FOUND AT BEICKENDOXBUET, HEETFORD. 173 



was, however, in all probability cut off from all connection with 

 any central authority, and its inhabitants left much under their 

 own government, such as it may have been." 



But though history is silent, my friend Mr. Havcrfield, of Christ 

 Church, Oxford, has called my attention to the testimony of 

 inscribed stones found in Britain, and from the inscriptions on mile- 

 stones — which, by the way, seem to have been altered from time to 

 time, so as to bear the name of the reigning emperor — the isolation 

 does not appear to have been so complete as I supposed. The 

 names of Gallus and Yolusian * occur together on milestones at 

 Bittern, near Southampton, and at Gretabridge, Yorkshire, and 

 together with that of Decius on a stone at Castlcford f in the same 

 county. Those of Gallus and Volusian are also recorded together 

 in inscriptions on the Roman wall, J and those of Valerianus, 

 Gallienus, and Valerianus Caesar are found in an inscription at 

 Caerleon. || 



It would seem, then, that the government of Britain must have 

 been carried on in the normal manner, until the revolt of Postumus, 

 in A.D. 258, severed Gaul, and with it probably Britain, from the 

 rest of the Roman Empire, and paved the way for the advancement 

 of Yictorinus, Marius, and the Tetrici, of whose reigns so many 

 numismatic and other monuments still exist among us. 



At the same time the correspondence in date between the Lime 

 Street and the Brickendonbury hoards may be significant of the 

 setting in of disturbances in Britain and of those " twenty years of 

 shame and misfortune" to the Roman Empire, of which Gibbon § 

 speaks, having already commenced in this country. 



jN'or are similar indications wanting in Northern Gaul. At 

 Jupille, ^ near Liege, in Belgium, in June, 1895, a still larger 

 hoard of denarii than that of Brickendonbiuy was unearthed. 

 Though a few of the earlier coins go back to the time of Nero 

 and Yitellius, nearly half of them were struck under Severus 

 Alexander, Maximinus, and Gordianus III, the latest examined being 

 of Philippus and Otacilia. The date assigned by Dr. Simonis for 

 the deposit of this hoard is between a.d. 244 and 249, but there 

 is no reason why it might not have been a year or two later. 



Another hoard found near Luzy*'* (Nievre) must be of nearly the 

 same date, the last coins in it being of Philippus I and Otacilia. 



A complete list of the coins will be found in the article in the 

 ' Numismatic Chronicle ' already referred to (3rd ser., vol. xvi, 

 p. 191). 



* ' Corp. Insc. Brit.; pp. 1148, 1182. 

 t Epheraeris, vol. viii, pp. 1104, 1105. 

 X ' G.I.B.; pp. 646, 949. 

 II 'C.I.B.; p. 107. 

 § ' Decline and Fall,' cbap. x. 

 ir 'Rev. Beige de Num.; 1896, p. 128. 

 ** 'Rev. Arch.; vol. xxxi, 1876, p. 436. 



