Detectorist finds hoard of Roman silver coins

Four of the coins date to the reign of Marcus Aurelius, who was played by Richard Harris in the first Gladiator film, with the earliest dating from AD166 (above)

A hoard of 16 silver Roman coins spanning two centuries has been discovered in a field by a detectorist.

The denarii date from the late Roman Republic to the reign of Marcus Aurelius and his wife Faustina, and were found at Barton Bendish, Norfolk.

Coin specialist Adrian Marsden said the loss might have been the equivalent of "a few hundred quid" to its owner.

The hoard is the subject of a treasure inquest and King's Lynn Museum is hoping to acquire it.

Empress Faustina accompanied her husband Marcus Aurelius on campaigns and after her death he ordered she should be deified

"There's 200 years' worth of coins in the hoard, which is what you get with a stable currency," Dr Marsden, from the Norfolk Historic Environment Service, said.

"It's similar to the 1960s when you'd still get Victorian pennies in your change, although they were practically worn smooth."

The earliest coin in the hoard dates from 57BC and is also the most worn.

It was made in the Roman Republic which lasted from 509BC, when a monarch was replaced by elected magistrates, until AD27, when the empire began.

The earliest coin shows Caius Serveilius (top row), while the lower denarii shows the emperor Hadrian, who ordered the building of the wall in northern Britain

The rest of the coins show six emperors and two of their wives, with the most recent denarii dating to AD175-6.

Dr Marsden said it was impossible to know if the coins were a purse loss or had been deliberately hidden "which is simply what you do when you haven't got banks".

"We do know that this part of Norfolk, the area on the fen edge around King's Lynn, was a very prosperous part of Britain - there was a line of villas here and you've got [the county's longest Roman road] the Peddars Way - because the soil is very fertile and it's prime agricultural land," he said.

"While it's always very difficult to tie in coins with prices today, because the structure of society was so very different, the loss was probably worth the equivalent of a few hundred quid to its owner."

Emperor Vespasian (AD69 to 79) was the last of the emperors in the "year of four emperors " and went on to found a new dynasty