Silver Stater Four Branch

The Durotriges occupied what is now Dorset and Somerset, and their silver coinage underwent a striking and well-documented degradation over roughly a century — beginning as imitations of the Macedonian gold stater of Philip II, passed through Gaul, and ending in abstract schematic forms barely recognizable as coins at all. The "Four Branch" type sits near the terminal end of that devolution, its silver content by this period substantially reduced from earlier issues, reflecting either deliberate debasement or chronic metal shortage in the decades following Caesar's expeditions to Britain.

The tribe never adopted Roman coinage after the conquest of 43 AD, an unusual holdout that suggests either geographic isolation or deliberate resistance in the southwest.