Ancients: Britain, Trinovantes and Catuvellauni. Cunobelin. Ca. A.D. 10-43. AV 1/4 stater,...

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Celtic

Britain, Trinovantes and Catuvellauni. Cunobelin. Ca. A.D. 10-43. AV 1/4 stater, (11 mm, 1.28 g, 11 h). Camulodunum. Inscription on central panel between pellet-in-annulets; around, open wreath / Two horses galloping left; above, leaf; below, wheel. Hobbs 1836; Van Arsdell 1913-1; SCBC 290. Good VF.

Cunobeline was a powerful Celtic chieftain of the Trinovantes and Catuvellauni in pre-Roman south-eastern England. He seems to have swept to power around A.D. 9, perhaps in the wake of the disastrous Roman defeat in Germany, but maintained friendly diplomatic and trade relations with Rome. Cunobeline styled himself as Rex Britannorum (King of the Britons) and is thought to have sent embassies to the Emperor Augustus. His coins also generally imitate Roman prototypes. When Cunobeline banished his son Adminius from Britain in A.D. 40, the latter sought refuge at the court of Caligula. This was considered a sign of the submission of the island to Rome. Caligula prepared an invasion force to bring Britain to heel, but the expedition devolved into a farce and the Roman conquest of Britain would not actually take place until the reign of Claudius. The memory of Cunobeline is immortalized in William Shakespeare's Cymbeline.