PROBABLE DATE OF THE ROMAN OCCUPATION 125 



of two conclusions ; either tlie cohorts did not serve 

 continuously in one province, but were moved from 

 province to province and back again at quite sbort 

 intervals, or else — and this view, which Mommsen holds, 

 is almost certainly correct — the diplomata do not contain 

 complete lists of all the foreign cohorts serving in Britain 

 during the year to which they refer. On either hypothesis 

 our suggested conclusion as to the extreme limits of the 

 presence in Britain of the First Cohort of the Frisians 

 (103 — 146) is invalidated. That cohort might, on either 

 supposition, have appeared in an earlier diploma than 

 that of 103, or in a later one than that of 146. The only 

 indisputable inference from the evidence of the diplomata 

 is that the cohort was in Britain in 105 and again in 124, 

 and that in these years, or immediately before them, 

 certain members of the cohort had completed the term of 

 service (25 years) required to qualify them for the 

 citizenship. 



There remains to be considered the evidence of pottery 

 and coins found on the site of the camp. The former is 

 discussed at length in Mr. J. H. Hopkinson's article 

 (v. supra) ; it would appear to indicate the presence of the 

 Romans as early as about 80 a.d., and again as late as 

 the second half of the third century. Any conclusion 

 based on the coins can only be put forward with reserve. 

 There is nothing to indicate with any precision the age 

 of the coin at the time it was deposited at the spot where it 

 is discovered. It is no uncommon thing to find in 

 circulation to-day a coin seventy or eighty years old, and it 

 may be doubted whether the life of anan.cient coin was shorter 

 than that of a modern ; indeed, it might often be longer, 

 as in the absence of an elaborate banking system coins were 

 more apt to be hoarded. At the same time, coins of anything 

 like seventy or eighty years circulation would obviously 



