The numismatic chronicle and journal of the Royal Numismatic Society

IV.
NOTE ON SOME DISCOVERIES OF ROMAN COINS IN
GAUL AND BRITAIN.
THE recent discovery of a hoard of Roman coins on
the line of the Roman "Wall in Northumberland, of
which an elaborate account, by John Clayton, Esq.,
F.S.A., appears in the Arckmologia ^Eliana, suggests
my offering a few remarks on the numerous very similar
hoards continually discovered in this country and in
France, one of the latest having been found at Jublains in
August last.
I believe that nearly all large hoards point to important
historical epochs when, from the movements of military
forces, the carrying of heavy accumulations of coin
necessitated the possessors to resort to concealment in the
earth. This mode of deposit was easy, simple, and
perfectly safe; but in hundreds and thousands of cases
the fate of war or the casualties of military life prevented
the owners from ever returning to disinter their deposits,
which remained to exercise the wonder and cupidity, and
also (in our days) the scientific investigations, of the far
future. But for the purposes of science the numismatic
historian has had to struggle and fight. It has been com-
paratively seldom that he has been able to examine, with
confidence in its integrity, a hoard of coins fresh from
beneath the ground. Abstractions by the finder naturally