The British coinage of
Carausius and
Allectus is littered with irregular coinage that muddies the waters. However, every now and then you can come across an official coin that adds clarity (or perhaps not).
The “C”
mint of the period has been attributed to several locations, the most popular, certainly ten years ago, was
Camulodunum (Colchester).
However, there is a
rare group of coins that have the location mark CL (allied with the
field marks SP). I have just acquired an example of such a piece (
RIC 111),
PROVIDENTIA AVG, S/P//CL.
This has been seen by some influential writers to
exclude Camulodunum on the basis that L is neither the second or third letter of the
mint name (unless of course
Camulodunum is referred to as
CoLonia). The arguments to and fro are not repeated here for brevity of post.
It opens the door to
CLausentum (Bitterne),
GLevum (
Gloucester),
CaLleva (Silchester),
Colonia Lindum (
Lincoln) amongst others. Given that the looks to be a marginal bias towards the
west country (according to some authors) in finds of the “C”
mint coinage then Glevum could be the place.
Regards,
Mauseus
