Coin, nummus AE4

A copper alloy nummus of Emperor Theodosius I, ruler of the Roman Empire, 379-395 CE. The back of the coin depicts a wreath. This coin was minted in Cyzicus (in modern day Balıkesir Province, Turkey), in 383.

Front (obverse): Draped, diademed bust of Theodosius I, facing right. Inscription: DN THEODO[SIVS]... .
Back (reverse): A wreath enclosing the inscription VOT X MVLT XX. This is an abbreviation for 'Pledges (vota) for 10 years and many (pledges) for 20'. The motto appears on coins minted for several Emperors at this period, and amounted to little more than an acclamation of the type 'Long may he reign!'. Few Emperors made it to 10 years, let alone 20. Inscription below line at botto: SMKA. The middle two letters stand for the region of M(ysia) and the city of Kuzikos (Cyzicus).

This coin is one of over 300 Roman coins that were found during building work on a site in Bermondsey in 1946, hidden away in a small ceramic bottle. The coins were presumably the savings of somebody who buried them for safe keeping but who, for a reason we shall never know, did not return to recover them.

The coins were not of high value at the time: the equivalent of modern pennies put in a money box. Nevertheless they are interesting because many of them can be dated to the 380s and 390s CE. This is at the very end of the period during which Britain was part of the Roman empire. Coin hoards of this date are not common. Perhaps the bottle was left behind simply because, once Roman government had come to an end, coins no longer had much value and were less often used in everyday transactions.

The hoard is also important because we have very few Roman finds of any type from this part of Bermondsey. In Roman times the site was probably a small island of higher ground among mudflats and river channels, but we have no specific details about the type of habitation there.