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New Light on Latin in Pre-Conquest Britain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 2010

Jonathan Williams
Jonathan Williams
Affiliation:
The British Museum, jwilliams@thebritishmuseum.ac.uk
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Recent developments in the reading of Iron Age British coin-legends have added considerably to our knowledge of Latin in pre-conquest Britain. The picture that is now emerging is of the nuanced and sophisticated use of Latin over quite a wide area of South-Eastern England from the late first century B.C. onwards. The question that then arises is what the implications of this material are for our understanding of key developments in the culture, politics and societies of South-Eastern England in the decades before the Roman invasion. This paper argues that they are really rather significant.

Keywords

Iron Age coinagecoin-legendsLatin in pre-Roman BritaininscriptionsIron Age kingshipEsuprastus

Information

Type
Articles
Information
Britannia , Volume 38 , November 2007, pp. 1 - 11
Copyright
Copyright © Jonathan Williams 2007. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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