04-25-2010, 02:14 PM
Quote:Hadn’t seen the Victory coin issue for c. 119 AD (though I realise the ‘spin’ of official state sanctioned versions of world events often played up the political and military reality) but tied to the (scanty) references to the 'British War’ it is all rather intriguing. There are of course rather a few Roman references to the Brigantes as enemies and I’m never sure whether these stemmed from the troubles evident under Cartimandua/Venutius, persistent troubles rumbling through the late 1st and early 2nd centuries or just because they were recognised as a people at the very limits of the (near) civilised world (and therefore bound to be troublesome).The coin is well-known (e.g. Breeze & Dobson, Hadrian's Wall, 1976; 4th edn. 2000, p. 25: "There is a coin showing BRITANNIA issued in 119 which is usually taken to imply a victory in Britain.") but it is not explicitly a "victory" coin. It simply indicates that Britain was "in the news" during Hadrian's reign, which (of course) we knew from the SHA passage. (And Hadrian's Wall is a bit of a giveaway, too.)
Breeze & Dobson date the coin to 119, following their source (Mattingly & Sydenham, Roman Imperial Coinage, 577a), but -- as you probably know -- Hadrian's titulature never allows any inscription to be so closely dated without the TRP number. Strictly speaking, the coin could have been minted as late as AD 128 (after which he tends to call himself Pater Patriae, unlike the titulature on this coin).
As regards the Brigantes, I was under the impression that there are rather few references to this tribe, after the obvious ones in Tacitus! (Maybe that's what you meant?)
Quote:Birley, in his book The Roman Government of Britain observes that Aemilius Karus may have left the ninth in AD 122, Novius Crispinus’ tribunate of the ninth may have been as late as the mid 120s AD whilst Sextius Florentius can be dated “to Hadrian’s first few years”…all still uncomfortably close to the arrival of the sixth at York (to replace the ninth) in around AD 122Of course, Birley only mentions these dates as termini post quem. It is interesting that, as an epigrapher/prosopographer par excellence, Eric Birley thought that one of these (I can't remember which one, off hand) was probably as late as AD 140, until he realised the implications. In other words, if there had been no pressure to remove the legion ca. AD 120, we would most logically have seen it surviving up to ca. AD 140.
