The ‘Philippus’ Coin at Rome

In two papers published in 1933, ‘The Philippus in the West and the Belgic invasion of Gaul’ ( Num. Chron. 1933, 88) and ‘The distribution of Gaulish and British coins in Britain’ ( Antiquity 1933, 268), Dr. G. C. Brooke put forward, in explanation of the imitation in Gaul of the gold staters of Philip II of Macedon two centuries after their original issue, the theory that these coins were introduced into Central Gaul by the Romans about 120 B.C. when they came into contact with the tribes in that region, and that the Philippus had been ‘brought into normal currency in Rome’ in the second century B.C. after the arrival of great numbers of Philippi in the spoils of war from Greece and Asia Minor in the first half of that century. As Dr. Pink has pointed out, Dr. Brooke's date is several years too late to suit the literary evidence; but it need not be questioned that the gold stater of the type of Philip did not reach Gaul till long after the first issue in Macedon. That it came through Rome, however, does not seem to be supported by any archaeological facts, and involves a serious misconception of Roman monetary economics

Ancient history · Art · Currency · Imitation · Kingdom · Ancient and Medieval Archaeology Studies · Ancient Mediterranean Archaeology and History · Classics · Historical and Archaeological Studies · History · Philosophy

• Monetary Innovation in Ancient Rome

  Open Access•Bernhard Woytek, Bernhard E Woytek•Explaining Monetary and Financial…•2014

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