Celsa

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CELSA (Tarraconensis) colonia, now called XELSA. It was a city of the Illergetes, whose inhabitants were called Celsenses. This very ancient place was situated near the Ebro.

It's numismatic designation is C. or COL. V. I. CELSA (Colonia Victrix Julia Celsa.) The coins of this colony consist of Celtiberian and bilingual autonomes in brass; and of Latin imperial, in first, second, and third brass, of Augustus, Agrippa, and Tiberius. It's name of Julia indicates the founder to have been Julius Caesar, in honor of whose victories, it probably (says Vaillant), received the additional appellation of Victrix.

Of those struck under Augustus one (engraved in the Medailles de Christine) bears on it's obverse the bare head of the emperor, within a crown of laurel, allusive (Vaillant supposes) to the signal successes, achieved by the adopted heir and successor of Julius over the Cantabri and Asturi, who then occupied that northern part of Hispania, now called the Asturias. The reverses of the Celsian imperials exhibit for the most part a bull standing, the usual sign of a Romano-Spanish colony, and are inscribed, according to the custom, with the names of the Duumviri, who caused them to be struck.

There is, however, a reverse of Agrippa, with trophy and bucklers, and a Tiberius with the simpulum, securis, aspergillum, and apex. Mr Akerman, in his Coins of Cities, &c. has given an engraving of one of the autonomes, with a helmed horseman bearing a palm branch, (pl. ix. No. 3. )

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