User:Ceosad/sandbox/Greek coinage in Gaul

Greek colonies of Marseilles (Massilia), ca. 323 BCE

Greek coinage in Gaul.

Greek colonies

Further information: Greeks in pre-Roman Gaul

Trade with Britain

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Massalia

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Emporion

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Other towns

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Usage in Gaul

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Celtic imitations

The gold staters of Macedon, from the reign of king Philip after his acquisition of gold mines of Pangaeum, were circulated very widely in the Greek world. They did manage to get circulated to further area than could have been possible for silver currency. They were circulated even in the Greek colony of Massilia, and through the Massilians they were propagated to Gaul. Massilia's importance as a trading hub in the Western Mediterranean even for the so called "barbarian" nations in the Northern Europe. Through this interaction between Massilia and Gaul the local Gallic people did eventually start to make imitations of these Greek gold coins. These imitations usually contained a portrait of Apollo (or perhaps a young Heracles or Ares) and a chariot drawn by two horses. The imitations gradually got worse as time passed on. By the middle of the second century BC the habit of making imitations of Greek coinage had spread northwards, and the Southern shore of Britain had adopted the same tradition of making distantly related imitations. The first British coins were imitations made from gold. They were also without any inscriptions, though by the time of Caesar's conquest of Britain they bor inscriptions.

The Celtic speaking town of Lattara (modern Lattas) was an important town that was in interaction with the Etruscans, Greeks of Massalia and Romans.

See also

• Emporium (antiquity)
• Tin sources and trade in ancient times

External links

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