoted. We have no indication that Carausius
held any high office before his promotion to command a fleet and it might be
expected that his age approximated to that of Diocletian and Maximian. His coin
portraits, which show an elderly man, are not good evidence for his age because,
40 THE LITERARY NARRATIVE

as was normal, they are designed to increase his gravitas by mature

representation.
We do not know what sort of career was pursued by Carausius after his early
days of seamanship. If he followed a military career we may conjecture that it
followed the sort of progress experienced by officers who rose to prominence
after the administrative and military reforms of the emperor Gallienus (253–68).
These reforms opened a professional military career to non-senatorial officers by
depriving senators of their monopoly of high military command, making these
posts available to members of the equestrian social order. Being based directly
on property qualification, rather than birth or imperial donation, equestrian status,
and with it the ultimate prospect of the command of provincial armies, was open
to officers above the rank of centurion. At the same time the army was freed from
the straitjacket of traditional legionary tactics, large cavalry commands were
created and increasingly mobile battle groups formed from a more lightly armed
infantry force. These new formations demanded innovative general-ship skills,
skills evolved from extended field service in a wide variety of tactical situations.
The day of the short-service aristocratic politician in uniform gave way to the
professional, long-service officer from the lower social classes, often from a very
humble provincial background. It was from this background that the majority of
the emperors in the second half of the third century came. It is likely that
Carausius’s career followed this sort of pattern.
All sources agree on the reason for Carausius’s promotion. Aurelius Victor
says that he had acquired a military reputation during Maximian’s campaign
against the Bagaudae in Gaul and that the emperor ‘commissioned him to put
together a fleet and fight off the Germans who were infesting the seas’.
Eutropius adds some further detail in that ‘he had been commissioned at Bononia
[Boulogne] to bring peace to the sea infested by Franks and Saxons, along the
Belgica-Armorica sector’. This sector comprised the coast from the Rhine to
Britanny. There is no mention of Britain in any of this and the centre of activity
is clearly the coast of the Continent, though any success against raiders in this
area would benefit the security of Britain also. Significantly the Panegyric of 297
describes Casausius as stealing ‘the fleet that used to protect Gaul’.
The promotion seems to have been granted because Carausius came to the
notice of Maximian; this appears to dispel any notion that a cause of the revolt
was resentment of his commander’s elevation to imperial rank. Maximian’s
campaign in Gaul is dated in the Panegyric of 297 as taking place after his
elevation to co-emperor with Diocletian, after 1 April 286. Maximian held the
lower rank of Caesar between the summer of 285 and the date of his promotion
to Augustus. If Carausius was promoted because of his activities in that war, then
raised a fleet, conducted a successful naval campaign, was condemned and
revolted before the middle of 286—a date derived from the numismatic evidence
(below p. 91)—then the compression of events is very extreme. But there is
reason to think that the elliptical wording of the Panegyric is misleading. A more
reasonable sequence of events is that Maximian was sent to Gaul to take over the
 THE BRITISH USURPERS 41

administration of the defeated Carinus and to deal with the Bagaudic revolt.
Elevation to full imperial rank was surely dependent on the successful
achievement of these tasks, otherwise Diocletian would have promoted his
colleague to full rank in 285, rather than progressing him by stages from Filius
Augusti and Caesar to co-emperor. In these circumstances it is perfectly possible
for Carausius to have participated in the campaign at an early stage and then to
have moved on to hold an independent command. That this was of some duration
is made clear by Eutropius’s statement that he had ‘often captured many
barbarians’.
The enemy that was vanquished by Maximian, and against whom Carausius
won his military reputation, has excited wide academic interest. Bagaudae (they
are also called Bacaudae) occur in a number of Roman historical contexts,
especially in the fifth century in Gaul and Spain (Drinkwater, 1992). The name,
of unknown origin and meaning, has been interpreted as encompassing every
range of rural resistance to authority from the classic Marxist peasant class
struggle to a demand, led by a waning tribal aristocracy, for a reversion to a
traditional Celtic stratified social order (Thompson 1974). Modern opinion
suggests that Bagaudae comprised various elements of society who, having been
relieved of the burden of Roman authority by barbarian invasion, resisted its
reimposition by a government which had been unable, or unwilling, to protect
them in the first place. Whatever later Bagaudae may have been, and the term
may have been used as a blanket condemnation of any sort of rural discontent,
the text of Aurelius Victor says that:

…on the death of Carinus, Aelianus and Amandus, having raised in Gaul a
troop of peasants and brigands (called locally bagaudae) and having
ravaged a wide area of the countryside, were attacking most of the towns….
(Eutr.ix.13)

It is not very clear from this whether the peasants are to be included in the term
‘bagaudae’ or whether the local word only refers to the brigand element of the
insurrection. In any event the two leaders, who issued their own coinage, took
the opportunity given by the temporary collapse of the imperial administration to
set up their own government in northern Gaul. The suppression of the revolt does
not seem to have taken long since Maximian launched an attack on the Germans
in 286, an unthinkable strategic move unless the hinterland of northern Gaul had
been secured.
Returning to the career of Carausius, the sources agree that he was a success
as a naval commander. According to Aurelius Victor, he ‘killed many of the
barbarians’ (v.39.20) and Eutropius claims that he ‘often captured many
barbarians’ (Eutr.ix.13). These enemy sailors, given the later evidence of the
employment of barbarian forces in the navy and army, may have been recruited
into his ranks.
42 THE LITERARY NARRATIVE

Eutropius gives the fullest account of the official reason for Carausius’s fall
from grace. The accusation was that he kept recovered booty for himself rather
than trying to return it to its owners or, failing their survival at the hands of the
barbarian raiders, surrendering it to the imperial authorities. He is also accused
of developing an innovative strategy for catching pirates. This involved allowing
them to penetrate the Roman defensive screen and attack their targets in order to
catch them when returning to base exhausted and burdened with loot. The result
of these tactics was to accumulate in his hands large resources with which,
contrary to all Roman administrative practices, he could pay or reward his own
forces. The consequence of this was condemnation to death by an enraged
Maximian. Faced by this fate, according to both Aurelius Victor and Eutropius,
‘he usurped the imperial power and seized Britain’ (Aurelius Victor, v.39.20).
None of the accounts says that the condemnation was immediately followed by
flight to Britain; this is a modern gloss of the texts. On the contrary, the texts
imply that he seized power first and only then took over Britain; the one action was
not dependent upon the other.
For literary evidence of developments on the Continent we are confined to the
narrative provided by the three panegyrics, there being no mention whatsoever of
events outside Britain in any of the historians. From the Panegyric of 289 we
learn that a year has been spent in an all-out preparation of an invasion force to
root out the rebel. Forests are felled, shipwrights are engaged in a huge
shipbuilding programme, the weather is cooperative and the army is eager for the
campaign. Success is assured, the inexorable process of imperial retribution is in
motion, the gods are willing and ‘certainly the day will dawn, when Rome will
see you [Maximian] victorious…’ (Pan. Lat. x(ii).13).
On 21 July the next year, another panegyric was delivered before Maximian.
Significantly there is absolutely no reference to Carausius, to Britain or to the
campaign promised in the speech of the previous year; clearly the enterprise had
failed disastrously. The next information that we have comes from the Panegyric
of 297, and that of 310, showing that Carausius was in occupation of parts of
northern Gaul and had established a naval and military base at Boulogne. In the
absence of direct literary evidence we can only conjecture about the chain of
events which lead to this situation. At the very least the loss of the invasion fleet
by enemy action or, as is hinted, by natural causes, left the coast of Gaul open to
Carausian attack. In the event the opportunity was snatched to effect a landing
and to occupy imperial territory.
At this juncture the newly appointed Caesar, Constantius, makes his
appearance on the stage. Constantius had served as praetorian prefect to
Maximian from 288; in this position we must assume that he served in a leading
role in the unsuccessful campaigns against the rebel. It seems unlikely that he
was himself responsible for any of the setbacks hitherto experienced by the
imperial cause, for this would have disqualified him from the position to which
he was now promoted. Ever since man started to wage systematic warfare it has
been acknowledged that good generals are lucky generals and a lack of felicitas
 THE BRITISH USURPERS 43

would certainly have counted against a candidate for the highest office.
Constantius was elevated to the imperial college in 293 as heir apparent to
Maximian. He immediately set about the task of bringing Carausius to heel.
The Panegyric of 297 contains eloquent detail of both the campaign in Gaul
and of the invasion of Britain; it also gives otherwise unrecorded detail of the
support enjoyed by Carausius and of the recruitment of forces to his cause. It is
from this source that we learn of the defection of a Roman legion and
unspecified auxiliary units, of the support given by Gallic merchants, the
recruitment of allies from among barbarian peoples, the building of a further
fleet and the training of sailors (Pan. Lat. viii(v). 6,12).
There is a detailed account of the siege of Boulogne, which was reduced by
cutting the town off from relief by the Carausian fleet by the construction of a
timber-based mole. How long this operation took is not stated but it cannot have
been less than several weeks and may well have taken several months. The
Panegyric of 310 adds the further detail that the garrison was treated with
clemency after the surrender of the town (Pan. Lat. vi(vii). 6). At this stage, or
earlier, Carausius was assassinated by Allectus.
The Panegyric of 297 records this event without mentioning the principals by
name. The orator seems to have mixed feelings about the event; although
Carausius is described as a ‘pirate chief’ and Allectus as his ‘henchman’, the
murder is described as a ‘crime’ (Pan. Lat. viii(v). 12). A motive is also offered
in that Allectus ‘thought that his crime would be rewarded by imperial power’.
This seems to imply a belief that he would be recognized as legitimate by
Diocletian and Maximian as a reward for the deed. If so he was badly misled.
Both Aurelius Victor and Eutropius record the death of Carausius, though not
the siege of Boulogne. The former describes Allectus as having been made
Carausius’s minister of finance—‘summae rei praeesset’ (v.39.39)— but the
latter as ‘his only ally’ (Eutr.ix.14).
The Panegyric of 297 next deals with the expedition to recover Britain,
explaining that the three years’ delay between the death of Carausius and the
defeat of Allectus was occupied both in the construction and preparation of an
invasion fleet and with a campaign in the area between the Rhine and the Scheldt
against the Chamavi and the Frisii (Pan. Lat. viii(v). 8). These peoples were
defeated and transported to the interior of the empire where they were settled as
agriculturalists on land which had gone out of cultivation.
The account of the invasion itself is handled with tact. Despite bad weather
Constantius prevails, Allectus is defeated, and London is saved from the
depredations of the usurper’s fleeing and broken forces, specifically Frankish
mercenaries. Allectus’s body is found on the battlefield together with his
entourage. Additionally ‘hardly a single Roman died in the victory of the Roman
empire’. Constantius is then hailed by a jubilant population of Britain as a
liberator (Pan. Lat. viii(vi). 5).
44 THE LITERARY NARRATIVE

The Panegyric of 310 adds nothing to this account except to claim, in contrast
to the earlier account, that the expedition was blessed with absolutely calm seas
(Pan. Lat. vi(viii). 5).
The later historians unite in undermining this account by ascribing the victory
in Britain not to Constantius but to his subordinate. ‘He [Allectus] was crushed
by the agency of Asclepiodotus, the praetorian prefect’, says Eutropius (Eutr. ix.
14). Aurelius Victor is more specific: ‘…Constantius sent Asclepiodotus, whom
he had made praetorian prefect, ahead with part of his fleet and legions, and
destroyed him [i.e. Allectus]’ (v.39.39).
This, then, is the outline of events as recorded in the literary sources. Needless
to say they are hardly impartial accounts, being, in the main, political
documents, laudatory speeches with a framework of their own rules and traditions.
And, of course, addressed to the victors. The historical narratives, though written
at a period when the political restraints imposed on the panegyricists no longer
prevailed, are derivative from a lost work and we do not know what information
has been omitted by the authors, nor do we know the political stance of the
original work or even its own accuracy. Even in this brief summary it is clear
that there are discrepancies between accounts and problems which arise from the
silences of the sources. Instances in which specific problems are raised by the
texts include the meteorological details, the part played by the praetorian prefect,
the fate of Maximian’s expedition and the manner in which Carausius came into
possession of Boulogne. Nor are we told why a legion, and which one, defected
to Carausius or, finally, who Allectus was or how he rose to power. These, and
other problems, must be considered in relation to such other evidence,
archaeological and numismatic, as is independent of the literary tradition.
 5
THE IDEOLOGY OF CARAUSIAN AND
ALLECTAN COIN TYPES

THE STUDY OF ROMAN COIN types is the study of the devices, images and
mottoes which appear on the reverse, or tail side, of the coins. It is a study with a
long history, but the results achieved have tended to bring this aspect of
numismatic research into contempt with critical historians. The search for
meaning in coin types, in the absence of other documentary reference, has led
scholars to claim an almost clairvoyant ability to read the political subtleties of
the past through the medium of its coinage. The tirade which this brought forth
from A.H.M.Jones is worth quoting in full, since it is the declared aim of this
book to refute his dogmatic stance:

If a modern analogy is to be sought for the varying types and legends of

Roman imperial coins it is perhaps to be found in the similar variations in
the postage stamps of many modern countries… No serious modern
historian would use them as a clue which revealed changes of government
policy, even if other evidence were totally lacking. It would be better if
numismatists took the coin types and legends less seriously, and if
historians of the empire, instead of building fantastic history upon them,
frankly admitted that the political history of periods when the coins are the
sole evidence are irrecoverable, apart from the bare bones of the
chronology of the reigns, the areas which the emperors effectively
controlled, and any other salient events which the coins directly celebrate.
(Jones, 1956).

Despite this extreme contrary view it seems reasonable to assume that the choice
of coin types does reflect something of the concerns of society. This is especially
so as, until recently, coins were the only way of circularizing the whole
population with images of their rulers. It can even be argued that the symbols on
modern coins have a function in mediating between political reality and the
population in general. The chosen imagery expresses embedded social norms,
concepts or expectations. On ancient coins overt symbols record contemporary
events such as the erection of temples or other public buildings, the celebration
of victories and the remembrance of anniversaries connected with the ruler or his
family. These, of course, can be easily understood not least because an explanatory
46 THE BRITISH USURPERS

motto often accompanies the image. But the implications of less specific imagery
such as generalized personifications of Peace (Pax), Plenty (Abundantia) or
Security (Securitas) can be interpreted in any number of ways. At the lowest
level of significance they are simply things which fill an otherwise empty space
on the coin. On the other hand, since the chosen themes vary with time it may be
claimed that they represent a changing ideological portfolio from which
symbolic representations, apposite to the times, were chosen.
If we look at the designs on the current coin of Britain we see a suite of symbols
which make a clear statement about inter-regional parity—a leek for Wales, the
thistle for Scotland, the arms of England and an obscure local plant for Ireland
because the use of the traditional symbol, the Irish harp, would constitute an
unacceptable partisan statement in the context of the current political situation.
Coins of lesser value display symbols evocative of a historic past—Britannia
ruling the waves, a portcullis symbolic of a free parliament, the Prince of Wales
feathers implying continuity of the monarchy. These symbols comprise a series
of statements which, cumulatively, evoke a static ideology established by
reference to a long historic past. They evoke images of unity, stability and
continuity. But they may deceive the future interpreter because they are really
designed to mitigate the impact of change in a period of dynamic constitutional
transition, one in which the institutions evoked by the coinage, and even the
coinage itself, is in imminent prospect of being restructured within the European
Union.
On a broader scale in the Roman period we can see distinctive trends in the
use of coin symbols over several centuries. The grandees of the late Republic
used control of the magistracies attached to the production of the coinage to
select types which enhanced their political status through references to the
achievements of ancestors. Later, changes in the state religion are reflected. In
the first and second centuries the dominant types referred to the Roman gods and
victories over foreign enemies. In the fourth century such victories were rare to
the point of vanishing, but the adoption of Christianity as the state religion
opened the prospect of spiritual success, an eternal metaphysical victory over
material enemies. Christian imagery was adopted as an imperial theme,
accurately reflecting the contemporary imperial social and political ideology.
This ideology was not necessarily shared by the bulk of the population, or even
by some of the most prominent ministers of the regime. On a narrower scale we
can see that the types used in the first half of the reign of Marcus Aurelius (161–
81) are almost all of a pacific nature; those used in the second half of the reign
which was entirely occupied by the Marcommanic War, fought on the Danube,
are mostly of a military or warlike content.
If coins convey a message from or about the ruler, who made the actual choice
of types? We do not know, but the choice must represent what those who served
the administration conceived to be representative symbols of its political, social
or religious ideology. Though individual types may not permit specific
interpretation the overall aggregation of symbols comprises a statement which
 THE IDEOLOGY OF CARAUSIAN AND ALLECTAN COIN TYPES 47

may be capable of elucidation. It should, of course, be borne in mind that coin

types can constitute an aspiration rather than a reality; the selected symbols may
proclaim success and disguise failure, enjoin loyalty but represent sedition,
celebrate victory but disguise defeat. Even so a case can be made for interpreting
coin types as political statements on the broad level.
Can anything be achieved by a study of the coin types of Carausius and
Allectus? A useful strategy is to look at them in the light of the coinage issued on
behalf of Diocletian, Maximian and, later, Constantius. Here we may be able to
ascertain whether the production of the rival camps was representative of a
campaign of numismatic propaganda and whether the coinage gives an indication
of policy or political intent.
Perhaps before taking this step we should ask to whom all this numismatic
fine art was directed. It is unlikely that the bulk of the population, labouring in the
fields, elbow deep in clay in the potteries, or sweating in the forests to fell timber
for the construction of fleets, gave much thought to the nuances of imperial
numismatic ideology; their concerns were with coins as money. To this extent, if
the coins had the right head on the obverse and were accepted by the taxman, the
rent collector and the baker, all was well. We are in all probability dealing with a
phenomenon addressed to an elite to reconcile them to the status quo rather than
to influence their minds about things which, in the last analysis, would be
decided by the loyalty of the forces or external military events. The exception to
this statement is the army itself, which received coin as pay and for whom
specific coin types were produced.
To check the validity of arguments advanced for the function of coin types as
ideological indices we can contrast the coinage of the British regime with that of
its legitimate rival through the widely circulating billon issues of the important
mint of Lyons (Lugdunum). While some types are shared with the British regime,
the overall ‘message’ of the Gallic mint is focused on the unity of the twin
emperors, Diocletian and Maximian, and their relative ranking within the
imperial hierarchy. This ranking was symbolized by the identification of
Diocletian with the supreme deity Jove/Jupiter and his junior colleague,
Maximian, with Hercules, the adjutant of Jove. The bulk of Diocletian’s coins
invoke Jove as protector of the emperor (IOV1 CONSERVAT AVGG; Pl.1, no.9)
while a very high proportion of Maximian’s refer to Hercules, who is invoked as
HERCVLI PACIFERO (‘The Bringer of Peace after Conflict’; Pl.1, no.10).
Maximian himself acquires the attributes of Hercules, adopting the tree trunk
club of the heavenly giant as a piece of symbolic regalia (Pl.1, no.11). The
bravery of the Caesar, Constantius, and his successes against Carausius on the
Continent are celebrated by the appearance of victory trophies and captives (Pl.1,
nos 13, 14). In terms of volume of coinage, as represented in hoards, the
religious-dynastic and militaristic types predominated in the circulating medium.
By contrast the bulk of the coinage of Carausius is restricted to the single type
with the legend PAX AVG(vsti) which proclaims and celebrates the blessings of
peace. This type was issued throughout the reign by the Unmarked, London and
48 THE BRITISH USURPERS

Colchester mints. That the type is a pious hope, rather than a statement of reality,
needs no emphasis. Nevertheless, it is an important ideological statement in its
own right and must represent the ostensible policy of the regime in the same way
that the central empire’s choice of types reflects its concern with dynastic
stability and military success. The fact that a single type dominates the coinage
suggests that the regime was content to direct overtly propagandistic types to a
minority and that coinage was not a medium of persuasion of the majority.
Around the basic Pax type cluster a number of issues which contribute specific
information about the reign. These will be dealt with, in their chronological
setting, elsewhere; for the moment it will suffice to give an overview of what
might have been the changing concerns of the regime as reflected in its choice of
coin types. This aspect of the coinage is perhaps best represented by the products
of the RSR mint.
The mint, opened to strike coin to pay an accession donative to the army and
provincial bureaucracy, seems to have been active in the early months of the new
administration and so presents a conspectus of types representing the ideological
outlook at this formative period. The types of the high-value silver coins are very
allusive and demand a high level of Roman literary education for their full impact
to be appreciated, suggesting they had served a ceremonial function before
entering the currency pool. The mint was also responsible for issuing the consular
medallions which commemorate the acquisition of Britain in terms of an
imperial victory (Pl.2, nos 1, 2). Emphasis is placed on the legitimacy of the
regime by claiming that Carausius is responding to a public demand for his
presence; the claim is validated by recourse to Vergilian imagery. Adapting a
line from the Aeneid the coinage proclaims EXPECTATE VENI (‘Come, O
expected one’). Carausius, as saviour, is welcomed by a personification of
Britain (Pl.2, no.3). The arrival itself is celebrated with a formal Adventus
ceremony, which may have involved a series of rituals associated with state
visits to London and Colchester (Pl.1, no.4; Pl.4, no.4). The imagery of this issue
shows the emperor trampling a captive under his horse’s hoofs in the ritual of
calcatio colli. This representation did not, at this time, represent an actual
trampling. Not until the fourth century was the vanquished victimized in this
manner. That peace and plenty will flow from the beneficial presence of the new
ruler is proclaimed in another Vergilian reference, this on the coin inscribed
VBERTAS (Plenty). This personification is normally depicted as a woman who
stands holding a bunch of grapes, but in the second Georgic there is a description
of rural bliss and rustic simplicity which harks back to the agrarian roots of
Roman society in its uncorrupted state. Among the wonders of nature in this
bucolic idyll is the fact that udders (vbera) of the cows are always full of milk.
The verbal play on vbera/udder and VBERITAS (Plenty) is united in the image of
a Romano-British milkmaid at her work, seated on a milking stool, her head laid
against the flank of a contented cow (Pl.2, nos 5, 10).
The province itself is seen in a wider context of the empire as whole, the object
of the revolt is to renew Rome, Carausius is depicted as the RENOVATOR
 THE IDEOLOGY OF CARAUSIAN AND ALLECTAN COIN TYPES 49

ROMANO(RVM) (‘Restorer of the Romans’) (Pl.2, no.6). To achieve these ends

he needs two things, the backing of the army (CONCORDIA MILITVM) and
Good Fortune (FELICITAS); the latter he already enjoys and it is embodied in
the naval forces depicted on the coin (Pl.2, nos 7,11). The welfare of the state is
endorsed by the taking of binding public vows for its safety (VOTO PVBLICO),
an event normally associated with the giving of a donative (Pl.2, no.9).
If we tabulate the recorded specimens of the silver coinage a clear picture
emerges of which issues were the largest in the series, assuming that survival
represents relative volume of issue. From this tabulation we may see in which
direction the trend of the propaganda effort lay and so ascertain something of the
proclaimed policy of the regime.

Table 4 Type conspectus of Carausian silver coinage

Type Number Percentage
ADVENTVS AVG 7 6.7
CONCORDIA AVG 2 2.2
CONCORD(IA) MILIT(VM) 18 17.3
CONSERVAT AVG (Neptune) 2 2.O
EXPECTATE VENI 12 11.5
FELICITAS AVG (Galley) 16 15.0
FIDES MILIT(VM) 2 2.O
FORTVNA AVG 1 1.0
LEG IIII FL(AVIA) 1 1.0*
ORIENS AVG (Sol) 2 2.0
RENOVAT(OR) ROMANO 20 19.0
ROMAE AETERN 1 1.0
TEMP FELIC 1 1.0
VBERITAS 6 5.7
VIRTVS AVG 3 3.0
VOTVM PVBLIC(VM) 10 9.6
*probably a modern counterfeit (after Shiel, 1977, with additions)

A number of peaks are visible in this table, while other issues, though of
individual iconographic interest, are scarce and of nugatory political
significance. In a very direct sense these coins make up a programmic self-
declaration of the antecedents and intentions of the new regime. The situation to
be confronted is already in existence, not created by the revolt; a saviour is
expected, who has arrived in the person of Carausius. The task to be undertaken
is not that of dividing Britain from the bulk of the empire but of restoring it to
romanitas and by this example to restore the Roman state itself to its pristine and
uncorrupted condition. These achievements depend for their accomplishment on
50 THE BRITISH USURPERS

Table 5 The main types of insular billon issues by mint and mintmark

two loyal agents of the regime—the army, which enjoys concord between its
various elements and collectively with their emperor, and the naval forces who
are the embodiment of the imperial good fortune, or Felicitas.
To summarize the message. The new rule is constitutionally established and
the proper forms are observed. The ceremony of Adventus is celebrated and vows
for the safety of the state are recorded in proper form, though with a perilously
misinformed understanding of imperial protocol. The army is happy, peace has
 THE IDEOLOGY OF CARAUSIAN AND ALLECTAN COIN TYPES 51

been established and the silver coins themselves speak of a new level of
monetary prosperity.
Table 5 lists the main types of the insular billon issues by mint and mintmark.
This tabulation allows a number of observations to be made about the emission of
what constituted the substantive issues of the reigns of both Carausius and
Allectus. Other than the PAX type, SALVS AVG(VSTI) and VICTORIA AVG
(VSTI) are issued by all mints in most years, types celebrating the welfare and
victorious enterprise of the emperor. They are paralleled by issues of the
52 THE BRITISH USURPERS

legitimate emperors and, indeed, constitute the normal suite of types employed
by imperial regimes from the middle of the third century. As such they are non-
specific though the VICTORIA issues cluster at the end of the reign at London but
are early at Colchester, pointing to a degree of independence in the operation of
these establishments and emphasizing the difficulty of drawing political
conclusions from too narrow a view of such numismatic research data.
In terms of religious content the Carausian coinage is reticent when compared
to that of Diocletian and Maximian. This more accurately reflects the religious
basis of Diocletian’s constitutional arrangements than a secular policy pursued
by Carausius or Allectus. The output of types identifying the emperor with
 THE IDEOLOGY OF CARAUSIAN AND ALLECTAN COIN TYPES 53

specific deities, or soliciting their direct intervention, is relatively rare. The C

mint issued coins, derived from those of Gallienus, with the legend APOLLINI
CONS AVG, which invoke the sun god as protector of the emperor. This mint
also produced a number of special issues on which the bust of Carausius is
conjoined with that of Sol. The cult of Sol, with whom Apollo was identified,
had been confirmed as a major state religion when Aurelian dedicated a great
new temple to the god on the forum in Rome itself. This dedication was the
culmination of the spread of the cult of sun worship, which had been gaining
popularity through military circles in the third century. The identification of Sol/
54 THE BRITISH USURPERS

Apollo with Mithras, already a strongly established cult among the upper ranks of
the army, further enhanced the status of the new rite.
The thematic concerns of the silver coinage is reflected in the earliest bronze.
Here the dominance of military types hardly survives the first year of the reign.
Minerva, in her manifestation as a military deity, is identified as companion of
the emperor; so too is Victory. CONCORD(IA) EXERCI(TI) and CONCORD(IA)
MILIT(VM) make the usual statement of military support. This appeal for
military support is directly solicited by a series of billon coins from the London
mint commemorating the individual legions who supported Carausius in his
occupation of Britain. These coins are discussed in detail elsewhere (p.92). Two
rare issues deserve notice: the first proclaim Carausius to be RESTITVTOR BRIT
(ANNIAE) (‘Restorer of Britain’), the second appears to depict a mystic marriage
between Carausius and his newly won island, CONIVGE A(VG), with the
emperor hand in hand with his ‘bride’. Both are early issues.
The tone of the C mint tends to be even less militaristic. The earliest issues are
devoted to such topics as the happiness of the people (FELICITAS PVBLICA)
and the generosity of the ruler (LIBERALITAS AVGVSTI); the acceptability of
the new coinage is also a concern of this mint with the issue of MONETA
AVGVSTI under four consecutive sequence marks, possibly indicating some
otherwise unrecorded, temporary, economic crisis.
A notable feature of Carausius’s reign is the issue of both gold and billon
coins which recognize the legitimacy of Diocletian and Maximian. This
recognition takes the form of coins bearing the portraits and legends of the
legitimate rulers or of coins in the name of Carausius which associate the usurper
with the legitimate imperial college through the use of the formula AVGGG, as in
PROVID AVGGG, to denote the rule of three co-equal emperors (Pl.5, no.8). The
most notable case of such association takes the form of the use of a triple-portrait
issue, displaying the conjoined busts of the three emperors (Pl.5, no.6). These
issues are of primary political significance, offering, as they do, an insight into
Carausius’s political aspirations or into otherwise unattested diplomatic activity.
Such numismatic gestures were not reciprocated.
There is a certain degree of contrast observable in the coinage of Allectus.
Numerically the PAX AVG type (Pl.5, nos 10, 11) still constitutes a large element
of the coinage, though the mints seem to have issued this only in the first year of
the reign. Of equal weight in the Allectan coinage are the PROVIDENTIA AVG
issues of both mints, a type only infrequently employed by his predecessor.
Providentia represents the quality of watchful foresight which anticipates and
smooths out problems for the benefit of the commonwealth. Two further types
are prominent: LAETITIA AVG(VSTI) and HILARITAS AVG(VSTI). In the first
the personification is equipped with an anchor and rudder, or the legend is
associated with a war galley (Pl.8, no.3). Hilaritas represents not unrestrained
mirth but religious joy associated with the festival of the Hilaria. The Romans
defined various degrees of rejoicing; Laetitia was joy occasioned by something
giving pleasure, in the case of Allectus his fleet, Hilaritas represented religious
 THE IDEOLOGY OF CARAUSIAN AND ALLECTAN COIN TYPES 55

Table 6 Special billion issues CARAVSIVS

joy and Gaudium an official rejoicing in which the citizen body shared the good
fortune of the ruler. Neither Carausius nor Allectus appear to have felt the need
to declare a state of Gaudium.
Allectus’s coinage lacks the programmatic qualities of that of Carausius. Of
the state deities only Sol, represented in three issues from the London mint,
offers any insight into the religious preoccupations of the regime. There is no
appeal to the gods at the end of the reign nor increase in military types. This
contradicts any suggestion of an administration under pressure or feeling in
imminent danger of collapse. Nor is there much evidence of the Carausian
56 THE BRITISH USURPERS

Type I: Radiate, helmeted, cuirassed bust left, holding spear and shield.
Type II: Radiate, cuirassed bust left, holding spear and shield.
Type III: Jugate, busts, half length portraits, facing portraits, etc.

appeal to the unity of the empire: only two rare issues commemorate ROMAE
AETERNAE. The coinage exemplifies a stable regime, an impression reinforced
by the introduction of a new denomination at the end of the reign.
The normal bust type employed on the Roman coinage depicts the ruler in
armour or civilian dress facing right to the spectator looking at the coin; variation
from this norm seems to be reserved for ceremonial issues. Both Carausius and
Allectus issued coins with left-facing busts. These variations are significant and
we may be correct in thinking that such coins fulfilled some non-monetary as
 THE IDEOLOGY OF CARAUSIAN AND ALLECTAN COIN TYPES 57

well as a normal monetary function; an analogue may be drawn with modern

commemorative coins such as the Ł2 piece issued for the Commonwealth
Games, held in 1986 in Scotland, or the special 50p piece which heralded Britain’s
entry to European Common Market in 1971. The coins which best demonstrates
this secondary function are those showing the emperor wearing the robes of a
consul, since a consulship was accompanied by a donative. Carausius issued
consular coins in every year between 287 and 291, Allectus in 294/5. Because
the mintmarks extend across more than one calendar year we cannot say that
Carausius held consular office four times, but it can hardly be less than three.
Needless to say, these were self-conferred honours unrecognized by the
legitimate emperors who designated their own pairs of consuls.
Schematizing these special issues (Table 6) suggests that it was intended to
produce a basic suite of three left-facing bust types each year, as a component of
the substantive issues. As the Roman army was normally paid three times a year
we may have evidence here of coins being produced for the imperial donative
which formed an important element of military pay in the third century (Casey,
1977).
A very high proportion of the iconographically most elaborate and innovative
coins was produced by the C mint. All of these coins are very rare, suggesting a
restricted production rate and a correspondingly small impact in the currency
pool as a whole. Since it is likely that the Provincial Council met at
Camulodunum, the first capital of the province, it may be that these coins
constitute a distribution to this elite section of the civilian community, a
distribution which constituted a direct use of coinage to introduce, or at least to
reinforce, a political message. The re-issue by the C-mint of the EXPECTATE
VENI type (originally a silver accession coin produced by the RSR mint) in
billon may be part of the quinquennial celebrations of 289/90, possibly centred
on the provincial religious capital.
Overall, there is a strong impression that the coinage was used in a
skilful propagandist manner directed at selected elements of the population.
Some constitutional arrangements are recorded, as are the conduct of important
state ceremonies. Both the Carausian and Allectan administrations express a
conciliatory and peaceful image, though in reality events contrived to make them
territorially aggressive and bellicose. There is manifest evidence of the
management of the coinage and ingenuity was expended on the production of
coins which transcended their function as mere monetary units. A sophisticated
use of literary allusion adds an unexpected dimension to the coinage of a regime
which has, hitherto, been thought to have existed in a state of continuous crisis.
It is clear from the coinage that an obligation was felt to appear to conform to
traditional forms of social and political expression, and this ideology was a
central element of the usurpers’ regimes. The thought devoted to this aspect of
administration is, surprisingly, evident from the earliest stage and, though the
technical execution of individual coins is not of the highest standard, the use of
literary allusion and the employment of traditional motifs in pertinent
58 THE BRITISH USURPERS

circumstances points to the production of coinage enjoying a priority above the

mere need to have something with which to buy the loyalty of the soldiery.
 6
THE EVIDENCE OF THE COINAGE

A DETAILED EXAMINATION OF THE reigns of Carausius and Allectus can

only be undertaken within the framework of the abundant coinage which is, after
the contemporary or near-contemporary literary material, the principal source of
evidence for the period. The coinage can be studied in a number of ways. In the
first instance the individual coins and their inscriptions can be studied for direct
or oblique allusion to events or, as in the previous chapter, they may be
examined in a programmatic manner by their choice of types. Secondly, by
studying the spatial distribution of types and issues and their occurrence on sites
and in hoards, we may determine sources of production, their circulation pattern
and, perhaps, their date of issue.
The need for a date sequence of issues and a firm identification of mints has
been the paramount concern of numismatists in the present century and a general
agreement has been reached in both of these areas of research. A general
agreement only, for there are still, as we shall see, unresolved problems. Minor
amendments to the overall scheme are offered from time to time by workers in
the field, though Carson’s fundamental organization of the series appears to have
stood the test of both time and new discoveries. The coinage of Allectus presents
fewer problems than that of his predecessor, being of shorter duration and smaller
volume, but here too there are problems especially as to how the later issues
relate to the contemporary Continental currency system.

Denominations and nomenclature

Coin was struck by Carausius in gold, silver, billon (bronze/silver alloy), bronze
and copper. Allectus’s coins were produced in gold and billon only. There is a
problem of definition in discussing the coins of this period because, for the most
part, we do not know the names given to the coins by their issuers and users.
Numismatists have adopted a loose and confusing nomenclature of their own.
Traditionally Carausius’s silver coin is called a denarius and his, and Allectus’s,
large billon coin is called an antoninianus. In this discussion a new nomenclature
will be used which follows modern Continental practice as regards the name of
the billon coins which have been dubbed aureliani. This is because after
Aurelian reformed the currency in 273 a new coin, probably worth four denarii,
60 THE EVIDENCE OF THE COINAGE

replaced the so-called antoninianus of two-denarius value. The identification of

the Aurelianic coin with a value of four denarii seems to have been confirmed by
a new section of the Aezani Inscription. This document is the text of a letter
circulated around the empire in 301 to order the revaluation of the currency
(Ekrim et al., 1971).
The new coin was not the same as its predecessor, being twice its face value,
and confusion can only arise from the misuse of the old conventional name.
Carausius’s coins were, of course, issued after the Aurelianic reform and are of
the new denomination. The Carausian silver coin cannot have been a denarius
since its intrinsic value is far above the accompanying four-denarius billon issue.
It is better to avoid the word denarius in relation to this coin altogether. Allectus
also introduced a new billon coin which seems, by virtue of its weight and
composition, to have been valued as a half of the aurelianus piece. This coin
always bears the letter Q in the exurgue, possibly indicating that it was identified
as a quinarius; this name will be retained.

Mints
The coinage of the separatist regime was produced at a number of mints, five
have been identified for Carausius and two for Allectus. In the reign of Carausius
not all of the mints operated at the same time and staff may have transferred
between establishments, making attribution on stylistic criteria difficult.
One of Carausius’s mints was on the Continent, another was formerly located
there but has been reattributed to Britain, while yet another produced coin largely
as donatives for the army. Thus the bulk of the circulating medium was issued
from three mints, one of which either quickly went out of production or should
be identified with one of the remaining operational establishments.

The Continental mint

Coins of the Continental mint are very distinctive (Pl.3, nos 1–5), the portrait of
Carausius being closely based on those of Diocletian and Maximian on the
coinage produced by the Lyons (Lugdunum) mint (Pl.3, no.6). The features are
thinly modelled, with distinctively high cheek bones and a sharp nose, and the hair
and beard treated as a series of incised lines. This is in contrast to the
productions of British mints which always represent the beard and hair as curls
(Pl.3, nos 7–11). Only rarely is a mintmark employed, because the reverse legend
often extends into the exergual area where the mintmark would normally appear.
When a mintmark is employed it takes the form of the letters PR or R. Issues
appear both with and without the inclusion of C(aesar) in the imperial title. The
base metal coins are not skilfully produced, the legends frequently blundered and
poorly laid out on the flan. The weight is not very well controlled, varying
between 2.75 and nearly 5g. The style of the coinage strongly suggests that it
was produced by workers unskilled in the techniques of the professional
 THE BRITISH USURPERS 61

moneyer. The general angularity of the portraiture and the reverse figures may
indicate that the dies were made by artists normally employed as cutters of
sealstones and intaglios.
The mint struck in two metals, one of which was gold; the second metal is
more problematic. Ostensibly the bulk of the Continental mint’s coins are
aureliani because they are base metal and the effigy of Carausius wears a radiate
crown; however, a non-destructive metallurgical analysis of one of these coins,
undertaken for the author, shows that far from having the expected percentage of
silver, it had none at all. Despite the absence of silver the fact that these coins are
found in hoards with regular aureliani suggests that this was the intended value.
Other issues of Carausius which lacked a silver content, discussed below, are
also hoarded with silver rich coins; it must be supposed that either the state could
enforce a notional value for its coinage, irrespective of metallic content, or that it
suited the convenience of the public to accept the two versions of the currency on
a single basis.
The bulk of the surviving production of this mint derives from the finding of a
single hoard. Outside this source less than 50 coins are recorded. Despite the use
of a wide variety of individual coin types employed by this mint the volume of
surviving coins suggests that the total production was very small (Beaujard &
Huvelin, 1980).
The gold coins of the Continental mint, of which there are nine closely die-
linked specimens recorded, weigh an average 4.6g, indicating a standard aimed
at a striking rate of 70 coins to the Roman pound. This is the same standard as
the gold issued by Diocletian and Maximian in the period up to 290, when they
raised their gold standard to 60 to the pound (5.46g). One issue of the Continental
gold depicts Carausius in the robes of a consul. The appearance of this coin
suggests that the life of the mint extended to a date later than 1 January 296, the
earliest date for which the emperor could have held the consulship. The view
that this coin refers to a regular or an hypothesized suffect consulship held at an
earlier stage of Carausius’s career can be discounted (Burnett & Casey, 1984).
The presence of an RSR silver issue in the Rouen hoard (p.91) confirms that
Rouen had an extended existence.
The types employed in the gold coins reflect an emphatic appeal to the military
—CONCORDIA MILITVM (‘Unity with, and of, the Army’), and FIDES
MILITVM (‘The Loyalty of the Army’). Also celebrated is the Foresight of the
emperor (PROVIDENTIA), his Courage (VIRTVS), and his Well-being (SALVS).
The largest issue in the bronze celebrates the Protection the emperor extended to
his subjects (TVTELLA). All this is the normal content of the contemporary
coinage and can, with the exception of the TVTELLA type, be paralleled in the
products of his opponents and their predecessors.
The location of the Continental mint in Rouen (Rotomagus in the Roman
period) has been established both by the discovery of a very large hoard of coins
in the city and by the distribution of these distinctive pieces in Gaul within a
circumscribed radius of Rouen itself (Fig.3). In the past these distinctive coins
62 THE EVIDENCE OF THE COINAGE

3 Finds of Carausian coinage in Gaul. (After Loriot.)

have been attributed to Boulogne (Gesoriacum or Bononia in the Roman period)

because of the inclusion of a number of specimens in the collection of Boulogne
Museum (Casey, 1977). It is now clear that these coins were part of the hoard
from Rouen which had been purchased by the museum and subsequently
mistakenly provenanced to Boulogne (Webb, 1933). There is, as yet, no record
of the Rouen-type coinage being found in excavation at Boulogne itself. The
republication of the original hoard has sorted this problem out so that the coinage
can now be studied in its original context. The distribution of Rouen coins in
Britain offers no contradiction to their attribution to a Continental mint (Fig.4)
 THE BRITISH USURPERS 63

and the view that they were produced in Britain and exported to Gaul does not
overcome the objection that stylistically they are completely unlike any
unequivocally insular products. The portraiture and treatment of the hair and
beard, emulating as it does from the Lyons coinage of Diocletian and Maximian,
differs so much from the bulk of the usurper’s coinage as to suggest a completely
different artistic milieu and centre of production.
Dating the coins of Rouen has presented a number of problems and several
hypotheses have been advanced:
1 The coins are an emergency issue produced after the loss of Boulogne in 293
to pay the few troops left after the defeat of Carausius’s forces by Constantius.
This view was based on a supposed ‘emergency’ look to these rather ill-
produced coins.
2 They were produced as a donative paid to the forces who captured Boulogne
after the defeat of Maximian’s expeditionary force in 289/90.
This view was based on the mistaken assumption that numbers had been found
in Boulogne.
3 They were produced, as outlined above, at the end of 290, not as a once-and-
for-all donative but as a regular currency and the emission continued to the end of
291, when it ceased (Beaujard & Huvelin, 1980).
The objections rehearsed under the second hypothesis prevail with equal force
against this argument.
4 The coins are the initial issue of the reign, produced in 286 before Carausius
extended his regime to Britain. The gold coins are the accession donative paid at
the start of the reign (Burnett & Casey, 1984).
Of these hypotheses the present author favours the last. The first can be
dismissed on the grounds that Rouen coins appear in hoards in which the terminal
dating is provided by issues pre-dating 290. Thus there is a Rouen coin in the
Croydon Hoard (Burnett & Casey, 1984), which closes in 286/7, another in the
Little Orme Hoard dating it no later than 289 (Seaby, 1956). This early dating is
supported by the metrology of the gold coinage, which corresponds to the
pre-290 Continental standard. Though Carausius himself maintained this
standard in Britain it seems unlikely that coinage designed for Continental use
would be struck at the old standard after the introduction of the new, especially
since insular base metal coin standards were raised to those of the mainland in
290.
The fact that the coins appear in such early contexts undermines the second
and third hypotheses, as crucially as does the erroneous provenance. A further
argument for a later date for the Rouen coins stems from the fact that some
specimens give Carausius the title Caesar, in the abbreviated form IMP C
CARAVSIVS PF AVG. It has been claimed that the title Caesar was only assumed
in 290/1 following the successful repulse of an invasion attempt by Maximian
and the establishment of an enclave in north-west Gaul (Carson, 1959). In
general this is true of products of the British mints but the evidence of the hoards
makes it clear that the Rouen mint included the title Caesar at an earlier date than
64 THE EVIDENCE OF THE COINAGE

4 Finds of coins of the Rouen mint in Britain. (After Loriot.)

its general adoption by the insular mints. Even these have pre-290 issues with the
title Caesar, though these are of such infrequency as to not invalidate Carson’s
acute general observation. The implication of the re-dating of this coinage is
discussed below.

The RSR mint

The third of the Carausian mints of short lifespan signed its products with the
enigmatic letters RSR. The mint produced gold and silver coins (Pl.2, nos 3–11)
and bronze medallions (Pl.2, nos 1,2). The rare base metal coins bearing the RSR
mark are perhaps unofficial (Pl.2, no.10).
Attempts to offer a geographical interpretation of the enigmatic mint letters
resolved itself into two possibilities; that they incorporated in some manner
either the name of RUTUPIAE (Richborough) or ROTOMAGUS (Rouen). Both of
these attributions have been effectively rejected, the latter on distribution and
 THE BRITISH USURPERS 65

stylistic grounds and no theory involving a place-name interpretation of these

letters can be validated by normal Roman epigraphic practices. Abandoning the
place-name approach completely, Webb offered a solution which is accepted by
all workers today (Webb, 1906). Noting that in the financial reforms of the
Severan period a new administrative post was created, that of Rationalis
Summarum Rationum or Rationalis Summae Rei, and that this official dealt with
imperial benefactions and donatives, Webb suggested that the coinage was issued
from the officium of this administrator of imperial gifts and that the mintmark is
simply the initials of his office. This elegant solution to the problem is confirmed
by the nature of the coinage issued by the RSR mint. The gold coins and bronze
medals are clearly presentation pieces associated with the sort of duties carried
out in the fourth century by the better-documented Comes Sacrarum Largitionum
(The Count of the Sacred Largesses). This official administered taxes raised to
provide for imperial donatives to the army and the product of this benevolence
took the form of monetary medallions and precious metal coins which were
distributed on imperial accessions and at fixed interval celebrations during a
reign (Kent, 1961).
Looking at the coins produced by the Rationalis we can see that they are
overwhelmingly of a donative nature, both in type content and metal. The
outstanding component is the silver, which restored a coin of a purity and weight
unknown since the reign of Nero to the currency system; a non-destructive
analysis of a specimen of this coinage indicates that the refiners achieved better
than 96 per cent in the standard of purity. Struck at rather variable weights, the
standard aimed at appears to have been a unit of c.3.75g, indicating a probable
intended striking rate of 90 coins to the Roman pound.
The range of types employed in this coinage is discussed in detail elsewhere
(p.59); for the present, it is sufficient to emphasize aspects of the
ceremonial content. One issue commemorates a consulship, presumably that
taken on 1 January 287, another an imperial state visit presumably to London or
Colchester (Camulodunum), a further the taking of vows for the safety of the
state. Each of these activities would constitute an occasion on which donatives
would have been distributed. But the bulk of the issue may be regarded as the
accession donative paid to the army on the successful establishment of the
regime in Britain. Obverses showing the bust of the emperor facing to the left,
instead of the normal right, which are characteristic of donative coins, are found
in the products of the RSR mint (Pl.2, no.7). The production of presentation
medals by this mint, and by none of the other mints, is the best evidence for the
special status of this establishment (Carson, 1973). The duration of time that this
mint operated will not have extended long into the reign if its function was to pay
the accession donative. On the other hand the payment of such donatives could
have taken some time and, in any event, would not be payable until the next regular
triannual payment of soldiers’ salaries. Well-established regimes sometimes took
several years to pay the donative, but the tenuous nature of Carausius’s situation
66 THE EVIDENCE OF THE COINAGE

does not make this very likely. By contrast, Diocletian’s donative did not reach
the soldiers in Egypt until some five years after his accession (Skeat, 1964).
The location of the mint has been attributed to London which, as the
administrative capital, was the obvious place to operate the main precious metal
mint of the new regime. It may also be noted that an RSR aureus shares a die
with an Unmarked mint aurelianus, a mint which appears to provide die-cutters
for the later marked London issues (Shiel, 1974).
While, as has been noted, there is no direct evidence for the length of
operation of the mint, the small surviving numbers of coins and the close stylistic
similarity between individual coins, points to a short issue, the bulk of which
constituted an accession donative for Carausius’s loyal forces. The need to strike
an unprecedently fine silver coinage for this purpose may be explained by a
scarcity of gold created by the recent accession of Diocletian and the elevation of
Maximian. These constitutional developments would have had the effect of
draining gold stocks out of Britain to pay the obligatory ‘crown gold’ levied from
the cities of the empire on the elevation of a new ruler. It may be remembered,
also, that one of the accusations against Carausius was that he misappropriated
recaptured pirate booty. Much of this, to judge by contemporary hoards found in
Gaul, would have consisted of silver plate.
The type content of the silver coin contributes to its attribution to a very early
date in the reign. Like the Rouen coins the emphasis is on military stability and
support with the CONCORDIA MILITUM type forming the largest surviving
component. Almost as well represented is the theme of FELICITAS (AVG)
illustrated with the war galley (Pl.2, nos 7,11). The association of the fleet with
the Good Fortune of the Emperor is, in the case of Carausius, an obvious use of
pertinent symbolism. The famous type with the motto EXPECTATE VENI
(‘Come, O Expected One’), depicting Carausius greeted by a personification of
Britannia, once again demonstrates the care and thought which went into the
design of the coinage at the earliest stage of the administration (Pl.2, no.3).
A type which appears to be of a later date than the bulk of the silver coinage is
the issue proclaiming VOTO PUBLICO MULTIS XX IMP (‘Vows for the Public
Safety Renewed for Twenty Years’). The taking of Vota Publica should be at
five-yearly intervals and Carausius’s first vota coins should read VOT V, as
indeed does a gold issue. At the end of five years a coin issue reading VOT V
MVLT X (‘Five Year Vows Completed, Renewal to the Tenth Year’) would be
expected. Again a gold coin reading MVLT X was issued. MVLTIS XX should,
therefore, be a reference to vows taken after either tenor fifteen-year intervals, an
impossibility in the case of Carausius. Given the close die links between the RSR
coins and their obvious stylistic affinities, we may be justified in ascribing this
anomalous type to the lack of experience in imperial protocol in the usurper’s
court. In short, a mistake was made.
 THE BRITISH USURPERS 67

The Unmarked mint

Large numbers of Carausian coins have no mintmark; the location of the mint
has been sought by a number of strategies, especially by plotting the coin
distribution and by observing stylistic relationships to marked issues. For many
years it was thought that the mint was at Boulogne, and began operation after
Carausius defeated Maximian’s attempted invasion of Britain. This was based on
the belief that Unmarked coins were found more frequently in the south-east of
England than further inland; suggesting they were produced on the other side of
the Channel (Carson, 1959, 1971). A wider survey (Table 7) of excavated
material and hoards dispelled this notion, showing there was no southern
dominance in the occurrence of Unmarked coins, nor were there many in Gaul
itself. This research once again opened up the question of the location of the
mint.

Table 7 Distribution of mint products in Britain

Sites Mints:London RSR Colchester Unmarked Rouen Coin total
NORTH
Catterick 23.5 5.8 5.8 64.7 – 17
Corbridge 43.7 1.2 23.5 29 – 87
Malton 28.6 – 21.4 50 – 14
MIDLANDS
Alcester 20 – 10 70 – 10
Hoveringham 94 – – 6 – 34
Kenchester 31.6 – 11.4 57 – 44
Leicester 37.5 – 25 37.5 – 16
Wroxeter 38 14.2 14.2 33.3 – 21
WALES
Great Orme 61.5 – 15.5 23 – 13
Little Orme 18.7 0.2 4 76.8 0.35 566
Lydney 21.4 2.3 28.5 45.2 2.3 42
Neath 444 – 55.5 – – 24
Segontium 26.3 – 10.5 63 – 19
SOUTH – – – – – –
Canterbury 44 2 14 40 – 50
Colchester 15 – 30 55 – 136
Colchester Hoard 51.5 – 44.5 4 – 99
Croydon 9 – – 91 – 45
Linchmere 87 – 6.8 6.2 – 530
Richborough 35 1 14.8 49 0.3 559
Verulamium 36.2 0.8 17.7 45.1 – 124
68 THE EVIDENCE OF THE COINAGE

Sites Mints:London RSR Colchester Unmarked Rouen Coin total

Winchester 73.7 – 10.5 15.8 – 19
(Source: Casey, 1977, with references)

A number of facts emerge. The evidence of hoards, such as that from Croydon,
confirms that the mint was operating at a very early date in the reign. Chemical
analysis of its products reveals the startling fact that the base metal coins are not
billon at all but bronze with such silver as is present being the irreducible
fraction found in cupellated lead (Cope, 1974). A slight complication arises from
the fact that some Unmarked coins were struck over issues of earlier reigns
which, by their nature, would have been silver bearing. But Unmarked mint coin
struck on newly produced flans appear deliberately to exclude the precious metal.
In this respect they are similar to the Rouen coins discussed above.

Table 8 Analyses of aureliani of the Unmarked mint

Reverse Type RIC No. Copper Tin Silver Lead
PAX AVG 879 86.42 4.29 0.08 8.78
PAX AVG 880 94.88 1.23 0.17 3.24
PAX AVG 880 97.70 0.48 0.16 1.58
PAX AVG 895 – – 0.21 –
(Source: Cope, 1974)

The insular location of the mint is problematical, as is its relative date of

operation. The use of an obverse die to strike both an aurelianus of the
Unmarked mint and an aureus of the RSR mint, which was itself most probably
located in London, suggests that the Unmarked mint was also operating in
London. Attention has also been drawn to stylistic links between Unmarked
aureliani and coins produced by the C mint but arguments of style are not as
strong as those of actual die duplication (King, 1985). An explanation for the
connection between products of the Unmarked and the C mints could most
readily be explained by the transfer of die-cutters, or apprentices trained in their
style, from the Unmarked mint to staff the C mint when it was opened. It is also
possible that the dies for all of the Carausian mints, with the exception of Rouen,
were produced centrally.
Establishing the operational dates of the Unmarked mint is difficult. The
absence of silver in the aureliani gives an outside date for the series since the
issues of the various marked mints do contain silver. The date of this innovation
appears to be 287, at the latest, since Cope quotes analyses of coins dated to this
year with a meaningful silver component, though the possibility that this is
overstruck on an earlier flan must be kept in mind. It is very unlikely that a
 THE BRITISH USURPERS 69

PLATE 1
1 Aurelian. ‘aurelianus’. Obv. IMP C AVRELIANVS AVG Rev. ORIENS AVG-XXIP RIC
378 Var
2 Tetricus I. Radiate copy Rev. HILARITAS AVGG
3 Tetricus I. Radiate copy Rev. INVICTVS Copy of RIC 82
4 Tetricus I. Radiate copy Rev. PAX AVG Copy of RIC 100
5 Carinus. ‘aurelianus’. Obv. IMP CARINVS PF AVG Rev. IOVI VICTORI- KA.B RIC
258
6 Constantius I. Alexandrian tetradrachm. Obv. The Caesar with spear, shield and helmet
decorated with figure of victory. Dattari 6030
7 Constantius I. Alexandrian tetradrachm. Rev. The Caesar spearing a fallen enemy.
Weder 5.32
8 Constantius I. Alexandrian tetradrachm. Rev. The Caesar in military dress with
captives.
9 Diocletian. ‘aurelianus’ Lyons mint. Obv. IMP C C VAL DIOCLETIANVS PF AVG Rev.
IOVI CONSER VAT AVGG RIC 43
10 Maximian. ‘aurelianus’ Lyons mint. Obv. IMP C VAL MAXIMIANVS PF AVG Rev.
HERCVLI PACIFER O RIC 371
11 Maximian. ‘aurelianus’ Lyons mint. Obv. IMP C MAXIMIANVS P AVG Rev.
HERCVLI PACIFERO RIC 375var
12 Maxmian. ‘aurelianus’ Lyons mint. Obv. IMP C MAXIMIANVS AVG Rev. HERCVLI
INVICTO AVGG RIC 367 Var
13 Constantius I. ‘aurelianus’ Lyons mint. Obv. CONSTANTIVS NOB C Rev. VIRTVS
AVGG RIC 648 (A)
14 Constantius I. ‘aurelianus’ Lyons mint. Obv. CONSTANTIVS NOB CAES Rev. VIRTVS
AVGG RIC 648(H)
70 THE EVIDENCE OF THE COINAGE

PLATE 2
1 Carausius. Bronze medallion. Obv. IMP C MAVR M CARAVSIVS PF AVG GER Rev.
VICTOR CARAVSIVS AVG GERM MAX-RSR Emperor in consular regalia/Emperor
crowned by victory
2 Carausius. Bronze medallion. Obv. IMP C M AV CARAVSIVS PF AVG Rev. VICTORIA
CARAVSI AVG-INPCDA Emperor in consular regalia/Victory driving a two horse chariot
—the meaning of the letters INPCDA is not known.
3 Carausius. Silver. Obv. IMP CARAVSVIS PF AV Rev. EXPECTATE VENI-RSR The
emperor greeted by Britannia. RIC 555
4 Carausius. Silver. Obv. IMP CARAVSIVS PF AVG Rev. ADVENTVS AVG. The emperor
on horse, treading down captive. RIC 536var
5 Carausius. Silver. Obv. IMP CARAVSIVS PF AVG Rev. VBERITAS AV-RSR Woman
milking a cow. RIC 581
6 Carausius. Silver. Obv. IMP CARAVSIVS PF AVG Rev. RENOVAT ROMANO-RSR
She-wolf suckling Romulus and Remus. RIC 571
7 Carausius. Silver. Obv. IMP CARAVISVS PF AVG Rev. FELICITAS AVG-RSR Emperor
in consular regalia/Warship sailing left. RIC 560var
8 Carausius. Silver. Obv. IMP CARAVSIVS PF AVG Rev. VICTORIA AVG-XXX
Emperor crowned by Victory. RIC—
9 Carausius. Silver Obv. IMP CARAVISVS PF A VG Rev. VOTO PVBLICO-RSR Altar
inscribed VOTIS XX IMP RIC 595
10 Carausius. Copper. Obv. IMP CARAVISVS PF AVG Rev. VBERITAS AVG-RSR
Woman milking a cow. RIC 725var
11 Carausius. Silver. Obv. IMP CARAIVSVS PF AVG Rev. FELICITA AVG-RSR Warship
sailing right. RIC 560
silver-free and a silver-bearing coinage would be issued at the same time and the
latter must have superseded the former. Unmarked aureliani stayed in circulation,
 THE BRITISH USURPERS 71

PLATE 3
1 Carausius. ‘aurelianus’ Rouen mint. Obv. IMP C CARAVASIVS IVG Rev. SALVS AVG-
R RIC 665var
2 Carausius. ‘aurelianus’ Rouen mint. Obv. IMP C CARAVSIVS AVG Rev. FORTVNA A
VG RIC 638
3 Carausius. ‘aurelianus’ Rouen mint. Obv. IMP C CARAVSIVS AVG Rev. LAETITIA-
OPR RIC 649
4 Carausius. ‘aurelianus’ Rouen mint. Obv. IMP C CARAVISVS AVG Rev. TVTELA P
RIC 692
5 Carausius. aureus Rouen mint. Obv. IMP CARAVSIVS AVG Rev. CONCORDIA
MILITVM RIC 624
6 Maximian. ‘aurelianus’ Lyons mint. Obv. IMP MAXIMIANVS P AVG Rev. VIRTVTI
AVGG RIC 455
7 Carausius. ‘aurelianus’ London mint. Obv. IMP CARAVSIVS PF AVG Rev. PACAT
ORBIS-OXIVL RIC—
8 Carausius. ‘aurelianus’ Unmarked mint. Obv. VIRTVS CARAVSI Rev. PAX AVG RIC–
9 Carausius. ‘aurelianus’ Unmarked mint. Obv. IMP CARAVSIVS PF AVG Rev. SALVS
AVG RIC 984
10 Carausius. ‘aurelianus’ Unmarked mint. Obv. IMP CARAVSIVS A VG Rev. PAX A VG
RIC 883 var
11 Carausius. ‘aurelianus’ Unmarked mint. Obv. IMP CARAVSIVS PF AVG Rev. PAX
AVG RIC 880
72 THE EVIDENCE OF THE COINAGE

PLATE 4
1 Carausius. ‘aurelianus’ London mint. Obv. IMP CARAVSIVS PF A VG Rev. PAX A VG-
ML RIC IOI
2 Carausius. ‘aurelianus’ London mint. Obv. IMP C CARAVSIVS PF AVG Rev. PAX AVG-
S/P ML RIC 98
3 Carausius. ‘aurelianus’ London mint. Obv. IMP C CARAVSIVS PF AVG Rev. PAX
AVGGG-S/P MLXXI RIC 143
4 Carausius. ‘aurelianus’ London mint. Obv. IMP CARAVSIVS PF AVG Rev. ADVENTVS
AVG-ML RIC IO
5 Carausius. ‘aurelianus’ London mint. Obv. IMP C CARAVISVS PF AVG Rev. PAX AVG-
F/O ML RIC 472
6 Carausius. aureus London mint. Obv. CARAVISVS PF AVG Rev. CONSER VAT AVG-
ML RIC I
7 Maximian. ‘aurelianus’ London mint. Obv. IMP C MAXIMIANVS PF AVG Rev.
VIRTVS AVGGG-S/P MLXXI RIC 39
8 Diocletian. ‘aurelianus’ London mint. Obv. IMP C DIOCELTIANVS PF AVG Rev.
SALVS AVGGG-S/P MLXXI RIC 14var
9 Maximian. aureus London mint. Obv. MAXIMIANVS PF AVG Rev. SALVS AVGGG-
ML RIC 32
10 Allectus. aureus London mint. Obv. IMP C ALLECTVS PF AVG Rev. PAX AVG-ML
RIC 6
11 Allectus. ‘aurelianus’ London mint. Obv. IMP C ALLECTVS PF AVG Rev.
PROVIDENTIA AVG-S/A MSL RIC 38
12 Allectus. ‘aurelianus’ London mint. Obv. IMP C ALLECTVS PF AVG Rev. LAETITIA
AVG-S/A ML RIC 22
13 Allectus. ‘aurelianus’ London mint. Obv. IMP C ALLECTVS PF AVG Rev. PROVID
AVG-S/P ML RIC 35
 THE BRITISH USURPERS 73

but not in production, when the London and Colchester mints opened. It is
extremely likely that the Unmarked mint, rather than closing, became the signed
London mint.
In the light of the foregoing discussion it might be suggested that the
Unmarked mint operated in Britain from the start of the reign and continued
production until the introduction of the new standard in 287. If Carausius only
reached Britain after his eviction from Gaul, the date for which is given a
terminus ad quem by the issue of consular coins dating to after 1 January 287,
there seems very little time for the production of the considerable numbers of
Unmarked coins found in the currency pool of the period. It could, on the other
hand, be argued that much of the issue was actually produced before the arrival of
Carausius in person in Britain. The case for this hypothesis would rest on the
belief that Carausius controlled Britain while still engaged in military activity on
the Continent and that the island formed part of the imperium of Carausius from
inception of the revolt in Rouen. This explanation would extend the production
life of the mint from mid-286 to mid-287. The large number of irregular coins
copying the Unmarked series suggests that there was a widespread illicit
production while the population as a whole was unfamiliar with the appearance
of the new coinage. This is a contributory argument to ascribing an early date to
the issue of the series as a whole.

London (Pl.4)
The attribution of a mint to London presents no problems since the mintmarks
employed are self-evident and production was unbroken into the Constantinian
period. We have already discussed the probability that the Unmarked mint was
located in London; if that is the case, and the Unmarked and London mints are
the same, the introduction of a mintmark would become necessary only with the
opening of a further operation, the C mint, which would create the need to
differentiate the work of the two establishments. The London mint, in its
‘signing’ phase, produced aurei and aureliani. The bulk of the coinage in the
reigns of both Carausius and Allectus was produced by the combination of the
London and Unmarked mints.

The C mint (Pl.5)

The mint signing its work with C, or variants, has been variously attributed to
Clausentum (Bitterne, Hants), Calleva Atrebatum (Silchester, Hants) and
Camulodunum Colonia Victricensis (Colchester, Essex). Less likely claims have
been made for Glevum (Gloucester) on the grounds that the C on the coins was
intended for a G, this despite the fact that Gs are abundantly used in the obverse
and reverse legends of the coins and are well defined. The only reason for not
accepting Colchester as the location of this mint, apart from localized historical
interests which bedevil Carausian studies with their special pleading, is the
74 THE EVIDENCE OF THE COINAGE

observation that it would be so close to London as to be an unnecessary

duplication of effort and personnel. A further objection is that a very few coins
display the letters CL instead of the plain C mintmark. None of these
observations outweighs the distributional evidence. Since Camulodunum was the
first colony of Roman citizens founded in Britain, in AD 49 and within six years
of the Claudian landing, it was pre-eminently ‘the colony’; the variant lettering
may simply be a contraction of the word colonia.
In any event, study of the coins found at Clausentum, both as published
archaeological finds and in local museum collections by the author, does not
support the location at this site, although the discovery of an aureus of Carausius
near Southampton emphasizes the importance of the area in this period (Shiel,
1976). Silchester (Calleva Atrebatum) has produced a hoard of Carausian coins
of which 65 per cent are London issues and the remainder products of the C mint.
But this high proportion is matched by the hoard from Colchester which has 45
per cent of its content of C mint origin. Moreover, there is a high proportion of C
mint products on sites local to Colchester. There is no dominance of C coins in
the Gloucester region or among Carausian coins found on the Continent.
But why should there be a second mint so close to London? The answer to this
may be in the status of Colchester. As the site of the first colony to be founded in
the new province, Colchester was also the capital of the newly acquired territory.
Colchester lost this status quite quickly when its marginal position in relation to
the natural transport network of the country was appreciated and London began
to flourish as a port in the second half of the first century. Both the imperial
governor and the provincial procurator took up residence in London and it thus
became the centre of both the legal and economic administration of the province.
Soon London was to become the de jure as well as the de facto capital of Britain,
but Colchester retained its prestige through important religious functions centring
around the
Temple of Claudius and the imperial cult which went with it; it was also
probably the meeting place of the Provincial Council. Thus, while London
became the administrative capital, Colchester retained its function as the
ceremonial centre of the province. A dedicatory plaque, possibly from a statue, to
Victory and the welfare of the emperor Severus Alexander (222– 35) by Lossio
Veda, grandson of Vepogenus, a Caledonian, may be interpreted as showing the
reception of an embassy, or the housing of diplomatic hostages, in the city in the
third century (RIB 191). It is notable that Colchester was the seat of one of the
four British bishoprics attested in the early fourth century, but certainly
established earlier. Many of the C mint’s coins are suggestive of something other
than a mere monetary function since they display a high proportion of innovative
types associated with religious or public ceremony. The C mint struck billon
aureliani; there is a single specimen of the silver coinage with a C mintmark but
no gold is known.
 THE BRITISH USURPERS 75

The BRI mint

A very small number of aureliani carry the mark BRI. The first of these coins to
be reported was found at Wroxeter (Viroconium) and this led to the suggestion
that a mint was located in that city, the argument being that in later Latin the
letters B and V have the same phonetic value and are interchangeable. Further
finds have upset a distribution pattern optimistically based on a single coin
(Shiel, 1979). Stylistically the coins relate to the Unmarked and the London
series; possibly the mark was a short-lived experiment intermediate between the
Unmarked and marked stages of the development of the London mint. The letters
may be interpreted as a contraction for BRI(TANNIA).

The monetary system

As we have seen, the variety of coinage issued by Carausius was extensive,
encompassing several denominations, some of which, though issued for only a
short period, seem to have remained in circulation as a component of the overall
system. How did these coins relate to each other? The only way to establish a
relative scale of values is to use the metal content as a guide and to relate them to
traditional gold/silver/copper ratios.
Unfortunately, the only figures available for the value of monetary metal post-
date the Carausian episode, being found in Diocletian’s Edict of Maximum
Prices issued a few years after the fall of the British regime. Nevertheless, though
prices may have been inflated since the middle of the preceding decade the
relative value of commodities is likely to have remained constant.
In using absolute metallic values it should be remembered that it is normal
practice to value coins beyond their intrinsic value so as to recover the cost of
production and distribution and so give the state a profit. There is no way of
knowing the scale of overvaluation in the absence of documentary evidence.
That the overvaluation of base metal coinage was probably great is implicit in
the circulation of no-silver aureliani of the Unmarked mint beside those with
silver content of the London and Colchester issues.
The main series of Carausian gold coins was struck at an average weight of 4.
33g (N=10) which compares with the issues of Carus and his family with a gold
average of 4.39g (N=8). In contrast, the bulk of the gold of Diocletian and
Maximian was struck, after reform, at a 5g standard. It seems that Carausius
either deliberately struck at the weight of the gold coinage already circulating in
Britain or used available gold coins to overstrike his own, though examples with
undertypes showing have not been recorded. Allectus’s gold, which is common
compared to his predecessor and apparently issued throughout the reign, was of
similar standard to that of Carausius, averaging 4.4g (N=20).
In Diocletian’s edict the price of gold is set at 72,000 denarii per pound; silver
is valued at 6,000 denarii per pound and, what is thought to be monetary
standard, copper at 50 denarii per pound (Cope, 1977, 109). Thus the
76 THE EVIDENCE OF THE COINAGE

relationship between the metals is: gold/silver 12:1; silver/copper 120:1; gold/
copper 1440:1. Taking into account the average weight relationships between the
main denominations we arrive at the following minimum rounded up values:
Silver=70 denarii=14 to the Aurelianus=2.5 denarii=48
Aureus=1000 denarii
aureus to silver=670 to the aureus
The obvious discrepancy here is in the intrinsic value of the billon coin which we
have good reason to believe circulated with a value of four denarii.
Reconstructions of the Diocletianic monetary system, following the changes
implemented by the edict preserved in the fragmentary Aezanic Inscription,
suggest that after 301 the 5g aureus was valued at a minimum of 375 of the
surviving pre-reform aureliani. If we adjust this figure to a notional 4.3g coin we
would have a relationship of 322.5 aureliani to the aureus. Since the Aezani
Inscription deals with the doubling of value of already circulating coins, without
changing their physical composition, it looks as though the aurelianus was one
of these denominations, the post-301 value being about twice the figure
calculated for the Carausian issues.
As would be expected, the tariffed value of the billon coins in circulation is
considerably higher than the intrinsic value, the difference being between
production value of 2.5 and a circulating value of 4 denarii. The overvaluation of
the gold and silver is less easy to determine but, if the traditional relationship
between the aureus and denarius was employed, the silver coin might have been
circulated at a rate of 25 to the gold coin.

The coinage of Allectus

Compared to that of Carausius, which is still an inchoate mass in the standard
reference work, the coinage of Allectus is relatively simple (Burnett, 1984). It
was produced in three denominations in two metals, gold and billon, by two
mints—London and Colchester. The absence of a silver coinage and the relative
abundance of gold further underlines the expedient nature of the Carausian silver
issues as well as the recovery of gold stocks in the province during his reign. The
innovation of the reign is the introduction of new denomination, the so-called
quinarius (Pl.8, nos 2–6). Despite the fact that coin was issued with a radiate
portrait there is little doubt that this was intended as a half of the aurelianus. The
mintmark always contains the element ‘Q’, as in QL and QC for the issues of the
London and Colchester mints respectively. It is considered that the letter ‘Q’is a
denominational sign indicating quinarius, used in the by now traditional sense of
‘half’ when referring to coinage. The weight of 2.7g and silver content of c.2 per
cent fits this interpretation. The possible reasons for the introduction of this coin,
and the date of its issue, are discussed elsewhere (below p.130). All issues of the
coin feature a warship as the reverse type with the legend VIRTVS AVG, at
London, and this legend and LAETITIA AVG at Colchester. There are many
varieties of the galley but these have no monetary significance, whatever they
tell of marine technology of the period.
 THE BRITISH USURPERS 77

Table 9 Mintmark sequences of the coinage of Carausius and Allectus

The coins of the London and Colchester mints all bear sequential mintmarks,
increasing in complexity with time. By correlating mintmarks with changes in
imperial titulature, and by relative occurrences in hoards, the marked coinage has
been put into a sequence with established dates. The scheme, the work of R.A.G.
Carson, has enjoyed widespread acceptance and is largely the basis of the
chronology discussed in subsequent chapters (Carson, 1959, 1971). It must,
however, be borne in mind that the scheme is conjectural and depends on the
belief that mintmarks were applied to coins from the start of the reign. We have
already noted that the Unmarked mint’s products constitute such a large element
of the surviving coinage that to compress its operations into a few months, at the
very start of the reign, demands a belief that the commission and execution of a
vast coinage was within the capabilities of the new regime at a time when its
hold on Britain might still have been tenuous. We have also noted that an
extension of operations into 287 would be tenable. If this is so, perhaps the
inception of mintmarking itself should be deferred. Carson’s scheme is an open
one as regards the assignment of marks in the three-year period 286–9 and a
recent discovery suggests that some revision of this section is in order. A coin,
apparently dated by the tribunician power of Carausius, has come to light which
78 THE EVIDENCE OF THE COINAGE

suggests that the C mintmark was in use as late as 288/9 (Bland, 1988). Indeed it
is suggested that this evidence marks the initiation of all mintmarking (Huvelin,
1992), but this is, perhaps, too extreme a view of the sometimes aberrant use of
marks found in this extensive series and the all too frequently attested cavalier
attitude of die-cutters to correctness of detail. In any event the extension of
mintmarking to 288/9 does not invalidate the arguments which can be derived
from the use of marks in a chronological framework.
It should be observed that the employment of mintmarks and control symbols
in a rational and systematic manner is an innovation of the coinage of Carausius
which was subsequently adopted throughout the Roman coinage. Why it was felt
necessary to introduce such a radical system of record is not known: if, as will be
argued, Allectus was the finance minister of the Carausian administration, it is to
him that this innovation should be credited. Studies of the coinage of this period
have not yet reached a stage where it can be determined whether or not specific
mintmarked issues have specific areas of distribution, nor has the relative
production volume of individual coin issues yet been determined.
 7
NARRATIVE AND ARCHAEOLOGY I:
THE REVOLT

THE LITERARY SOURCES QUOTED IN Chapter 4 give an account of events

in Britain and Gaul which, in the case of Aurelius Victor and Eutropius, is very
laconic or in the case of the Panegyrics extremely partial. We are now attempting
the reconstruction of events using all other available resources in relation to these
accounts. These resources are limited to the numismatic material, some of which
has been reviewed in Chapters 5 and 6, and to some pertinent archaeological
data. In the latter sphere the problems of close dating loom large since
archaeological evidence does not normally lend itself to better than aggregate
estimates; without precise inscriptional evidence specific dates can rarely be
achieved. Negative evidence is also an important component of archaeological
method.
Let us start by examining the account of the escape from Gaul to Britain. The
sources state that on receiving news of his condemnation, Carausius fled to
Britain with his fleet. The implication is one of unpremeditated flight, a spur of
the moment action, and it is in the light of this interpretation that events at the
start of the revolt are normally considered. R.A.G.Carson considered things in a
different way when he interpreted the output of the Unmarked mint as
constituting evidence that Carausius held territory in northern Gaul from the
beginning of his reign until the fall of Boulogne to Constantius in 293. Carson
stated:

unmarked coins of Carausius are probably the most common class of his
coins: such hoards as have been adequately reported are notable either for
the scarcity of these coins or their complete absence. This, and the fact that
the hoards and excavated sites in this country [i.e. Britain] in which the
unmarked coins appear are all in the south-east, suggest that the mint may
not have been in Britain at all
(Carson, 1959).

We have discussed the numismatic evidence for this conclusion and seen that it
is based on an inadequate analysis of the widespread distribution of Unmarked
coins throughout Britain. Despite the collapse of this theory it can be shown, on
other numismatic grounds, that Carausius did indeed hold territory in Gaul at the
80 THE BRITISH USURPERS

beginning of the reign. Further, it can be shown that this territory was recovered
by the forces of Diocletian and Maximian and that the separatist regime was then
confined to Britain until the failure of Maximian’s invasion attempt in 289/90; at
which point Carausius once again controlled an area of northern Gaul.
The basis of this contention is the evidence of the output and activity of the
mint which has been identified as being located at Rouen. In 1846 a black
earthenware jar containing some four hundred bronze coins and three of silver
was recovered during the excavation of a Roman building in the rue du Petit-
Loup in Rouen. After the loss of 80 coins in conservation the residue was
identified as comprising 12 examples of issues of Gallienus and emperors of the
Gallic Empire, a bronze of Constantine issued in 330–7 which appears to have
been added to the original hoard during excavation or during the conservation,
and 207 of the distinctive coins of Carausius now recognized as being of
Continental origin. Part of the hoard was retained in the Rouen Museum and the
rest sold into private collections through the prominent dealer Messrs Rollin et
Feuardent. It was from this source that Boulogne Museum acquired the
specimens which were mistakenly, and confusingly, provenanced to that town
(Webb, 1933; Casey, 1977). The coins being of such distinctive style, a great deal
of discussion took place as to where and when they were struck. It was soon
recognized that they were a Continental product since specimens from British
contexts are very scarce. Attention focused on two sites as the location of the
mint, Rouen (Rotomagus) itself, both because of the location of the find and the
fact that some coins bear the letter R in the exergue, and Boulogne. Since a vivid
description of the siege of Boulogne occupies so much of the surviving literary
record it was natural to see this as the site where the coins were produced. The
siege also, apparently, gave a context and date for their production in the dying
days of the regime on the Continent (Carson, 1959, 1971).
Since the original find other specimens of the coins have been discovered in
Rouen during controlled archaeological excavation and none in Boulogne; there
is now little doubt that Rouen was the place of their production (Beaujard, 1980).
Mapping recorded finds shows clearly the epicentral position of Rouen in the
distribution pattern.
As we have discussed the date of the activity of the Rouen mint can be
determined by the occurrence of its coins in hoards found in Britain; this date is
not at the end of the Carausian episode in Gaul but at the beginning, there being
two associations which give an early date, the Little Orme’s Head (Seaby, 1956)
and the Croydon hoards (Burnett & Casey, 1984). The former contained no
insular coins dated later than 289 while the Croydon hoard contained only coins
with the mintmark ML, which is normally dated to the first year of the reign.
This hoard also contained coins which were obverse and reverse die duplicates,
indicating that they had not moved far from the mint or been in circulation for
any significant time before being hoarded.
A further indication of an early date is the absence of silver in the aureliani, a
feature of the insular coinage before the emissions of 287. We have already
 NARRATIVE AND ARCHAEOLOGY I: THE REVOLT 81

discussed the unique stylistic features of this group of coins, which so sharply
differntiate it from the products of attested British mints.
The implication of all of this is that there was a Carausian presence on the
Continent before 289/90 and that this was centred, at least administratively, on
Rouen rather than Boulogne. Now it could be argued that some local group of
dissidents threw in their lot with Carausius, expecting him to support them
militarily but that this expectation was unfulfilled because he was cooped up in
Britain, having precipitously fled from Boulogne. This might be an explanation
of the uncharacteristic portrait style of the Rouen coins; these hypothetical local
supporters, being isolated, had no official image to work from and so copied the
portraits of the legitimate emperors. If there is not a precedent for this there is at
least an instance of something similar from the next century when Trier revolted
against the usurper Magnentius (350–3). The city produced a billon coinage in the
name of the legitimate emperor Constantius II, with an unofficial portrait and
two reverse types, one based on the emperor’s last circulating coinage, the
second an invention of the Trier moneyers (Carson et al., 1960). But in contrast
to events at Trier, Rouen produced a gold coinage and a subordinate series of
base metal coins comprising some dozen substantive types. Nor were the Rouen
coins necessarily a hasty production, quickly issued and quickly superseded. One
at least of the three precious metal coins in the rue du Petit-Loup hoard was an
RSR silver issue. As we have seen, there is reason to think that these coins were
produced in London so that the Rouen hoard can hardly have been accumulated
at a period when there was no access to insular coinage. It very much looks as
though Rouen was still producing when Britain was under Carausian control and
coin could still be taken to Gaul. On the other hand, Unmarked coins are
virtually absent from Gaul, suggesting a very short period, at the start of the
reign, when both sides of the Channel were under rebel control.
The hypothesis that Carausius maintained a Continental base at this time is
supported by the text of the Panegyric of 289 which predicts Maximian’s
forthcoming reconquest of Britain and gives details of the year-long preparations
that have been made for the campaign.

It is proof your good fortune, your success, Your Majesty, that your
soldiers have already reached the Ocean in victory, that the tides have
swallowed the blood of enemies slaughtered on the shore. That pirate must
now lose heart, when he sees that your armies have almost entered those
straits which alone have postponed his death until the present, that his men
have abandoned their ships and have followed the retreating sea. (Pan.
Lat.x(ii). 11.7,12)

There does not seem to be much doubt that this passage states that there had been
campaigning on the Continent against Carausian forces and that only now, on the
eve of the imminent invasion of Britain, has this conflict been resolved in victory.
Ocean, in Roman terms, is the sea which girdles the known landmass; it was a
82 THE BRITISH USURPERS

conceit of Roman geography to enhance the mysteriousness of Britain by

regarding it as beyond Ocean, and thus outside the civilized world. Caesar’s
attacks on Britain gathered particular glory because they were conducted beyond
the bounds of the world and Claudius’s conquest was regarded in the same light.
Apparently, then, Maximian’s forces at this stage have reached the Ocean—the
Channel; they have not yet crossed it to Britain. It is on this shore, of Gaul, that
waves have sucked up the blood of slain enemies.
If the Carausian revolt was much more than a swift flight with a fleet and
actually involved the maintenance of an administrative centre at Rouen as well
as land battles with Maximian’s army, we must ask what forces were involved in
the rebel army? We can get some insight into this from the literary sources but it
is the coinage commemorating a number of legions which seems to offer striking
evidence of the military strength of the Carausian forces (Pl.6, nos 1–7).

Table 9 Legions commemorated on the coinage of Carausius

Legion Base Home province
I MINERVIA Bonn Germany, Lower Rhine
II AUGUSTA Caerleon Britain
II PARTHICA Rome, Alba Italy
IIII FLAVIA Belgrade Upper Moesia
VII CLAVDIA Viminacium Upper Moesia
VIII AVGVSTA Strasburg Germany, Upper Rhine
XX VALERIA VICTRIX Chester Britain
XXII PRIMIGENIA Mainz Germany, Upper Rhine
XXX VLPIA VICTRIX Xanten Germany, Lower Rhine

The only unit not comprising a legion commemorated in the coin series is the
Praetorian Cohort, the imperial bodyguard which would have been made up of
soldiers from the legions.
Coins in the commemorative series are issued by the RSR, London and
Colchester mints; the Unmarked mint does not seem to have participated.
Specimens of legionary coins ascribed in the literature to the Unmarked mint are,
when examined, shown to be poorly struck London products. The early date of
the series is given by the employment of the marks ML and C. Commemorative
coins of legions IV and VII of Colchester issued under the mark CXXI may
indicate that these legions were honoured again in 290, possibly in connection
with Maximian’s abortive invasion in 289/90.
Since the legions are honoured before the re-establishment of a Carausian
presence on the Continent in 290, they must constitute part of the force used to
take over the island and thus have been devoted to the cause from its beginnings
in Gaul. There no possibility that Carausius actually disposed of the legionary
force enumerated by the coins. On the other hand, the view that the series is
 NARRATIVE AND ARCHAEOLOGY I: THE REVOLT 83

merely an attempt to suborn these units was a naive misunderstanding of the

composition and deployment of the later Roman army. Taken at face value a
force of nine legions would have comprised a bit less than a third of the entire
legionary army of the empire and, at full strength, would have numbered 49,500
men. Such a force could have conquered the Roman West, not fled pell-mell to
Britain. By the later third century legions were usually deployed in detached
fragments, vexillationes, either as individual units or in amalgamation with other
detachments. The legions of Carausius are in reality vexillations of legions
operating in Gaul, possibly drafted there for Maximian’s campaign against the
Bagaudae or allocated to Carausius as part of his anti-pirate command. It is
notable that the legions commemorated, with the exception of II Parthica, are
grouped in pairs from the provinces from which they derive—two units from
Germania Inferior, two from Superior, two from Upper Moesia and, finally, two
from Britain itself. It is a characteristic of Roman military strategy to pair legions
when creating detached units and the pattern of the Carausian units confirms
their vexillation status.
Even as vexillations we should be suspicious of equating them with the l000-
strong detachments attested in the earlier Roman army. By the later third century
the legion itself may have been reduced to a l000-strong unit and vexillations
reduced proportionately, perhaps to the equivalent of a couple of centuries of 80
men each. We can get a glimpse of the way in which the legions of this period
were split up from documents surviving from Roman Egypt where we find Lego
II Traiana divided into contingents located in no less than three separate locations
in towns on the Nile; by the later fourth century Legio XIII Gemina had five
contingents at various places on the Danubian frontier, one in Egypt and yet
another serving in the mobile field army (Casey, 1990).
The omission of Legio VI Victrix from the commemorated legions has drawn
comment, especially since medieval fictions about Carausius record a tale of him
experiencing difficulties at York, the base of this legion. The reason for the
legion not being in the list is that it did not serve in Gaul and was, therefore, not
a body which proclaimed Carausius before his descent on Britain. As the legion
nearest Hadrian’s Wall it was normally excused from detaching troops for
vexillation duty. On the other hand the pairing of units drawn from II Augusta
and XX Valeria Victrix is attested on a number of inscriptions in the second and
third centuries. Their presence as joint vexillations in Gaul is illustrated by an
engraved metal roundel, found in France, which shows the units parading
together, each contingent fronted by a standard bearer with a vexillum, the flag
from which the vexillation as a unit got its name (Fig.5).
While the bulk of legionary forces will have comprised elements from

vexillations one legion is credited with having gone over to the rebel in its
entirety. The Panegyric of 297 includes a recapitulation of those who
defected:
84 THE BRITISH USURPERS

5 The British legions in Gaul. Third-century officer’s badge depicting a parade of Legio II
Augusta and Legio XX Valeria Victrix.

In that criminal usurpation first the fleet that used to protect Gaul was
stolen by the pirate on the run, then many ships were built in our style, a
Roman legion was seized, several units of non-Roman soldiers were
secured, Gallic merchants were recruited, considerable forces of barbarians
were seduced by the loot of the very provinces
(Pan. Lat.viii(v). 12).

Taken at face value this passage says that a legion stationed on the Continent
declared for Carausius. Of the Continental legions for whom coins were issued,
the most likely candidate for identification with that mentioned in the Panegyric
is Legio XXX Ulpia Traiana. This legion was stationed at Xanten on the Rhine in
the nearest legionary base to the scene of the revolt. Even so it is unlikely that
the legion was at full strength and the passage may be interpreted as indicating
that this was the only legionary force whose commander, or praeses, declared for
Carausius, vexillations being lead by officers of lesser rank.
The same panegyric passage mentions two other elements of the rebel force,
‘units of non-Roman soldiers’ and ‘considerable forces of barbarians’. The Latin
text translated as ‘units of non-Roman soldiers’ reads ‘peregrinorum militum
cuneis’; the literal meaning of cuneus is ‘wedge’ but it also had a technical
 NARRATIVE AND ARCHAEOLOGY I: THE REVOLT 85

military sense when applied to cavalry. In the third century units of non-Roman
cavalry, usually of German origin, are found among garrisons on the frontiers.
One of the best known of these units is the Cuneus Frisiorum stationed at
Housesteads on Hadrian’s Wall. Here, in the reign of Severus Alexander (222–
35), they dedicated an elaborate altar to the welfare of the emperor, the war god
Mars and their homeland goddesses, the Alaisiagae (RIB 1594). In the
inscription the Frisians record that they are Germans. Other cunei of Frisians are
known from Papcastle, on the Wall, and at Binchester in the hinterland of the
Wall zone (RIB 882–3, 1036). Inscriptions mentioning cunei, but missing the
name of the unit, are known from two other forts of the northern frontier,
Brougham and Corbridge (RIB 772, 1136).
The description of the units in the army of Carausius as peregrini, non-
citizens, is consonant with third-century social developments. In 212 Caracalla
gave the Roman citizenship to all free people in the empire, at a stroke
abolishing the distinction between soldiers serving in the legions, who were
citizens, and those in the auxiliary regiments, who were non-citizens. In future the
only military formations who could be described as peregrine were tribal units
like the Frisians. Whether such units were mercenaries or captives shipped to
remote parts of the empire to serve in the army is uncertain. The number of cunei
found on Hadrian’s Wall tends to imply the latter origin (Casey & Noel, 1993).
In these circumstances it seems probable that Carausius had Germanic cavalry
at his disposal, possibly units originally intended to conduct land operations in
pursuit of the pirates the fleet was dealing with at sea. We also read of
‘considerable forces of barbarians’. These are not given any sort of technical
military title and are thus to be distinguished from forces already serving in the
Roman army. From references elsewhere in the panegyric we can conjecture that
these barbarians were Franks from the northern borders of Gallia Belgica.
Of forces stationed in northern Gaul itself there is very little evidence. By the
end of the fourth century the Channel coast was furnished with a number of forts
which protected harbour installations and inland areas against sea-borne attack.
The Notitia Dignitatum gives details of 11 forts stretching down the coast from
the Rhine to the mouth of the Loire (ND.Occ.XXVII). Excavation of these sites
has, as yet, made little progress and even the identification of some named forts
is still uncertain. Of the sites which have been explored the general tenor of the
evidence suggests that they were constructed after the period under review, but
not very long afterwards (Maxfield, 1989). In general these forts seem to have
been built to counter the sort of attack Carausius was employed to prevent, thus
abandoning a maritime strategy to avoid putting another fleet in the hands of
another potential rebel.
The last group to be considered in the list of the traitorous are the Gallic
merchants. Who are these merchants and why should they be singled out in a list
which is otherwise concerned with military matters? It might be supposed that, if
most of the coast and inland ports, such as Rouen, were in rebel hands, anyone
earning a livelihood from overseas or coastal trade would, perforce, have to
86 THE BRITISH USURPERS

PLATE 5
1 Carausius. ‘aurelianus’ C-mint. Obv. IMP C CARAVSIVS PF AVG Rev. LAETITIA AVG-
C RIC 255
2 Carausius. ‘aurelianus’ C-mint. Obv. IMP C CARAVSIVS PF AVG Rev. PAX AVG-
CMXXI Emperor in consular regalia RIC
3 Carausius. ‘aurelianus’ C-mint. Obv. IMP C CARAVSIVS PF AVG Rev. PACA TOR
ORBIS-C Bust of Sol RIC
4 Carausius. ‘aurelianus’ C-mint. Obv. IMP C CARAVSIVS PF AVG Rev. PROVIDEN
AVG-S/C C Conjoined busts of emperor and Sol RIC
5 Maximian. ‘aurelianus’ C-mint. Obv. IMP C MAXIMIANVS PF AVG Rev. SPES PVBL-
S/P C RIC
6 Carausius. ‘aurelianus’ C-mint. Obv. CARAVSIVS ET FRATRES SVI Rev. PAX AVGGG-
S/P C Busts of Carausius, far left, Diocletian, centre, and Maximian RIC 1
7 Diocletian. ‘aurelianus’ C-mint. Obv. IMP C DIOCLETIANVS AVG Rev. VICTORIA
AVGGG-S/P C RIC 28
8 Carausius. ‘aurelianus’ C-mint. Obv. IMP C CARAVSIVS P AVG Rev. PROVID
AVGGG-S/P C RIC 371
9 Allectus. ‘aurelianus’ C-mint. Obv. IMP C ALLECTVS PF AVG Rev. SALVS AVG-S/P
C RIC I 14var
10 Allectus. ‘aurelianus’ C-mint. Obv. IMP C ALLECTVS PF AVG Rev. PAX AVG-S/P C
RIC 86
11 Allectus. ‘aurelianus’ C-mint. Obv. IMP C ALLECTVS PIVS FEL AVG Rev. PAX AVG
S/P C RIC 88
 NARRATIVE AND ARCHAEOLOGY I: THE REVOLT 87

PLATE 6
1 Carausius. ‘aurelianus’ London mint. Obv. IMP CARAVSIVS PF A VG Rev. LEG I MIN-
ML Legion I Minervia RIC 56
2 Carausius. ‘aurelianus’ London mint. Obv. IMP CARAVSIVS PF AVG Rev. LEG II
AVG-ML Legion II Augusta RIC 58
3 Carausius. ‘aurelianus’ C-mint. Obv. IMP CARAVSIVS PF A VG Rev. LEG XX A VG
Legion XX Augusta RIC 275
4 Carausius. ‘aurelianus’ London mint. Obv. IMP CARAVSIVS PF AVG Rev. LEG II
PARTHICA-ML RIC 62
5 Carausius. RSR mint. Obv. IMP CARAVSIVS PF AVG Rev. LEG IIII FL RSR Legion
IIII Flavia RIC 568
6 Carausius. ‘aurelianus’ C-mint. Obv. V. IMP CARAVSIVS PF A VG Rev. LEG IIII FLA-
C Legion IIII Flavia RIC 273
7 Carausius. ‘aurelianus’ London mint. Obv. IMP CARAVSIVS PF AVG Rev. LEG VII
CL-ML Legion VII Claudia RIC 75
8 Maximian. aureus lantinum mint. Obv. MAXIMIANVS P AVG Rev. IOVI
FVLGENTORI-IAN RIC
9 Diocletian. Aureus lantinum mint. Obv. DIOCLETIANVS P AVG Rev. VIRTVS AVGG-
IAN RIC
10 Diocletian. aureus lantinum mint. Obv. DIOCLETIANVS P AVG Rev. HERCVLI
VICTORI-IAN RIC–
88 THE BRITISH USURPERS

PLATE 7
1 Constantius I. Trier mint. Gold medallion of 5 aurei (Wt. 27.0g). Obv. FL VAL
CONSTANTIVS NOBIL C Rev. VIR TVS AVGG-PTR The Caesar in consular robes/
Hercules struggling with a stag. RIC 3
The medallion was issued in early 294 to celebrate the elevation of Constantius to the rank
of Caesar; he is shown wearing the ceremonial robes of the consulship bestowed upon him
on his promotion.
2 Constantius I. Trier mint. Gold medallion of 5 aurei (Wt. 26.84g). Obv. FL VAL
CONSTANTIVS NOBILISSIMVS C Rev. PIETAS AVGG-PTR The Caesar wearing the
lionskin head-dress of Hercules/The Caesar, crowned by Victory, raises a kneeling figure
of Britannia. RIC 32
3 Constantius I. Trier mint. Gold medallion of 5 aurei (Wt. 26.79g). Obv. FL VAL
CONSTANTIVS NOB CAES Rev. PIETAS AVGG-PTR The Caesar in the robes of a
consul, holding a eagle-tipped sceptre/as No.2 above. RIC 33
4 Constantius I. Trier mint. Gold medallion of 10 aurei (Wt. 52.88g). Obv. FL VAL
CONSTANTIVS NOBIL CAES Rev. REDDITOR LVCIS AETERNAE/LON-PTR RIC 34
This, with the two smaller denominations above, form part of the suite of commemorative
gold medallions struck to reward the participants in the recovery of Britain.
5 Constantine I. Trier mint. Gold medallion of 8 aurei, or 9 solidi (Wt. 40.70g). Obv. IMP
CONSTANTINVS PIVS FELIX AVG Rev. PRINCIPI IVVENTVTIS-PTR The emperor in
military dress/Constantine with spear and globe. RIC 801
This medallion commemorates the fifth anniversary of Constantine’s accession to power
on the death of his father, Constantius I, at York. The reverse bears the inscribed name of
the owner, Vitalianus.
 NARRATIVE AND ARCHAEOLOGY I: THE REVOLT 89

PLATE 8
1 Allectus. ‘aurelianus’ London mint. Obv. IMP C ALLECTVS PF AVG Rev. PAX AVG-S/
P ML RIC 33var
2 Allectus. ‘quinarius’ London mint. Obv. IMP C ALLECTVS PF AVG Rev. VIRTVS AVG-
QL RIC 55
3 Allectus. ‘quinarius’ C-mint. Obv. IMP C ALLECTVS PF AVG Rev. LAETITIA AVG-
QC RIC 128
4 Allectus. ‘quinarius’ C-mint. Obv. IMP C ALLECTVS PF AVG Rev. VIRTVS AVG-QC
RIC 128
5 Allectus. ‘quinarius’ London mint. Obv. IMP AC ALLECTVS PF AVG Rev. VIRTVS
AVG-QL RIC 55var
6 Allectus. ‘quinarius’ C-mint. Obv. IMP C ALLECTVS PF AVG Rev. VIR TVS AVG-QC
A figure of victory stands on the prow of the galley. RIC 128var
7 Postumus. double sestertius. Obv. IMP C CASS LAT POSTVMVS PF AVG Rev.
LAETITIA AVG RIC 143
8 Postumus. dupondius. Obv. IMP C CASS LAT POSTVMVS PF AVG Rev. LAETITIA
AVG RIC 143
9 Constantius I. aureus Trier mint. Obv. CONSTANTIVS NC Rev. VIRTVS ILLYRICI-TR
RIC 88
90 THE BRITISH USURPERS

recognize or treat with the separatist regime, especially if that trade was with
Britain. There is little archaeological evidence of trade in commodities such as
pottery, which leave material traces behind them, but epigraphic evidence from a
slightly earlier period bears witness to the existence of cross-Channel trade
conducted by wealthy entrepreneurs. From an inscription on an altar from
Bordeaux set up by M. Aurelius Lunaris in 237 which tells us that he was a
priest of the imperial cult at both York and Lincoln, we may assume that he was
also a trader (AE, 1922). From the Rhineland comes a series of dedications by
merchants whose trade was with Britain; unspecified dealers at Cologne
(CIL,XIII, 8164a) and Castell, near Mainz, the base of Legio XXII Primigenia
from which one of Carausius’s vexillations was drawn (CIL,XIII, 8793). From
Domburg, where the temple of the goddess Nehalennia stood at the mouth of one
of the many channels which connected the main waterway with the North Sea,
comes an altar dedicated by a pottery merchant whose market was Britain
(Hodius-Crone, 1955). An inscription from York makes the wealth and wide
social connections between the mercantile classes of the northern sea routes even
clearer. The stone records the erection, in 221, of an arch and a shrine, dedicated
to ‘Iuppiter Best and Greatest of Doliche and the Welfare of the Emperors’, by
L.Viducius Placidus. Placidus records that, besides being a priest of the imperial
cult, he is a citizen of Rouen (Hassal & Tomlin, 1977). A further inscription of
Placidus from the temple of Nehalennia shows that his trading empire stretched
from Britain to the Rhineland and into the very heart of what was later to be
Carausian territory (Stuart, 1971).
Conceivably it was the support of the descendants of merchants such as these
which is alluded to in the texts; merchants who may well have been the source of
the gold used in the Rouen coinage. Little is known in detail about the mercantile
class in Gaul, but the magnificent marble monuments raised by individual
merchants in Lugdunum to commemorate the holding of office in the provincial
council and priesthoods in the imperial cult suggest that this class was a very
powerful element in the politics of the province. We may even conjecture that
there was a tension between the landowning and the mercantile classes, with the
latter throwing their weight behind Carausius for political advantage. Certainly it
is the landowning classes who will have suffered most in the tumult of the
barbarian attacks on Gaul in the third century—with their property destroyed and
their slaves in revolt their traditional status might well have been threatened.
To suggest that Carausius may have been the front man for a more extensive
conspiracy is only to place him in a familiar context. In the fourth century two
such insurrections were raised which came within a very narrow margin of
success, significantly both started in Gaul. In 350 the revolt of Magnentius was
engineered by Marcellinus, the Comes Sacrarum Largitionum of Constans, and at
the end of the century the elevation of Eugenius was engineered by Arbogastes,
the Magister Militum, following the suicide of Valentinian II, an event in which
Arbogastes played a provocative role. As to the part played by Allectus in the
revolt of Carausius, we unfortunately lack any specific ancient information but
 NARRATIVE AND ARCHAEOLOGY I: THE REVOLT 91

his later role fits him into the sort of position held by other manipulative
ministers lurking behind an imperial candidate of their own manufacture.
We must ask the pertinent question: Why did anyone support Carausius? No
question but he had the very best personal reasons for revolt if his life was in
danger, and in all probability a number of his officers were condemned with him,
but what of the rank and file? This question is posed in a broader context by the
historian E.H.Carr (1987, 52):

Here I should say something about the role of the rebel or dissident in
history. To set up the popular picture of the individual in revolt against
society is to reintroduce the false antithesis between society and the
individual. No society is fully homogeneous. Every society is an arena of
conflicts, and those individuals who range themselves against existing
authority are no less products and reflections of the society than those that
uphold it. Richard II and Catherine the Great represent powerful social
forces in…England…and…Russia…: but so did Wat Tyler and Pugachev,
the leader of the great serf rebellion. Monarchs and rebels alike were the
product of the specific conditions of their age and country. To describe Wat
Tyler and Pugachev as individuals in revolt against society is a misleading
simplification. If they had been merely that, the historian would never have
heard of them. They owe their role in history to the mass of their
followers, and are significant as social phenomena, or not at all.

By the same token Carausius and Allectus owe their role in history to the great mass
of their followers. Unfortunately we have no information about the motives of
the individuals who comprised the mass. But we should bear in mind, as their
leaders must have done, that action without the consent of these followers would
be no action at all. Policies engendering loyalty and enthusiasm for the cause
must have transcended Septimius Severus’s simple aphorism, ‘Pay the soldiers…
damn the rest.’
So far we have suggested that a successful campaign was conducted by
Maximian against Carausian forces on the Continent which resulted in the
expulsion of the rebel forces to Britain. It has also been suggested, on the basis
of the presence of RSR coin in the Rouen hoard, that Britain had fallen to Carausius
before Diocletian and Maximian had expelled his forces from Gaul. All of which
raises the acute problem of why and how did Britain succumb to Carausius?
There have been a number of conjectures advanced, of which the most popular
are that he must have enjoyed a reputation in Britain gained during unrecorded
military service in the province, or that the situation was such as to make a new
administration, prepared to devote itself to the affairs of the island instead of
maintaining a distant control from Trier, a welcome alternative to that already in
place.
The notion of a pre-revolt military career which earned the respect and
affection of the provincials, though without any independent evidence, has been
92 THE BRITISH USURPERS

elaborated in a number of ways (White, 1961). An example of this is the claim

that Carausius served as commander of the Classis Britannica, the fleet based at
Dover and Boulogne that served as the imperial transport link between the
mainland of Europe and the empire’s offshore possession. Another of the fleet’s
activities would have been the protection both of shipping and vulnerable coastal
areas from seaborne attack. Attention has been drawn to the numbers of coin
hoards found in the south-east of Britain which date from the second half of the
third century and to compare these with hoards of similar coins from Gaul as
evidence for a widespread threat to the region, or even attacks (Frere, 1987).
These hoards consist of the basest issues of the Gallic empire’s coinage and,
while it is possible to point to allegedly historically attested destruction in Gaul
by barbarian activity in the third century, and especially between 268 and 278, it
does not follow that the hoards are witness to these events. Indeed, there is
evidence of attempts to suppress the hoarded coinage by Probus (276–82) in
order to implement further the monetary reform of Aurelian and it can be argued
strongly that these hoards are no more than coins which were abandoned because
they had lost most of their monetary value. Further, the distribution of these
hoards is not confined to the south-east; in reality they are as widespread as any
other class of hoard encountered in Britain (Casey, 1986). On the other hand, the
creation of coastal forts on the Wash, the coast of Suffolk and the Thames
estuary cannot be overlooked. Nor can the conversion to a watchtower of the
monument at Richborough be taken as anything less than a sign of difficulties.
That problems which called for military solutions had arisen by the last
quarter of the third century is clear from the involvement of the emperor Carinus
(283–5) in Britain. By mid-284 the emperor bore the title Britannicus Maximus,
a title which he shared with his brother Numerian, indicating a victory in Britain
(ILS 608). The inscription, from near Ostia, lists the British title after that
awarded for his German victory, showing that any campaign was fought after April
283, the earliest date recorded for the German acclamation.
The situation, or specific event, which necessitated the campaign and the
location of the military activity is not known, but the personal intervention of
Carinus in Britain is probably alluded to in the Cynegetica of the contemporary
Carthaginian poet Marcus Aurelius Nemesianus.

Hereafter I will gird myself with fitter lyre to record your triumphs, you
gallant sons of the deified Carus [i.e. Carinus and Numerian], and will sing
of our sea-board beneath the twin boundaries of the world, and of the
subjugation, by the brothers’ divine power, of nations that drink the Rhine
or Tigris or from the distant source of the Arar or look upon the wells of
the Nile at their birth: nor let me fail to tell what campaigns you first ended,
Carinus, beneath the Northern Bear [sub Arcto] with victorious hand, well
nigh outstripping your divine father…. (Nemesianus, Cynegetica, 65–75)
 NARRATIVE AND ARCHAEOLOGY I: THE REVOLT 93

The phrase ‘sub arcto’ is a poetic reference to the Pole Star and is a frequently
employed equivalent for ‘the far north’. As such, it may well be a reference to
campaigning in Britain. Mann has suggested that the poetic nature of the phrase
suggests naval warfare. Though not stated, the inference is that the Pole Star, as
the mariner’s guide, serves to convey a seaborn context to the reader (Mann,
1989). On the other hand, a number of pieces of evidence, none in itself
conclusive, suggest that Carinus was himself in Britain. At a period when
imperial gold coinage is otherwise unknown in Britain, a number of specimens
of Carus and his sons are found; an aureus of Numerian from Richborough,
another, in a private collection, of the deified Carus from Wroxeter. A bronze
medallion of Carinus is recorded from an East Anglian location. There is no
direct reference, however, to events in Britain among the numerous coin types of
Carinus and Numerian celebrating victory. Nor, for that matter, is there any
record in the coinage of Carinus and Numerian of a single type featuring ships,
the god Neptune or any hint of a naval victory. An inscription of Carinus, as
Caesar, from the villa at Clanville, Hants (RIB 98) and a number of milestones
recording attention to the roads in the reign of Carus (RIB 2282, 2307, 2250) are
no more significant than the similar inscriptions for emperors of the second half
of the third century relatively commonly found in Britain.
The title Britannicus Maximus was also conferred on Diocletian early in his
reign. An inscription, now in Rome but probably originally from Ostia, records
the honorific title at the time when Diocletian was sole emperor, before the
elevation of Maximian (ILS 615). The event commemorated must, therefore, fall
between 20 November 284 and October/December 285. The inscription itself
dates to after 9 December 284 as it records Diocletian’s second tribunician
power (Barnes, 1982). But, it is thought, Diocletian was not in control of the
West until after the death of Carinus, which took place in August or September
285, and it hardly seems likely that serious campaigning, with or without the
emperor, could be undertaken in the short period between August/September and
December 285. A solution to the problem is that Diocletian simply took over the
title Britannicus Maximus from Carinus as part of his imperial titulature, without
having done anything to earn it himself. But Carinus’s titles at the end of his
reign were Germanicus Maximus, Persicus Maximus and Britannicus Maximus,
the first two titles being conferred in 283 and the latter in 284. Diocletian is
recorded as Britannicus Maximus and Germanicus Maximus on the Rome
inscription and since he numbers his five later German victories sequentially
from this one it is not likely to have been a mere adoption of another man’s title.
If this is so, then the integrity of the British honour should be given credence.
We may conjecture that Carinus’s forces were once again conducting a
campaign in Britain, which was concluded very shortly after his death and that
the new ruler, Diocletian, gathered the symbolic fruits of the victory. The title
was not used while Britain was outside imperial control during the revolt of
Carausius and Allectus. There is no other direct evidence for a Diocletianic
intervention in Britain.
94 THE BRITISH USURPERS

It is conceivable that Carausius took part in campaigns fought in Britain by

Carinus or Diocletian. What seems less likely is that Carausius commanded the
Classis Britannica and was thus involved in operations in the Channel which
would have endeared him to the garrison of Britain or to influential sections of
the civilian population. Excavation of the British naval base at Dover indicates
that the fort housing the sailors of the fleet had ceased to function by 270 (Philp,
1981). Excavations at Boulogne, where the fleet maintained its Continental base,
suggest a similar pattern of occupation with an abandonment of the installation
well before the end of the third century. Even before the final closure, whole
blocks of barracks had gone out of use, pointing to a reduction in the size of the
fleet earlier in the century (Brulet, 1989). Rather than offering a context for
Carausius’s early career, this evidence gives one for his later command since not
only did he have to gather a fleet, suggesting that none existed, but also conduct
operations which would normally be within the operational remit of the Classis
Britannica. The demise of this fleet was probably instrumental in setting in
motion the piratical activities which Carausius was appointed to crush.
Once established in Britain the new regime must have sought to reinforce its
integrity both against internal dissent and external attack. It is impossible to
disentangle which steps were taken while a hold was maintained on the Continent
and which were those taken after the loss of this territory, or indeed which date
to a period after the recovery of northern Gaul following Maximian’s campaign.
The organization of a mint, or mints, and dissemination of money bearing the
effigy of the new ruler appear to have been a priority. The distribution pattern of
Carausius’s early coinage only hints at the need to assuage the army with the
payment of a donative, but the presence of an aureus found at Neath, in south
Wales, the site of an auxiliary fort (Evans, 1886), a silver coin in the fort at
Piercebridge, Co. Durham (Casey, forthcoming) and the issue of bronze
medallions by the RSR mint, one of which has an unspecified northern
provenance, point to this priority. There is also ample evidence, in the form of
the surviving products of the Unmarked mint, that a vast quantity of coinage was
immediately injected into the insular economy. This move was a very much-
needed corrective to the monetary situation inherited by the new administration.
Coins of the Aurelianic reform are very scarce in British hoards or site finds and
the continued use of unofficial copies of the issues of the long defunct Gallic
Empire, despite Probus’s efforts to suppress them, is eloquent testimony to the
scarcity of coinage in the British economy.
Such care for the economy, through the introduction of an ample medium of
exchange, cannot but have engendered a renewal of economic activity. Not least
it provided the administration with a medium for the purchase of supplies, the
payment of the army and the collection of taxes. The fact that the bulk of the
coins masqueraded as aureliani, though they had no silver content, probably did
not matter in the context of the closed economy of isolated Britain. The
exploitation of insular economic resources can be traced in Wales where the
hoard from Little Orme’s Head points to the exploitation of the copper resources
 NARRATIVE AND ARCHAEOLOGY I: THE REVOLT 95

of Anglesey at an early date (Seaby, 1956). The volume of Carausian coinage

from the fort at Caernarfon shows that the centre of military and economic
administration in north Wales and Anglesey was in full use at this time (Casey &
Davies, 1993). An indication that the gold mines at Dolaucothi, in
Carmarthenshire, were probably being worked can be traced in the presence of
coins of Carausius in hoards from Erw-hen and Cynwyl Gaio in the vicinity of this
remote mining complex (Boon, 1967).
The disposition of the forces evacuated from the Continent is problematic.
Since we do not know the actual manning levels of individual forts it is
impossible to say whether their garrisons were reinforced. A study of the coinage
from selected forts on Hadrian’s Wall suggests that these were maintained at low
garrison strength throughout the Carausian period, ultimate integrity of the
northern frontier being dependent on the garrisons of the larger hinterland forts
(Curteis, 1988). On the other hand, at Brecon Gaer in Wales a fort which had
been abandoned in the late Antonine period appears, judging by the coinage, to
have been reactivated about this time, and we have already noticed a gold coin of
Carausius in association with Neath, where the fort had been run down in the
Hadrianic or Antonine period (Nash-Williams, 1969).
It might be thought that strategic considerations would require a shift of
military resources away from the more remote parts of Britain, such as Wales
and the extreme north, to a more southerly dispersal in anticipation of a counter-
attack by Maximian. The preparations for this took a whole year and it is
inconceivable that an espionage network was not employed by the regimes on both
sides of the Channel. Further, the Panegyric of 297 specifies that ‘many ships were
built in our style’ and were manned by new recruits to the navy, ‘all of these
being trained in seamanship’. We would expect the harbours and rivers of the
south and east coasts to have been the scene of this activity, though so woefully
lacking is knowledge of Roman harbours and shipbuilding in Britain that it is
impossible to identify specific Carausian naval bases. Once again recourse to the
exiguous evidence of a find of a gold coin points to Clausentum (Bitterne, near
Southampton) being a candidate, and this is supported by the reappraisal of the
numismatic dating of the site which gives a terminus post quem for the
construction as being after 268. The aggregate of the phased evidence thereafter
suggests a construction date in the third quarter of the third century (King, 1991).
The replacement of the Classis Britannica fort at Dover with a shore fort, if
at this date, indicates that the traditional harbours played a central role. This last
point must inevitably lead to a discussion of the problem of the part which may,
or may not, have been played by Carausius and Allectus in the construction and
use of the so called Saxon Shore Forts.
 8
NARRATIVE AND ARCHAEOLOGY II:
THE SECOND CONTINENTAL EPISODE

THE PANEGYRIC OF 289 MAKES IT clear that an invasion of Britain had

been planned in considerable detail; there is no reason to doubt that the attempt
took place and suffered a complete reversal. The silence of the Panegyric of 291
is deafening, while the oblique reference in the Pangyric of 297 to the ‘sea’s
difficulty which had inevitably postponed your victory’ may indicate a natural
disaster which engulfed the invasion fleet. Whether or not this covers up a defeat
or simply records what really happened it is clear that Maximian suffered a
setback of enormous magnitude. Deprived of a fleet, the coastal areas of Gaul
were vulnerable to Carausius who, once again, established rule over areas in the
northern part of Maximian’s domain. The extent of the territory seized, to judge
by the distribution of coin finds, included Boulogne, Rouen and Amiens.
Significantly, all three cities offered port facilities, the latter sites on the Somme
and Seine respectively (see Fig.3).
A number of changes in the coinage took place at this time. The style
improved dramatically: the broad-busted, rather uncouth, portrait hitherto
employed was replaced by a smoother more practised model, probably as the
result of the importation of Gallic die-sinkers recruited from the new territories
(Pl.4, no.3). In 290/91, also, the coins were brought into line with the monetary
standards of the rest of the empire, the aureliani now being issued with a silver
content of about 3 per cent to create a billon coinage. The revaluation is marked
on the coins themselves by the addition of the numeral XXI to the mintmark, as
in the form MLXXI (Pl.4, no.3, Pl.5, no.2). In late 291, the obverse legend
changed from IMP CARAVSIVS PF AVG to IMP C CARAVSIVS PF AVG, thus
assuming the title Caesar as a regular component of the imperial titulature.
The date of Maximian’s defeat, or setback, is not very certain. The Panegyric
of 291 was probably delivered on 21 July, which gives a terminus ad quem, or
outside date. But there is nothing to fix the invasion itself. An analysis of the non-
Rouen coins of Carausius found in Gaul, for which the sequence and mintmarks
are available from publications, points to the resumption of a Continental
imperium taking place in late 290 or early 291, rather than in 289 (Table 10). No
Continental mint coins can be ascribed to this later occupation.
 THE BRITISH USURPERS 97

Table 10 Carausius and Allectan coins in Gaul: mints and issues

London Unmarked Colchester Rouen
IMP CARAUSIUS PF AUG 286 1 3 240 +
287
288 1
289
290
IMP C CARAUSIUS PF AUG 291
292 10
293 2 2
IMP C ALLECTUS PF AUG 293 8
294 6
295 2 2
296

Aurelius Victor implies that Carausius achieved a degree of recognition from

Diocletian and Maximian:

Only Carausius was left with imperial power [of the various usurpers
fought by the emperors early in their reign] over the island, after being
thought amenable to orders to protect the inhabitants from warlike peoples.
(v.39).

This may be a genuine echo of events at this period though it must be stressed
there is no evidence that any gesture made by Carausius was reciprocated by his
adversaries. The assumption of the title Caesar might indicate a temporary
rapprochement but is more likely to be an honour bestowed by the usurper upon
himself. Similarly, the issue of consular coins by the London mint in 289
represent another self-awarded consulship. The assumption of the highest honour
in the Roman state hardly ranks as a persuasive act of reconciliation with the
Continental rulers, who had already appointed their own nominees, M.Magrius
Bassus and L.Ragonius Quintianus, for the year in question (Degrassi, 1952).
Just as the garrisoning of Britain must have been a priority in the early days of
the revolt so the redeployment of forces on the Continent and the establishment
of a land frontier with the imperial authorities demanded attention. No forts or
fortifications can be certainly associated with these events but there are
tantalizing hints of activity at Boulogne which, from the account of the fall of the
city, is known to have been fortified with walls and ramparts.
Archaeological investigations in the difficult environment of a busy modern
port city have yielded some information (Brulet, 1991). The Classis Britannica
base has been identified in the middle of the modern city—in antiquity it would
have occupied a plateau of a bluff rising above the lower
98 NARRATIVE AND ARCHAEOLOGY II: THE SECOND CONTINENTAL EPISODE

6 The Carausian defences of Boulogne. (After Brulet.)

town and dockyards which crowded the banks of the estuary of the river Liane;
coin evidence indicates that the fort was dismantled in about 270. Later, a new
circuit of walls was built, using the ditches of the Classis fort as a foundation
trench, this enclosed an area of c.13 ha. The new wall was furnished with the
now obligatory semicircular external towers. Intermediate between the Classis
fort and the new circuit of defences is a phase represented by two square towers
(Fig.6). Possibly these represent a scheme of defences planned and partly
executed during the earlier Carausian occupation. The later defence circuit is also
claimed as Carausian.
Events before the attack on Boulogne in 293 are obscure but it is possible that
a campaign against Carausius was launched as early as 291. The evidence for
this depends upon the interpretation of the significance of a small group of gold
coins struck in the names of Diocletian and Maximian by a mint identified as
lantinum (Meaux), to the east of Paris (Bastien, 1980). Hitherto these coins have
been attributed to the period immediately before the invasion of Britain by
Constantius, their function being seen as a donative to inspire the invading
forces. But an examination of the types employed by these coins offers a different
insight (Pl.6, nos 8–10). The imagery of the coins seems closely to reflect that
used in the Panegyric of 291 in which the emperor Maximian’s struggle against
Carausius is compared with events associated with the Labours of Hercules.
Specific parallels, with a maritime emphasis, are drawn with Hercules’s
successes against pirates and his defeat of Antheus, son of Poseidon. The types
for Diocletian depict Jove/Zeus’s struggle with the Titans (Loriot, 1981). If this
interpretation is correct and the coins represent a special issue as a pre-campaign
donative at the earlier date, it would seem that a thrust was contemplated along
the valley of the Seine perhaps in an attempt to retake Rouen. This interpretation
gains some credibility from the fact that Maximian is known to have been in
Reims in February 291 (Barnes, 1982). The proposed later date for the arrival of
Carausius on the Continent, outlined above, would give a good context for
 THE BRITISH USURPERS 99

Maximian’s counterthrust and for the issue of the coins as a direct economic
appeal to the loyalty of the imperial forces.
Writing after the collapse of the Tetrarchic system in the reign of Constantine
when the new emperor encouraged the denigration of his pagan former enemies,
a Christian polemicist gave a character sketch of the emperor Maximian. As a
recent convert to Christianity Lactantius was, of course, an extremely prejudiced
commentator on those who persecuted his new faith. His view of Maximian was
that:

They [i.e. Diocletian and Maximian] differed only in this, that Diocletian
was greedier but more hesitant, whereas Maximian was no less greedy but
bolder—though bolder at doing evil, not at doing good. Although he
controlled Italy, the actual seat of empire, and although highly wealthy
provinces like Africa and Spain were in his power, he was not particularly
diligent in guarding the wealth of which he had such an ample supply.
When the need arose there was no shortage of extremely rich senators who
could be claimed on the basis of suborned evidence to have aspired to
imperial power. In consequence, the senate’s luminaries were constantly
being snatched from it, while Maximian’s purse, soaked in blood, bulged
with ill-gotten wealth. There was in the man, pestilential as he was, a lust
directed not just at the hateful and detestable practice of debauching males,
but also at violating the daughters of leading citizens. Wherever he
travelled, maidens were at once seized on the spot from the embrace of
their parents. The only thing in which his government rested was the denial
of nothing to his lust and nothing to his evil desires. (Lact. 8.2–6)

In contrast to this view it can be shown that in the years of Carausius’s

ascendancy the western Augustus was fully occupied in warfare, securing the
Rhine frontier against the Alamanni, the Heruli and the Chamavi and the lower
Rhine against the Franks, who may or may not have acted in concert with
Carausius. Apparently the only enemy that he could not suppress was Carausius
himself, presumably because when Roman arms met Roman arms the usurper
was the better general. In the winter of 290/91 the joint emperors, Diocletian and
Maximian, travelled from their respective territories to meet at a summit
conference in Milan. The failure to eradicate Carausius must have been a feature
of the agenda. If the campaign deduced from the issue of coins at lantinum took
place at this time it will have been as a result of decisions made at Milan.
Diocletian is known to have been hard on colleagues who, in his perception,
failed in military ventures. Galerius, the eastern Caesar, was defeated by the
Persians in 297; he returned in person to Antioch to report the disaster. Gibbon
reports the subsequent treatment of the erring Caesar:

Diocletian received him not with the tenderness of a friend and colleague,
but with the indignation of an offended sovereign. The haughtiest of men,
100 NARRATIVE AND ARCHAEOLOGY II: THE SECOND CONTINENTAL EPISODE

clothed in his purple, but humbled by the sense of his fault and misfortune,
was obliged to follow the emperor’s chariot above a mile on foot, and to
exhibit before the whole court the spectacle of his disgrace.

In March 292 the campaign against the rebel was taken out of the hands of
Maximian and put into those of his newly appointed deputy, Flavius Valerius
Constantius, who was promoted from the office of praetorian prefect to Caesar,
or emperor designate. Constantius, like Maximian and Diocletian, was from the
Balkan provinces of the empire and like them had served in the armies of
Aurelian and Probus. He was forty-two years old when promoted and had served
with Maximian throughout his reign, no doubt participating in his various
campaigns. On his promotion a new praetorian prefect, Julius Asclepiodotus,
was appointed.
The elevation of Constantius sent a clear message of intent which was not
ignored by Carausius. No doubt the defences of the regime were further
reinforced but the only activity of which we have a record is a flurry of
diplomatic approaches to Diocletian and Maximian. The creation of a legitimate
heir-apparent should have spelled the end of any hopes of a constitutional
position being created which accommodated Carausius’s own pretensions to the
title of Caesar. The diplomatic drive, the evidence for which is enshrined in the
coinage, directly associates Carausius with the emperors as a co-equal ruler rather
than supplicant junior colleague.
In 292 the mints of London and Colchester were geared up for the production
of coins in the names of Diocletian and Maximian (Pl.4, nos 6–9; Pl.5, nos 5–7).
Billon aureliani were issued in the names of the legitimate emperors while an
aureus in the name of Maximian, from the London mint, probably represents a
much more extensive coinage in the name of both rulers (Pl.4, no.9). All issues
use the extended form AVGGG (Augustorum) on the reverse, indicating the reign
of three emperors (Pl.5, nos 7, 8). This claim to equal constitutional status is
made explicit by one of the most famous coins in the entire Roman series on
which Carausius, Diocletian and Maximian are presented in a triumviral portrait
group with the inscription CARAVSIVS ET FRATRES SVI (‘Carausius and his
Brothers’) (Pl.5, no.6). There are some twenty recorded specimens of this
coinage, of which all but one bear the mintmark S/PC, or the variant SPC; one
specimen is recorded with the London mark MLXXI. This should date the
London coin to 291 but, since the nature of the reverse leaves no space for any
letters in the field, we can be confident that it is contemporary with the C mint
issues. The marks S/PC and SPC are the last used by Carausius at the C mint and
they are the first used on the coinage of Allectus. At London the mark S/P
MLXXI was superseded by a short-lived issue of coins marked S/P ML, also the
first used by Allectus. No collegiate issues are known for this mark. The last
issue of Carausius also dropped the use of the mark of value XXI, its use not
being resumed by Allectus. The gold coin bears the mark ML, used unmodified
throughout both the reign of Carausius and that of Allectus. On the combined
 THE BRITISH USURPERS 101

evidence of the C and London mints the triple portrait issue can be placed near
the end of the reign but not at the very end (Carson, 1987).
It seems likely that these coins were produced in anticipation of, or as part of,
an overture to secure some sort of recognition by Diocletian and Maximian in the
period immediately before the promotion of Constantius. The creation of the
Caesar cannot have taken place without preliminary speculation, and since
Carausius was firmly established on the Continent at the time we may see these
coins in the context of diplomacy provoked by the imminent creation of a ruler
devoted to his destruction. Their issue ceased when the promotion of Constantius
extinguished the hopes of a peaceful solution to the crisis. It is just possible that
the diplomacy may not have been one-sided, though the issue of coins was not
reciprocated by Diocletian or Maximian, and that some sort of negotiation was
conducted while preparations were made for an attack on Carausius’ main base,
Boulogne. At the same time a further series of negotiations may have been going
on with dissidents in the Carausian party, possibly Allectus.
The Panegyric of 297 gives an account of the fall of Boulogne, suggesting that
a planned operation was put into effect at a speed which took the enemy
completely by surprise. The arrival of Constantius in front of the walls of the city
outran the news of his accession, leaving the garrison penned up inside their
defences, their fleet unable to offer assistance or break the grip of the encircling
forces. Constantius himself conducted a land-based operation, either having no
fleet himself or none that could compete at sea with that of Carausius. Certainly
he was unable to establish a naval blockade. To exclude any attempt of relief or
retreat by sea a mole was constructed across the harbour by driving piles into the
entrance and dumping stones over them. Presumably Constantius planned to
conduct a formal siege and intended to reduce the garrison by privation to a state
of surrender rather than take the site by direct assault. This would minimize the
loss of life among the Roman troops in the garrison, an asset which the empire
could ill afford to lose. Such tactics would also send a message of clemency to
rebel forces in Britain. These tactics would involve denying flight to the besieged
by the construction of a circumvallation around the attacked city; should a relief
force be expected a contravallation would be needed to encircle and protect the
siegeworks. Caesar’s circumvallation and contravallation at Alesia, in 52 BC,
comprised 18km of ramparts, towers, breastworks, ditches, mantrap pits,
entanglements of thickets and swathes of disabling coltrops. The supremacy of
the Roman army in siege warfare had not diminished in the period between the
Republic and the late third century. Only a few years before the present events,
in 278, Terentius Marcianus, the praeses of Lycia and Pamphylia, successfully
besieged the city of Cremna after it had
been taken over by Lydius, an Isaurian brigand. Evidence on the site shows
that the Roman army mounted a formal siege, employing a contravallation to
prevent attack by the defenders. For their part the Roman army erected a huge
ramp against the walls, from which to mount an assault, meantime bombarding
the defenders with artillery which hurled stone balls some 0.5m in diameter
102 NARRATIVE AND ARCHAEOLOGY II: THE SECOND CONTINENTAL EPISODE

7 The topography of the Roman port of Boulogne. (After Brulet.)

(Mitchell, 1987, 1988). In the event, the siege was terminated by the death of
Lydius, shot down by a well-aimed dart from a catapault (Zos. 1.63–4).
The key to Constantius’s siegeworks was the mole which sealed off the
harbour; it was the construction of this that caused the defenders to lose heart and
forced their surrender. The nature of the mole’s structure and its location in
relation to the defences of Boulogne presents a puzzle. The Carausian defences
themselves occupy the plateau on the north-east bank of the estuary of the river
Liane with low-lying ground extending for about 400m to the water’s edge, an
area formerly occupied by a civil settlement and the dock facilities of the Classis
Britannica. The plateau is further defined by streams to the north and south. The
modern harbour of Boulogne is largely a construction of breakwaters, basins and
quays on the western seafront and south-west bank of the river, but in the Roman
period ships sailed into the tidal estuary to quays adjacent to the Classis
Britannica fort. There is no reason why the civil facilities should not have been
maintained after the demise of the fleet.
Recently published reconstructions of the topography of pre-modern Boulogne
are seriously misleading in showing an estuary with a mouth about a kilometre
wide (Brulet, 1991). These reconstructions take the cliffs of the Butte de
Chatillon as being co-terminous with the south bank of the estuary (Fig.7). But it
is clear from the bird’s-eye-view of the port published in c.1760 (Brulet’s fig.
18), and from naval charts of the eighteenth century (Pl.i), that a tongue of dunes
and shingle extended from the Butte de Chatillon, closing the estuary to a width
of only c.3oom. The anonymous ‘Plan of the Town and Harbour of Boulogne’ of
 THE BRITISH USURPERS 103

c.1750 (Pl.j) shows that at low tide a causeway connected the south and north
banks of the river at its narrowest point. Naturally, the topography of the estuary
will have changed considerably since the Roman period, reflecting silting and
rises in mean sea level. But this feature is likely, in some form, to have been
present throughout because it is produced by the action of the northern tidal
current of the Channel, which is unchanged since antiquity. The strong tidal
current carries sand and gravel from further down the coast and deposits it at the
mouth of the Liane. This landscape feature was only removed, or rather built over,
when the modern port and dry dock were created.
Before modern improvements Boulogne was not an easy harbour for the sailor:
‘Boulogne is a Tidal Harbour, and entirely dry at low water, consequently it
should not be entered but at high water’ (Serres, 1802). The French hydrographic
survey of the mid-nineteenth century, before the modern developments, shows
that at full tide the narrowest point of the estuary had a depth of 3.84m of water.
If we accept a channel width of c.3oom instead of 1km and the height of the
individual piles needed to close the channel at high tide of being just in excess of
4m, reinforced with a bank of rocks and shingle, we get some idea of the
magnitude of the siege works—quite small in comparison to those of Caesar at
Alesia, Scipio Africanus at Numantia or Flavius Silva at Masada. Nevertheless,
the novelty of an underwater rampart, if only submerged twice daily,
demonstrates an impressive strategic grasp.
The completion of the mole seems to have brought about the surrender of the
garrison following the negotiation of terms which the defenders could accept; the
Panegyric of 297 says that ‘dire straits and a trust in your mercy had ended the
siege’. The very next tide smashed the mole and would have allowed a relieving
fleet to outflank the besiegers.
The fall of Carausius is shrouded in impenetrable mystery—the date is
uncertain, the place of his death unknown, the motive for his killing obscure. It is
generally assumed that his death was a consequence of the loss of Boulogne and
the agent of his death was Allectus, but we do not know who struck the blow.
The presence of Carausius himself at Boulogne during the siege can be
discounted. Any terms granted the defenders would have involved the surrender
of Carausius, an event which he would have probably anticipated by suicide.
Nothing in the extant literature actually associates Carausius’s death with the fall
of Boulogne and it has been suggested that he was already dead before
Constantius opened his campaign. The wording of the Panegyric of 297 could be
taken to imply that Carausius was killed before the Boulogne siege, at a time
when the rebels felt that the emperors had given up the attempt to overthrow
them:

A protracted impunity for their crime had swollen the desperate creatures’
audacity, making them claim that the sea’s harshness which had inevitably
postponed your victory was only a cover for your fear of them and making
them believe that war had been abandoned in despair, instead of
104 NARRATIVE AND ARCHAEOLOGY II: THE SECOND CONTINENTAL EPISODE

interrupted on purpose; and so the henchman [i.e. Allectus] killed his pirate
chief…(Pan. Lat. viii(v). 12)

The clear indication is that Carausius was killed not because warfare was raging
but because it was not. The Panegyric further asserts that by his action Allectus
would be rewarded by the emperors since he ‘thought his actions would be
rewarded with imperial power’. Does this indicate an expectation based on
negotiation? On the other hand, Aurelius Victor imputes the motives of fear of
punishment by Carausius for unspecified crimes as the motive for Allectus’s
coup against his leader. There is no reason to discard either piece of evidence in
favour of the other since neither is incompatible with the other.
 9
THE SHORE FORTS

THE SERIES OF FORTS (Fig.8) listed under the command of the Comes Litoris
Saxonici in the Notitia Dignitatum had a century of existence before being noted
in the late Roman army list (ND. Occ.XXVIII). At this late date the forts
constituted a single, unified defence system, but we do not know that they were
intended as such when originally conceived. That something had changed in the
intervening decades is clear from the fact that the Notitia does not list the fort at
Cardiff, which on date and stylistic grounds must be considered to be one of the
original structures. The reason for the omission being that at the date of the
compilation of the Notitia list, Wales had, effectively, been demilitarized (Casey,
1989).
The notion that the series of forts stretching from Cardiff, on the Severn
Estuary, to Brancaster, on the Wash, constituted a Carausian defence system has
been examined on a number of occasions and the arguments for and against are
most cogently put by a number of authors (White, 1961; Cunliffe, 1977;
Johnson, 1979). White’s view was that ‘only Carausius and Allectus could
conceivably have built this defensive system. Only they had the type and size of
fleet with which the forts of the Saxon Shore were to complement. Only they had
the type of enemy for which the forts were manifestly designed.’ He supports his
claim by reference to the presence of Carausian and Allectan coins in the forts
but does not use this evidence in relation to wider numismatic problems of the
period. It must be observed, in passing, that sometimes a certain air of
xenophobia permeates criticisms of White’s work, as if the Shore Forts were a
property peculiarly vested in British scholarship which cannot be trespassed
upon from Wisconsin in the midst of the prairies of distant America.
Johnson seeks to rebut the argument of a Carausian origin by recourse to a
powerful strategic argument:

Carausius not only held the Channel fleet, but with it he had complete
control of the approaches to Britain. There was nowhere on the Channel
coastline where Maximian could build a fleet in 288–9, and so he had to
build it on the Rhine and the Moselle. This fixed the line of approach along
the Rhine, and although the system of defences in Britain was concentrated
on the eastern coast, we need not suppose that Carausius’ eastern-facing
106 THE SHORE FORTS

8 The Saxon Shore Forts, location plan.

forts were designed to intercept Maximian alone. Only after the emperor
had chosen the river on which to build his fleet could Carausius be certain
from what direction the attack would come; in the short winter of 288–9
there was insufficient time for building and completing a series of forts
facing the Rhine, from whose mouth Maximian was expected to launch his
new campaign The explanation, therefore, that the new series of forts was
constructed by Carausius against the forces of Rome is unlikely. The forts
could be of little use against the Roman fleet and are too widely spaced for
effective precaution against Roman landings.
(Johnson 1979, 104)

Cunliffe’s views are based less upon strategic arguments than morphological
considerations. Noting that there is a dearth of dating evidence from stratified
contexts, he examines the variety of disparate architectural details displayed by
the forts. On these grounds he places Brancaster and Reculver in the earlier part
of the third century; Burgh Castle is then seen as intermediate in style between
these and later constructions. The divergence of Burgh Castle from strict
rectangularity is noted and compared with the same feature displayed by
Bradwell, Richborough, Lympne and Dover. He concludes that ‘It is tempting to
regard them all as broadly contemporary and possibly belonging to the 260s and
 THE BRITISH USURPERS 107

9 Reculver Fort.

270s, but such a contention must be regarded as highly tentative…’ (Cunliffe

1977, 3). Portchester, on the grounds of size and regular rectangularity, is seen as
later, a conclusion apparently supported by coin evidence of the 280s. Pevensey
is placed at a later date on coin evidence and because of the novelty of its
construction.
In summary the contemporaneity of most of the Saxon Shore forts with
Carausius and Allectus is not disputed in the current literature but the date of
their construction is not at all clear. Pevensey is normally seen as a later addition
to the series, Cardiff is not discussed. A summary of the sites will serve to give
further background to the various views.
Two sites—Brancaster on the Wash, and Reculver on the Thames Estuary—
are claimed to date to the earlier part of the third century. Brancaster was built in
the tradition of ‘classic’ auxiliary forts, rectangular with internal corner towers,
opposing gates, the normal grid of roads and the headquarters building standing
on the via principalis, facing down the length of the via praetoria. In the Notitia
Dignitatum the garrison is given as the Equites Dalmatae. Tiles of an earlier
garrison, the Cohors I Aquitanorum Equitata, have been found on the site. This
latter unit is attested on Hadrian’s Wall, at Carrawburgh, in the second century,
the date of its transfer to, or length of its stay at, Brancaster is not known.
Reculver is similar in appearance to Brancaster (Fig.9). An inscription records
the construction of the headquarters building during the governorship of a certain
108 THE SHORE FORTS

Rufinus. Since the governorship of Britannia Superior was a relatively lowly

position in the top echelons of the Roman provincial administration, this man
will have been a suffect consul and so not recorded in the consular lists, or fasti
(Mann, 1977). An outside date for his governorship is given by the
administrative changes brought about by Gallienus (258–68) who closed
governorships to senatorial candidates and opened the rank to equestrian
praeses: a praeses is recorded as governor in 262/66 (RIB 605). We must
assume that the fort was constructed at some time between the reign of Septimius
Severus (193–211), or Caracalla if he, rather than his father, was responsible for
the division of Britain into two provinces, and that of Gallienus.
Two further sites are claimed to be of a relatively early date in the sequence of
coastal defences: Burgh Castle on the Suffolk coast, and the earthwork fort at
Richborough in Kent. The former is an irregular quadrilateral, distinctively
different from the ‘classic’ fort since it has external drum towers spaced around
the walls. The architecture is of a type known to military archaeology elsewhere
in the empire from an earlier age but only introduced to the west in the third
century. Burgh Castle has been seen as transitional between the ‘classic’ fort and
the fully developed rectangular, high-walled, externally towered structures which
comprise the majority of Shore Forts (Fig.10). The new features appear to be an
afterthought since the walls are furnished with rounded corners on which the
towers sit awkwardly, giving poor inter-tower visibility. It is normally claimed
that the fort was furnished with internal towers of the ‘classic’ fort variety and
that these were abandoned in favour of the new-style external defences. This
interpretation, based on the presence of a very short section of a single enigmatic
wall, has been challenged and the presence of internal towers now appears to be
unlikely (Johnson, 1983). The dating of the fort is thus freed from a stylistic
comparison with forts like Reculver and Brancaster.
The pre-Shore Fort structure at Richborough provides a context for arriving at
a date of the later building. In the first century a great triumphal arch, celebrating
the conquest of Britain, was erected in the middle of the civil port area. In the
third century this monument was furnished with a series of concentric ditches, it
was stripped of its marble cladding and converted into a watchtower. At a later
date the ditches were filled, the monument reduced to its foundation platform and
the Shore Fort laid out over the site. The refill of the ditches is rich in coins,
though, with what is described as a ‘doubtful exception’, there are no coins of
Carausius. Nor are such coins found in the foundations of the Shore Fort itself,
though there are many in primary contexts within the fort. Thus, it is argued, the
fort predates the reign of Carausius by some short period of time (Johnson,
1970).
Elsewhere, a Carausian date has been advanced for the construction of the fort
at Portchester (Pl. d). Here, on a previously unoccupied site, material dug up in
making the foundation trench for the walls was heaped up to form a low, sloping
bank, or was piled against the walls themselves. Associated with this activity
was a coin of Carausius, in clay deposits ‘tipped into position at a very early
 THE BRITISH USURPERS 109

10 Burgh Castle.
stage of the fort’s existence, possibly as the last act of the construction process
following the completion of the wall’ (Cunliffe, 1976).
For the remainder of the forts there is no direct evidence for the foundation
date. A partial exception to this statement must be made for the fort at Pevensey.
Morphologically this is exceptional in the series, being a rough oval which hugs
the contour of a hill rather than being the usual low-lying, rectangular shape of
the other forts (Fig.11). Excavations in 1932 brought to light a coin of Constans
110 THE SHORE FORTS

11 Pevensey Castle.

as Caesar dating to 330–5. The coin is described as having been recovered from
a void left by the decay of a beam forming part of the foundation of one of the
external towers (Bushe-Fox, 1932). This find gives every appearance of
constituting a terminus post quem for the building of the fort. The date appears to
gain further significance because of a hurried visit by Constans to face a sudden,
grave crisis in Britain in the winter of 342/3 (Thompson, 1990). The building of
Pevensey, to close a gap in the coastal defences, has been attributed to this visit
(Frere, 1983).
Unfortunately the site at Pevensey has been bedevilled with planted, false
evidence, almost certainly the work of the Charles Dawson who is so deeply
involved in the Piltdown Man scandal. Tiles stamped with the name of the
emperor Honorius (395–423) were found during excavations in the first decade of
the century (Salzman, 1907). These tiles appeared to confirm that the resolution
of a crisis in Britain by Honorius’s magister militum, Stilicho, in 399 included
the restoration of Pevensey. The tiles were shown to be fakes only after the
development of thermoluminescence dating some sixty-five years after their
publication and acceptance by the academic world (Peacock, 1973). It is worth
noting that the probable perpetrator of this fraud contrived a number of
discoveries which enhanced the historic past of Sussex. Notable is the case of the
‘Sussex Rareties’, birds from the Antipodes apparently blown half way round the
globe but in reality imported in the newly developed refrigerated ships carrying
frozen produce to Britain. The coin was found years later than the tiles but the
possibility of an earlier plant cannot be discounted, nor since the circumstances of
 THE BRITISH USURPERS 111

discovery are not recorded can the validity of the excavation of the coin be
examined. It might well be an intrusion, of a very common coin, by animal
activity into the cavity.
The reason for such scepticism about the date of this site is because of the
aggregate evidence from the material available from a long series of well-
conducted excavations, hitherto unpublished. From this evidence it is clear that
Pevensey in no way differs from sites occupied, and built, in the fourth quarter of
the third century. A study of the pottery and the coins from previously
unpublished excavations points to a much earlier date than that suggested by the
hitherto all-important coin (M. Line, pers. comm.). Redating Pevensey tends to
undermine the typological approach to the dating of the forts as a whole and
weakens the argument that the building of the Shore Forts was a cumulative
process extending well into the fourth century, with installations being added as
problems arose in different areas.
Attempts have been made to establish the date of construction and occupation
of the forts through the overall study of the coins found in them (Reece, 1976,
1978). The volume of material available varies dramatically from site to site with
several thousands of coins at Richborough to less than a hundred from Burgh
Castle. Reculver and Dover, which are still being explored, do not yet have fully
published coin lists. Histograms of Shore Fort coins published previously have
encompassed the total coinage of the sites. Methodologically this has a
shortcoming in that the relative proportions of the third-century coinage are
influenced by coin deposits of earlier, in the case of Richborough, and later
periods, and not all sites necessarily shared the same history in the fourth century.
In the following histograms the coinage from the middle of the third to the
beginning of the fourth century is examined, for such sites as there are lists
available, in a way which highlights the relationship between Carausian/Allectan
coin, that of the Gallic Empire, the period between 273 and 286 when issues of
the Aurelianic reform should have circulated, and the issues of the Diocletianic
period.
A number of problems need to be confronted in this analysis. Firstly, the
coinage of the Gallic Empire embraces unofficial copies which rightly belong in
the Aurelianic period but published reports do not always distinguish between
regular and irregular coins so that there is no alternative to presenting a
conflation. Secondly, the Diocletianic coin includes material dated as late as 318,
when the Diocletianic billon 20-denarius, revalued from its previous value of 10-
denarii, was replaced by a new Constantinian denomination. Almost all of the
material represented in this period belongs to the end of series, when the 20-
denarius had fallen from a weight of 10g to about 5g. Besides the pattern of coin
finds produced by the occupation of individual sites there is an underlying
pattern which is produced by imperial monetary policy. In brief, for the period
under review, Gallic Empire coinage is very heavily represented on sites
occupied in the third century, the Aurelianic reform’s high value pieces are rare,
112 THE SHORE FORTS

the coinage of Carausius is common, Allectus less so, and the high-value, high-
weight issues of the Diocletianic reform are very scarce (Casey, 1984).
The analysis proceeds from the reasonable assumption, confirmed by hoard
and stratified site find evidence, that the volume of Gallic Empire coinage, and
its copies, falls off as Carausian issues enter widespread circulation. A situation
in which the relative strength of Carausian coinage is greater than that of the
Gallic Empire suggests a date of inception in that reign, since Gallic Empire
coinage still dominated as a circulating component of the economy of the
Aurelianic period. The overstriking of early issues of Carausius on Gallic Empire
period coins suggests that there was a deliberate attempt to drive them from the
currency pool. On the other hand, Carausian and Allectan coins did not circulate
in the following, Tetrarchic period (Fig.12).
On the basis of the strategy outlined above, Burgh Castle is confirmed as a pre-
Carausian site, so too is Pevensey and Richborough. Bradwell-on-Sea, Lympne
and Portchester are placed in a later category but so too is Brancaster. Leaving the
last site for further discussion, we may note that both Burgh Castle and
Richborough produce independent evidence of an early date. In the light of the
discussion above there is nothing in the material from Pevensey that need
confound the analysis. Portchester has produced a coin of Carausius from a
foundation context and so fits the analysis perfectly. Nothing known from
Lympne need contradict the conclusion reached here. The result for Brancaster is
altogether surprising since the fort appears to be a regular early third-century
structure.
The Brancaster coin record is not a good one. A list of 64 coins was published
by J.K. St Joseph which were assumed to be from the fort (St Joseph, 1936).
Since that date an extensive pre-fort settlement has been identified and partly
excavated, adding about about hundred coins to the list for the site (Hinchliffe,
1985). The bulk of these coins was found in extramural, non-fort, contexts and
are not included in the analytical data. Fifteen coins were found in the fort itself
but are, unfortunately, not published individually with standard numismatic
references, being listed in period tables and histograms which conflate the coins
of Carausius and Allectus with those of the Gallic Empire. Of the 67 coins
published in 1936 4 predate the Gallic Empire and 13 are ascribed to Carausius.
In the new list of 15 coins from the fort there is only a single pre-Gallic Empire
specimen (dating to 231–59). Regrettably, the misguided method of non-standard
publication does not permit their inclusion in this analysis but clearly, as a group,
they do not significantly differ from the earlier published list. It seems odd that a
site claimed as a Severan foundation produced only a single Severan coin,
especially since this coinage is not scarce in military contexts elsewhere in
Britain. Morphology notwithstanding, an open mind should be maintained about
this site until a full study of pottery from fort contexts is undertaken, especially
since the fort may have been laid out over a previously inhabited landscape, or
even, given the presence of epigraphic evidence for the presence of the Cohors I
 THE BRITISH USURPERS 113

12 Late third-century coin deposits in Saxon Shore Forts.

Aquitanorum Equitata, an unlocated earlier fort such as is now known to have

existed at Dover.
114 THE SHORE FORTS

At Cardiff the port protecting the Severn estuary is of the same general type as
those of the Saxon Shore system, with a square shape and external towers.
Dating evidence from below the internal bank, removed in its entirety in the
nineteenth century, gives a construction date of after 268. Despite the removal of
most of the late deposits during landscaping operations in the last century a
number of coins of Carausius and Allectus survive from the site, though
insufficient material is available to undertake any meaningful statistical analyses
(Webster, pers. comm.). The omission of this site from the Notitia Dignitatum, as
a consequence of Arbogastes’s withdrawal of forces from Wales in the late
fourth century, has resulted in almost complete neglect of the site by scholars
discussing shore defences (Casey, 1991).
On the results of the very limited investigation undertaken here, there seems to
be a reasonable possibility that Carausius inherited a coastal defence system
which was already under construction and that he, or Allectus, augmented it with
two or more sites. This independent investigation of the coin evidence offers
gratifying confirmation of the general results achieved by Cunliffe’s
morphological analysis.
A further investigative refinement might be to look at Carausian coins in
Shore Forts for evidence of internal chronology. Since many coins have mint and
sequence marks, which relate to date of issue, it should be possible to judge
whether there is an internal pattern in the assemblages. Unfortunately, the
publication of the coins without the sequence marks has been normal until
recently and an analysis is impossible on currently available data. It cannot be
too firmly stated that the publication of the coinage of this period by Roman
Imperial Coinage (RIC) reference numbers only, without sequence marks, should
be discouraged. In anticipation of further research Dr Richard Reece has kindly
supplied the details of the Richborough coins from his personal records. The
percentages are: Unmarked 47.5; RSR 0.7; BRI 0.5; Rouen 0.1; 286/9 15.4; 290/
1 15.4; 292 10.5; 293 2.3.
The arguments advanced by Johnson for Carausius not having built the Shore
Forts depended very largely on the plea that such structures make no strategic
sense in the light of his naval power and the assumed tactical options available to
Maximian when planning an invasion of Britain. As we have seen, Johnson is
perfectly correct in his assumption as regards most, but not all, of the sites under
review. But the argument that the usurpers did not build the forts, and thus by
implication that they held no strategic benefit for them, does not really confront
the fact that the forts are full of Carausius’s coins and no one denies that they are
deposits of his, and his successor’s reign. The evidence of hoards deposited in
the decades immediately after the death of Allectus shows that the usurpers’
coinage had no circulation after their fall (Leeds, 1946; Sutherland, 1954;
Mossop, 1958). If the forts were used by Carausius and Allectus then they must
have fulfilled some perceived strategic function. This may have been a mistaken
perception, but that does not invalidate the fact that they were used and that some
considerable body of available forces must have been committed to them. And
 THE BRITISH USURPERS 115

one of them, Portchester, has reasonable stratified evidence to suggest that it was
indeed built by Carausius or Allectus. It follows that Carausian strategy not only
included the use of the Saxon Shore Forts but extended to increasing their
number.
Elsewhere, a building discovered at Shadwell on the north bank of the Thames
about 1.2km downstream from the Port of London, has been interpreted as a
watchtower built at this time. The structure, 8m square, had 2m wide foundations
indicating that something of considerable height could have been erected on
them. Adjacent timber buildings may have been barrack blocks for a garrison.
The bulk of the coins from the site were of Carausius and Allectus (Perring,
1991). Of itself the Shadwell tower makes very little sense, being so close to the
city that its inhabitants would have already been aware of the approach of any
enemy coming to the attention of the Shadwell watchers. Rather, it must have
been at the end of a chain of towers stretching down to the estuary. No evidence
for such a system has yet been forthcoming.
At Cold Knapp at Barry, in south Wales, a complex building, with
a colonnaded internal courtyard, some 20 rooms and an external veranda, has
been tentatively identified as a Carausian naval store. The evidence is not
compelling, the pottery is of later third-century date and of the three coins found
one is a pierced quinarius of Allectus and a second an issue of Constantius I
dated to 298/9. The building was demolished before completion (Evans, 1985).
Fortification of inland sites in this period is not well attested. Many towns in
the Midlands, and south and west of Britain had earthwork defences which had
been erected in the late second or early third centuries; a few towns boasted stone
walls. There seems to have been no burst of defensive activity at the end of the
third century with the exception of the walls of Canterbury, which are given a
terminus post quem by a coin of Postumus sealed under the internal bank (Frere,
1982). The provision of defences for this town may indicate an expectation of
trouble in the area, but, on the other hand, the erection of walls may have been a
civic gesture made possible by a new prosperity coming with the stationing of
Shore Fort garrisons in the region. It is notable that Canterbury has roads leading
to the forts at Reculver, Richborough, Lympne and Dover, as well as to London.
Possibly Canterbury served as a ‘rest and recreation’ centre for troops stationed
in these forts. Certainly as a centre at the hub of a nexus of forts Canterbury
would have profited commercially.
 10
ALLECTUS

IF THE DETAILS OF THE origins, rise and demise of Carausius are scarce,
those for Allectus are nearly non-existent; as a result his career is seen as a mere
adjunct to that of his leader. There is also an historiographic problem which has
clouded the study of Allectus and so obscured consideration of him as a person
in his own right. The implicit attitudes of modern scholars towards the
protagonists scarcely vary from those expressed by Stukeley in the eighteenth
century. The tendency is to see in Carausius a big, bold and brazen leader—
founder of ‘the queen’s navee’, an heroic figure. On the other hand Allectus has
been relegated to the position of the villain of the tale, whose function was
simply to put an end to the life of the bluff sailor hero and then to wait, supinely,
to be extinguished by another heroic figure in British history, Constantius, the
father of Constantine the Great.
Nothing is known about the origins of Allectus and even his full name is
unknown. Allectus appears to mean something like ‘chosen’ or ‘promoted’; there
is nothing to suggest that the name represents a title assumed on taking the
throne. A recent discussion of the career of Allectus, before his assumption of
the throne, draws attention to a number of epigraphically attested instances of
names very similar to Allectus. An inscription from Cologne names a
Q.Allectius Marcellus (CIL XIII 12051), this of Antonine date, while two early
fourth-century inscriptions from Rome (CIL VI 241, 464) record the name
Adlectus (Loriot, 1992). The lack of praenomina, or forenames, is a problem
which will be resolved when an accession coin of the emperor is found or, as in
the case of Carausius, an inscription is discovered. The absence of coins with the
full imperial titulature is curious; normally accession issues advertise not only
the features of the new ruler to his subjects but also his names, even if in
abbreviated form.
The only specific evidence about Allectus’s position in Carausius’s entourage
is given by Aurelius Victor who states that ‘Carausius made him his chief
minister of finance’ (v.39). The wording of the text is ‘summae rei praeeset’.
The summa res was a financial department of state in the second half of the third
and first half of the fourth centuries, though the title of ‘chief finance minister’ is
not attested. In the fourth century the Comes Sacrarum Largitionum levied taxes
to pay the imperial donatives, or largesses, which his title mentions. The
 ALLECTUS 117

13 Finds of Allectan coins in Gaul. (After Loriot.)

existence of a special mint, the RSR mint identified as that of the Rationalis
Summae Rei, which operated to pay donatives for Carausius, suggests that
Allectus occupied a position similar to the later Comes Sacrarum Largitionum.
The fact that Victor refers to Asclepiodotus as Constantius’s praetorian prefect
immediately after discussing Allectus’s offices implies that the latter cannot have
held this post. As finance minister, Allectus will have controlled the issue of
coinage, the collection and levying of taxes, and probably had direct access to
the army through the distribution of pay and donatives. Whether his previous
career or experience qualified him in some special manner for these tasks is not
118 THE BRITISH USURPERS

known but, given the currency innovations which distinguish the reign of
Carausius and the coin reform of Allectus himself, it is unlikely that financial
affairs were entirely outside his experience. Eutropius is less specific about
Allectus’s position, dubbing him the ‘ally’ of Carausius. By this he appears to
mean co-conspirator rather than equal. To the author of the Panegyric of 297,
Allectus is merely Carausius’ ‘henchman’ (satelles). In the circumstances of a
revolt the participants probably did not enjoy the luxury of the full range of
officials and government posts found in an established court, and too precise a
definition of the functions of individuals may be misguided. Allectus might have
embodied a number of responsibilities which would in other circumstances be
shared by several members of the administration.
Tacit approval for the death of Carausius can be assumed by the fact that
Allectus survived for three years and that there is nothing to suggest that his
troops were ever less than entirely enthusiastic for his cause in the final struggle.
The transition of power appears to have gone smoothly and the sequence marks
on the coins continue uninterruptedly through the issue of 293 from Carausius to
Allectus. Coin production was limited to the Colchester and London mints.
The general historical dustbin to which Allectus has been consigned— ‘his
reign…was uninspired and brief’ (Frere, 1987)—has contributed to the view that
he was confined to Britain throughout his reign and that the fall of Boulogne
extinguished the only Continental holding of the separatist regime. That the
territory controlled by Carausius was wider than Boulogne and its environs is
suggested by the spread of his coinage in northern Gaul (Fig.13). If we separate
out the Rouen coinage, which we have ascribed to an earlier period of
occupation, the pattern concentrates most densely in the region between
Boulogne and the Loire: we have already noted that the bulk of these coins date
to the issues of 291 and later. The circulation of this coinage can be explained by
his occupation of areas adjacent to the Channel ports but the circulation of
British coin does not cease with his death. There are finds of coins of Allectus
from Gaul which compare in relative volume and circulation area with those of
Carausius. The significance of these finds has received little discussion since the
long-accepted explanation for their presence is that they arrived in Gaul with
Constantius’s soldiers returning from the reconquest of Britain (Evans, 1890).
Efforts have been made to examine this view in light of the hypothesis that
Allectus did not immediately quit Gaul (Casey, 1977). The arguments are
numismatic.
The distribution pattern of Allectus’s coins in Gaul is so similar to that of
Carausius that the same factors could account for their presence and deposition.
If the pattern is not the effect of post-reconquest events in the case of Carausius,
why should it be so in the case of Allectus? The similarity of context is only
partly explained by coins of the two rulers appearing together in hoards. The
explanation of returning soldiers is not strengthened by the pattern of finds: few
coins are found on the Rhine frontier, which was the area in which the bulk of
forces were concentrated and to which returning troops might be expected to be
 ALLECTUS 119

posted. A coin of Carausius from Autun might indeed be a post-revolt deposit

introduced to the site by the British stone-masons sent to the town by
Constantius in 297 to repair the ravages of the destruction in the 270s—not,
incidentally, destruction wrought by barbarian attack but by the Roman army
itself. A panegyric is not the place to mention this embarrassing fact (Pan. Lat.
viii(v). 21).
It has also been contended that internal evidence argues against Allectus’s
coins reaching the Continent in significant quantities after 295/6. On currently
accepted dating, proposed in the relevant volume of Roman Imperial Coinage,
the central empire undertook a comprehensive restructuring of its coinage system
in 294, at about the same time as the creation of prefectures and diocesan mints
(Hendy, 1985). The reform involved the introduction of new denominations and
the revaluation of extant coins, the main new denomination being a billon coin
weighing c.10g, tariffed as a 10-denarius piece. This change in the coinage may
have provoked a partial reform in the monetary system of Allectus who, while
not issuing the new 10-denarius, did issue one new denomination. The new coin
seems to have been as a half to the standard 4-denarius denomination, weighing
2g as compared to the 4.3g of the larger coin (Pl.7, nos 2–6). Though the new
coin has a radiate rather than the laureate bust, which would normally
differentiate a half denomination from the double unit, the supposition that it is a
fraction is reinforced by the use of a mark of value in conjunction with the
mintmark, the letter Q being interpreted as quinarius, in the traditional sense of a
monetary half unit. The new coin may have been introduced to fit into the new
Diocletianic system of 2-, 4- and 10-denarius copper and billon coins. The use of
a single reverse type featuring a warship is both a comment upon the naval
power which maintained Allectus’s rule and the fact that the new coinage may
have served as a medium for improved military pay.
If all this represents an attempt to bring the insular currency into line with the
Continental, the corollary of the move is that the two currencies were expected,
in some sphere, to interact economically. Where would this interaction take place
where Allectus to be confined to Britain? To pose the question is not to say that
the quinarius actually circulated on the Continent, for events overtook that
development and, as we shall see, there are other interpretations of the
significance of the quinarii.
Turning to the coinage of Allectus found on the Continent it appears, from a
study of the coins for which sufficient detail is published to determine the mint
sequence, that the latest coins of the reign are not present (Table 10) and finds of
quinarii are very rare: up to 1977 only a single specimen from Namur being on
record (Casey, 1977). It could be argued that had the coins of Allectus found in
Gaul been drawn from the currency pool of Britain in the reconquest period, they
would have included the latest issues. In contradiction it can be argued that
quinarii would be ignored if they did not fit into the prevailing currency system
of the Continent at that period, but there is no evidence to elucidate this point. In
Britain aureliani and quinarii tend to be hoarded separately, confirming that it
120 THE BRITISH USURPERS

was a new denomination and not a late debasement of the aurelianus produced at
the end of the reign as a result of a shortage of coining material (Burnett, 1984).
In considering the arguments for an Allectan presence in Gaul after the fall of
Boulogne we can turn to the location of coin finds. The Noyelles-Godault hoard,
found east of Boulogne, comprised 134 coins ranging in date from Valerian to
Allectus. The latest section of the hoard consisted of ten coins of Carausius, five
struck in the name of Maximian and one of Diocletian, and seven of Allectus.
The mintmarks indicate that these coins date to 293 and 294. Two individual
finds from the site are a coin of Carausius and another of Allectus dated to 293
(Gricourt, 1967). The Amiens Hoard closed with six coins of Carausius and ten
of Allectus, of these, three date to 293, five can be dated no closer than 293–5
and to 295 (Evans, 1890). Is it possible that Allectus maintained a presence on
the Continent as late as 295?
Events in 293, as far as the recovery of Boulogne was concerned, went with
dash and efficiency but this brief burst of activity was followed by several years’
delay before the imperial forces embarked on the invasion of Britain. The author
of the Panegyric of 297 feels the necessity of commenting on this and offers a
reason for the lack of action: ‘For with the momentum of your courage and
success, unconquered Caesar, you could have finished the whole war at once, if
circumstances had not insisted that time was needed to build ships’ (Pan. Lat.viii
(v).7).
Two, and possibly three, years is a long time to take in constructing a fleet,
especially since only a year or so previously the dockyards had built an invasion
fleet for Maximian and experienced shipwrights will not have been in short
supply. The account of Maximian’s preparations, recounted in the Panegyric of
289, makes it clear that the building of the dockyards themselves, the felling of
timber and the construction of the fleet took at most a year. The failure of
Maximian’s venture may have owed something to under-preparation and might
have been on too small a scale to guarantee success, and to this extent
Constantius might have been prepared to await the assembly of an overwhelming
force. But Julius Caesar built invasion fleets for use against Britain in both 55
and 54 BC in less than ten months, while in 357–8 Julian collected 200 vessels
and built another 400 to transport grain from Britain to the armies of the Rhine.
This task was, as Julian relates, no mean achievement ‘on account of the
neighbouring barbarians who kept attacking me’ (Julian, Letter to the Athenians,
275–83).
The numismatic material is suggestive, though far from conclusive proof, of
an Allectan presence in Gaul after 293. That it is not attested by any literary
evidence need not be entirely inimical to the suggestion. Only the account of the
capture of Boulogne in the Panegyrics of 297 and 310 and two ambiguous words
in Aurelius Victor’s de Caesaribus tell us that Carausius had Continental
possessions, neither the main work of Aurelius Victor nor Eutropius, nor any
account derived from them, mentions this episode. Were it not for the panegyrics
 ALLECTUS 121

we would have to reconstruct the Carausian presence in Gaul from exactly the
same sort of numismatic evidence that we have discussed for Allectus.
If we consider the strategic situation we may note that at this stage the British
fleet was still intact and that the Continental emperors were still without any
naval forces. At least two fleets are credited to Allectus by the hostile literary
sources which recount his fall. In the absence of any means of interdicting
communications with Allectan garrisons stationed elsewhere in Gaul where
access was by sea routes or by navigable rivers, it may be premature to see the fall
of Boulogne as evidence that his domains were confined to Britain.
Whatever the situation in Gaul there is clear evidence that, far from taking a
negative view of his situation and awaiting his fate supinely, Allectus was an
energetic ruler who was active in more than one area. The introduction of a new
denomination in the currency has already been discussed. In the precious metals
there are no known genuine issues of silver but a study of the gold coinage
indicates that it was issued throughout the reign in considerable quantitites—24
specimens of this coinage are recorded, all of the London mint. This is a residue,
as the large number of recorded dies shows, of a very large original issue. In
contrast to Carausius none was issued in the names of Diocletian or Maximian.
Provenanced aurei have been found at Tingry near Boulogne, Bath, where there
are two specimens among the votive offerings to Sulis Minerva (Walker, 1988),
Reading, Silchester, Chittenden (Kent), Cynwyl Elvet (Carmarthen), the Isle of
Dogs (London) and, finally, Minden in Germany, where, since the coin has been
mounted as a jewel, it is probably of post-Roman date of deposit and a well-
travelled object (Shiel, 1977). The widespread distribution suggests that the gold
acted as a widely accepted medium of exchange and saving and was not confined
to a donative function. The gift of two aurei at the sacred spring of Sulis Minerva
suggests a high level of personal wealth among some individuals at this time, as
indeed does the donation of Carausian gold coins to the Thames in the London
Bridge votive deposit (Rhodes, 1991). It has already been noted that an accession
coinage is yet to be found in this series, nor are any gold consular coins
recorded.
Despite the general historical denigration of this reign, lack of confidence does
not seem to have spread to Allectus himself. The billon coinage shows that
Allectus celebrated a self-conferred consulship commemorated by coins with the
mintmarks S/P ML and S/A ML, mintmarks attributed to the period 293–5. The
latter mark is later than the former, probably indicating a date of 294, the year in
which the legitimate consuls were the Caesars Constantius and Galerius, jointly
rewarded for the former’s successes in Gaul. It would be normal for a consulship
to have been held from the next 1 January after the accession; this is what
Allectus appears to have done following his coming to power in 293. The use of
the mark S/P ML may indicate that its use extends into 294 or that Allectus
already held office when he came to power. It might be that Allectus held the
consulship with Carausius in his capacity as ‘chief minister’ during one of the
latter’s periods of office, though no consular coins are recorded for his last year.
122 THE BRITISH USURPERS

In any event, the celebration of a consulship would entail a range of public

ceremonies including a consular procession, the distribution of largesses to the
population and the army, and the celebration of public games. Possibly a co-
consul was chosen from the imperial entourage to grace the highest state office;
in each year of the regime at least one pair of consuls would need to be selected
from the military or aristocracy of Britain.
Already a revisionist picture of an active Allectus is building up which
contradicts the negative views of a previous generation of historians. This is
further enhanced by the discovery of a group of buildings in London, accurately
dated to his reign, which may comprise an imperial administrative complex
(Williams, 1989, 1993). Here, in the south-west corner of the Roman city
adjacent to the riverside wall, which had been built in or shortly after the 270s to
complete the circuit of London’s defences, a series of massive foundations has
been discovered which relate to at least two monumental buildings (Fig.14). The
foundations themselves consist of rafts of oak piles driven into the unstable
riverside soil with cross timbering on top, over which was laid a platform of
massive stone blocks (Pl.a). The timbers of the piling consist of freshly cut trees
which were driven into the ground with the bark still intact (Pl.b). Thus the
complete radius of each trunk was preserved, giving a full spectrum of the
growth rings. Analysis of these rings and comparison with the tree-ring sequence
of Roman London shows that the timber was felled in the spring of 294.

14 Allectan building sites in London.

Although it could be argued that the trees, once felled, were a reserve stock and
that the dendrochronological date is merely a terminus post quem there is merit
in the excavator’s argument that the bark of these trees would certainly have
been stripped from seasoned timber in the very act of driving piles into
compacted London Clay, a tenaciously difficult material to penetrate.
The nature of the structures, one of which was probably colonnaded, invites
the conclusion that they were of an imperial nature. A ceremonial and
administrative centre in London separate from the palace of the Praeses of
Britannia Superior, which was on the riverside some half a kilometre to the east,
 ALLECTUS 123

suggests that Allectus’s regime was stable and saw its future as secure, at least
within the confines of Britain itself. Building work in the northern capital of
York has not yet been identified; it is not impossible that the rebuilding of the
southern defences of the legionary fortress to incorporate external towers, could
fall into this period, since the actual dating evidence of this work rests on two
stratified coins, dating to the 270s. The similarities of style between the restored
defences and the Saxon Shore Forts has received comment (Ottaway, 1993).
Given the evidence for a building programme in London, the possibility that
Allectus undertook the maintenance, completion or commissioning of new
coastal defence sites cannot be discounted.
If the collapse of the Allectan administration was seen as less of an
inevitability by its participants than by modern historians armed with perfect
hindsight, it can only be because every precaution was taken to protect it. We
have very little information about civil or military affairs during this short reign
and what is known has all too frequently been fleshed out by unsupported
speculation. The Panegyric of 297, which is our only detailed source for the
reconquest of the island by Constantius, is at pains to minimize the damage done
to the Allectan army by emphasizing that casualties were sustained not by
Roman troops but by Frankish mercenaries.
The Franks were the main concern of emperors campaigning in north-western
Gallia Belgica and Lower Germany in the last quarter of the third century and
represented an ever-present threat to Gaul, a country which they were to make
their own in the fifth century. The employment of Franks as mercenaries by the
rebels would be seen as a deviation from all that was Roman; the employment of
the enemy of the Roman people by the enemies of the Roman state. This does
not mean that Franks—‘our’
Franks, as it were—did not find employment in the regular Roman army. Roman
policy was essentially pragmatic; as an instance of this we may cite the case of
Constantine, brought to power in York by the British army and the assistance of
Crocus, a chieftain of the Alamanni, serving with the army in a campaign against
the Picts.
The numbers of such mercenaries employed are not known, nor are the
formations in which they fought. If the practices of a slightly later period were
followed, individual units, or bands, would have served under their own leaders
rather than Roman officers. The leader would have been paid a lump sum which
he, in turn, would divide among his troops in the Germanic tradition of heroic
leadership maintained through gifts to followers. The leader himself might have
been rewarded personally by the emperor with prestige gifts, such as gold or
silver medallions, armour and weapons. No medallions of Allectus are yet
recorded.
Of the location of formal Roman units, the only evidence takes the form of
coins of Allectus found in the coastal forts discussed above, confirming that they
were garrisoned during his reign. Assessing occupation by reference to the
presence or absence of Allectus’s coins is difficult. Because his reign was only
124 THE BRITISH USURPERS

half the length of Carausius’s his coins are relatively less well represented in
absolute numbers. Of particular relevance is the problem of Hadrian’s Wall and
whether the garrisons of the forts were withdrawn to meet the threat of invasion
in the south.
The generally peaceful nature of the northern frontier in the third century,
evidenced by the growth of undefended civil settlements, has already been
discussed. The picture given by excavations at Halton Chesters and Rudchester
is of a reduction of garrison strength in the last quarter of the third century, while
in the area adjacent to Birdoswald the curtain of the Wall itself seems to have
been in disrepair (Breeze & Dobson, 1987). As we shall see, epigraphic evidence
from both Birdoswald and Housesteads shows that major buildings were in need
of replacement or repair. Cumulatively the evidence suggests a rundown frontier
with garrisons in poor military condition; certainly the Wall was not a reservoir
of hardened troops at battle readiness.
A further impediment to the hypothesis that frontier units were withdrawn is
the listing of Wall regiments in the Notitia Dignitatum (ND. Occ.XL). This list,
in a document compiled in 395 at the division of the empire between the sons of
Theodosius (Jones, 1964), shows that the units attested by dedications and other
epigraphic evidence as being in garrison in the third century were still in the
same forts at the end of the fourth. Of the 23 forts listed in the Notitia Dignitatum
independent evidence for the earlier garrison is available for no less than 13.
Scholars, in an attempt to maintain the credibility of the ‘withdrawal’ hypothesis
have resorted to a number of arguments. A now discredited view is that the
Notitia list is a bureaucratic fiction maintained by an idle and indifferent late
Roman civil service, who finding a third-century garrison list in some sort of
cache of obsolete documents gave it a spurious currency either to maintain a
façade of imperial invincibility or to perpetuate some sort of swindle by drawing
pay for ghost garrisons. A less incredible view is that the garrisons were
withdrawn by Allectus for the campaign against Constantius and restored to their
forts by the victor (Frere, 1987). This has the merit of possibility, if not
probability, since the families of the frontier soldiers would have been left behind
in their homes round the forts during any emergency which called for the rapid
deployment of their menfolk and one way to gain the affection and loyalty of the
defeated troops would be to restore them safely to their families.
The claim that the Wall was stripped of its troops is based on the assumption
that Allectus needed all the forces he could raise to meet the double thrust of the
imperial invasion. From this assumption arose the belief that the withdrawal of
the frontier garrisons allowed hostile forces, the Picts or the tribes to the north of
the Wall, to cross the frontier on a mission of destruction and pillage. The origin
of this view is found in the discovery of inscriptions at Birdoswald and
Housesteads recording rebuilding work by Constantius in the names of
Diocletian and Maximian. Claims of evidence of destruction and burning in this
invasion have been made in relation to a number of forts and milecastles, but
most, if not all, fall into the category of self-fulfilling prophecies, the strata being
 ALLECTUS 125

dated by reference to the postulated invasion. Selective digging is often the root
of the problem, with results from very small excavated areas being extended into
wider contexts in an unwarranted manner. At the fort at Greta Bridge (Co.
Durham) a stone-built house in the vicus was gutted by fire, in the refurbishment
the debris of the conflagration was capped by a newly laid flagged floor which
sealed a coin of Allectus, this lay on the top of the burned material and must
have been deposited during the rebuilding (Casey, forthcoming). Such evidence
might well be taken as showing that destruction took place as far south as the
Tees valley in the claimed barbarian invasion were it not that the vicus comprised
at least 20 other buildings which, on examination, showed no signs of burning or
destruction. A single domestic disaster seems to have occurred, not an invasion.
The alternative view that Allectus drew reinforcements from the forts of the
Pennines has been canvassed. The Notitia Dignitatum certainly lists units which
are completely new as compared to those known to have been in these forts at an
earlier period. This might suggest that they suffered casualties while serving with
Allectus, but the later history of military events in the fourth century is itself full
of unresolved problems and there are numbers of known imperial interventions,
any of which might have resulted in garrison changes.
In summary, the nature, numbers and disposition of the Allectan forces which
met the invasion of Constantius are largely unknown factors in the events that
follow. For details of the overthrow of Allectus we are entirely dependent on the
account given in the Panegyric of 297, the tendentious nature of which is slightly
modified by the later historians in regard to the parts played by the principals
Constantius and Asclepiodotus. Archaeology has made virtually no impact on
this account.
The delay of up to three years from the fall of Boulogne has been accounted
for by the panegyricist by the necessity of campaigning in the area of the mouth
of the Rhine against the Chamavi and the Frisii; defeated, they were settled
inside the empire with their families as laeti, cultivators of the soil and providers
of offspring who were compelled to join the regular Roman army. By the time
that the Notitia was compiled at the end of the fourth century, Chamavi and
Frisii no longer appear in the lists of laeti settled in Gaul and Italy; presumably
after a century of uneventful settlement they had been entirely absorbed into the
provincial population. During these campaigns the time was also taken up with
building a fleet, or rather two fleets.
The undecorated facts about the expedition to Britain that can be derived from
the Panegyric are:

1 The fleet sailed in two divisions. One from Boulogne, the other from
further south at the mouth of the Seine, having made its way down the
river.
2 The Boulogne division, which set sail first, was under the personal
command of Constantius.
126 THE BRITISH USURPERS

3 The southern fleet was commanded by the praetorian prefect Julius

Asclepiodotus. Significantly, this detail is given by Aurelius Victor and
Eutropius, not the Panegyric.
4 The departure of Constantius took place in rough weather. The
southern fleet sailed when it learned of his departure, though against the best
advice of its officers, the wind being from the wrong quarter. The fleet had
to tack to make progress.
5 The southern fleet proceeded towards the Isle of Wight (Vectis) where
a sea fog allowed it to slip past a waiting Allectan fleet.
6 Asclepiodotus landed his forces, burned his boats and met Allectus in
battle. Allectus was defeated and died on the battlefield, his body was
recognized though he had stripped himself, or been stripped of, the imperial
regalia.
7 Allectus failed to organize effective resistance and did not marshal all
the forces available to him before meeting Asclepiodotus.

The Panegyric, and later sources, say nothing about the activity of Constantius
after he sailed from Boulogne. The text may imply that he reached London with
forces, who had been lost in a fog, in time to save it from being looted by
barbarian deserters, or soldiers fleeing from Allectus’s defeated army. On the
other hand, it might have been a section of Asclepiodotus’s force that did this. We
do not know where Allectus was when news of the landing came to him. The
Panegyric observes that he was unprepared, and that he abandoned a fleet and a
coastal site of some sort: ‘Why did the very standard-bearer of the criminal
rebellion abandon the shore he was holding, why did he desert fleet and
harbour…?’ (Pan. Lat. viii(v). 15).
The answer to this question may well be that Allectus knew only of a single
threat presented by Asclepiodotus in the west, hence he headed off to deal with it
with all speed. After all, a fleet would be little use to him in fighting a land battle.
The text does not tell us where the shore he left was, nor where the fleet was
stationed. Clearly it was a different fleet from the one stationed off the Isle of
Wight. The claim that he was on the coast of Kent is an unwarranted guess. The
reference to abandoning the shore could mean that he took garrisons from shore
forts to supplement his mobile forces. The hyperbole about desertion of the coast
being caused by the arrival of Constantius offers no insight into Allectus’s
decision-making. The text suggests no rational explanation for Allectus’s action
except: '... unless the sight of your looming sails, unconquered Caesar, made him
fear that you were coming yourself at that moment’. This can be discounted since
Constantius was not in sight; at best, he was in a fog or a storm somewhere
between Britain and Boulogne. The Panegyric of 310 offers the tantalizing
suggestion that Constantius had been forced to return to his base in Gaul, the
weather conditions on his departure being so different from those described in
the earlier panegyric: ‘The sea was so calm when he sailed there [i.e. to Britain]
that the ocean seemed to have been stunned by its passenger’s greatness into
 ALLECTUS 127

losing all motion: his journey was such that victory did not escort him, but was
already awaiting him’ (Pan. Lat. vi(vii).5).
Taking the text and the knowledge and intentions of the panegyricist at face
value, this could be seen as constituting proof that Constantius took no part in the
actual action in Britain, only arriving in time to receive the benefits of victory.
Indeed the whole passage can be seen as a tactful gloss on a less than glorious
participation in the actual fighting by the Caesar. Like the orchestra which kept
perfect time and tempo when the lights went out, the invasion of Britain was a
success without the involvement of its conductor.
This is as much as can reasonably be reconstructed from the texts of the
recovery of Britain. The poverty of information about the invasion has not
inhibited speculation, however. The numerous unsupported conjectures are best
summarized, and added to, by Eicholz (1953). The claim that the Saxon Shore
forts played no part in the events of 296 cannot be substantiated since we know
absolutely nothing about the actions of individual military units at the time
(Frere, 1987).
The location of the final battle is also unknown though, given the known area
of the landing of Asclepiodotus, sites between Portchester, Winchester,
Silchester and Farnham have all been advocated. It is still sometimes claimed that
the Blackmoor Hoard of approximately 30,000 coins represents Allectus’s war
chest and therefore places the final struggle in the vicinity of Woolmer,
Hampshire. This does not bear close examination. The idea drew credibility from
the reports which circulated at the time of discovery in 1873 when Lord
Selborne, the owner, wrote of finds of broken swords and spearheads being
found 'one or two years before' in the vicinity of the hoard. The coins were found
in two pots ‘pear-shaped, rather more than a foot high with a maximum diameter
of about a foot’. The notion that such a hoard of late third-century coins
constituted a war chest bears little relationship to the intrinsic value of the coins
themselves. The bulk consisted of debased antoniniani (28,126) a smaller
element comprised aureliani (1687), many of the coins of Allectus were
quinarii. If we reduce this mass to notional denarii the whole hoard is valued at
approximately 73,000 denarii. In the edict of prices promulgated by Diocletian in
301 the government price of gold was sat at 72,000 denarii a Roman pound. At
this value the Blackmoor Hoard would be the equivalent of about a single pound
of gold; since Allectus struck his aureus at a weight of c.4.4g the value of the
hoard converted to gold would amount to no more than 72 coins. Hardly a war
chest and in a most inconvenient form.
The defeat and death of Allectus brought the separatist regime down at a
blow. With their leader died ‘only the old ringleaders of the conspiracy and
groups of barbarian mercenaries’. These were pursued so that:

all those plains and hills... were covered by none but the fallen bodies of
the foulest enemies. Barbarian, or imitating barbarism in the clothes they
wore and their long, reddened hair, they lay filthy in the dust and blood in
128 THE BRITISH USURPERS

the various postures dictated by the agony of their wounds; and among
them the flag bearer, of the usurpation himself....
(Pan. Lat. viii(v). 16)

Thus a clear-cut and satisfactory end was achieved; or fabricated after the event.
Only the original conspirators suffered, only barbarians were killed. Allectus was
disposed of without embarrassing revelations of any diplomatic accommodations,
temporary treaties or other relationships that might have existed between the
British separatists and the emperors in the years since 286. Britain was restored,
once more to bask in the lucis aeternae, the perpetual light, of the empire.
 11
AFTERMATH

THE ISLAND OF BRITAIN BEING brought back under imperial control the
celebrations began, or would have done so had other crises not supervened on the
Rhine, in North Africa and in the border states with the Persian Empire in the
east. It was not until November or December 303 that Diocletian and Maximian
celebrated the triumph at Rome which was the cumulation of their years of joint
reign. By then the victory in Britain had faded and it was the great defeat of the
Persian empire which formed the centrepiece of the ceremonies.
Rewards for the conquerors are found in the form of honours and gifts of
precious metal commemorative medals. Intangible rewards will also have been
issued, promotions for officers, donatives to the invasion forces. Of this latter
category of celebration only the consulships awarded to Constantius, and his
eastern co-Caesar Galerius, are recorded. In 296 the consulship was held by
Diocletian, the eastern emperor, and Constantius, the western Caesar. In the
following year the honour was shared by Maximian, the western emperor and
Galerius, the Caesar of the east. After this carefully orchestrated division of
imperial honours among the rulers, the system reverted to normal; thereafter the
emperors always held the consulship jointly, as did the Caesars. Julius
Asclepiodotus, the Praetorian prefect who had actually won the victory in Britain,
was not honoured since this would have diminished the status of the Caesar and
underlined the subordinate strategic role played by Constantius's forces in the
actual reconquest. In any event he had been awarded the consulship in 292, the
same year that Constantius had been made Caesar and Asclepiodotus was raised
to the Praetorian prefecture vacated by Constantius.
Elsewhere rewards were in monetary terms and items produced for the
donatives are preserved in the Beaurains (Arras) Hoard (Bastien, 1977). This
hoard, discovered in 1922 in the suburbs of Arras in northern France, consisted a
mass of gold and silver coins, silver vessels, jewellery in the form of collars
made up of gold coins set in pendants, a silver candlestick and various other items
of precious metal. The hoard was quickly dispersed by the finders, though
significant parts were recovered and acquired by the museum at Arras. Another
portion was distributed in the trade through a number of prominent coin dealers
of the period and items ended up in private collections in Europe and America;
some of the jewellery, and the silver candlestick, was acquired by the British
130 AFTERMATH

Museum. Although the whereabouts of all of the items cannot now be traced an
estimate of the original composition of the hoard suggests that it consisted of 100
aureii and 100 denarii of the early empire, and 30 to 35 gold medallions, 400
aurei and solidi, and 70 silver coins of the late third and early fourth century; a
burial date of shortly after 315 is suggested by the evidence of the latest coins.
The early coins which date from the first to the second century, were no longer
currency at the period when the treasure was concealed.
Since the nature of the other items indicates that much of the treasure was
accumulated by someone who received very high-status imperial donatives over
a period extending from the recovery of Britain down to the reign of
Constantine, we may be justified in identifying the obsolete precious metal as a
benefaction paid out by Constantine after he sequestrated the treasures laid up,
often for centuries, in the pagan temples in his domains. This might also be the
source of the aureus of Carausius in the hoard. The date of this sequestration is
uncertain but a date around 315 is likely since it is at this time Constantine
introduced a new, and very successful, gold coinage. St Jerome dates the
sequestration to as late as 331 but he is talking about the situation in the east,
which had only come under Constantinian control in 324. The collection of old
denarii in the similarly dated, but much smaller, hoard from Sully in south Wales
is attributable to the same factor (Evans, 1890).
Among the items in the hoard were five gold medallions issued by the mint of
Trier to commemorate the reconquest of Britain. Four are issued in the names of
Diocletian, Constantius and Galerius and there would also have been one for
Maximian which has not survived. These medallions are multiples of the
monetary unit struck as 5-aureus pieces. The reverse is common to all, depicting
Constantius raising a kneeling figure of Britannia who is armed with spear and
rectangular shield. Behind the Caesar stands Victory, who crowns him with a
laurel wreath (Pl.7, nos 2, 3). There are two obverse types for Constantius, as
consul in the toga picta of the office and holding the eagle-tipped sceptre of
office, and as Hercules in the lionskin head-dress of the god (pl.7, no.2). The
latter type, by assimilating the attributes of the deity identified with Maximian,
as Maximianus Herculeus, identifies the emperor with the success of his Caesar.
The armed figure of Britannia contrasts with the images of the island employed
by Carausius. In these she is shown as bereft of weapons, at the mercy of her
enemies and grateful for the presence of the saviour emperor. The armed figure
has its antecedents in the earliest images devised by the moneyers of Hadrian and
employed widely in the Antonine period. The imagery implies a province which
has been down but not, to extend a vulgarism, out; a province, furthermore,
which has materially assisted in its liberation, which has a vital part to play in the
affairs of commonwealth and is ready to contribute to the defence of the empire
as a whole.
More explicit than this is the so-called Arras Medallion (Pl.7, 110.4). This
magnificent product of the moneyer’s art is a multiple of 10-aurei. The obverse
depicts Constantius as commander of the army with the paludamentum, the red
 THE BRITISH USURPERS 131

cloak of a general, worn over his armour. The reverse summarizes the entire
campaign in a series of vignettes which can be interpreted at two levels. Firstly,
as individual comments on the campaign and, secondly, as an illustration of a
single dramatic incident, the relief of London from the marauding bands of
Allectus’s barbarian allies.
On the first level we have the Caesar as armoured warrior urging his horse
forward with the momentum, the eagerness for reconquest, which is commented
on by the panegyricist. Below him is the fleet, the chief weapon of the campaign,
depicted as a war galley, its ram cutting the waves, its armed crew filling the
decks. London, represented by the tutela or spiritual embodiment of the city,
named to avoid any uncertainty as to the location, kneels before her gates, hands
raised in supplication, welcome and thanks for her deliverance.
On the second level the scene is refocused. Constantius makes his triumphal
entry into the city welcomed by the population, represented by the tutela, after
his fleet, or Asclepiodotus’s, has sailed up the Thames just in time to save the
city from Allectus’s defeated army. The inscription which enfolds the Caesar,
REDDITOR LVCIS AETERNAE (‘Restorer of the Eternal Light’) is reflected in
the words of the Panegyric of 297:

And no wonder they [i.e. the Britons] were sated with such joy…when
they were at length free, at length Romans, at length refreshed by the true
light of the empire. (Pan. Lat. viii(v). 19)

The Beaurains Hoard also contains a number of single aurei which reflect on the
campaign. These, issued in the names of all of the members of the tetrarchy by
the Trier mint, show very much the same scene as the Arras Medallion (Pl.8, no.
9). Both the naval forces and the Caesar are depicted but the figure of London
kneeling before her walls is omitted. No doubt reasons of size dictated what
elements of the medallic design should appear on the smaller coin. The reverse
inscription, VIRTVS ILLYRICANI, can be interpreted in two ways. By the late
Roman period the word virtus could be used in the sense of ‘army’ and if this
were so in the present case the coin might commemorate the part played by
troops from Illyricum in the conflict. On the other hand the emperors and their
Caesars originated in Illyricum so that the motto might simply reflect that it was
the virtus (bravery and military skill) of the Balkan emperors which brought
about the victory. Had troops transferred from the Balkans been employed in the
campaign it might be a further factor contributing to the long delay in launching
the retributive expedition. Such a transfer of forces from the imperial recruiting
grounds controlled by Diocletian would powerfully symbolize the unity of
purpose of the joint emperors and the territorial integrity of the empire despite its
administrative division into two parts.
Almost the latest object in the Arras Hoard, and the largest single gold object,
is a medallion issued by Constantine the Great in 310 (Pl.7, no.5). Scratched on
the reverse of the medallion is a graffito which appears to be the name, in the
132 AFTERMATH

genitive, of the owner of this item and, presumably, of the rest of the hoard—
VITALIANIpp(?0)…(‘Belonging to Vitalianus pp’). The letters ‘PPO’ are
normally used in inscriptions as the abbreviation for Praefectus Praetorio
(praetorian prefect); ‘PP’ are for Praepositus, or regimental commander. There
is no record among the praefecti of the period of a Vitalianus but the records are
not complete. It may be that the owner of the Arras Hoard had achieved this rank
in the reign of Constantine. The hoard shows that he had received high-value
donatives for a long period and it may be that as commander of a regiment, or
some larger formation, he took part in Constantius’s invasion of Britain (Casey &
Tomlin, forthcoming). Here, for the first time, we have evidence for one of the
minor characters in the drama advancing into the limelight of history.
There are no records of show trials or sanctions being imposed on the
adherents of Allectus such as those which followed the fall of Magnentius in 353.
On that occasion, as Ammianus Marcellinus records, a commission headed by
Paul the Notary behaved with such merciless rigour that a governor committed
suicide after a futile protest about the severity of the proceedings (Amm. xix, 5.1–
3,6–8). The Panegyric of 297 implies that those who constituted the central core
of the revolt fell with their leader, but the fact that he advanced to battle without
the main body of his forces contradicts this statement and the execution of
dissidents, especially if barbarian, can be expected to have taken place. The head
of Allectus himself, easily identifiable because of the excellence of his coin
portraits, would probably have been paraded around the army of Britain to
ensure that pretenders could not rise in his name. Any laws passed by the
usurpers, promotions made, contracts issued or treaties entered into would be
revoked, rescinded or renegotiated.
The dispersal of forces may also have been a priority. We have already seen
that some, or the bulk, of garrisons in the Pennines may have been replaced now
or later but that forces on Hadrian’s Wall remained as they had been before and
during the revolt. The legions, now of very little strategic significance as major
tactical units, continued to occupy the legionary fortress of York and, so far as is
known, Chester. The accepted view that Constantius embarked on the building
of large cavalry forts at Elslack and Newton Kyme (Yorkshire), and at
Piercebridge (Co. Durham) needs to be re-examined in the light of the
excavations at the last-named site. Here, extensive area excavation has
examined, in detail, the south-east quarter, the east gate and the extensive
defensive ditches of the fort. The stratified ceramic and numismatic evidence,
which includes a silver coin of Carausius, are in agreement that the fort was built
in the middle of the third century, not at the end (Scott, forthcoming). A
programme of building during the Gallic Empire appears to have taken place
which probably encompasses the other sites hitherto ascribed to Constantius. The
abandonment of Caerleon may have been partly reversed but the evidence for
forces being concentrated in the south Wales fortress is exiguous and may refer
to a very much later period (Evans, 1992). In north Wales garrison forts appear
to have been maintained.
 THE BRITISH USURPERS 133

Possibly the largest single military component of the forces awaiting

relocation was the fleet. It is clear from the sources that Allectus deployed more
than one fleet, though none of the naval forces contributed to his defence. They
were, thus, intact at the end of the campaign. It may be at this stage that the
British fleets, with their unrivalled accumulated knowledge of both coastal
waters and the strategies of northern pirates, were allocated as tactical units to
the individual Shore Forts. That naval forces were stationed at forts is clear from
the Notitia Dignitatum where the Classis Anderetianorum, which derived its name
from long service at Anderida/ Pevensey, is shown as having been transferred to
service on the Seine (ND.Occ.xlii.23). It might also be at this stage that the
unified command of the coastal forts was created; whether fleets were deployed
on the Continental side of the Channel is uncertain. The Panegyric of 297 claims
that Constantius’s victory had saved not only Britain but the whole of the
Mediterranean region from pirate attack (Pan. Lat.viii(v).19). It is difficult to see
how events in Britain could possibly influence maritime affairs in the
Mediterranean. Contemporary marine technology allowed for coastal attacks in
the Channel, but probably not a direct North Sea crossing to East Anglia or the
coast of Yorkshire. But it would be a bold or desperate pirate whowould accept
the challenge of the Bay of Biscay in an open boat. Thepassage might mean that
British crews were dispersed as far afield as theMediterranean, but it is more likely
a piece of groundless hyperbole on thepart of the panegyricist.

By the end of the fourth century the coastal defences, augmented by a number of
forts on the coast of Gaul, were under the command of the Count of the Saxon
Shore (Comes Litoris Saxonici). This officer is probably alluded to in an earlier
context by the historian Ammianus Marcellinus who describes the death, in 367,
of Nectaridus the Comes Maritimi Tractus in the barbarian attack on Britain
mounted in that year (Amm.xx.1; xx.9,9). A count, as such, could not have been
appointed as early as the late third century since the rank was only instituted by
Constantine some fifteen years later. But the title, when conferred, presents a
problem in itself because the command of frontier defence forces should have
been at the subordinate rank of dux, especially as the comes had at his command
many less troops than the Dux Britanniarum, disposing, as he did, of all the
forces on the Wall, in the Pennines and at York (Mann, 1977). It is possible that
the original command was vested in a dux and that the command was upgraded
when the forts in Gaul were added. The mobility of the fleets may have been
seen as a justification for regarding the command as being over all mobile forces
such as constituted the tactical field armies of the period.
The suggestion that Portchester was abandoned in the period immediately
following the fall of the British regime needs to be examined in the light of more
extended numismatic studies. These indicate that coin issues of the period 296 to
305 are very rarely present as site finds in Britain, reflecting monetary events
rather than the occupation pattern of individual sites (Cunliffe, 1975).
134 AFTERMATH

PLATE 9
1 Diocletian. London mint. Obv. IMP C DIOCLETIANVS PF AVG Rev. GENIO POPVLI
ROMANI RIC 6a
2 Diocletian. London mint. Obv. IMP C DIOCLETIANVS PF AVG Rev. GENIO POPVLI
ROMANI-LON RIC 1a
3 Constantine I. London mint. Obv. FL VAL CONSTANTINVS NOB C Rev. ADVENTVS
AVGG-PLN RIC 82
4 ‘Carausius II’. Obv. DOMNO CARAVSIVS CES Rev. CONSTANTI-Overstruck on a
coin of Constantine I similar to No.6
5 Constantius II. Lyons mint. Obv. DN CONSTANTIVS PF AVG Rev. FEL TEMP
REPARATIO RIC 189
6 Constantine I. Trier mint. Obv. CONSTANTINVS MAX AVG Rev. GLORIA
EXERCITVS-TRP RIC 525
7 Giovanni Pesaro. Silver ducatone Venice. Obv. S.M.VEN. IOAN. PISAVRO.D Rev.
MEMOR. ERO.TVI.IVSTINA.VIR The doge, Pesaro, kneels before the lion of St Mark/St
Justina presiding over the ocean and the Venetian fleet.
On Hadrian’s Wall the inscriptions from Birdoswald and Housesteads show
that work on the frontier was undertaken with immediate effect. The evidence
from Birdoswald (RIB 1912) shows that, in the governorship of Aurelius
Arpagius, equestrian governor of the northern province, the commanding
officer’s house, the baths and the headquarters buildings were restored (Fig.15).
 THE BRITISH USURPERS 135

a St Peter’s Hill, London. Monumental foundations of Allectan date.

The commander’s house had, indeed, fallen down and was covered in soil (erat
humo copertum). Excavation has shown that other buildings were constructed, or
reconstructed, at the same time, including barracks and new officers’ quarters.
The inscription from Housesteads (RIB 1316) is too fragmentary to allow
interpretation of its contents.
Elsewhere in the north restoration of structures has been claimed at a number
of sites based on stratigraphical relationships and on the widely held, and
uncritical, belief that decay and destruction is attributable to the activities of
hostile forces during the reigns of Carausius and Allectus. The reasoning behind
these claims needs re-examination before acceptance. There is no doubt that
improvements of accommodation, amenities and restoration of defences would
have been included in any programme designed to raise the effectiveness and
morale of the northern garrisons following the fall of their emperor (Breeze &
Dobson, 1987). North of the Wall itself the outpost forts which protected
approach to the frontier are also assumed to have received attention. At High
Rochester (Bremenium) the west gate was rebuilt in finely dressed masonry
blocks and is usually attributed to the aftermath of the British revolt; the
headquarters building may also have received attention. Inscriptional evidence
for this is lacking, as it is for the claimed restoration of barrack blocks at
Risingham (Habitancum). Given the recent detailed work on the dating of the
latest occupation of the outpost forts the date of unattributable structural changes
is best regarded with reserve (Casey, 1980, 1992). Indeed, given the evidence of
a vigorous building programme elsewhere in the island during the reigns of
Carausius and Allectus, there is no reason why some, or even the majority, of the
changes attributed to Constantius could not have been undertaken by his enemies
136 AFTERMATH

b St Peter’s Hill, London. Monumental foundations with underpinning of tree-ring-dated

oak piles.

themselves. In a completely revisionist situation it could be pointed out that the

inscriptions attesting reconstruction are completion slabs, not foundation stones,
and may only relate to those in power when projects were finished, not when
they were commenced.
It is clear that the northern frontier of Britain, later events notwithstanding,
was not regarded as a high-priority zone. None of the forts were remodelled in the
style then current elsewhere in the empire, and exemplified by the Shore Forts,
with high walls and external towers providing overlapping fields of fire; rather
the traditional low-walled fortifications of the age of Hadrian were retained and
maintained. Even completely rebuilt forts, such as Vindolanda (Chesterholm),
which may have been reconstructed in this period and its entire axis turned
through 180 degrees, retained the traditional shape and internal layout of
buildings such as the granaries, headquarters and commandant’s house.
Elsewhere in the empire small fortifications, so-called quadriburgi, which were
economical of garrisons, were a feature of the period but do not seem to have
made their appearance in Britain.
On the other hand, it may be at this time, or earlier, that a new kind of barrack
accommodation was introduced. The traditional barrack consisted of a series of
pairs of double rooms, usually ten, arranged in line and accessible from a
veranda. At the end of the block, and occupying about a third of the available
space, was an apartment for the centurion. The new barracks, while retaining the
linear scheme, provided individual ‘chalets’ rather than conjoined rooms: the
 THE BRITISH USURPERS 137

c Milestone of Carausius from Gallow’s Hill, Carlisle.

centurion still retained his quarters at the end of the block (Daniels, 1980). The
significance of these changes is as difficult to determine as the date of the
introduction of the new style accommodation. Possibly it gave space for soldiers
to live with their families within the confines of the fort.
In contrast to the view that the fall of Allectus brought disaster to northern
Britain in its train is the fact that a relatively low-grade official was in charge of
completing restoration work on the Wall. The policy of Diocletian and Maximian
in provincial administration was to separate the civil administration from military
command. That this policy had not been implemented in Britain by 305, the
outside date for the Birdoswald inscription, indicates that no substantial threat
was present on the frontier (Donaldson, 1990). The argument draws on analogies
with the frontiers of Africa, which retained praesidial governors with military
powers for a long period into the fourth century. Threats to these frontiers were
what, in current military jargon, are called ‘low intensity’—they normally
suffered the depredations of cattle raiders and bandits rather than being the scene
of potential or actual invasion by numerous and militarily organized enemies. It
was therefore perfectly in order to leave them in the care of equestrian officials
whose expertise was in the legal sphere rather than the military. In such
circumstances, it is suggested, the employment of a high-grade military officer
would have been supererogatory. It should be remembered, however, that it was
138 AFTERMATH

d Portchester Castle, Hants. The outer defences comprise the walls of the Saxon Shore
Fort. The castle in the north-west corner was built in the Medieval period.

e Fourth-century boat from Nydam.

in 306 that Constantius, by now no longer Caesar but emperor, crossed to Britain
to campaign against the Picts.
It is in the areas of economy and the imperial administration that the citizen of
post-Allectan Britain would have noticed the most immediate changes, and of all
changes it was that in the pocket that would be soonest felt. While it cannot be
proved formally that the money of the usurpers awas declared unacceptable, it
seems very likely since coins of Carausius and Allectus do not appear in hoards
of the following period, with the exception of a single gold and two silver coins,
no doubt valued for their metal. Vast numbers of coins of Carausius, and a
 THE BRITISH USURPERS 139

f The flight of Aeneas from Carthage depicted on the fourth-century mosaic from the Low
Ham villa. The artists have taken as their model the warships familiar in British waters in
the third and fourth centuries.

15 Tetrarchic building inscription from Birdoswald.

proportionately plentiful number of Allectus, however, are found in excavations,

by metal detecting and in unrecovered hoards. Lack of inscriptions precludes
proof of damnatio memoriae in the form of erasures of the condemned names,
though the milestone from near Carlisle survived long enough to be up-ended
only in the early years of Constantine to receive an inscription of Constantine as
Caesar (306–7). Possibly in a remote area, the stone was overlooked until repairs
were carried out on that stretch of road. In any event, the otherwise complete
absence of epigraphic material is, in itself, a significant pointer to the extirpation
of memorials of the fallen regime.
140 AFTERMATH

In 294/6 the Diocletianic administration launched a reform of the billon

currency in which all local currencies were brought to an end and, for the first
time, a uniform monetary system was in use from one end of the empire to the
other. This followed earlier adjustments to the aureus, issued at a weight of 5.4g,
and the introduction of a c.3.4g silver denomination in c.293. The main change in
the billon was the phasing out of the aurelianus, which was no longer issued but
still accepted, and the introduction of new denomination of about 10g weight and
about 3 per cent silver content (Pl.9, nos 1, 2). Without ancient warrant the coin
is called the follis; but evidence does exist to show that it was tariffed as a 10-
denarius piece, later to be retarrifed to 20-denarii (Cope, 1977). The new coin
was issued, with uniform weight and type (GENIO POPVLI ROMANI—‘The
Genius of the Roman People’), from mints established in nearly all of the
dioceses into which, under new administrative arrangements, the empire had
been divided. The system of mint and sequence marks introduced by Carausius
was adopted in the new coinage. Additional minor denominations were also
issued: a copper denarius and a larger radiate copper coin, similar in appearance
to the old aurelianus and intended as a 2-denarius piece. Neither of these coins
appears in British contexts and they cannot have formed an important component
of the local circulating medium.
Hoard evidence shows that the coinage of Britain after the reconquest
consisted of diminishing numbers of aureliani, never supplied in quantity in the
first place, and the new 10-denarius coin. The latter is not well represented in
site finds but this absence should not be taken as indicating a shortage of coin;
rather it reflects the relative value of the coin and its size and ease of recovery
when dropped. Nevertheless, the high value of the main denomination in the
currency pool was the equivalent of a demonetization of some areas of the
economy, which could only have been made good by an extension of credit to
individuals in small transactions. In this credit system the ‘slate’ could be cleared
when transaction volume and available coin denomination reached equilibrium.
At the same time, a general rise in prices to boundaries set by the new coins may
have taken place, if modern experience of changes such as decimalization is
pertinent to the ancient world. In compensation the reintegration of Britain into a
world currency system allowed British trade to expand into foreign markets.
It may also have encouraged the movement of capital from overseas into an
area relatively unaffected by the problems of barbarian population movements
and near constant warfare. Some of the prosperity of the agricultural community,
with the growth of large villas attested in the fourth century, may owe something
to the redistribution of the assets of adherents of the rebels. Certainly, by the date
of the publication of the Edict of Maximum Prices in 301 the costs of British
textiles were advertised in the eastern provinces of the empire; by the first
quarter of the fourth century Britain was experiencing an economic boom.
One branch of industry which did flourish during the usurpation was
shipbuilding. It is probably in this period that the tradition of expertise was
established which enabled Julian to build his grain fleet half a century later and
 THE BRITISH USURPERS 141

which produced the warships whose deployment against sea raiders was noted
with approval by Vegetius in his work on military tactics (Veg. 37).
The mechanism for the introduction of the new coinage is not known but the
production of the mint of Lugdunum (Lyons) was stepped up to supply the island
economy. At the same time as the mint established by Carausius at London was
maintained and immediately assumed production of the new denomination, the
Colchester mint was closed. The skilled mint personnel working at London
under Allectus were kept in their jobs; the distinctive work of individual die-
cutters can be easily recognized in the last coins of Allectus and the new London
issues in the names of Diocletian, Maximian and the Caesars (Pl.9, no.1) (Carson
& Kent, 1956).
Administrative changes were also implemented. The empire, already divided
between eastern and western emperors, was further divided into compact
administrative units, or prefectures. These, in turn, comprised a number of
smaller units, dioceses, which were themselves made up of groups of individual
provinces. The latter proliferated under Diocletian, with traditional provinces
being cut up into ever smaller components. The case of Britain well illustrates
the process. Divided in two by Severus, on the fall of Allectus Britain consisted
of Britannia Inferior and Britannia Superior. The latter comprised the west,
Midlands and south-east, with a capital in London; the former, with a capital at
York, encompassed the Pennines and the north—the bulk of the military forces
were located in this province. On reunification Britain was divided into four
provinces—Britannia Prima (Wales and the west), Britannia Secunda (the north),
Maxima Caesariensis (the south) and Flavia Caesariensis (the Midlands and East
Anglia). The latter two provinces received their recorded names in the reign of
Constantine, and bore different, but probably dynastic, names in the period under
review (Casey, 1978). Each province was governed by an equestrian praeses,
and each had its own capital; respectively Cirencester, York, London and
Lincoln. The governors were subordinate to a vicarius who administered the newly
created diocese of Britain. The diocese was a component of the Prefecture of the
Gauls, the vicarius being subordinate to the praetorian prefect who, in turn, was
responsible for the Caesar—the latter owing responsibility to the emperor.
A gradual division was made between military and civil spheres, the military
commanders and provincial governors having separate functions. Virtually the
last praeses with military responsibilities for whom we have a record is the
Aurelius Arpagius who appears on the Birdoswald inscription and whose
significance in Britain is discussed above.
Almost coincidental with the recovery of Britain came the introduction of a
new system of taxation. Monetary taxation was largely abandoned in favour of
levies of goods and services graded to the estimated needs of the imperial army.
In 296, a census was undertaken on a scale which makes the Domesday survey
look like a minor administrative exercise. The productive value of every
economic process and resource in the empire was reviewed and tax levied in
relation to productivity. Thus less-productive soil was taxed at a lesser rate than
142 AFTERMATH

highly productive soil, whether arable land, orchard, vineyard or whatever. The
unit of assessment was the caput or productivity of a man and his assets,
including wife, children, dependants, slaves and livestock relative to the
estimated productivity of these assets. The tax liability of individuals would be
rated in terms of multiple capita, the poorest paying only a fraction of a unit. The
individual’s liability to tax was subsumed into the estimate for his community,
village or city; this in turn was aggregated into the levy for the province, the
diocese and, ultimately, the Prefecture. Estimates of the requirements of the army
were prepared by the praetorian prefect, originally on a five-year and later at a
fifteen-year cycle. Special levies, or superindictions, were imposed in case of
emergency or shortfall. As a further economy the management of the taxation
and its collection was imposed on the magistrates of the individual towns,
shortfalls having to be made up from their own resources. All of this brought the
individual into a contact with the provincial administration in a way never before
experienced. Serving soldiers were not subjected to these tax levies but their sons
were compelled to enrol in the army.
If there had been a national consciousness engendered by the Carausian
regime or its successor it is likely to have been quickly dissipated by the events
outlined above. Britain was now several fragments of a larger polity. This may
explain the eagerness with which it embraced later usurpers such as Magnus
Maximus who offered it an imperial identity. The Panegyric of 297 offers an
official view of the rapture with which Constantius was greeted by the citizens of
London:

…the moment you reached the shore, a triumphant procession met Your
Majesty as you deserved; the Britons, jumping for joy, with their wives and
children presented themselves, not merely falling down to worship you
yourself, whom they regarded as coming down from heaven, but even the
sails and oars of that ship, which had brought to them your divinity, and
they were ready to throw themselves upon the ground and thus feel your
coming. And no wonder they were elated with such joy, after the outrages
committed upon their wives, after the degrading servitude of their children
they were at length free, at length Roman, at length refreshed by the true
light of the empire…. They devoted themselves and their children to you
both [i.e. Maximian], to your children they devoted all their posterity.
(Pan. Lat.viii(v).19)

Though the deliverer of this unctuous speech could not know it, he was right in
one particular: Britain developed a strong affection for the House of Constantius
as embodied in his son Constantine. When Constantius died at York in 306,
while campaigning in the north against the Picts, the army rose in support of
Constantine and, despite the prevailing constitutional arrangements which
excluded him from imperial office, elected him emperor. Nineteen years later,
 THE BRITISH USURPERS 143

after civil wars fought in Italy, the Balkans and the East, he became sole ruler of
the Roman empire.
But the joy of the citizens may have been less wholeheartedly rapturous than
the panegyricist thought, or cared to mention. We have said that, in introducing
the new coinage system, Docletian and his colleague adopted the Carausian
system of mintmarks. The first issue of the new coins from London, produced by
Allectus’s staff in the first few weeks of the operation of the mint under the
restored administration, bears the mintmark LON; it is an issue of great scarcity,
with less than twenty specimens recorded in the standard numismatic corpora (Pl.
9, no.2). The following issue bears no mintmark nor does any coinage issued by
London until the year 307, when the mark was restored in the form PLN; it was
in this year that Constantine visited London, coins being issued with the type and
legend, ADVENTVS AVGG (Pl.9, no.3), appropriate to a state visit (Casey, 1978).
The restoration of the mintmark in conjunction with the presence of Constantine
may indicate that London had lost its municipal, or colonial, status within a few
weeks of Constantius’s arrival in the capital and did not regain it until the visit of
his son a decade later. If this is so, it can only be as a result of something
connected with events following the overthrow of Allectus. Could it be that the
people of London rained tiles down on Constantius rather than flowers and
garlands?
There is a strange coda to the revolt of Carausius and Allectus which finds it
setting in the lamp-lit depths of the Catacomb of St Mark and St Marcellus, just
outside Rome. During the persecution initiated by Diocletian in 303 some
Christians appear to have used the catacomb as a refuge. Here, surrounded by
two centuries of Christian dead, they took their minds off their present troubles
by gambling. With them they had a board for playing ludus duodecim scriptores
—‘The Game of Twelve Lines’ (Huelson, 1904). Evidence for the popularity of
this game has been found on sites all over the Roman empire both in the form of
portable boards and others scratched on the flagstones in public places. The
board is set out with 36 ‘points’ arranged in 12 vertical lines. Often the ‘points’ are
the individual letters of
six-letter words, of which a set of six make up a suitable motto. An example,
in bad Latin, from North Africa reads:

VENARI—LAVARI
LVDERE—RIDERE
OCCEST—VIVARE
‘TO HUNT—TO BATHE/TO PLAY—TO LAUGH/THIS IS—TO
LIVE’

The board from the catacomb reads:

PARTHI—OCCISI
BRITTO—VICTVS
144 AFTERMATH

LVDITE—ROMANI
‘PARTHIANS—KILLED/BRITON—DEFEATED/PLAY—
ROMANS’

The combination of a Parthian victory with one over a Briton fixes the events
commemorated on the board very precisely to the triumph of Galerius over the
Persians and Constantius over Allectus. By a curious irony it was only after the
defeat of Allectus in the West and the Persian enemy in the East that Diocletian
could afford to divert the resources of the state to the elimination of a perceived
internal enemy, Christianity.
 12
SHIPS AND NAVAL WARFARE

THE EVENTS SURROUNDING THE REGIMES of Carausius and Allectus all

hinge on the possession and deployment of overwhelming naval forces. A simple
listing of the main events makes the point clear. It was the demise of Roman
naval power with the running down and eventual abolition of the Classis
Britannica which led to the growth of piracy in northern waters. As a result
Carausius raised a fleet to extirpate these pirates. The loss of Maximian’s
invasion fleet cost him parts of northern Gaul and gave his opponents full control
of the western seaboard of the empire. In turn the interdiction of a relieving fleet
cost the British regime Boulogne. The invasion of Britain waited upon the raising
of two fleets by the central empire and the success of the invasion depended
upon the misuse by Allectus of his fleet. At every turn the control of naval forces
is the key to success or failure and the physical and tactical nature of these forces
should be considered.
Unfortunately, very little is known about the nature of the opposing forces.
Despite the growth of underwater archaeology and the investigation of a number
of ancient wrecks, no warships of the third and early fourth centuries have yet
been discovered. Any information we have about the appearance and armament
of the craft engaged in the events under review has to be garnered from
contemporary illustrations and later literary sources.
Of some things we can be sure from the general advance in knowledge which
has come with underwater archaeology. For instance, the ancient world had two
distinct traditions of naval architecture. In the Mediterranean ships were built on
the shell principle, while in the north-western provinces they were frame-
constructed in a fashion which has its antecedents in native Celtic practices. The
difference between methods is fundamental: in the former the planking of the
hull, the strakes, are fitted together edge to edge with tenons, the shape of the
boat being achieved by bending and warping the strakes. Only when a hull shape
is achieved are ribs inserted to strengthen the total structure. Boats with tenoned
planks do not need caulking since the close fit of the edges of the timbers,
combined with their expansion when immersed, creates a watertight hull. In the
northern Romano-Celtic tradition the shape of the boat is determined by a
completely pre-formed framework of keel and ribs to which the strakes are
individually attached. The bulk of Roman period vessels known from north-
146 THE BRITISH USURPERS

western Europe also have the strakes laid edge to edge, with long nails employed
to secure the planking to the frames (Marsden, 1990; Rule, 1990), but because
the individual strakes are not joined together to give a waterproof seal it is
necessary to caulk the seams of these vessels. An advantage of this method of
frame-building is that it allows a broader limit of tolerance to be set in
construction and less skilled workmanship can be deployed. This might be
counted as a consideration when fleets had to be built in haste.
The main source of illustration for the naval vessels operating in the Channel
and the North Sea in the late Roman period is the contemporary coinage. Both
the coins of Carausius and Allectus, especially the latter, depict the ships on
which their power was based, and two issues of the Continental emperors bear
military vessels as parts of their reverse types; they also make an appearance on
the coins and medallions of Maximian and Constantius and on a fourth-century
mosaic in the villa at Low Ham, in Somerset (Pl. f). The largest aggregation of
warships is found in the bronze coinage of the Gallic emperor Postumus (259–68),
though the representations are of poor artistic quality, displaying little evidence
that the artists were familiar with what they were trying to depict. Military
transports which must have made up a large part of the various invasion fleets
attested by the literary sources and specialized craft (hippagines) would have
been needed to transport cavalry horses and draught animals. A vessel of this
type is depicted on a mosaic with representations of 30 different named types of
Roman ships, of second-century date, from Althibunis in Tunisia (Gauckler,
1905). The hippago, complete in this case with a cargo of named racehorses,
displays a number of features: there is no mast or sail and no steering oar,
propulsion is provided by six sweeps—three on each side. Normally a vessel of
this type would be towed by a troop transport and the ropes stowed along the
gunwales may represent towlines (Fig.16).
Before considering the evidence in detail, a number of points pertinent to the
interpretation of coin iconography may be noted. Firstly, specific details vary
from coin to coin even when the same object is depicted. This is especially so in
the case of large coin issues, where many sets of dies would have been needed to
keep up with the demands of the mint’s output. Where more than one mint is
engaged in the work, discrepancies can be expected between the imagery
produced by the separate establishments. In reconstructing the appearance of a
vanished monument or lost work of art scholars examine as many specimens of
the coinage as possible in order to assemble a composite image. The same
principles should be applied when attempting to reconstruct the appearance of
the battle-ships of the later Roman navy.
Secondly, the physical nature of the coin must be considered. In itself the
circular area of a coin flan does not lend itself to the accurate representation of
the linear features of a ship, while, in certain circumstances, the presence of the
legend further circumscribes the area available to the artist, producing a
truncated version of the object delineated. We may illustrate this point from the
coinage of Allectus who issued ship coins with two reverse legends—VIRTUS
 SHIPS AND NAVAL WARFARE 147

16 Transporting horses by sea in a hippago.

AUG and LAETITIA AUG. The longer inscription fills the flan and ships on coins
with this legend are always represented as short, stubby vessels (Pl.8, nos 3,5).
The former, shorter, legend is normally placed in an arc around the top of the
flan only. On these coins the ships are depicted as long and racy vessels (Pl.8, no.
4), but when the VIRTUS AUG legend is deployed in an extended form around
the coin, the ship is depicted as being a squat craft with an improbably bow-
shaped hull (Pl.8, no.5). It follows that the long, rakish image is nearer to being a
true likeness of the contemporary vessels.
The disposition of the image on the coin also imposes problems where crucial
details of one element of the design would detrimentally impinge on another.
The Arras Medallion shows a warship representative of the fleet with which
Constantius invaded Britain (Pl.7, no.4): the ship is crammed with soldiers and
propelled by oars; there is no mast, sail, cordage or rigging. The panegyric which
celebrates the successful recovery of the island speaks eloquently about this fleet
and its reception by the people of London and it makes specific mention of the
fact that the ships were provided with sails. Further, the account of Constantius’s
departure from Boulogne says that he was delayed by contrary winds, a point
which would be valueless were the ships not dependent as much on sails as oars
for their propulsion. The absence of these features from the medallion is entirely
due to the presence immediately above the boat of the mounted figure of
Constantius.
Viewed as a whole the images of ships on coins of the period exhibit a number
of common characteristics. All, when a mast is represented, are single-masted
vessels. On the coins of Carausius and Allectus the mast is rigged fore and aft
with stays; on the single example of a rigged ship in the coins of Postumus the
stays are absent, but the yardarm, with the single sail reefed up to the yard, is
represented (Pl.8, no.7); a vestigial yardarm is also shown on a coin of Carausius
(Pl.2, no.11). Neither yards nor sails are normally shown on the coins of the
British usurpers, though the presence of the mast ensures that they were in use.
These coins also show that the mast was capped with a truck, which may have
housed a pulley-block to assist in raising and lowering the sail. None of the ships
displays a bowsprite. This was a feature typical of imperial galleys of the first
and second centuries, being provided to carry a small sail which served as an aid
148 THE BRITISH USURPERS

to steering. The ships have a high prow which sweeps down to a formidable ram.
The prow is occasionally incurved towards the mast but is mostly shown as
boldly outcurved, to terminate in a figurehead reminiscent of the dragon prows
of later Viking boats. There may have been a change in shipbuilding practices
between the middle and end of the third century since all of Postumus’s ships are
depicted with incurved prows. The stern is higher than the prow with the curve
of the timbers terminating in a decorative fantail or aplustrum. The exaggerated
height and curvature of the stern is probably due to a well-grounded fear of being
pooped, a situation in which the sea overwhelms the vessel from the rear. As
with all ancient vessels, steering was effected by large steering oars fixed on
either side of the stern. These oars were operated by the steersman through a pair
of bar helms which transmitted a push-pull motion into a rotational force
operating on the steering mechanism.
All of the ships are depicted with a single bank of oars. These are represented
in various numbers almost certainly unrelated to the actual provision of the real
craft. It is not known whether the oars were operated by a single rower or by a
number of men manning the same oar. Ancient warships were rated either by the
number of banks of oars or the number of rowers deployed to each oar and
confusion can arise as to whether ancient authors were referring to the number of
banks of oars or the number of oarsmen (Morrison, 1980). The main visible
armament is provided by a ram protruding from the bow. The marine crew, not
the rowers, are normally shown lining the bulwarks; on Postumus’s coins the
marines are shown carrying large round shields (Pl.8, no.8).
An element common to warships of this period, which distinguishes them from
merchant ships, is the presence of the parados, or side gangway. This created a
lateral extension of deck-space to port and starboard which oversailed the hull in
the same manner as the deck of an aircraft carrier. This feature is normally
shown as a long, box-like object, extending along the gunwales; the oars
protrude from the hull below the parados. It had a number of functions—first-
century sculptures show boarding parties standing on the extension, ready to
descend on the enemy—but most importantly the parados offered protection to
the oars by preventing attacking vessels running alongside and breaking off the
blades. The rowers were protected from the enemy missiles by the deck and in
action they would have had no visual contact with events outside the hull space
of their own vessel. More vulnerable than the oarsmen was the helmsman who
occupied a prominent and unprotected position on the deck just in front of the
canopied deckhouse accommodating the captain or navigator. Undoubtedly every
ship carried a number of trained steersmen in order to maintain a 24-hour watch
as well as to replace casualties in action.
The dimensions of the warships of the late third and fourth centuries, the size
of their crews and the number of oarsmen employed are all unknown. All
illustrations are schematic to a greater or lesser extent and the only
archaeological evidence for shipping is derived from merchant vessels. Of these,
both the boat from Blackfriars, in London, and that from St Peter’s Port, in
 SHIPS AND NAVAL WARFARE 149

Guernsey, were about 20m long and about 6m broad at the widest part of the
hull. But cargo vessels are designed for their carrying capacity rather than for
manoeuvrability and speed, thus they do not give a good impression of the rakish
lines of a warship. In any event, we know from later literary sources that the
Roman navy employed a number of types of warships which varied in crew
complement and function.
A misapprehension as to the height of the warship above the waterline has
been perpetuated by modern scholars who have misinterpreted the artistic
convention of showing the full depth of the hull above the waterline in order to
display the main armament—the ram (Dove, 1971). Since to be effective the ram
must have been below or at the waterline the most prominent feature of a
warship cannot be shown unless the whole vessel is presented unnaturally high in
the water. There is no reason whatsoever for supposing that these ships rode high
in the water or that they towered above the surface like eighteenth-century men-
of-war. Indeed the episode recounted by Caesar, in which the standard-bearer of
the Tenth Legion spurred his reluctant comrades to land on British soil by
jumping from a ship to the hostile shore, indicates that Roman warships were low
in the water (Caesar, De Bello Gallico, iv. 25). In the case of vessels with single
banks of oars, the lower they are in the hull and the nearer parallel to the surface
of the sea, the better for energy efficiency. A specific reference to the above-
waterline size of Mark Antony’s warships at the Battle of Actium mentions that
they stood ten feet high in the water; there is reason to believe that this refers to
the largest ships engaged in the encounter (Casson, 1971, 117).
Beyond the discussion of Carausius’s tactical methods in dealing with the
pirates by catching them on their return from raiding in Gaul, we have no
specific information regarding the deployment or tactics used by the protagonists
in the Carausian episode. For the pirate episode some indication of the sort of
Germanic ships of the period can be derived from the burial of a complete vessel
at Nydam, in Denmark. This open boat was propelled entirely by rowers with
provision for 15 pairs or 30 single oarsmen in its 23m length (Pl. e). The date of
the Nydam ship is put by archaeologists into the period AD 350–400, a little
later than the Carausian period but none the less a pertinent piece of maritime
evidence: the absence of mast and sail makes sense of Carausius’s strategy of
interception of the enemy when it was fully loaded since, in the long term, the
crew of a heavily laden vessel such as the Nydam ship could not outpace a galley
equipped with sail and oars. This is especially the case in the Channel where the
prevailing wind in the sailing season is from the south west, and it elucidates the
tactics for which Carausius was originally condemned.
A little evidence about barbarian shipping can be gleaned from ancient literary
sources, including a late Latin translation of Josephus which offers some insights.
This translation of the Greek text of Flavius Josephus’s War of the Jews has been
attributed to St Ambrose because the manuscript was preserved in Milan.
Actually the translation is the work of Isaac, a Jewish convert to Christianity,
who took the baptismal names Hilarius and Gaudentius. Further authorial
150 THE BRITISH USURPERS

confusion has arisen because the name Hegesippus became attached to the
manuscript at some stage; this name is a Latinized corruption of ‘Josephus’. The
translation was made in the 370s and is interpolated with a number of anachronistic
references to Christianity and to the state of the Roman empire in the age of the
emperor Valentinian (368–75).
There are two set-piece orations which are comprehensive reviews of the state
and progress of the Roman empire. The occasion for each of the speeches is a
fictitious attempt by a member of the Herodian royal house to dissuade the Jews
from rebelling against the Romans. The first is made before the revolt by
Berenice, the sister of Herod Agrippa. The second is delivered to the defenders
of Jerusalem by Herod Agrippa himself as they await the outcome of the siege
being conducted by Titus. Both take the same form: a review of the expansion of
the empire and a summary of the fierce peoples brought under Roman
subjugation. The author of these interpolations is very concerned with events in
Britain, twice citing the conquest of this remotest of lands as proof of the folly of
standing against the might and persistence of the Roman state.
The speeches contain two references to piratical ships operating in northern
waters in the fourth century. The first occurs in a discussion of the suppression
of German piracy in which it is observed that the Rhine is no longer filled with
‘caupulis Germanorum…sed Romanorum liburnis’ (Heg. 11.9,1); liburni are the

heavier Roman warships of the period. The word caupulus cannot be closely
defined technically, but is always used in the context of a light craft. The discovery
of a number of Roman wrecks in a branch of the Rhine at Mainz included a light
war galley, which could have been adapted from a native prototype. A tentative
reconstruction of this vessel, which might qualify as being a caupulus, shows it
with a triangular sail and manned by 26 rowers (Haywood, 1991). The vessel
was undoubtedly employed in patrolling the river frontier of the Rhine but was
strongly enough constructed to survive inshore seas.
The second reference to barbarian shipping discussed the boats of the Saxons
who, because of the success of Roman arms, tremble with fear in their inaccessible
marshlands and hidden fortifications from which they formerly conducted
stealthy war in their myoparones.
Myoparon, and its plural myoparones, has a long history in Latin literature as
representing a light craft. The word, of Greek origin and of unknown etymology,
came to mean a pirate vessel by the late Roman period. Earlier uses of the word
indicate that myoparones could be substantial ships, though less formidable than
regular warships. Thus Mark Antony in exchange for two legions gave Octavian
100 ‘bronze beaked galleys’ and 26 craft — myoparonas (Plutarch, Antony, 35).
In the Mithradatic wars the Pontic king recruited Cilician pirates in his cause
who, after his defeat, continued to ravage the eastern Mediterranean. In the
beginning they sailed around ‘with a few small boats’ (skaphesi=scaphae). But
as their success grew they graduated to larger ships. ‘They harvested the sea
instead of the land, at first with myoparosi and hemiolii, then with two-banked
and three-banked ships [i.e. biremes and triremes]’ (Appian, Mithridates, 92).
 SHIPS AND NAVAL WARFARE 151

From this it is clear that myoparones were larger than scout boats (scaphae) but
smaller than regular naval vessels.
Cicero twice mentions myoparones. In the first case he describes the best of
the ten vessels built by the city of Miletus as part of their tribute as being ipse
myoparonum pulcherrimum, ‘that handsome vessel’. This ship was sold by the
venal Verres to two dubious characters, later declared to be public enemies, who
used it to maintain contact between dissidents in Spain and Mithridates of
Pontus. This involved voyages between eastern Spain and Sinope, situated half
way along the south coast of the Black Sea. While this might suggest a vessel of
considerable size and seaworthiness, further consideration would suggest that
surreptitious communication by sea would best be accomplished by an
inconspicuous boat rather than a fully-fledged warship and that Cicero has
overstated his case in seeking the condemnation of Verres (Cicero, Against
Verres, i. 34, 87). The second appearance of myparones, in a very literal sense, is
when, due to Verres’ neglect of his duties as governor of Sicily, pirates arrived with
a few ships (paucorum…my-oparonum) and set fire to the Roman fleet of
warships (Cicero, Against Verres, ii. iii. 80, 186).
The bulk of references indicate that the vessel in question is associated with
pirates, or the word is used to describe ships used by disreputable characters for
sinister purposes, but apart from the relative size, no specific details are
vouchsafed as to appearance or equipment in the literary accounts. Fortunately, a
picture of a Roman myoparon is extant which shows it to have been equipped
with a mast and sail, as well as oars. The Althibunis mosaic includes a myoparon
among its array of shipping. It differs from the bulk of vessels by having a
distinctive bow which lacks the normal upswept prow (Fig.17). This suggests that
its use was restricted to inshore and river work rather than being suitable for
breasting the waves of deep waters. It is probably in this descriptive context that
the term is applied to Saxon raiding craft, as well as in the context of their size.
Our specific knowledge of late Roman naval affairs largely depends on a
single source—a late fourth-century writer on military tactics, Publius Flavius
Vegetius Renatus, whose sources for his De rei militari stretched back to the
time of the Roman Republic. None the less, we can use his work with some
confidence since, unlike land-based warfare and armies, naval warfare tactics
between technologically equally matched forces did not change between the
Hellenistic period, when effective catapult artillery was developed, and the
invention of the seaborne flame-thrower by the Byzantines in the seventh
century. Several lines of attack were possible, notably ramming, boarding and
destruction by bombardment, with catapults hurling stone shot, incendiary
material or fire arrows. At close quarters the crews would exchange fire with
bows, javelins and slings, and grappling-hooks were thrown, or possibly fired.
Ships might also be equipped with a long beam or pole, shod with an iron point at
either end, which was hung by ropes from the rigging. This could be swung about
in safety by the attacker to disable members of the crew of an enemy vessel held
alongside by grapples. Vegetius describes this device, the asser, as especially
152 THE BRITISH USURPERS

17 The Roman myoparonis, a light craft favoured by pirates.

effective in close-quarters actions, being ‘a sure method of cutting down and
killing enemy marines and sailors’ (Veg.46). The falx, or sickle, was an
alternative version of this contrivance. This weapon was equipped with a sharp,
curved iron blade. Vegetius comments that ‘It quickly cuts the rigging from
which the yard-arm is suspended, and the sails collapse rendering the warship
slow and useless’ (Veg.46).
Because ships’ crews had relatively little space in which to dodge missiles,
extra protection in the form of larger shields and heavier armour was issued to
marines. A favourite weapon among sailors was the double-ended axe which was
especially effective for hand-to-hand fighting in confined spaces and for cutting
grapples and rigging; a preferred tactic was to cut away the ropes securing the
steering gear.
Vegetius also makes specific allusion to the ships and tactics employed in
British waters to defeat piratical attacks in his own day; these tactics may
also be relevant in an earlier period. Having described the classification of
warships by the number of ranks of oars, a specification of mere antiquarian
interest in his own day, he notes that:

…scouting skiffs [scaphae] are attached to the large warships, having

about twenty oarsmen on each side; these the Britons call picati. They are
used on occasion to perform descents or to intercept convoys of enemy
ships or by studious surveillance to detect their approach or intentions.
Lest patrol vessels be betrayed by their brightness, the sails and rigging are
dyed Venetian blue, which resembles the ocean waves; the wax used to pay
the ships’ sides is also dyed. The sailors and marines put on Venetian blue
uniforms also, so as to lie hidden with greater ease when scouting by day
as by night. (Veg.37)
 SHIPS AND NAVAL WARFARE 153

g The title page of G.Watts de Peyster’s work on Carausius.

It is unfortunate that the word picati represents a garbled item in the manuscript
but most commentators agree to amend the text to pictae— painted (boats)—in
reference to their being camouflaged. Another name used to designate a class of
warships by Vegetius is liburnae. In the early imperial period this term was
reserved for light, swift warships equipped with two banks of oars but by the late
Roman period the liburna seems to be any warship larger than a scout craft; a
usage probably reflecting the demise of the large battleship of the earlier empire.
154 THE BRITISH USURPERS

h The death of a hero: the eighteenth-century view of the assassination of Carausius.

(E.Barnard, The new, comprehensive and complete history of England…, London, 1783.)
It seems likely that the vessels depicted on the coins from the time of Postumus
to the end of the episode under consideration should be identified as liburnae.
The scout craft itself may be shown on issues of Allectus in the shape of a small,
mastless boat manned by rowers (Pl.8, no.2). Vegetius’s description of the
relation of the skiffs to the larger ships suggests that the latter normally only went
to sea when an enemy had been detected. Ancient warships did not usually stay
out at sea or, at best, hugged the coastline.
Even the greatest naval battles before the age of steam took place at walking
pace and the ships of antiquity were no greyhounds of the ocean. Recorded
speeds of voyages give some indication of their sailing capabilities, but all of the
 SHIPS AND NAVAL WARFARE 155

i Boulogne: the port and estuary in the eighteenth century.

extant references are to voyages in the Mediterranean where conditions are much
more favourable than in the North Sea. Even so, with a favourable wind, speeds
of about four knots seems to have been regarded as highly satisfactory progress
and something in the region of two knots may have been the norm. Possibly
warships were capable of slightly higher speeds. The effect of rowing is more
difficult to quantify. Reports of the speeds achieved by the replica of a Greek
trireme, a vessel specifically designed to ram the enemy at high speed, indicate
that seven knots could have been achieved for short periods. It is unlikely that
vessels of the Carausian period could match this. Nor would oar power be as
effective in the swells of the North Sea as in the calm waters of the
Mediterranean, and the fact that ships are normally shown with masts erect
156 THE BRITISH USURPERS

j Boulogne: the port and setting of the Roman fortress.

probably accurately reflects the primacy of sail power. Rowing would normally
be reserved for battle manoeuvres, periods of windless calm and entering and
leaving harbour.
A compelling picture of savage and desperate fighting emerges as
characteristic of late Roman naval warfare with the deployment of tactics which
had been refined by five centuries of development. ‘What could be crueller’,
says Vegetius, ‘than a naval battle, where men perish by fire and water’ (Veg.
35).
 13
CARAUSIUS II

IN THE MIDDLE OF THE fourth century the Prefecture of the Gauls

experienced a dramatic series of events which had a great impact on the
economic and political life of the area. One of the results of these events was the
production of coins which once again bore the name Carausius. Let us look at the
history of the period before turning to this enigmatic coinage.
Following the death of Constantine the Great in May 337 there was an
interregnum during which the two halves of the dead emperor’s family fought
for supremacy. The situation arose from the two marriages of Constantius I—his
marriage to Theodora, the emperor Maximian’s stepdaughter, meant that
Constantine had many half-brothers, and half-sisters, as well as nephews and
nieces. Constantine himself was the product of Constantius’s marriage to
Helena, a marriage which was annulled when union with the families of
Maximian and Diocletian became politically expedient. The rejected Helena took
every opportunity given by the ascendancy of her doting son to vent her
displeasure on the other half of the family. When the time came to make detailed
plans for the succession, Constantine allotted parts of the empire to his three sons
and to two of his nephews from the Theodora branch of the family. Constantine
II was to rule Britain, Gaul and Spain; Constantius II would have the East and
Egypt; Italy and the bulk of the Balkan provinces went to Constans. The
nephews, Dalmatius and Hannibalianus, were to rule, respectively, Thrace, Dacia
and Macedonia and Cappodocia and Pontus. By this Constantine attempted to
bring about unity in the warring family. It was not to be. Constantius II in
collusion with his brothers instigated the massacre of the other half of the family.
Two uncles and seven cousins were killed by troops in Constantinople loyal to
the brothers. Two members survived—the half-brothers Constantius Gallus and
Julian—the former spared because he was sick, and presumably expected to die,
the latter because he was a five-year-old child. Both were detained under
conditions of house arrest on imperial estates in the centre of Asia Minor.
Within a couple of years Constantine II and Constans were at war. During an
invasion of Italy Constantine was killed, leaving Constans as ruler of the western
empire. In 348 the two remaining brothers celebrated the eleven hundredths
anniversary of the foundation of Rome and the inception of a new saeculum, the
third in Rome’s history and the last according to the prophecies of the Sybilline
158 THE BRITISH USURPERS

oracles. Among the other events heralding the new age was the reform of the lower
value coinage system. Three new denominations were issued, two of billon and a
third of copper, comprising a unit, its half and its third. All denominations bore
the legend FEL TEMP REPARATIO (‘The Restoration of the Happiness of the
Times’) and a variety of symbols of renewal or victory (Pl.9, no.5).
In 350 Constans was overthrown and killed in a coup by Magnentius, a part-
British army officer who was acting for Marcellinus, the emperor’s Comes
Sacrarum Largitionum. Magnentius associated his brother Decentius in his rule
which, at its furthest extent, included Italy. Magnentius was defeated by
Constantius at the battle of Mursa in Illyricum in 351. Retreating to the west he
was defeated in Gaul in 353 and both he and his brother committed suicide.
Thus in 353 the empire was again reunited and under the rule of a single
emperor, Constantius II. Constantius had no children and an understandably
paranoid disposition. Making the best of bad circumstances he brought his cousin
Constantius Gallus out of exile, married him to his sister, Constantina, and
appointed him regent of the East during his absence in the Magnentian war. For
reasons that are confused, Gallus was executed in 354. The remains of the family
of Constantine the Great now comprised the emperor Constantius and Julian,
who was by now under the protection of the empress Eusebia.
In 355 Julian was recalled from Athens, where he was studying philosophy
under the watchful eye of the agentes in rebus, the supremely efficient secret
police force which had been instituted by Constantine and brought to a peak of
perfection by Constantius. Abruptly married to the emperor’s sister Helena, he was
sent to Gaul where, contrary to every expectation, or imperial intention, he
scored a series of brilliant military victories over the Franks and Alemanni,
invaded Germany, restored the ravaged cities of the Rhineland and lowered the
taxes throughout the prefecture. He was immensely popular with the armies of the
West. Inevitably the very situation which Constantius had tried to prevent came
about: Julian was proclaimed emperor by his troops who followed him to the
East to contest supremacy with Constantius. The clash never came. Constantius
died before the armies met and Julian was acknowledged as sole ruler by both
East and West.
Two factors contributed to produce a monetary crisis in the West: the need to
eradicate all memory of Magnentius; and the need to prevent Julian having
access to cash with which to suborn the army (Amm.xxii.7). The first of these
was the subject of an imperial enactment which demonetized both the coinage of
the usurper and all of the silver-rich Constantinian coins issued before 353,
including the reformed FEL TEMP REPARATIO coinage. In the East this
coinage had quickly lost any silver content and by the time the empire was
reunited the only surviving issue was a very much reduced version of the unit,
the production of the half and third having ceased. The main feature of this coin
was the reverse type which depicted a Roman soldier spearing a Persian
cavalryman who had fallen from his stricken horse. It was this ‘Fallen
Horseman’ coin which was legitimized as the only legal coin in the West by the
 CARAUSIUS II 159

rescript of 354 (C.Th.9.23). At virtually the same time, Julian arrived in Gaul and
supplies of money dried up. Julian himself is recorded as being unable to give a
soldier who solicited him for the price of a shave even the few coppers that the
barber would have charged. A survey of site finds confirms the virtual absence
of official imperial coinage in Britain and northern Gaul during Julian’s tenure of
office. What is found on sites and in hoards is a substantial quantity of
imitiations of the coin prescribed as legitimate by the rescript, that is copies of
post-353 ‘Falling Horseman’ FEL TEMP REPARATIO coinage, often overstruck
on demonetized Constantinian coins. The overwhelming bulk of these coins are
identifiable as bearing, in some form, no matter how garbled, the name of
Constantius II. In this mass have been identified a few, and it is very few indeed,
which bear the name Carausius or some recognizable attempt to render that name
(Pl.9, no.4).
While the above account encompasses the majority of the ‘Carausius II’ coins
the first specimen to be identified and published is a copy not of the post-353
coinage but of a type issued early in the FEL TEMP REPARATIO reform in 348–
50. This type features the emperor standing in a galley which is steered by a
figure of Victory (Evans, 1887). In discussing the coin, which was found at
Richborough, Evans advanced the theory that this Carausius was an otherwise
unrecorded fifth-century ruler of southern Britain. Observing the placing of a
garbled version of the name Constantius (which he read as ‘Constantine’) on the
reverse, instead of the normal FEL TEMP REPARATIO inscription which should
have occupied that area, Evans concluded that ‘Carausius’ was associated with
Constantine III, who revolted in Britain in 406, crossed to the Continent and was
defeated and killed in Spain in 411. Further, he noted:

Whether we regard this Carausius as an actual nominee of Constantine at

this critical juncture, or whether we regard him as an independent usurper
who considered it politic to bid for Constantine’s recognition in a
Caesarean capacity, we shall not be far wrong…in referring the issue of
this…coin to the year 409.

Noting that Constantine was elevated because of his auspicious name, Evans
comments that:

…the memory of the brave Carausius, who first raised Britain to a position
of naval supremacy, may have influenced the choice of this obscure Caesar
at a moment when the Romano-British population was about to assert as it
had never done before its independence of the Continental Empire.

Evans’s paper remained the major contribution to the elucidation of this coinage
until the problem was reopened by C.H.V.Sutherland, who drew upon an
enlarged corpus of material (Sutherland, 1945). This included not only Evans’s
coin from Richborough but another from the same site and two other
160 THE BRITISH USURPERS

unprovenanced specimens. Where it could be ascertained, a garbled version of the

name of Constantius replaced the reverse legend. The new specimens were all of
the ‘Falling Horseman’ variety. A new dimension was added at this stage by the
finding, at Richborough, of another ‘ruler’ making his appearance in this series
whose name is read as either Cenceris or Genceris. Sutherland rejected Evans’s
attribution of this coinage to the fifth century and placed the issue in the general
context of other FEL TEMP REPARATIO copies, in the 350s. He remained
convinced that they represented issues by actual rulers who, through the
inclusion of the name of Constantius on the reverse ‘can be seen claiming to be
the colleagues—junior, perhaps, but colleagues none the less—of a legitimate
emperor, Constantius II, whose name they prudently allow to appear on the
reverse, however willingly they may have disowned him’. Sutherland concludes
that:

The temporary emergence of these petty rulers might be attributed to the

period of (or just after) the usurpation of Magnentius, when Constantius’s
grip on Britain must have been weakened. Here was the opportunity for
partial autonomy, open to those who had enough enterprise to grasp it: and
if this Carausius was the grandson of the third-century emperor, he may
well have inherited his grand-father’s initiative.

Noting the south-eastern focus of the finds led Sutherland to suggest that a semi-
independent dominium existed, with Richborough as its administrative centre.
In the following quarter of a century a number of further specimens came to
light, including one from Silchester, which led to the suggestion that Carausius II
ruled over a wide tract of southern Britain (Boon, 1955). Authors reporting these
finds accepted Sutherland’s interpretation of their political context (Hill, 1948).
A variation on the Sutherland view was offered by C.E. Stevens who proposed
that Carausius II was a nominee of Constantius II given the task of detaching
Britain from the realms of the usurper Magnentius (Stevens, 1956).
A highly technical review of the problem, and one which is regarded as the
definitive study of the coinage, was inspired by the appearance of Stevens’s
paper (Kent, 1957). In the light of studies of the internal chronology of the FEL
TEMP REPARATIO coinage it is possible to isolate the production of the
Carausius and Censeris copies to the years 354–8. These were years in which
Constantius held undisputed control over the whole empire, indeed this is
precisely the period in which his agents were so active extirpating the supporters
of Magnentius in Britain. There is no context here for petty insular rulers sharing
domain with the legitimate emperor, nor does the date allow credence to
Stevens’s hypothesis of a nominee created to detach
Britain from Magnentius, who died in 353. Kent meets the problem of the
appearance of Constantius’s name on the reverse of these coins by pointing out
that ‘regular’ copies occur with a version of the imperial name on both sides. He
 CARAUSIUS II 161

concludes that it is ‘most unlikely that an actual ruler called “Carausius II” ever
existed’.
Kent’s magisterial survey of the coinage of the mid-fourth century has been
persuasive and comment on the Carausius II coins among numismatists has been
limited to reiterating his views while observing that specimens of the coins are
now known not only from south-east England but from as far north as York and
as far west as north Wales (Boon, 1988). This is not the case with ancient
historians and an argument has been advanced recently for the re-establishment
of Carausius II as a real person, and a rebel in Britain to boot (Thompson, 1990).
Such advocacy meets a problem since it must overcome the silence of
Ammianus Marcellinus, who gives what appears to be a very full account of
events in Britain at the critical period. Thompson dissents from Kent’s view that
Britain was firmly under imperial control, pointing out that the activities of
Constantius’s agents, sent to root out the adherents of Magnentius, were actually
limited to the year 353 and that the coins in question were not issued before 354.
Thompson’s view, based on a reading of Ammianus, is that a revolt broke out in
Britain in the 350s in which, it is implied, ‘Carausius II’ was involved. The
silence of the historian about the hypothesized Carausius is explained because

…he included only the outstanding events of Roman history and is

excluding what he thinks of as details…Now, Britain was a distant
province ‘at the extremities of the world’, and so its affairs were of less
interest than those of other provinces closer to the Mediterranean.
Ammianus’s silence does not disprove the existence of Carausius II.

This is true to a certain degree but of all the extremities of the empire it is
precisely Britain that Ammianus deals with most fully.
For the present, the case for Carausius II remains unproven, and we may note
the problem of ‘Genseris’ has been entirely neglected. The corpus of coinage
under review now consists of some twenty specimens, but a close study of FEL
TEMP REPARATIO copies from hoards and site finds would probably produce
more; to date no die-study has been undertaken of the available coins. The
questions remain. Why Carausius? Never the easiest of names to reproduce on a
coin die, as the bungled efforts of late third-century copyists demonstrate and
attempts at the name on the fourth-century coins confirm. Why the imperial
name on the reverse and why the use of the titles Dominus and Caesar, in a
manner not found in use on the regular FEL TEMP REPARATIO prototypes?
Uncouth though they may be, there is a degree of originality in these mysterious
objects which persuades the sceptic that something, as yet unexplained, lies
behind their production. Whether that has any connection with the third-century
Carausius or whether we have here a case of what biologists call ‘convergent
evolution’ may never be known.
 14
CARAUSIUS AND ALLECTUS IN THE
POST-ROMAN WORLD

THE EPISODE OF CARAUSIUS AND Allectus made very little impact in the
Roman world as a whole. It was soon forgotten and little attention was paid by
historians; a revolt in a distant, and not very important, area of the empire was
not of much interest to historians in the East. By the time that the Byzantine
historian Zonaras completed his universal history in the early twelfth century the
memory of events had already become hopelessly distorted: ‘The prefect
Asclepiodotus destroyed Crassus [sic!] who had held Britain for three years
[sic!]’ (Zon.xii.31).
In the West we have seen that the short accounts of Aurelius Victor and
Eutropius enshrine material from an earlier work, no longer extant, and that
Orosius drew his account from Eutropius, offering a paraphrase of his source. In
his turn Bede reproduced Orosius word for word (Bede 1.6). There is no
reference to the episode or protagonists in Gildas’s De exidio Britanniae, in itself
a startling commentary on his knowledge of Roman Britain.
The post-classical study of Carausius and, to a lesser degree, Allectus made
little advance on the statements of the panegyricists and the near-contemporary
historians until the development of modern numismatic studies and the advent of
large-scale archaeological excavation. On the contrary, the study of the few
reasonable records was abandoned in favour of a series of fictions which better
suited the historical needs of later ages, as, from time to time, the essential
elements of the story attracted the interest of nationalist historians both in Britain
and on the Continent.
From the seventeenth century the frequency with which new coins were found
and recorded excited a strong collector interest in the subject. The finds were
instrumental in creating a body of literary connoisseurship of a generally
uninformed nature.
On the whole, each age has created the Carausius it deserved, though there are
ages which did not deserve the scholars who did the creating. It is with the
Historia Brittonum, ascribed to Nennius, that the thread of fantasy which is
woven through much of Carausian study was first spun out. The nature of the
Historia Brittonum deserves, and has received, study in itself. The most apposite
description of its nature is that put forward briefly by Alcock:
 THE BRITISH USURPERS 163

Internal evidence shows that the Miscellany [Alcock renames the Historia
The British Historical Miscellany’ for reasons which do not concern us
here] was put together in the second half of the tenth century… The
compilation of the Miscellany may reasonably be attributed to the
scriptorium of St David’s (in Wales) Nennius is generally agreed to have
had a hand in writing the Historia, but it is disputed whether he merely
added fresh material to a pre-existing Historia…or whether he was himself
the original author or compiler We can readily observe that the Nennian
Historia is a hotch-potch of historical material garnered in from various
sources…
(Alcock, 1971)

Nennius’s most important contribution to the Carausian story is to place the

revolt in the reign of Septimius Severus rather than that of Diocletian. He lists, in
a garbled form, the emperors who personally intervened in Britain. Thus we have
Claudius, Hadrian, Severus, Maximianus and Constantine of the legitimate
emperors and the usurpers, Carausius and Maximus. There is no mention of
Constantine III or his short-lived predecessors, Gratian and Marcus. The
appearance of Maximianus Herculeus, the colleague of Diocletian, who is not
recorded as having visited Britain, is surprising. The entry may be a garbled
scribal duplication of Magnus Maximus. There is no mention in the list of
Constantius who was twice in Britain. Possibly the name dropped out with the
appearance of Maximianus. The name of Carausius is rendered as Caritius,
though whether this corruption is derived from Nennius’s source, is his own
creation or a scribal error cannot be ascertained. The sources of the Historia
Britonnum are themselves obscure. The account of Carausius reads:

The fourth [i.e. of the seven emperors resident in Britain] was Caritius,
emperor and tyrant, who on this account was tyrant for the slaying of
Severus. And with him all the leaders of the Roman race who were with
him in Britain, he chastised all the rulers of the Britons and severely
avenged Severus on them and seized the purple in Britain. (Nen.24)

The association of Carausius with the death of Severus, who actually died of
natural causes at York in 211 while campaigning in Britain, was a theme which
was to be vastly elaborated by Geoffrey of Monmouth in the Historia Regum
Britanniae which was completed in 1136. It passed thence into the chronicle
histories of Scotland. These in their turn elaborated the story, for the benefit of
Scottish claims on English territory, and provided a northern context for
Carausian activity which was further elaborated in the eighteenth century with a
wealth of spurious etymological and topographical detail. Geoffrey claimed that
the contents of his work derived from ‘a certain very ancient book written in the
British language’ which had been given to him by Walter, the Archdeacon of
Oxford. It was claimed that the information in the book had been handed down
164 CARAUSIUS AND ALLECTUS IN THE POST-ROMAN WORLD

orally, generation to generation, from before the Roman Conquest, until finally
committed to written form. Naturally, modern scholars are extremely sceptical of
this statement and Geoffrey’s work has been described as a pseudo-history of
great imaginative power (Wright, 1981). Detailed analysis of the text indicates
that a variety of classical works were available from which spurious Roman
names could be derived to give a superficial integrity to invented incidents, and
that the texts of both Gildas and Nennius were employed.
In any event, the contents of the work have little or no historical value but
have been extremely influential in literature and art: the story of King Lear and a
great number of the legends of King Arthur derive directly from Geoffrey. The
Historia is a product of its age. This was an age in which English institutions,
and national consciousness, were reasserting themselves after the trauma of the
Norman Conquest a century earlier. It has also been described as an age in which
writers patronized by the Anglo-Norman aristocracy sought to give a respectable
history to the conquered island. Contempt for Anglo-Saxon institutions was
widespread, a feeling that an unworthy foe had been overcome was prevalent in
intellectual circles. Geoffrey’s work supplied a need:

By re-asserting the Trojan origins of the British, which gave them an

ancestry as ancient as any European people, Geoffrey was able to represent
Britain as the equal, and often superior, of Rome. This was a history in
which the Norman masters of Britain could take pride.
(Wright, 1981)

Thus the work attempts to place Britain and its native institutions in a context
preceding the Anglo-Saxon period. Geoffrey was part of the Anglo-Norman
ecclesiastical establishment and lived and taught in Oxford; his connection with
Monmouth was, at best, simply a matter of geography rather than ancestry.
Nevertheless, the condition of Wales is a constant undercurrent in his work, the
Welsh of his own day being denigrated as unworthy descendants of the ancestral
Britons. Despite this, they are less objectionable than the English, so that in the
powerful legend, which makes its first appearance in Geoffrey, that Merlin will
rise and call Arthur from his sleep, it is to save Britain, not England. Geoffrey’s
version of the story of Carausius and Allectus is worth recapitulating in extenso
since it forms the basis for nearly all pre-modern accounts.
Following the Roman conquest of Britain, the island was returned to the
government of British kings. On the death of King Lucius, in the middle of the
second century, relations between Britons and Romans broke down. As a result
of this the Roman senate sent Severus, with two legions, to restore order. This he
did, driving the Britons into Caledonia, confining them there with a wall which he
built across the island (i.e. Hadrian’s Wall). The British leader, Sulgenius, unable
to attack the province, crossed the sea to Scythia where he enrolled the youth of
the Picts, returned with a huge fleet and besieged York where Severus was
killed. Severus’s two sons, Geta and Bassianus, fought and Geta was killed. At
 THE BRITISH USURPERS 165

this time a young, humbly born Carausius, who had shown his bravery in battles
in Britain, went to Rome and persuaded the senate to put him in charge of a fleet
to defend the coasts of Britain. But he used the fleet to attack the island,
eventually forcing the inhabitants to make him king. He then fought Bassianus
who, betrayed by the Picts, was killed. In gratitude Carausius gave the Picts land
in Albany (i.e. Scotland). When the senate heard of these events they sent
Allectus to Britain, who killed Carausius and large numbers of the Britons. The
latter turned to the Duke of Cornwall, Asclepiodotus, for help, and elected him
King of Britain. Asclepiodotus marched on Allectus, defeating and killing him. A
remnant of Allectus’s forces fled to London where they were besieged and
defeated by Asclepiodotus and a confederation of the tribes of Britain.
Asclepiodotus then reigned for ten years ‘with true justice and peace’.
Geoffrey’s narrative immediately struck root in the vernacular literature of his
age, being transcribed into English rhyming couplets in Robert of Gloucester’s
Chronicle which was completed in the first decades of the thirteenth century
(Hearne, 1724). The text follows that of the Historia Regum Britanniae very
closely. The quotation of a few lines will show the closeness to the original:

A stalleworthe young bachiler in this lond was tho, Caraus was yclepud,
that couthe of much wo. For tho he had in werre y be, & do gret maistrie,
And him much yfond, he thougte do tricherie. He went and bed leve tho of
the empeour of Rome, And bi het hym, that, gef ther of we avaunced he
wer, To gelde mor god of Rome, than al Breteyne thider bere.

The influence of the Historia on the Scottish historians of the medieval period
was profound, since it introduced the notion that Carausius had had dealings with
the Picts and had assigned land to them in Albany, that is eastern Scotland.
Geoffrey is, as far as can be ascertained, the originator of this story. There is no
warrant for it in any ancient source and, while it is not impossible that Carausius
was active on the northern frontier, it is unlikely in the extreme that Geoffrey
would have known of this.
The conjunction of Carausius and the Picts is extraordinary on another count—
the first reference to them in Roman literature post-dates the demise of
Carausius. They make their appearance, in surviving ancient literature, nine
years after the defeat of Allectus when Constantius returned to Britain to
campaign against them. We must conjecture that Geoffrey’s story is a back
formation from the later event and was invented in order to accommodate the
presence of Constantius in Britain without the necessity of involving him with
the Picts. Geoffrey’s version of events is that Constantius came to deal with King
Coel, of nursery-rhyme fame, who had risen in revolt against Asclepiodotus and
killed him. Subsequently
Constantius marries Coel’s daughter, Helena. Constantine the Great is born of
this marriage.
166 CARAUSIUS AND ALLECTUS IN THE POST-ROMAN WORLD

It is this narrative thread which is picked up and elaborated by John of Fordun

in his Chronica Gentis Scotorum (Skene, 1872). Fordun was born in the last
years of the thirteenth or the very earliest of the fourteenth century and died in
1385. His early life encompassed that crucial period of Scottish history which
culminated in England ceding sovereignty of his native land to the Scottish king
Robert the Bruce in 1327. By the terms of this treaty it was agreed:

that the said kingdom, according to its ancient boundaries observed in the
days of Alexander III [1249–86], should remain unto Robert, King of
Scots…free and divided from England without any subjection, right of
service, claim, or demand whatsoever…

The later years of Fordun’s life saw renewed and steady English encroachment
on this territory.
Fordun’s purpose in composing the Chronicle can be seen as being similar to
Geoffrey’s in its nationalistic motivation. As Geoffrey sought to establish the
distinctiveness of Britain, so Fordun emphasizes the uniqueness of Scotland.
Like Geoffrey, he provides the nation with an inspirational version of its own
history, in this case stretching back through a line of kings which pre-dates the
creation of the English monarchy itself. The sources marshalled for this task
were essentially the earlier medieval accounts, with some input from the
classical sources. These were supplemented by newly minted stories designed to
show that Scotland was able to maintain its independence even when faced by
external threat. Characteristic of the nationalist invention is the tale of the
intervention of Julius Caesar in Scottish affairs by way of an aggressive letter
sent to the Scottish king. Caesar, for his trouble, receives a stirring reply
denouncing his threats in terms consonant with the newly established
independence of the country from English intervention.
The Carausian episode follow Geoffrey’s well-established lines. Fulgentius,
the Sulgentius of Geoffrey, the leader of the Britons in Albania, unites the Scots
and the Picts to campaign against Septimius Severus but the allies are thwarted
when Severus builds Hadrian’s Wall. Nevertheless, they circumvent the Wall
and launch a naval attack on York which is captured after a siege: Severus is
killed. Following this the Picts and Scots fall out, after living in harmony for five
hundred years. Evidently the chronicler had forgotten his

claim that they had only recently united to deal with the Roman threat.
…in proportion to the earnestness with which they formerly nurtured the
friendship between them…with bitterness with which their enmity
thenceforth grew, from day to day, by rapine, fire, slaughter, treachery, and
various tumults and raids… However, peace was restored by Carausius, a
Briton, whose object…was to take them to fight against the Romans…
 THE BRITISH USURPERS 167

Following his introduction Carausius is defined as a usurper by reference to the

ancient sources to which is added that he:

…pressingly solicited all the nations of the island, as well as the Scots and
Picts, upon whom he had formerly committed the most cruel depredations,
to enter into a friendly treaty with him…[to] join him in driving the
Romans out of the island…he…conceded to them [i.e. the Picts and Scots]
that the possessions they had acquired by the sword, in Nero’s time,
should…remain theirs, in their integrity, for ever.

This is simply a confusion of Gildas’s account of the attacks by the Picts and
Scots on Britain with events in the reign of Nero, when Eutropius mistakenly
records that Britain was nearly lost. This itself was a distant memory of Nero’s
wish to withdraw from Britain in the years immediately following the death of
Claudius in 54 (Birley, 1955). In any event, Carausius ratifies the treaty which,
like that made with Robert the Bruce, recognized the independent integrity of
Scotland. Almost at once a Roman army, sent from overseas, attacked. The leader
of this expedition is named as Bassianus who, Fordun specifies, was not the son
of Severus, since he knows perfectly well that Caracalla was assassinated while
on his way to a campaign against the Parthian empire. Bassianus invaded the
island where he:

…crushed the Britons by sundry massacres and proscriptions. But he was

afterwards, with many of his soldiers, slain in a most hard fought battle, by
Carausius, and by the Scots and Picts, who had joined with him.

Having brought together the Picts and Scots, representative of the Highland and
Lowland elements of the Scotland of Fordun’s day, Carausius succumbs to the
treachery of Allectus. With his death the unity of the nation falls apart, stressing
that Scotland, because of its devisive tribal structure, can be unified only under
charismatic leadership like that of Robert the Bruce:

Meanwhile, the greater part of the British nation renewed the treaty of
alliance they had formerly made with the Scots, and strove, if possible, to
put Adlectus to death, or drive him out of Britannia, on account of the
death of Carausius, their chief. Adlectus, on the other hand, accompanied
by the Picts, who had broken the treaty they had formerly sworn with the
Britons, inflicted many injuries on Britannia. At length, a few years after,
advancing to battle with them, he himself, after a great slaughter on both
sides, fell among the slain, as he well deserved.

The insidious nature of Allectus and his dipomacy is made clear for it has long-
term effects on Scotland:
168 CARAUSIUS AND ALLECTUS IN THE POST-ROMAN WORLD

Afterwards, as often as the Romans made war on the British nation, the
Scots would help the latter, and come faithfully to their rescue; while the
Picts would assiduously give their support to the Romans against the
Britons. For the cunning of Adlectus had separated the Picts from the
Britons, and these two nations thenceforth wasted each other, with mutual
massacres, until the time of Maximus, emperor in Gaul [i.e. Magnus
Maximus].

Presumably they abruptly stop mutual massacres at this specific time because the
evidence of Gildas is that, with the departure of Maximus in 383, the south of
Britain was ravaged by the combined attacks of the Picts and the Scots, and it
must have been evident to a chronologer, even as inventive as Fordun, that he
had a massive evidential discrepancy on his hands.
There is nothing in this text which does not have a place in Scottish history in
its medieval context and nothing that has a place in a Roman one. The confusion
of easily ascertainable facts indicates that Fordun held no brief with historical
accuracy; his aims are not historical in the sense that a modern historian would
use the term. His inventions transcend the poverty of his sources to inspire his
nation with a sense of place and racial continuity as a buttress against their
formidable southern enemy.
The nationalistic theme is continued in the Scottish Chronicle of Hector
Boethius. Written in the fifteenth century, Boethius’s work has been claimed to
contain circumstantial detail which may reflect a genuine historical tradition.
Webb commented that ‘This account is certainly most interesting, and it is
difficult to regard it as purely imaginary. Its details are minute and not
inconsistent with the accounts of the Roman authors’ (Webb, 1906). As we shall
see, this optimistic view, expressed in the early twentieth century, had been
refuted by a less sanguine editor of Boethius’s work as early as 1577.
Boethius adds new inventions to the story, but a glimmer of the historical
figure is discernible in the fictional miasma. In Boethius’s account Carausius,
here named Carantius, is the brother of Findock and uncle of Crathlynt. On being
implicated in the murder of Findock, Carantius flees to Italy where he serves in
the armies of the successive emperors from Aurelian to Diocletian. Falling foul of
Maximian he returns home, settling in the north of Britain. There follows a
reconciliation with Crathlynt, who joins Carantius to campaign and fight the
Romans. Carantius also reconciles the Picts and Scots. Meanwhile Quintus
Bassianus, the Roman governor, marches against Carantius and his allies who
have occupied York. A battle in the vicinity of the city results in the death of
Bassianus and Hircius, the ‘procurator of Caesar’. Carantius then marches to
London after rewarding his Caledonian allies:

Hee sent also with them his ambassadors, to render thankes unto bothe the
kings [i.e. of the Picts and of the Scots] for theyr ayd in this so prosperous
a victorie, assigning unto them as a portion of the conquest, the countreys
 THE BRITISH USURPERS 169

of Westmorland and Cumberland, with all that region whiche lay betwixt
Adrian’s walle, and the citie of Yorke, to enjoy as their owne patrimonie
for evermore.

Thus, from this tumultuous fiction, the Scots received a patent for the very
territory over which their reivers and raiders were ranging at the time of the
compilation of the Chronicle. Territory in which the Tudor Lords of the Marches
were trying to maintain English dominance and peaceful settlement.
Two points in this narrative have excited comment and, among some
incautious scholars, the belief in its essential historicity. The first is the naming of
the governor of Britain as Quintus Bassianus and the second the reference to a
‘procurator of Caesar’, Hircius. The former is a further elaboration of the fiction
derived from the Nennian confusion of the absolute dates of the emperors whom
he lists as having visited or raised revolt in Britain, a confusion which juxtaposed
Carausius and Septimius Severus, whose son bore the throne name Marcus
Aurelius Antoninus but was originally named Bassianus. Confusingly, history
knows him as Caracalla, a nickname which none would have dared use to his
face. The procurator has no previous appearance and seems to be an independent
invention. None of the chronicle accounts show the least knowledge of the true
administrative structure of late-third-century Britain and all persist in the belief
that there was a single governor rather than the two officials administering
Britannia Superior and Britannia Inferior.
The Scottish sources offer the addition to the Carausian canon of an important
topographical detail, the attribution of Arthur’s O’on to the usurper. This domed
building, erected on the north slope of the Carron Valley, two miles north of
Falkirk, stood intact until its demolition in 1743 to provide material to repair a
mill-dam. The exact date and function of the building is disputed but it is most
likely to have been erected as a mausoleum or shrine during the Antonine
occupation of Scotland (Steer, 1958). The fact that the building stood on the
banks of the river Carron proved too much of a temptation to early etymologists,
and Carron and Carausius became inextricably entwined with the result that the
building came to be used as physical proof of the intervention of Carausius in
Scotland. Boethius’s work first appeared in English as part of Holinshed’s
Chronicles (Holinshed, 1577). Holinshed’s translation, quoted above, was not
itself a rendition of Boethius’s Latin original but an anglicization of a translation
‘into the Scottish speech by John Balledon, Archdeacon of Murray’.
Holinshed also contributes a version of the Carausian episode to the history of
England, the narrative being similar to that of the Scottish tradition since it is a
recapitulation of Geoffrey of Monmouth. But Holinshed includes this version
only for completeness for, having toiled through the narrative of Geoffrey, he
then cuts the Gordian knot of three centuries of Carausian speculation by
reiterating the contemporary Latin sources; he sorts their evidence into order,
offers a series of correct dates of events and provides an English translation of
the Panegyric of 297. This represents a very considerable scholarly achievement
170 CARAUSIUS AND ALLECTUS IN THE POST-ROMAN WORLD

and could have been the point from which an understanding of events,
uncluttered by later accretions, might have been launched. In the event, the
impact of Geoffrey and the Scottish continuators was too pervasive to be easily
dispersed. It is this version which was transmitted by such influential works as
that of John Speed who, in his The History of Greate Britaine (Speed, 1611)
relays Geoffrey of Monmouth to a further generation of English historians.
Geoffrey was also influential in the European historical tradition. While, on
the whole, Continental scholarship was always more firmly rooted in the ancient
texts than contemporary British scholarship, access to the Historia, from
Geoffrey’s text itself or his Continental medieval assimilators still influenced
discussion of Carausius and Allectus. The degree to which the best Continental
scholarship exceeded the insular in mastery of source material can be judged by
the discussion of Allectus presented by Jean Tristan in his Commentaires
Historiques (Tristan, 1644). Tristan’s concern is with the name Allectus, its
derivation and significance. Noting that the word means ‘selected’ or ‘chosen’,
he deploys a battery of literary and epigraphic evidence to elucidate his thesis,
including an inscription from Lyons, the Hymns of Prudentius and three rescripts
from the Theodosian Code.
However, Tristan’s breadth of classical learning misled him in one important
question, the origins of Carausius. As we have seen, the classical sources
describe him as a Menapian, that is from the northern coastal area of Gallia
Belgica, but Tristan, mulling over all the possible locations of Menapia, came to
the conclusion that ‘Carausius, duquel nous ne scavons les praenom et nom de
famille, estoit Hibernois…’ (Carausius, whose forename and family name we do
not know, was an Irishman.) The Irish claim to have fostered Carausius was to
have a strong advocate in the next century.
While Tristan was producing his history an author of a different complexion was
at work in Italy. The result is one of the most extraordinary items in the
Carausian canon since the author’s object was nothing less than to prove that the
Doge of Venice, Giovanni Pesaro (1658–9), was descended from the Roman
rebel (Pl.9, no.7). Zabarella derived his narrative of British history from Geoffrey
of Monmouth, or the Continental traditions which stemmed from him. On to this
he grafted his own inventions in order to bridge the vast gap between the point
where Geoffrey’s narrative ends and Italian family records begin. Zabarella is
plain as to his intentions and the reason for undertaking the work: ‘Tutte la famiglie
ascritte ne Patrizii delle Serenissima republicca Veneziana possedono
indubitatamente una sublime nobilita’ (All of the Patrician families of the Most
Serene republic of Venice are, undoubtedly, of the utmost nobility). But none can
claim such utmost nobility as the subject of the genealogy since ‘Carausio
imperatore indubitamente su’il vero stipte Padre et Progenitore di questa
Serenissima stirpe, la quale forse lui fu etta detta Carausii, et poi corrotamente de
carosii noblissima, et antichissima in Venezia’ (The emperor Carausius is
undoubtably the true paternal root and progenitor of this most ancient and noble
Venetian family, which was, perhaps, called Carausii, and corruptly Carosii).
 THE BRITISH USURPERS 171

Zabarella claims that the descendants of Carausius had settled in Venice,

under their own name, but had retired in troubled times to Pesaro. On their return
to Venice for reasons which are not explained they chose to adopt the name of
their place of exile rather than resume the proud name of Carosii/Carausii.
Discarding the view that the Pesari were descendants of the mere senatorial
Carisii of the late Republic, one of whom, T.Carisius, served as a quaestor of
Julius Caesar, the genealogist pursues his subject.
His genealogical stemma is ingenious. Sixty-seven generations after the reign
of Jove, king of Etruria and emperor of the world, Cunobeline the king of Britain
produced a son named Carausius. The latter was the father of a line of three
Carausii who are, respectively, his great-, great-great-, and great-great-great-
grandsons. The last of these is father of Bonosus, the father of Carausius, the
emperor or Britain. Happily for the Pesari, Carausius manages to provide
offspring before being assassinated by Allectus. Of the ancestors of Carausius
the emperor, the most distinguished was the fourth Carausius, The Rhetorician’,
‘che insegno a gl’Inglesi le buone lettere, la Rhethorica, et li buoni costumi…’)
(who introduced to the English literature, rhetoric and decent clothes). Thus the
origins of the Italian fashion industry in Britain.
Carausius himself is related to King Coel, the seventy-eighth king of Britain,
father of Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great. The family reunites
legitimacy with imperial rule in the reign of Gratian, after which 15 generations
of Carosii are recorded down to the ninth century. The family then gathers strength
and under the name Pesaro contributes 24 generations down to the recipient of this
extraordinary work.
While it is easy to deride Zabarella’s naïve enthusiasm and uncritical methods,
a deconstruction of his text points to an important underlying motive for the
choice of an ancestor for Giovanni Pesaro. The recipient of the work was in a
situation comparable to that of Carausius himself. The parallel will not have
escaped Zabarella, since Venice was in a most perilous situation, having recently
embarked upon the defence of its most important overseas territory, the island of
Crete, which it had gained when the Crusaders sacked Constantinople. The
eventual loss of this island was to reduce Venice from being an imperial, to a
relatively low-status power on the Italian mainland. At the same time Christian
Europe would relinquish its most important strategic bastion against Islam. The
Turks invaded in 1645, finally gaining the island in 1669. Pesaro’s reign was too
short to have had any military importance in the long struggle for mastery of the
island, but he did make an important contribution to the outcome of the
struggle since he came to the throne because of the vehemence with which he
denounced Turkish peace overtures, made during the reign of his predecessor.
The first comprehensive history of Carausius is that of Claude Genebrier, a
work which took a fundamentally new approach to the subject, being based on
numismatic as well as literary evidence (Genebrier, 1740). Despite this
methodological advance on previous work, the execution is less than
satisfactory. The patron of this work was John Carteret (1690–1763), 1st Earl of
172 CARAUSIUS AND ALLECTUS IN THE POST-ROMAN WORLD

Granville, a prominent politician and diplomat in the reigns of the first two
Georges and an outspoken opponent of Walpole. Among other posts held by
Carteret was that of Viceroy of Ireland. Genebrier, according to his own account,
met Carteret in Paris and discovered that they had a mutual interest in coins,
especially those of Carausius. For his part the author, who was a physician at the
court of Louis XIV, had visited England in 1713 and had seen and studied the
collection of Lord Winchelsea.
The work is entirely partisan and in the preface addressed to the patron
Genebrier makes his sympathies entirely clear:

Mais plus j’avançois dans mes recherches, plus j’y trouvois des difficultés.
Cependant, la passion de vous [i.e. Carteret] marquer mon zèle et le désir
de mettre la verité dans son jour, 1’ont enfin emporté; et Carausius vient
aujourd’hui reparoitre dans le monde, non pas sous le déguisement que
certains auteurs lui avoient prêté, mais, tel qu’il fut autrefois. II a fallu
chercher des témoignages plus sûrs, les médailles et les autres monumens
de ce genre m’ont fait enfin connoître, avec combien d’injustice Mamertin
derobe a notre Heros les louanges que la prevention lui fit prodiguer a
Maximien. Mais, dans le dessin de venger Carausius de cette injustice, et
de lui assurer a jamais une gloire immortelle; j’ai cru de lui faire revivre
sous les auspices de Votre Excellence.
But the further I progressed with my research, the more difficulties I
found. Nevertheless, the desire to show you my zeal and the desire to bring
the truth to light finally triumphed and Carausius today reappears in the
world not in the guise certain authors have ascribed to him, but as he was
in the past. More reliable evidence had to be sought; the coins and other
material of that kind finally made me recognize how unjustly Mamertinus
[i.e. author of the panegyrics delivered in 289 and 291] withholds from our
hero the praise which prejudice made him grace Maximian with. But, with
the intention of avenging Carausius for this injustice, and of assuring him
an everlasting glory, I believe that I could restore him under the auspices
of Your Excellency.

The difficulties encountered appear to have been prolonged since the Royal
Censor endorsed the text in 1724, but inscriptions are cited which did not appear
until 1726. A permit to publish was given in 1737, three years before the book
reached the public. Genebrier also laboured under the difficulty of having no
corpus of the coinage, his data base being a random collection of coins noted in
cabinets to which he had access. He was unable to put this material into any sort
of chronological sequence, with the exception of the EXPECTATE VENI and
ADVENTVS AVG types which he reasonably deduced to be early in the reign. In
these circumstances Genebrier used his imagination to interpret the coins as
revealing a sequence of imperial activities, mostly of a ceremonial nature, which
occupied Carausius during his reign. While this investigation results in nothing
 THE BRITISH USURPERS 173

but fiction it is a pioneering attempt to use the evidence of coinage in a

distinctively new manner.
From the literary evidence Genebrier added his own charming but misguided
fables to the extant corpus. Typical of the work is the episode of the ‘Baths of
Carausius’. Having noted that Carausius achieved such fame that ‘Après sa mort
il y eut des empereurs romains qui se firent honneur de faire porter ce nom à
leurs enfans… Constance [i.e. Constantius II]…avoit une fille entr’autres, qui
s’appelloit Carausa…’ (After his death there were Roman emperors who did him
the honour of giving his name to their children…Constantius…had a daughter,
among others, whom he named Carausa.), Genebrier turns his attention to the
Thermae Carosianae, an imperial bath-house in Constantinople (Seeck, 1876),
which he attributes to this fictitious daughter of Constantius. Carosa was the
daughter of the emperor Valens (364–78), not of Constantius, whose only child
was Constantia. It was an inconvenience that the baths are in Constantinople but
this did not matter. On the contrary, ‘Ce qui prouveroit que Carausius auroit
étendu les limites de son empire jusque dans 1’Orient’ (This proves that
Carausius extended the bounds of his empire as far as the Orient’). It is regretted
that the thermae at Bath could not be equated with this establishment but, after
much anguish, Genebrier has to reject the identification. Not merely are the
Thermae Carosianae firmly located in the eastern capital but those at Bath
already have a well-attested name, Aquae Solis (sic!—recte Sulis), the Waters of
the Sun. Nevertheless, Bath has its own claim to fame:

Ces bains sont encore aujourd’hui fort renommés pour la guérison de

plusieurs maladies: et c’est la que les Mylords et les autres Seigneurs
Anglois vont dans le Printemps et dans I’ Automne, tant pour leur propre
santé, que pour se délasser du gouvernement de 1’état, auquel la plupart
s’applique le reste de Tannee.
These baths are very famous today for the relief of numerous illnesses;
and it is there that the Milords and other noble English go in Spring and
Autumn, as much for the sake of their health as to relax from governing the
country, which most of them do for the rest of the year.

Presumably the ruling class of Roman Britain used them in the same spirit and
we cannot doubt that Carausius genially presided over them in due season.
In deference to his distinguished patron Genebrier, not unexpectedly, endorses
the Irish origin of Carausius. From Zabarella he adopts the view that his hero ‘Se
fut assassiné dans son lit en dormant’ (he was assassinated whilst sleeping in his
bed). Clearly it paid to keep one’s eye open at all times with the likes of Allectus
about.
While Genebrier was at work in France, Carausius was not neglected in
England. Here the academic world was in one of those doldrums that are all too
frequent a feature of the English academic world, cut off as it was by insularity
and arrogance. The second half of the seventeenth century had seen the
174 CARAUSIUS AND ALLECTUS IN THE POST-ROMAN WORLD

foundation of the Royal Society under the aegis of Newton, Wren and Boyle, by
the middle of the next century, the golden age of the Royal Society and that of
the recently founded Society of Antiquaries had passed, albeit temporarily,
leaving the area clear for the likes of William Stukeley and John Kennedy.
The problem started with a coin of Carausius found at Silchester. This was
acquired by Stukeley’s patron Dr Richard Mead, a fashionable physician, patron
of the arts and confidant of everyone who was anyone in early Georgian society.
The coin was presented by Mead to the king of France, thus removing it from
close examination. While the obverse was clearly Carausius, the reverse was
unusual, featuring the bust of a female figure surrounded by an inscription which
was read as ORIUNA. Since the coin is defective and manifestly reads
FORTUNA, the vituperative debate which followed the discovery reflects badly
on the participants, neither of whom actually saw the coin itself (Boon, 1974).
Both agreed on the reading ORIUNA, all that was at dispute was the
identification of the lady. Kennedy asserted that she was the patron deity of
Carausius, Stukeley that she was his wife. Kennedy got into print first with his
Dissertation upon Oriuna (Kennedy, 1751).
The arguments are tortuous but, in brief, the name Oriuna is derived from
Oriens and identified with the female form of either Mithras or Orion. The latter
identification has particular weight and merit because ‘this constellation was of
the highest veneration amongst the antients…’ and since Carausius was a sailor
‘so if he honoured, or shewed a more special regard and respect to this
Constellation, can no way seem strange’.
Stukeley replied with a paper entitled Oriuna wife of Carausius, Emperor of
Britain (Stukeley, 1752). In this he asserts his confidence in his own eccentric
views: ‘Tho’ I never saw the real coin, yet I always entertained an opinion that
Carausius had a family… Therefore on seeing a drawing of the coin, I was
induced to think, that it exhibited to us, the picture of Oriuna his wife’.
Though there have been ‘some doubts roused’ about the coin (notably by
Stukeley himself, who acknowledged that the best interpretation of the legend
was indeed FORTUNA) he decides that ‘I myself, in my own mind, have no
great doubt, in thinking it to exhibit Oriuna, the emperors wife’.
His proof involved postulating a son for Carausius, named Silvanus, whom he
adopts from the fictions of Zabarella, though he confesses that he is a little
bemused that that author ‘informs us not whence his intelligence is derived’.
None the less, a son, even without supporting evidence, is a great convenience
since his existence presupposes a mother. More than fifty pages of eccentric
learning are devoted to the son who, among other duties, presides over horse-
races held annually at York on 25 December to honour the Sun and denigrate
Christianity. This extraordinary invention can be traced back to the discovery of
a Mithraic sculpture found at Micklegate, York, in 1747 which depicts Sol
mounting his chariot.
Dr Kennedy, not discountenanced by this weight of learning, published his
riposte four years later (Kennedy, 1756). This work, which sets out to ‘Answer
 THE BRITISH USURPERS 175

those trifling objects made to the former discourse’, was a vigorous reply, full of
acid politeness, which reasserts the author’s former position. Stukeley is hard hit:

The different, idle, simple criticisms, or ill-founded objections, which have

been advanced by some, are in reality scarce worthy of public notice. As to
the Rev. Dr. St—y’s Letter or Dissertation…to prove Oriuna to be the wife
of Carausius, I do verily believe he scarce believes it himself, but did in
reality only mean it, as a high puff, to his patron’s [i.e. Dr Mead] present to
the Most Chr. Majesty…

Despite this, it was Stukeley who triumphed with the publication of The Medallic
History of Marcus Aurelius Carausius, Emperor in Britain (Stukeley, 1757,
1759). Though Kennedy was to produce two further pamphlets it was Stukeley’s
work which was to be the base of Carausian studies into the nineteenth century.
Stukeley’s study bears a very close relationship to that of Genebrier although
he claims not to have read Genebrier, lest he borrow anything from him.
Nevertheless he did obtain Genebrier’s plates, including the frontispieces, and
reprinted these in his own work. Further he adopts exactly the same methodology
as had been adopted by the French author. This consisted of identifying reverse
legends with religious or public festivals in the Roman calendar, sometimes by
false etymologies or parallelisms made with Biblical events, and claiming that
the alleged event was the occasion for the production of coin. The order in which
the coins were placed depended entirely upon Stukeley’s interpretation of events
during the reign; most of these he invented. In this he followed Genebrier so
closely that the claim not to have read his rival’s work stretches belief.
A number of points are to his credit, notably that he recognized mintmarks for
what they are, though the attribution to mint is, with the exception of London,
mistaken in every case. The C mint is attributed to Catteractonum (sic!)
(Catterick) in Yorkshire, the RSR series to Rutupiae (Richborough); the
Unmarked mint is not noticed. The observation that Clausentum (Bitterne) was
also a mint which has received praise from such an authority as Mattingly, who
observed that ‘it was one of the few cases where his intuition was triumphantly
right’. Alas, the years have dealt severely with this judgement and there are no
longer any grounds for ascribing minting to Clausentum in the reign of Carausius
or in any other period.
The work appeared in two parts, with a production interval of two years
between them. Little changed in the interim and the second volume merely
reiterates the fallacies of the first, while extending the theory that coin issues can
be dated by recognition of the festivals to which they allude, however obliquely
and however much the allusion is in the mind of the beholder. In the area of
narrative, Stukeley is firmly wedded to that of Geoffrey of Monmouth, or that
transmitted by the Scottish chroniclers whenever it suits his case. Thus Arthur’s
O’on, about which he had formerly written a good account and published
excellent drawings before its destruction, becomes a symbol of the treaty with
176 CARAUSIUS AND ALLECTUS IN THE POST-ROMAN WORLD

the Scots and Picts, which had been invented in the medieval tradition. Oriuna
appears but there is no extended comment on her. The ridicule which had been
heaped on both Stukeley and Kennedy may have had its effect.
Throughout his work Stukeley depended heavily on the evidence of a notorious
forgery which had been foisted on him by Charles Julius Bertram, an Englishman
resident in Copenhagen. Bertram faked a chronicle purporting to be the work of a
fourteenth-century monk of Westminster named Richard of Cirencester, which
incorporated an account of Roman Britain from hitherto unknown sources. The
manuscript also boasted a road guide, or itinerary, from which could be
reconstructed a map of the island in Roman times. It was from the latter that
Stukeley drew his conclusion that Menapia was St Davids, in Pembrokeshire.
Thus was created the Welsh Carausius to compete with the Irish one.
A recent biographer fairly sums up the Carausian contributions of Stukeley;
‘there is little to his credit in the voluminous books of notes and drafts of
Histories of Carausius that he so laboriously compiled in the later years of his
life’ (Piggott, 1985).
The Stukeley-Kennedy debates had a number of spin-offs, both academic and
literary. The Oriuna controversy had evidently achieved public notice to the
extent that her coinage became the subject of a play, by Samuel Foote, which
was performed at the Drury Lane Theatre in the year in which Stukeley first
made a claim that she was the wife of Carausius (Foote, 1745).
The plot of this lively comedy hinges on the activities of Messrs Puff and
Carmine, the latter a painter of fashionable portraits of ugly women, who had run
out of commissions. This pair, as well as faking old master paintings, are dealers
in antiquities, all of which are the product of their own hands. Among their
victims are Mr Novice and Lord Dupe; the former is the proud owner of a coin
of Oriuna:
NOVICE: But where are your Busts; Here, here, Gentlemen, here’s a curiosity; a
Medal of Oriuna, got me by Dr Mummy; the only one in the visible
World; there may be some underground.
DUPE: Fine indeed! Will you permit to taste it? It has the relish.
NOVICE: The Relish! Zooks it cost me a hundred Guineas.
PUFF: By Gar, it is a dear Bit tho’.
NOVICE: So you may think; but three times the Money should not purchase it.
DUPE: Pray Sir, whose Bust is it that dignifies this Coin?
NOVICE: The Empress Oriuna, my Lord.
DUPE: And who, Sir, might she be? I don’t recollect to have heard of the
Lady.
NOVICE: She, my Lord? Oh, she was a kind of what d’ye call’em—a sort of
Queen, or Wife, or Something or other to Somebody, that lived a
damn’d while ago—Mummy told me the whole Story; but before gad
I’ve forgotten it
 THE BRITISH USURPERS 177

Finally both Puff and Carmine are unmasked and in the denunciations which
follow poor Novice is disabused of the value of his coin.
PUFF: What, my sprightly Squire! Pray favour me with a sight of your
Oriuna.—It has the Relish; an indisputable Antique; being a Bristol
Farthing, coined by a Soap-Broiler to pay his Journeymen in the
Scarcity of Cash, and purchased for two Pence of a travelling Tinker
by, Sir, your humble Servant, Timothy Puff. Ha, ha, ha!
NOVICE: My Oriuna a Bristol Farthing!
PUFF: Most assuredly.
The year that this play appeared also saw the appearance of Thomas Amory’s
Memoirs of Several Ladies of Great Britain (Amory, 1745). This work purports
to contain the journal of a certain Mrs Marrisa Benlow, a formidable
Northumbrian blue-stocking. The lady is encountered by the author while he is
on a walking tour; amazingly she turns out to be a daughter of his best friend.
Mrs Benlow is not only thoroughly proficient in classical languages and an
impressive Shakespearian scholar, but she conducts literary duels on theological
topics with bishops and on mathematical ones with scientists. This paragon also
does the milking.
It is alleged that in 1741 Mrs Benlow set out on a Hebridean tour, during
which she had a number of intellectual adventures. A notable event in her
itinerary was her visit to a nunnery in which all the nuns confessed themselves to
be, secretly, strict Anglicans. On the Isle of Lewis she met a certain Mr Bannerman.
True to the spirit of the age this good man passed his days in the compilation of
religious treatises on the nature of the Holy Ghost. He also turns his hand to
digging up Roman remains in which the island is extraordinarily rich. His haul of
antiquities is remarkable and includes a Flavian tombstone, an altar dedicated by
Pertinax, an urn containing the ashes of the daughter of Virius Lupus and, best of
all, an altar inscribed: FORTVNAE CONSERVATRICI/PRO SALVTE/IMP
CARAVSII PF AVG/ET/ORIVNAE AVG (‘To For tune the Preserver, for the
welfare of the Emperor Carausius Pius Fortunate Augustus and Oriuna the
Augusta’). But there was more:

…Near the altar I have described, there was found an extraordinary fine
urn of speckled marble, full of ashes, but had no inscription on it. That in
this are contained the ashes of Carausius cannot be affirmed; tho’ it is
probable enough; as this emperor was often in Scotland, and in league with
the chief of the Picts, Scots and Western Islands. They had a great regard
for him, while living; and lamented him greatly, when dead. His ashes
might be brought to this country, to save them from the destroying
Allectus. This is no more than fancy, however.
178 CARAUSIUS AND ALLECTUS IN THE POST-ROMAN WORLD

This uncharacteristically modest disclaimer may serve as an epitaph for the work
as a whole, which can be shown to have been confected from Stukeley’s Oriuna
pamphlet.
Of a very different character is the literary hoax perpetrated by James
Macpherson, whose claims to have discovered Gaelic manuscripts of bardic
verses dating to the pre- and Roman period took literary Britain by storm
(Macpherson, 1762). These epic poems claim to be the work of Ossian but are, in
reality, a confection drawn from the literary imagination of the author and
authentic medieval Scottish ballads (Thomson, 1952). Macpherson’s prose
‘translation’ was quite quickly exposed but his work has merit as an example of
the new romanticism which started to permeate literature in the middle of the
eighteenth century. He also had a declared social and political motive for his
literary production, being distressed by the disintegration of traditional Scottish
culture after the Act of Union and the failure of the two Jacobite invasions
(Bysveen, 1982).
An entire poem, ‘The War of Caros’, is devoted to Carausius who is cast in an
unfavourable light. The delineation owes nothing to the Scottish medieval
tradition, in which he is depicted as mediator between warring factions of the Picts
and Scots. On the contrary he is an aggressor who must be resisted as being
potentially destructive of Scottish culture. Some geographical elements are
derived from contemporary topographical studies, especially those of Stukeley,
since the setting of the action is on the banks of the river Carron and Arthur’s
O’on is described. According to the disingenuous footnote provided by
Macpherson the occasion for the conflict was when:

He [i.e. Caros/Carausius] repaired Agricola’s wall, in order to obstruct the

incursions of the Caledonians; and when he was employed in that work, it
appears he was attacked by a party under the command of Oscar the son of
Ossian. The battle is the foundation of the present poem…

Given the location of the fictitious battle one must assume that Macpherson
believed that the Antonine Wall was the creation of Gnaeus Iulius Agricola.
The action seems to be centred on Arthur’s O’on:

A green vale surrounded the tomb which rose in the times of old. Little
hills lift their heads at a distance; and stretch their old trees to the wind.
The warriors of Caros sat there, for they had passed the stream at night.
They appeared, like the trunks of aged pines, to the pale light of the
morning.

In the event the entire Roman army is routed, single-handedly, by Oscar, who is
fortified and encouraged to feats of heroism by the assembled spirits of his
warrior ancestors.
 THE BRITISH USURPERS 179

A sole, sensible, well-informed and scholarly voice was raised against the
inventions of the likes of Stukeley; it passed unnoticed in the clamour. This voice
was that of Richard Gough, the editor of the magisterial edition of Camden’s
Britannia. His work was published anonymously and the targets of his criticism
were Genebrier and Stukeley (Gough, 1762).
There is no beating about the academic burning bush: Stukeley is roasted in a
line-by-line dissection of his work, little of the Medallic History or of
Genebrier’s work remains intact under his onslaught. Gough was a master of
both acid derision and the classical sources. Of Stukeley he wrote:

None that have perused his former Compositions can be Strangers to the
lively Invention with which he is blest for elucidating Obscurities and
enodating Difficulties. By the proper Application of this much to be envied
Faculty, Persons, Places and Things which none had ever supposed had an
Existence, and some are still absurd enough to doubt of, have been brought
into being: the long and hard-fought Wars of the Critics of several Ages
have been decided in an instant: the Receptacles of the vilest Miscreants
have risen into the Retirements of illustrious Devotees: the contested
Originals of eminent Cities and Towns have been broken from the Fetters
of Tradition, and boasted irrefragable Certainty: and the best-founded
Hypotheses have vanished like the subterraneous Vapours before the
instantaneous force of Electricity.

The Oxford historian cannot deny himself fun at the expense of Stukeley’s
attempts to associate Carausius, literally by way of the Car Dyke, the digging of
which he had credited to his hero, with his own university city:

Dr S. positively affirms him [Carausius] ‘sprung of the old British Blood-

Royal’, to which Assertion he is, to be sure, authorised by some MS. in his
Possession; for we have seen all other Evidences fail him. And so much for
the Birth and Parentage of Carausius. It would be hard if a Person with all
these Advantages joined to that of ‘a fine understanding’ should not have
had a good Education. But it is very hard on us to be left in the dark about
the Particulars of it: if we could depend on Ages next after the destruction
of Troy, or to King Arviragus about seventy Years after Christ, we might
conclude that Carausius was beholden to this venerable Seminary for the
first Rudiments of it: But the Circumstance of his own founding first a
Temple, and afterwards a Town at Granta, now Cambridge, so largely
insisted on by his Historian, makes it more than probable that he was
directed thereto by some heavenly Vision predicting the Establishment of
Learning and the Muses in this happy Spot, to make up the Deficiencies of
this Sort which the Island then laboured under, amply forwarded by the
many grateful Sons of Almer Mater, not one of whom have had the Grace
180 CARAUSIUS AND ALLECTUS IN THE POST-ROMAN WORLD

or Gratitude to acknowledge their first Founder; nay have even treated him
with Scorn and Derision.

The most scholarly work on Carausius and Allectus since Holinshed’s pioneering
restoration of the primacy of the contemporary historians passed unremarked.
The reason for this lies in the nature of the national myth which Stukeley was
instrumental in creating at a time when naval heroism was in the forefront of the
nation’s consciousness. We have seen that Carausius was recreated to meet the
needs of different ages. The Anglo-Norman, the Welsh, the Scottish and even the
Venetian versions of the reign were now to give way to Carausius the British
Naval Hero. Whereas the land frontier with Scotland had preoccupied the
creators of the Carausian myth hitherto, the defeat of the Stuart cause in 1745
and the growth of an overseas empire was now to place the emphasis of the tale
on its naval aspects.
Since Britain was more or less constantly at war in the eighteenth century, the
reformulation of a national myth, albeit a minor one, took place in the light of
contemporary events. Stukeley, himself, was conscious of this: ‘What I here
propose, is an important instance, of the power of Brittain [sic!], under proper
counsel, and the favor of Providence; as to its natural and naval strength.’
The theme was taken up immediately. Captain George Berkley’s influential
naval history claimed to be ‘…a just Account of the Rise and Progress of the
Naval Power of Britain…to its present full Perfection, and Meridien Glory’
(Berkley, 1756). Carausius cuts a large figure in this work since ‘…he taught the
Britons what they should have done long before. He placed his Strength and
Dependence on a Navy’. In doing this he acted just as an ideal captain of the
British navy of the period would have done,

knowing that:
…his Designs…must all depend on the Fidelity and Affection of his
Sailors. Two Things he knew commanded that, Success and Liberality…he
was indefatigable in the Search after Prizes. None but himself knew what
he gained by his Captures: when he had laid by a Sufficiency, enough still
remain’d for all the Purposes of an abundant Generosity. This he
distributed freely and by that Beneficence, and by his prudent Conduct, he
kept the Hearts of his Sailors while he preserved the most strict Discipline.

Furthermore this version of Carausius anticipated the tactics of the Royal Navy
against their traditional enemies, the French:

Carausius, who himself commanded, was continually out: not content with
defensive Strength, he acted on the offensive, plundering all along the
Coasts of Gaul. This British Navy acted on British Principles; sparing no
Roman Settlement where it could be destroyed.
 THE BRITISH USURPERS 181

This work received a critical drubbing from an anonymous reviewer in the

Monthly Review (xvii, 1757, 481–8), where it was pointed out that the book had
been compiled, allegedly from Berkley’s posthumous papers, by John Hill, a
notorious literary hack. The account of Carausius received particularly
unfavourable attention:

Carausius…makes his appearance; and the ingenious Doctor [i.e. Hill] very
quaintly styles him. A Signal Commander in the British Navy. Here we
have a pompous subject of declamation. A British navy acting on British
principles !—The Romans fearing to face the power of Britain now
disjointed from them!—And the navy of our country giving a presage of
what it has since arrived at, conquering all the sea!—who would have
imagined that this swelling and boasting only implied that Carausius, a
Roman admiral, brought, from the coasts of Gaul, the fleet under his
command, composed of various nations, and prevailed on the Roman
forces in Britain to support him in his independency! — a practice then
very frequent in every province throughout the empire.

Even Gibbon succumbed to the prevailing mood:

His fleets rode triumphant in the Channel, commanded the mouths of the
Columns of Hercules, with the terror of his name. Under his command,
Britain, destined in a future age to obtain the empire of the sea, already
assumed its natural and respected station of a maritime nation.

Curiously Gibbon seems to have been ignorant of Gough’s work and depended
on Stukeley, though he used him with caution: ‘Dr. Stukeley in particular has
devoted a large volume to the British emperor. I have used his materials, and
rejected most of his fanciful conjectures.’ Most but not all.
Less disenchanted with earlier sources was the standard and popular naval
history of the later eighteenth century: Campbell’s Lives of the British Admirals
(Campbell, 1742–4). This work appeared in no less than five editions between its
introduction and the end of the Napoleonic Wars, as a succession of naval
victories brought new officers to prominence. The treatment of Carausius
follows the Stukeley narrative in all essentials though a note of caution is
introduced in the 1779 edition regarding the legitimacy of his actions in taking
Britain away from the Empire. Contemporary events in the American Colonies
imposed a certain circumspection which moderates the normal adulation for the
subject:

In the succeeding distractions of the Roman Empire, Britain, like the rest
of its provinces, fell into the hands of various masters, styled by their
adherents, emperors, and by the rest of the world tyrants. Amongst these,
there is one who deserves to be remembered in this history; since, how bad
182 CARAUSIUS AND ALLECTUS IN THE POST-ROMAN WORLD

soever he might be, he made a good prince of the Britons, and, which is
still more to our purpose, carried the maritime power of this country so
high, as not only to vindicate his own independency, but also to strike terror
into the whole Roman Empire: it is true, many historians treat him as a
usurper, a thing that appears a little hard; since those they style emperors
had no other title than what they derived from fighting on land, which
seems to afford him some colour of right, in virtue of his power by sea.

and

This certainly is a transaction worthy of being recorded in our naval

history, unless we have so far lost the spirit of our ancestors, as to be proud
rather of being slaves to Rome, than of contesting the sovereignty of the
sea with that haughty people.

Allectus gets short shrift in this. Since he commands the same excellent fleet as
Carausius, and maintained his regime for three years, it is difficult to find
grounds for his condemnation. But these are at hand:

He was for some time superior in power at sea, but he employed that
superiority rather as a pirate than a prince, sending out his squadrons to
spoil the adjacent coasts of Gaul, and to interrupt the trade of all of the
Roman provinces.

No longer is this a British fleet acting on British principles.

The nineteenth century saw the abandonment of the excesses of the previous
century in most fields of scholarship—German academic research had unravelled
the Roman past from its skein of medieval accretions and good texts of classical
authors became widely available. Numismatics, too, began to benefit from this
more rigorous attitude. By the time that John Yonge Akerman, who had been
instrumental in founding what was to become the Royal Numismatic Society,
published his Coins of the Romans relating to Britain, he could say that in his
work ‘…there is little room for fancy or ornament…’. Of Stukeley he remarks:
‘…his absurd reveries…have rendered his name ridiculous to the really sensible
and enquiring antiquary’ (Akerman, 1844). The steady publication, from an
increasing body of excavated material, of coins with provenances was to be the
main contribution of the century to the study. This phase culminated in the
publications of Percy H. Webb on the reigns and coinage of Carausius and
Allectus. These have remained the standard references up to the present day,
though now sadly in need of revision (Webb, 1906, 1907). These papers, and
Webb’s later treatment in the relevant volume of Roman Imperial Coinage
(Webb, 1933) are the starting point for all modern consideration of the reigns.
Webb himself acknowledged that the study of the usurpers had peculiar
resonances in British history. He published his studies at the height of the naval
 THE BRITISH USURPERS 183

race between Britain and Germany, when the cry of ‘We want eight [i.e.
battleships] and we won’t wait’ shook the government. ‘It may be’, he says, ‘that
the following pages will serve not entirely without interest to the general reader,
at a time…when the sufficiency of the sea power of Britain is of the most vital
importance.’
Webb’s comments may have been inspired by the appearance of one of the
most influential works of fiction in the present century, Erskine Childers Riddle
of the Sands (Childers, 1903). In this work two amateur yachtsmen discover a
German invasion fleet lurking among the sandbanks off the Frisian Islands,
poised to descend on Britain. This was, of course, the very area from which
emerged the German pirates who were pursued and defeated by Carausius.
No survey of the literature of the study of Carausius and Allectus can conclude
without mention being made of the American writer (the use of the word scholar
is inappropriate in this instance), John Watts de Peyster (de Peyster, 1858). The
flavour of his work is best judged from the briefest of the three separate, and
increasingly fulsome, title pages with which the work is furnished (Pl. g):

The history of Carausius, the Dutch augustus and emperor of Britain, with
which is interwoven an historical and ethnological account of the Menapii,
the ancient Zeelanders and Dutch Flemings. Compiled from upwards of
two hundred ancient, mediaeval and modern authorities.

De Peyster, of Dutch extraction and bearing the name of one of the foremost
families of the original settlement of New Amsterdam, was a very prolific author.
Among his many works are to be counted a large number of pamphlets on
military affairs, including a bloodthirsty treatise on the employment of the
bayonet, a dissertation on fire brigades and volumes on Dutch history, including
a book entitled The Dutch at the North Pole. His enthusiastic pursuit of an
amateur military career in the New York Militia did not extend to participation in
the American Civil War, rather he was struck with a ‘strange debilitating illness’
in 1861 which did not clear up until the cessation of hostilities in 1865. This
curious illness, coinciding as it did with the outbreak and end of the war, was not
of such a nature as to inhibit the production of a stream of advice to the Union
generals, nor did it stop de Peyster soliciting promotion to the rank of Brigadier-
General.
While it is easy to see de Peyster as a sham scholar and pusillanimous soldier,
there is an underlying seriousness to his work on Carausius and his other
volumes of Dutch history. The sub-text to his work is reaction against the failing
influence of the descendants of the original Dutch settlers in New
England. In this he inhabits an intellectual milieu similar to that of
Macpherson in the previous century, or even of the medieval chroniclers.
Significantly, de Peyster’s work appeared just as the mass migrations were
changing the political climate of the United States and influence was draining away
from the traditional holders of political power.
184 CARAUSIUS AND ALLECTUS IN THE POST-ROMAN WORLD

De Peyster’s version of Carausius is derived almost entirely from Stukeley,

and thus from Geoffrey of Monmouth, augmented with exhilarating inventions
of his own. A flavour of the scholarship of this breathless work may be had from
the discussion of the name of his hero:

It is scarcely possible that Carausius was the real name of our Menapian
(Hollandish) hero, any more than Caractacus was the actual patronymic of
Caradoc or Cradoc—signifying ‘The Warrior’—(who, having lost his
kingdom by the victory of Ostorius Scapula, won it again by his undaunted
demeanour and spirit in his interview with the Emperor Claudius)—or
Arminius that of Hermann, the German or Saxon hero, the conqueror of
Varus, and victor of the fifth ‘Decisive Battle of the World’. After
examining the matter with earnest attention we must arrive at the
conclusion that it is at least very reasonable to believe that name was Karel
(Hollandish) (Charles, English—Carl, German) which means, A (Valiant)
Man. To Carolus, the Latin for Karel, the AVSVS, (whence OUSADO,
Portuguese; OSADO, Spanish; both of which, particularly the former, are
said—in some cases—to resemble the Latin more closely than even the
Italian)—The ‘Bold’, ‘He that dareth, or is not afraid’, the ‘Fearless One’—
together, CAROLVS-AVSVS, abbreviated, corrupted and euphonized in
Carausius.

Apart from the intellectual problems set by this work, which reads like Tristram
Shandy without the benefit of Sterne’s sublime artistry, we must sympathize with
the provincial typesetter who laboured on our author’s behalf, not least because
throughout the work whenever the sacred name of Carausius appears it is set in
Gothic type. The book ends with an act-by-act outline of a projected melodrama,
blessedly never written, featuring Carausius as the hero and Allectus as the
unredeemed villain. Watts de Peyster brought the study of Carausius and
Allectus back through a full circle to where it began in the post-Roman period.
The theme is not at an end, new discoveries of coins are made daily,
refinements in the excavation of sites of the period may be anticipated,
undreamed of new techniques of study will be developed if interest in the topic is
maintained in the future for as long as it has been studied in the past. Geoffrey of
Monmouth could not have conceived of television or rockets to Saturn, nor can
we conceive of what techniques or apparatus will be available at the same
distance in the future to answer the problems which we have striven to cast light
upon here. What is certain is that this version of Carausius and Allectus will
prove to be nothing more than an interim stage in the process of what Genebrier
called ‘bringing him to life again’.
 APPENDIX:
The Literary Sources
Translated by R.S.O.Tomlin

MAMER TINI PANEGYRICVS MAXIMIANO AVGVSTO DICTVS (Mamertinus’s

Panegyric in Honour of the Emperor Maximian) The author of this work, who
also delivered the Panegyric of 291, is known only by his writings which contain
virtually no biographical details. Gaul was famed throughout the empire in the
third and fourth centuries for the eloquence of orators trained at the University of
Bordeaux. Mamertinus was probably a product of this school. His concern with
peasant revolts, a constant problem in Gaul and a preoccupation of the Gallic
aristocracy, probably indicates that he was a native of Gaul. The speech was
delivered at Trier, the year of delivery not clear from the text itself but
circumstantial evidence points to 21 April 289, the traditional birthday of the
City of Rome and the occasion of celebrations at the imperial court.
The panegyric takes the traditional form, outlining the reason for the speech,
the modest attainments of the orator and the virtues and achievements of the
recipient. In this case Maximian is praised for his successful campaigns against
the Bagaudae in 285–6, the Germans in 287–8 while his forthcoming success
against the rebellious Carausius is confidently forecast.
Pan. Lat. x(ii)
(11.7) It is proof of your good fortune, your success, Your Majesty, that your
soldiers have already reached the Ocean in victory, that the tides have swallowed
the blood of enemies slaughtered on that shore. (12) That pirate must now lose
heart, when he sees that your armies have almost entered those straits which
alone have postponed his death until the present, that his men have abandoned
their ships and have followed the retreating sea. Is there any more distant island
he can now hope for, any other Ocean? How can he escape punishment for
treason, without being swallowed by an earthquake, or swept by a hurricane on
to lonely reefs? Splendid fleets were built and equipped, which would head for
Ocean simultaneously by every river; men not only competed in their labours to
complete them, the rivers suddenly rose to receive them. For almost a whole
year, Your Majesty, when you needed good weather to build shipyards, to fell
timber, to invigorate the workers, to keep their hands from idleness, hardly a day
has been spoiled by rain. Even winter copied the mildness of spring. Now we
thought we were not living in the north; we felt the clemency of a southern sky
as if stars or countries had changed places. This river of ours, having for a long
186 THE BRITISH USURPERS

time lacked a supply of rain, could not carry the ships; it only brought down the
timber for your shipyards. But suddenly, when the warships had to be launched,
the earth produced abundant springs for you, Jupiter poured out masses of rain,
and Ocean flooded whole river beds. And so the ships attacked the waters that
came beneath them of their own accord, ships moved by the slightest effort of
their crews: the happiest of beginnings that needed a sailor’s shanty more than
his hard work. Anyone can easily understand, therefore, Your Majesty, how
prosperous an outcome will follow you upon the sea, when even the weather
obeys you at the right moment.
(13) (Diocletian and Maximian will visit Rome together, more harmonious
than Romulus and Remus. Rome envisages their presence by invoking the gods
Iuppiter Stator and Hercules Victor.) For this was the title given the latter god by
the man who defeated pirates with a cargo boat, and heard from Hercules himself
that it was by his help that he had gained the victory. And thus after many ages,
Most Holy Emperor, it is one of the duties of your divinity to overcome pirates.
(14) Certainly that day will soon dawn, when Rome sees you victorious…
MAMER TINI PANEGYRICVS GENETHLIACVS MAXIMIANO A VGVSTO
DICTVS
(Mamertinus’s Birthday speech in Honour of the Emperor Maximian) Like the
previous speech, that of 291 was delivered at Trier, probably on 21 July 291.
According to the panegyric, little had happened since the delivery of the first
speech except that Diocletian had travelled west and Maximian east in order to
confer in Milan. The conference is the central theme of the panegyric. No
mention is made of Carausius or of affairs in Britain. This deafening silence is
highly significant.
PANEGYRICVS CONSTANTIO CAESARI DICTVS
(Panegyric for Constantius Caesar)
The author of this work is not known but internal evidence suggests that he
had held a post at the imperial court, participated in Maximian’s campaign
against the Alamanni in 287, and had previously delivered a speech to the
emperor. He retired to the vicinity of Autun, perhaps in or after 293. This
background suggests that the anonymous author had first-hand knowledge of
events in Britain. The speech was delivered on 1 March 297, not to
commemorate the reconquest of Britain the year before but to celebrate the day
on which Constantius had been elevated to the rank of Caesar in 293. It was
delivered at Trier, where the celebrations were held. The panegyric follows the
usual form and after extolling the joint virtues and achievements of the emperors
settles down to a detailed account of the defeat of Carausius on the Continent and
the recovery of Britain from Allectus.
Pan. Lat. viii(v)
(6) By coming to Gaul, your Gaul, Caesar, you immediately conquered it: for
the speed with which you outran all news of your accession and arrival caught
and penned within the walls of Boulogne an obstinate, deluded band of piratical
rebels, and took the Ocean that washed its gates away from men who had
 APPENDIX: THE LITERARY SOURCES 187

depended on the sea. This displayed your godlike forethought and an outcome
the equal of your strategy: you made the whole of that tide-swept harbour
inaccessible to ships by driving piles into the entrance and dumping stones over
them, and by this wonderful method overcame the very nature of the place, for
the futile returning of the sea seemed to mock them for being cut off from
retreat, and was no more use to these prisoners than if it had given up returning
altogether. What fort walls will ever be a surprise to us, after this new wall in the
sea? Why should it be surprising if walls remain firm against a battering-ram, or
their heights look down on siege engines, when Ocean itself, hurled with such
impetus, surging in such a mass, whether it is thrown back from lands beyond, as
men say, or is lifted by the vapour of its own breath, whatever the force that
moves it, when Ocean itself, Caesar, never broke through your barrier nor tore it
down at all in so many days and nights of ebb and flow? Meanwhile it was
eroding coasts and bursting banks as it flowed round the world, but in the one
place this was needed, was either inferior to your majesty in power, or merciful
out of the respect it owed you.
(7) Xerxes, I have heard, a most powerful Persian king, threw golden fetters into
the deep, asserting that he was chaining Neptune because of his wild waves: a
stupid boast, and blasphemous vanity. But your godlike forethought, Caesar,
adopted an effective plan by not insulting the element, so as to earn its obedience
rather than provoke its hatred. What other explanation can there be for the fact that,
as soon as dire straits and a trust in your mercy had ended the siege, the first tide
to fall upon the barrier broke through; and that whole line of tree-trunks, which had
resisted the waves as long as it was needed, broke up like an army when the
signal is given and its duty is over? There can be no doubt that the harbour,
which had been blocked to stop the pirate bringing his men help, opened of its
own accord to bring us victory. For with the momentum of your courage and
success, unconquered Caesar, you could have finished the whole war at once, if
circumstances had not insisted that time was needed to build ships. And yet there
was no pause in the total overthrow of those enemies who could be approached
by land.
(8) (A successful campaign between Rhine and Scheldt, despite the treacherous
swamps, with the barbarians being forced to migrate with their families and
cultivate deserted land.) (9) We saw barbarian prisoners waiting to be drafted;
and now Chamavi and Frisii are peasants in Gaul, are even conscripted into the
army.)
(9.5) What am I to do, Caesar? Forgive me if I linger; forgive me if I hurry on,
for I am passing over many of your wonderful achievements in the period when
the preparations were made for the crossing to Britain, so eager am I to reach the
unique victory that finally recovered the whole Empire....
(10) (The loss of Britain in the reign of Gallienus was less painful because
most of the Empire had been lost besides; whereas now, its loss was an affront to
all our victories. (11) Moreover it was a major province, another world according
to Julius Caesar whose invasion met with no naval resistance.)
188 THE BRITISH USURPERS

(12) In that criminal usurpation first the fleet that used to protect Gaul was
stolen by a pirate on the run, then many ships were built in our style, a Roman
legion was seized, several units of non-Roman soldiers were secured, Gallic
merchants were recruited, considerable forces of barbarians were seduced by the
loot of the very provinces, all of these being trained in seamanship by the authors
of the crime, and we heard that our armies with their lack of naval experience,
for all their indomitable courage, were faced with a wicked great war as a result
of that shameful usurpation; and yet we were confident of the outcome. A
protracted impunity for their crime had swollen the desperate creatures’
audacity, making them claim that the sea’s harshness which had inevitably
postponed your victory was a cover for your fear of them, and making them
believe that war had been abandoned in despair, instead of interrupted on
purpose; and so the henchman killed his pirate chief, no longer afraid of a
punishment they would both share, and thought his crime would be rewarded by
imperial power.
(13) This was the war, so inevitable, so inaccessible, so deep-seated, so well
prepared, on which you thus embarked, Caesar, that immediately you poised the
baleful thunderbolt of your majesty it seemed as good as finished. First of all, the
prime need to ensure that the barbarian peoples did not try to rebel when your
divinity turned towards it, you provided for by invoking the majesty of your
father. Lord Maximian, eternal Emperor, you deigned to speed the arrival of
your divinity by a new short-cut and suddenly appeared on the Rhine, guarding
the whole of that frontier not by forces of cavalry or infantry, but by your
formidable presence: the bank where Maximian is equivalent to an army. And
you, unconquered Caesar, by equipping and deploying several fleets so
bewildered and baffled the enemy that he finally felt surrounded, not protected,
by Ocean.
(14) At this point it occurs to me how delightful was the good fortune in
public administration and prestige of those emperors who gained triumphs and
titles from peoples defeated by their generals, without leaving Rome. Fronto, for
example, the other (not the second) glory of Roman eloquence, when praising the
emperor Antoninus for finishing the war in Britain, declared that although he had
remained in the palace at Rome and delegated command, he was like the
steersman of a warship and deserved the credit for its sailing and course. But you,
unconquered Caesar, not only directed that voyage or war by virtue of being
emperor, you were also its immediate inspiration by the example you gave of
determination. For you embarked first on Ocean, rough as it was, from the coast
of Boulogne, and inspired your army after its sail down the river Seine with such
irresistible enthusiasm that it spontaneously demanded the signal to sail, even
though its generals were still hesitating, sky and sea being stormy; and although
the signs looked threatening, the army ignored them, set sail on a day of rain, and
because the wind was not right, used it at an angle. However hostile the sea, who
would not trust themselves to it with you sailing? When they heard you were
sailing, everyone, it is said, with a single voice cried encouragement: ‘Why do
 APPENDIX: THE LITERARY SOURCES 189

we hesitate? Why delay? He has already started, he is on his way, perhaps he has
arrived already. Let us try everything, whatever the waves. What is there to fear?
We are following Caesar.’
(15) Nor did their belief in your good fortune let them down, for, as we
learned from their own report, at that moment such a fog touched the surface of
the sea that the hostile fleet, which was posted on watch in ambush off Vectis
[the Isle of Wight], was by-passed without the enemy’s knowledge, and was
unable to delay, let alone resist, the invasion. As for the fact that the army,
unconquered under your leadership, burnt all its own ships as soon as it landed in
Britain, what other prompting can have inspired them but that of your godhead?
What other reason persuaded them not to keep a means of escape, not to fear the
chances of war, not to believe that Mars is ‘common to all’, unless it was that their
thought of you made any doubt of victory impossible? They considered then, not
force, not human strength, but your divinities. To be sure of success whatever the
battle that faces them, is the good fortune of emperors rather than the self-
confidence of their soldiers. Why did the very standard-bearer of the criminal
rebellion abandon the shore he was holding, why did he desert fleet and harbour,
unless the sight of your looming sails, unconquered Caesar, made him fear that
you were coming yourself at any moment? At any rate he chose to risk your
generals rather than face the actual thunderbolt of your majesty, madman not to
know that, wherever he fled, the force of your godhead was present wherever
your features, your statues, were worshipped.
(16) Fleeing from you none the less, he fell into the hands of your men;
conquered by you, he was destroyed by your armies. In fact he was terrified by
the sight of you behind him; dazed as a madman, he rushed to his death without
forming a line of battle or organizing all the forces he led; he forgot all his
resources and plunged into ruin with only the old ringleaders of the conspiracy
and groups of barbarian mercenaries. And so your good fortune, Caesar,
contributed even this to Rome, that hardly a single Roman died in the victory of
the Roman empire. All those plains and hills, I hear, were covered by none but
the fallen bodies of the foulest enemies. Barbarian, or imitating barbarism in the
clothes they wore and their long, reddened hair, they lay filthy with dust and
blood in the various postures dictated by the agony of their wounds; and among
them was the flag-bearer of the usurpation himself, who had cast off the costume
he had dishonoured when alive, with hardly a single garment by which he could
be identified. Just before he died he must have told himself to make his body
unrecognizable.
(17) The favour of the immortal gods granted you, unconquered Caesar, the
destruction of all the enemies you attacked, the Franks in particular; those of
your soldiers who lost their way in the sea-fog, as I have just said, reached the
town of London independently and finished off the survivors from the battle of
that horde of barbarian mercenaries, all over the city which they were intending
to loot before they took to flight; and in slaughtering the enemy they gave your
provincials the pleasure of the sight, as well as saving their lives. What a
190 THE BRITISH USURPERS

manifold victory of countless triumphs, which restored Britain, annihilated the

power of the Franks, imposed obedience upon many peoples involved in the
criminal conspiracy, and swept the seas and made them peaceful for ever! You may
boast, unconquered Caesar, of discovering another world, by restoring its naval
glory to Roman power and adding to the Empire an element greater than all the
land. Unconquered Caesar, you have finished a war which loomed over every
province, since it could range and flare up wherever they were washed by the
whole ocean and its inlets.
(18) (Constantius’s victory had saved more than Britain, it had saved
the whole Mediterranean from the possibility of attack by pirates.)
(19) You were the avenger, the liberator long prayed-for, and the moment you
reached the shore, a triumphant procession met Your Majesty as you deserved;
the Britons, jumping for joy, with their wives and children presented themselves,
not merely falling down to worship you yourself, whom they regarded as come
down from heaven, but even the sails and the oars of that ship which had brought
to them your divinity, and they were quite ready to throw themselves upon the
ground and thus feel your coming. And no wonder they were elated with such
joy, if, after that helpless captivity of theirs for so many years, after the outrages
committed upon their wives, after the degrading servitude of their children they
were at length free, at length Roman, at length refreshed by the true light of the
empire. For over and above that reputation for piety and mercy, belonging to your
colleague [i.e. Maximian], which is celebrated by the voice of the people, they
saw in your face, Caesar, the outward and visible signs of all the virtues. On your
forehead signs of dignity, in your eyes signs of gentleness, in your blushing signs
of modesty, in your address signs of justice. When they had marked each of these
characteristics and had observed them, they sang together with shouts of joy.
They devoted themselves and their children to you both, to your children they
devoted all their posterity.
PANEGYRICUS CONSTANTINO AUGUSTO DICTUS
(Panegyric for the Emperor Constantine)
This work is by an unknown author who may have had career connections
with the imperial court. The discourse was delivered at Trier in the summer of
310 following the death of the emperor Maximian. Maximian had retired,
together with his senior colleague Diocletian, in 305. Uneasy in retirement he re-
emerged in late 306. Constantine sought him as an ally but in 310 they were
engaged in a civil war in which Constantine, by now Maximian’s son-in-law,
was the winner. Maximian’s death, either by suicide, or more probably execution
at the hands of Constantine, left the panegyricist with a delicate task of flattery.
Happily he recounts the reconquest of Britain by his father, Constantius, in order
to bolster the legitimacy of Constantine’s thoroughly illegal regime.
Pan. Lat. vi(vii)
[Speaking of Constantine’s father Constantius:]
(5) Who does not, I do not say remembers, but who does not still see how greatly
he increased and adorned the Empire? After being appointed emperor, he came
 APPENDIX: THE LITERARY SOURCES 191

and at once shut out the ocean which was seething with an infinite fleet of
enemies, and isolated by land and sea the army which had occupied the coast of
Boulogne. He did this by driving piles through the waves and cutting off the ebb
and flow of that element, to deny the sea they used to touch, to men whose gates
the sea had washed. His valour captured that army, his clemency preserved it,
and while he prepared to recover Britain by building fleets, he cleared Batavia
entirely of enemies, after its occupation by various Frankish tribes under a
sometime inhabitant; and not content with conquering them, he converted them
into Roman peoples, to make them surrender their savage ways as well as their
weapons. And what need I say of the recovery of Britain? The sea was so calm
when he sailed there that the ocean seemed to have been stunned by its
passenger’s greatness into losing all motion: his journey was such that victory
did not escort him, but was already awaiting him.
(6) What need I say of his mercy towards the conquered? What of the justice
with which he restored to the victims what they had lost? What of the vision with
which he attached subjects to himself, presenting himself as a ruler to make the
recovery of freedom attractive to men who had suffered slavery, to call the
consciously guilty to repentance by remitting their punishment?
THE HISTORIANS
Three surviving ancient historians retain versions of the revolt of Carausius.
Aurelius Victor’s Liber De Caesaribus (The Caesars) is the earliest of these
sources, being composed in the middle years of the fourth century, probably in
360. It is a brief history of the Roman empire divided by the reigns of emperors
(or ‘Caesars’), beginning with Augustus. The Breviarium of Eutropius was
composed as an aide memoire of Roman history for the emperor Valens (364–
78). It is thought that like Aurelius Victor, Eutropius derived his information
from a lost imperial history composed in the Constantinian period. Orosius’s
Historiarum adversus paganos libri VII, or ‘Seven Books of History against the
Pagans’, was written in 417 to argue that the collapse of Roman military power
had nothing to do with the adoption of Christianity. His work is a catalogue of
setbacks suffered by the Roman state throughout her long history under pagan
rule. His account of affairs in the reign of Diocletian derives from Eutropius and
has no independent evidential value.
Aurelius Victor, The Caesars, Ch. 39
[Diocletian sent his colleague Maximian to restore order in Gaul where there
had been an uprising of Bagaudae after Carinus had left.] (20) Carausius, a
Menapian, distinguished himself in this war, and because he was also thought to
be an experienced sailor, having earned his living in this way as a young man,
they commissioned him to put together a fleet and fight off the Germans who
were infesting the seas. This turned his head. He killed many of the barbarians,
but did not pay all the booty into the treasury; because he was afraid of
Maximian therefore who (he learnt) had ordered his execution, he usurped the
imperial power and seized Britain. [War with Persia and rebellions in Africa and
Egypt prompted the creation of two Caesars, Constantius and Galerius, with whose
192 THE BRITISH USURPERS

help the Persians and the rebels were defeated.] (39) Only Carausius was left
with imperial power, over the island, after being thought amenable to orders and
to protect the island’s inhabitants from warlike peoples. And even he was
overthrown six years later, by the treachery of someone called Allectus.
Carausius had made him his chief minister of finance, but fear of his own crimes
and of execution for them made Allectus usurp the imperial power. He had only
enjoyed it for a short time when Constantius sent Asclepiodotus, whom he had
made praetorian prefect, ahead with part of his fleet and legions, and destroyed
him.
Eutropius, Breviarium, Bk IX
(13) [Diocletian sent Maximian to suppress the uprising of the Bagaudae in
Gaul.] At this time also Carausius, a man of very humble birth, had gained a
great reputation in a command on active service: he had been commissioned at
Boulogne to bring peace to the sea infested by Franks and Saxons, along the
Belgica-Armorica sector, and he had often captured many barbarians, but had
not returned all the booty to the provincials or sent it to the emperors; the
suspicion had arisen that he allowed the barbarians in on purpose, to catch them
as they passed with their booty, and thus to enrich himself; and when Maximian
ordered his execution, he usurped the purple and seized the British provinces.
(14) Because of the disorders throughout the world, Carausius’s rebellion in
Britain [etc., Diocletian made Maximian Augustus, and Constantius and Galerius
Caesars]. Peace was finally made with Carausius, since wars were waged in vain
against a man of great military experience. After seven years his own ally
Allectus killed him, and himself held the British provinces for three years; he
was crushed by the agency of Asclepiodotus, the praetorian prefect. Thus the
British provinces were recovered after ten years.
Orosius, Historiae, vii.25, 3–6
This is a close paraphrase of Eutropius, a little more self-consciously stylish
and pointed (e.g. ‘Carausius, a man of humble birth, but ready in plan and
action’), and a little less informative (‘Boulogne’ and ‘the Belgica-Armorica
sector’ became ‘the shores of Ocean’). His statements of time have no
independent value. Carausius held Britain ‘for seven years’ (per septem annos),
Allectus ‘for a period of three years’ (per triennium); Britain was recovered ‘after
ten years’ (post decem annos)— this last statement is more explicit than
Eutropius’, but is in fact only a paraphrase of his ‘decimo anno’.
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 Index

Achilleus 41 Aurelian’s currency reform 31

Adlectus 127 Aureliani 70
Adventus ceremony 58 Aurelius Arpagius 150
Aezani inscription 71 Aurelius Lunaris, M. 99
Akerman, J.Yonge 188 Aurelius Victor 41ff, 47ff
Alaisiagae 95 Autun 130
Alamanni 47, 109, 134
Alcock, L. 168 Bagaudae 49–51, 93
Alesia 111 Bath 179
Allectius Marcellus, Q. 127 Beaurains (Arras) hoard 140–3
Allectus 127ff Bede 168
building programme 133–4 Benlow, Marissa 183
coin reform 130 Berkley, Capt. George 186–7
coin types 65, 68ff Binchester 95
Continental possessions 129ff Birdoswald 33–4, 134, 136
death 139 Bitterne (Clausentum) 104
gold coinage 86, 132 Blackfriars boat 157
mints 68ff Blackmoor hoard 138–9
monetary system 70ff, 130 Boethius, Hector 174–5
regnal dates 43ff Boon, G.C. 166
Amiens 106 Bordeaux inscription 99
Amiens hoard 131 Boudicca 16
Amory, Thomas 183ff Boulogne 42, 50, 52–3, 74, 90, 100, 103,
Antonine Wall 23 106–8, 111–4, 131
Antoninus Pius 23 Bradwell 117, 122–3
Arbogastes 99, 124 Brancaster 32, 122–4
army strength 32 Brecon Gaer 104
Arras hoard 43–4, 140–3 BRI mint 85
Arras medallion 43, 156 Britannia Inferior 24ff
Arthur’s O’on 175, 184 Britannia Prima 149
Asclepiodotus 41, 54, 110, 129, 137–8 Britannia Secunda 149
140, 171 Britannia Superior 24ff
Asia Minor 19 Britannicus maximus 102
Asser 160 Brougham 95
Athens 19 Burgh Castle 117–8, 122–3
Aurelian 19–20, 31, 34, 100

201
202 THE BRITISH USURPERS

Burgundians 30, 32, 37 coin hoards 29

coin supply 31, 149
Caerleon 24, 32, 144 coin types 55ff
Caernarfon 33 Colchester mint 39, 65, 84–5, 110–11
Calcatio colli 58 Cold Knapp 125–6
Campbell, J. 187–8 Comes Litoris Saxonici 115, 145
Canterbury 126 Comes Maritimi Tractus 145
Caracalla 15, 17, 27ff, 34, 37, 47, 95, 98 Comes Sacrarum Largitionum 76, 127, 129
Carausian coins in Gaul 106–7 Commodus 15
Carausius et fratres sui 110 Constans 99, 120
Carausius II 163ff Constantine I 151, 163
Carausius, assassination 114–5 Constantine I, family 163–4
condemnation 52 Constantine III 165
Continental territory 42ff, 106 Constantius I 44, 53, 110, 137–9, 140, 150–
date of revolt 39ff 2, 163
early career 49–50 Constantius II 91
gold coinage 86 consulships 77, 107, 133, 140
mints 57ff, 71ff Corbridge 95
monetary system 70ff, 85–6, 106 Cremna 111
name 47 Crocus 135
religious policy 64 Croydon hoard 90
silver coinage 58–64 Cunei 95, 98
Cardiff 115, 124 Cuneus Frisionum 95
Carinus 21, 30, 47, 51, 101–3 Cunliffe, B. 116–7
Caritius 169 Cynegetica 101–2
Caros 184 Cynwyl Gaio hoard 104
Carson, R.A.G. 39, 89
Carus 20–1, 47, 102 Damnatio memoriae 34, 46
catacombs 151 Dawson, Charles 121
Caupulus 158 dioceses 149
Cenceris 166 Diocletian 15, 21, 47
chalet barracks 147 coin reform 148
Chamavi 53, 109, 137 coin types 57ff
Chatti 47 imperial titles 102
Chauci 47 regnal dates 40
Chester 24, 32–3, 143 Dolaucothi 104
Chesterholm (Vindolanda) 33, 147 donatives 77
Christianity 20, 152 Dover 32, 100, 103, 117
Cirencester 149 Dux Britanniarum 145
Classis Anderetianorum 144
Classis Britannica 32, 101, 103–4, 107, Edict of Maximum Prices 38, 85, 149
112 Egypt 41, 44, 93
Claudius II 19 Elslack 143
Clausentum 182 Equites Dalmatae 118
Clodius Albinus 24 Erw Hen hoard 104
Cohors I Aelia Dacorum 34 Eutropius 41ff, 47ff
Cohors I Aquitanorum Equitata 118, 124 Evans, A.J. 165
 INDEX 203

Expectati veni 58 Iantinum mint 108

Imperial frontiers 15ff
Falling Horseman coinage 165 Imperial succession 21
Falx 160 inflation 29
Fel Temp Reparatio 164–5
Flavia Caesariensis 149 Jerome’s Chronicle 39ff
Flavius Josephus 158 Johnson, S. 115–6, 125
Foote, Samuel 182–3 Jones, A.H.M. 55
Fordun, John of 172–4 Julian 131–2, 149, 164–5
Franks 47, 50, 98, 109, 134–5 Julius Caesar 131
Frisians 53, 95, 98, 137
Kennedy, John 180ff
Galerius 109–10, 140, 152 Kent, J.P.C. 166
Gallia Belgica 47 King Coel 171, 177
Gallic Empire 18–19, 26, 30
Gallic merchants 94, 98–9 Lactantius 109
Gallienus 18–19, 21, 33, 50 Lanciarii 32
Gallows Hill milestone 47 Legio II Adiutrix 32
garrisons in Britain 30 Legio II Augusta 24, 32, 93
garrisons in Gaul 98 Legio II Parthica 93
Genceris 166 Legio II Traiana 93
Genebrier, Claude 178–80 Legio VI Victrix 24, 93
Geoffrey of Monmouth 169–71 Legio XIII Gemina 93
Germanic forces 37 Legio XX Valeria Victrix 24, 93
Gibbon, Edward 26, 187 Legio XXII Primigenia 99
Gildas 168 Legio XXX Ulpia Traiana 95
gold circulation 37 legionary coinage 92
gold mines 104 Liburnae 161
gold price 86 Lincoln 99
Gordian III 17, 34 Little Orme’s Head hoard 90, 104
Goths 19 London 26, 36, 133–4, 142, 149, 151
Gough, Richard 185–6 London mint 39, 64, 83–4, 110–11
Greta Bridge 136 Low Ham mosaic 154
Ludus duodecim scriptores 151
Hadrian’s Wall 23, 32–3, 37, 134, 143, Lympne 117, 123–4
145–7
Halton Chesters 33, 135 Macpherson, James 184
Hegesippus 158 Magnentius 91, 99, 143, 164–7
Herrenius Dexippus, P. 19 Magrius Bassus, M. 107
Heruli 109 Mainz galley 158
High Rochester (Bremenium) 146 Marcomanni 26, 56
Hill, John 187 Marcus Aurelius 17, 23, 26–7, 37, 47, 56
Hippagines 154 Maxima Caesariensis 149
Hircius 174–5 Maximian 41–2, 50–1, 106, 108–10
Holinshed, Ralph 175–6 coin types 57ff
horse transports 154 Maximinus Thrax 18, 37
Housesteads 95, 134, 136 Mead, Dr Richard 180
204 THE BRITISH USURPERS

Menapia 47, 49 Piercebridge 103, 143

Milan conference 109 Piltdown Man 121
military pay scales 27 Portchester 117, 122–3, 145
mintmarks 88, 151 Postumus 18, 26, 34, 154, 156
mints 39, 57ff, 64–5, 68ff, 71ff, 76–9, 83– pottery 27, 31
5, 108, 110–11 Praetorian cohort 92
monetary crises 18, 27 Prefecture of the Gauls 149
Myoparones 158–9 Probus 20, 30, 34, 37, 47, 101
Provinces of Britain 149
naval tactics 52
naval warfare 159–62 Quinarius 71, 130
Neath 103–4 Quinquegentianae 41
Nectaridus 145
Nehalennia 49, 99 Ragonius Quintianus, L. 107
Nemesianus 101 Rationalis Summae Rei 76, 129
Nennius 168–9 Reculver 32
Nero 173 Redditor lucis aeternae 142
Newton Kyme 143 Reece, R. 125
Notitia Dignitatum 124, 134, 136, 144 Rhine frontier 47, 109
Noyelles-Godault hoard 131 Rhineland traders 99
Numerian 21, 47, 101–2 Ribchester 37
Nydam boat 157 Richborough 32, 102, 117–20, 122–3, 166
Richborough monument 32
Odenathus 18 Risingham (Habitancum) 146
Oriuna 180–1, 184 Robert of Gloucester 171
Ossian’s poems 184–5 Rouen 90–1, 99, 106
Ostia 26 Rouen gold coinage 72
Rouen hoard 90
Palmyra 18–19 Rouen mint 71–6
Panegyric of 289 52, 91, 106 RSR mint 76–8
Panegyric of 291 106, 108 Rudchester 134
Panegyric of 297 50–3, 94, 104, 106, 111,
113–4, 131–2, 142, 144, 150, 176 Sarmatians 37
Panegyric of 310 54, 132, 136–8 Sassanians 17
Papcastle 95 Saxon Shore Fort coin deposits 121–5
Parados 156 Saxon Shore Forts 101, 115ff, 138, 143
Paul the Notary 143 Saxons 50
Penmachno tombstone 47 Scriptores Historiae Augustae 34
Pentapolitans 41 Septimius Severus 15, 23ff, 27, 32, 34, 100,
Peregrini 95 170
Persia 15, 20 Severus Alexander 17, 34, 95
Pesaro, Giovanni 176–8 Shadwell 125
Pevensey 117, 120–3 Shiel, N. 39
Peyster, J. Watts de 189ff shipbuilding 104, 131
Philip I 17 Silchester 36, 166
Pictae 161 slavery 29
Picts 171 South Shields (Arbeia) 33
 INDEX 205

Speed, John 176

St Peter’s Port boat 157
Stevens, C.E. 166
Stilicho 121
Stukeley, William 180ff
Sulgenius 170
Sutherland, C.H.V. 166

taxation 150
Terentius Marcianus 111
Tetricus I 19
Thermae Carosianae 179–80
thermoluminescence dating 121
Thompson, E.A. 167
towns 36–7
Trajan Decius 20
tree-ring dating 133
Tristan, Jean 176

Unmarked mint 78–9, 83

usurpers 35–6

Valentinian II 99
Valerian 17, 18, 20–1
Vegetius 159–60
Vergil 58
vexillations 93
Vici 33
Viducius Placidus, L. 99
Virtus Illyricani 142
Vitalianus 143

War of Caros 184

warships 153ff
Webb, P.H. 39, 189
White, D. 115
Wroxeter (Viroconium) 85, 102

Xanten 95

York 24, 32–3, 99, 134, 143, 149, 167, 170

Zabarella, G. 176–7
Zenobia 19
Zonaras 168