1 Denarius Circle, T

The Goths along the Taman Peninsula — the narrow strip connecting Crimea to the Kuban steppe — occupied a commercial crossroads between the late Bosporan Kingdom and Black Sea trade networks. Their imitative billon coinage of this period drew directly from Roman denarius prototypes circulating in the region, a practical response to the near-collapse of Roman monetary supply during the Crisis of the Third Century. Rome's own denarius had been debased so aggressively by the 270s that provincial and barbarian imitations became functionally interchangeable with official issues.