This is not a coin-collector's handbook, identifying different types of coin; rather it enables the reader interested in the Romans and archaeology to understand the place of coinage in Roman Britain and so deepen their understanding of Roman Britain as a whole.
The first two chapters provide a resume of how the coinage produced by the central Roman state changed, developed and stumbled. In Britain most coins in museums and collections come from hoards, such as the 14,000 gold and silver coins at Hoxne, or are found singly on sites such as Richborough (where they amounted to a massive 56,000) during excavations or walking over fields. These two classes are very different and are examined seperately because they need different methods of study and produce different sorts of information. The author then looks at how coins were used in the empire at large and in Britain in particular, for here the man-in-the-field and the woman-in-the-market probably relied on barter not coinage. Finally he explains the differences between Britain and the rest of the Roman empire.
Despite the need for quantitative as well as qualitative analysis, Richard Reece has - for the benefit of those who are understandably put off by reams of statistics - banished all numbers and numerical methods to a single short appendix. The result is a book sparkling with Dr. Reece's characteristically incisive insights that can be appreciated by anyone interested in Britain's past.
