Silver Quinarius

The Aedui occupied a peculiar political position in late Iron Age Gaul — nominally allied with Rome since at least the early second century BC, yet deeply entangled in the intertribal conflicts that ultimately gave Caesar his pretext for intervention after 58 BC. Their silver quinarii, struck across a span that brackets the Gallic Wars almost precisely, reflect a minting tradition that borrowed the Roman quinarius format while retaining distinctly Celtic stylistic conventions. Whether production continued into the 30s BC under Roman provincial reorganization or tapered off at conquest remains an open question in the scholarship.