| 裏面の説明 |
A horse or bull depicted in profile to the right, rendered in the bold, stylized manner characteristic of Late Iron Age Celtic coinage of southeastern Britain. The animal's body is compact and muscular, with clearly defined haunches and forelegs. Beneath the animal, the mint mark or control symbol VIR appears in the exergue area, rendered in Latin characters. Additional pellets or decorative devices may be present in the field surrounding the animal. The design reflects the influence of Gallo-Belgic coinage traditions adapted to the local Catuvellaunian artistic idiom. |
Tasciovanos ruled the Catuvellauni from roughly the late first century BC, operating out of Verulamium — modern St Albans — and was almost certainly the father of Cunobelinus, the ruler Shakespeare loosely transformed into Cymbeline. His bronze issues are the workhorse coinage of his reign, struck in volume to serve local exchange at a moment when tribal territories were expanding aggressively into Trinovantian lands to the east. The "Vir" designation in modern cataloguing derives from the abbreviated inscription on the coin, one of several abbreviated forms Tasciovanos used across his prolific output.
Most examples come from controlled metal-detector finds in Hertfordshire and Essex.