contained a gold stater of the pre-Roman Celtic leader, Cunobelin. Although this may be unconnected to the rest of the hoard, other mixed Celtic/Roman hoards are known and Celtic coins may have circulated up to the Boudican revolt, c. 61 A.D.
Out of the 44 hoards under discussion, 2 consist of all gold coins, 8 are gold and silver, 28 are all silver, 4 are all bronze and 2 are bronze and silver. Presumably the hoards containing gold were more of a 'savings account' than a 'current account'.
One of the few hoards found from a contemporary urban site, is hoard (Table 1, C249), found at Plantation Place in the City of London (closing c. 180). This consisted of 43 gold aurei that were originally in a purse hidden in a substantial house. The fact that after the owner of the hoard 'lost contact' with his riches, the subsequent occupiers of the house lived there for at least a century without finding it, indicates that it was very well hidden and must have been intended as long term savings, though perhaps 1800 years wasn't the intended term!
Hadrian visited Britain in 121-122 and ordered his famous wall to be built to keep out the northern barbarians. Antoninius Pius (138-161) built his own Antonine wall to the north. In spite of these events and outbreaks of plague, there doesn't seem to be much change in the hoard records, at least for the ones under review.
At the end of the 'first silver period', the hoard records show that most coins of the period were still circulating. The crunch came during the reign of Septimius Severus (193-211) and his son Caracalla (198-217). Severus had to fight off several claimants to the imperial throne as well as making an accommodation with Clodius Albinus (195-197), who at the time was Governor of Britain (in spite of that he doesn't seem to be well represented in the British hoards under review). This left him short of cash, so he massively de-based the silver coinage. Caracalla followed in his father's footsteps by introducing the Antoninianus (also referred to as a Radiate) in 214. This may have been tariffed at 2 denarii but only contained 1 ½ times the weight of silver as the denarii. Naturally, the army saw this (rightly) as a de-valuation and wanted a pay rise! The rest of the population must have felt the same and a damaging inflationary cycle started (although we should be careful not to associate this too closely with our modern concept of inflation). A handful of hoards with old good silver coins survive this hiatus which had perhaps become too valuable to spend at face value. Most of the good silver, though, must have found it's way to the mint to be made into more and more de-based Antoniniani.
After Severus, who died in 211, down to Gallienus, who came to power in 253, there are very few hoards (at least the ones under review) containing coins of the intermediate emperors. This is hardly surprising, as emperors were changing almost monthly, usurpers were popping up all over the place and the coinage was in free-fall. Gresham's Law came into play, with 'bad money driving out good money'.
A couple of hoards include older silver coins, from back to the time of Septimius Severus, but most are bunched around the Gallic Empire period. Nearly all include coins of Gallienus (253-268), as well as all the Gallic emperors. Why were they hoarded? Well, they may not have been worth very much but they were the only coins in circulation, with no pure silver coins and only scarce gold ones for the seriously rich. Inflation must have increased the number of coins required even for daily transactions, so carrying the family fortune around was probably out of the question.
Under Claudius II (268-270), the legitimate Roman coinage reached the same low point as the Gallic coinage, although, interestingly, his coins feature strongly in British hoards, even though, in theory, the empires were separate. However, after his victory over the Tetricii, Aurelian (270-275) reformed the coinage, issuing better made silver-washed coins. At this stage another break-point is reached in the British hoard record.