Potin with Indian head on the left and horse

The Senones occupied territory centered on modern Sens, in northern Burgundy, and are best remembered in the ancient sources for the sack of Rome around 390 BC — an event so traumatic it lodged in Roman collective memory for centuries. By the time these potin pieces were being cast, the tribe was operating under increasing Roman pressure in the century leading to Caesar's Gallic Wars, in which the Senones participated actively enough to face punitive reprisals. Potin itself, a leaded bronze alloy, was the dominant low-denomination coinage technology among several northern Gallic tribes precisely because it could be cast rather than struck, lowering production barriers considerably.