Gold Stater Zigzag Bars

The Atrebates of southern Britain were under direct pressure from Caesar's Gallic campaigns during this decade — the tribal leader Commius, once Caesar's ally and envoy to Britain, had by the late 50s BC turned against Rome following a failed assassination attempt against him. Coins attributed to his tribe from this period circulated in a political environment of acute instability, with loyalties shifting between accommodation and outright resistance.

Sills 209 places this type within a sequence that predates the introduction of inscribed coinage among the Atrebates, making ruler attribution impossible on numismatic grounds alone.