VOL. XX. (2) 
ANCIENT CIRENCESTER 
87 
They were, probably, far in advance of those people in 
civilisation ; and though beset with quarrels among themselves, 
the newer Celts had long been the dominant force in this 
island. Most of their tribes possessed mints for both silver and 
gold coins after 150 b.c., and they not only spoke the same 
Celtic tongues used by their kinsfolk in Gaul and Belgium, 
but fifty years before the coming of the Romans (a.d. 43) 
their trade (though not their arts) so felt Roman influences, 
that they had adopted the hated Latin title Rex (King) on their 
coins, and certain of them had sent emissaries of high rank 
to consult the Emperor Augustus about their wrongs and 
entreat his help against their aggressive neighbours. 
Of these Dobuni who by then owned Duro-Comovium, 
later on the second town in Britain, and its surrounding 
country, we know a few facts of some distinction. They struck 
gold coins, several examples of which have been found ; and 
one of their latest princes was one Bodvoc, specimens of whose 
coins have been found even in Monmouthshire and beyond. 
They appear to have offered no resistance to the Romans. 
We have the further information about them that their 
neighbours, the more powerful tribe of the Cattivellauni, not 
long before the Roman coming had subdued a portion of them 
and made them pay tribute. It is possible that the reason 
the other portion of the Dobuni had not been conquered and 
also made tributary was that already they were across the 
Severn in contact and conflict with a savage dark-skinned 
people (probably of Iberian origin) called Silures, who, though 
Celtic-speaking, had no coinage, and were destined to give thirty 
years of trouble (after the manner of Sinn Fein) to the Roman. 
The Silures had their later tribal-centre at the place we know 
as Caerwent in Monmouthshire (Venta Silurum). Doubtless, 
there are not unrecognisable descendants of this people over- 
Severn to-day ! Probably the actual origin of the camp beside 
the Severn that became taken over and developed (c. 98 a.d.) 
into a settled small town by the Romans and called Glevum 
(and later Gleawanceaster by the Saxons, otherwise Gloucester) 
was due to the Dobunic conflicts with this non-Celtic tribe 
beyond Severn. 
It is of interest to record here that down to the fourteenth 
