This volume presents the coins from Reims (région Champagne-Ardenne, dépt. Marne), the ancient Durocortorum, tribal capital of the Remi and capital of the Roman province of Gallia Belgica since early in the reign of Augustus (c. 19/18 or 16/13 b.c.). Jean-Marc Doyen, who is both an archaeologist and a numismatist, has studied 1,981 coin-finds from well-documented archaeological contexts, covering 70 recent excavations from 1972 to 2005, comprising 260 Gaulish, 1,613 Roman and 108 medieval coins. He has also studied 15 recently found hoards comprising 1,066 coins. The main aim of this work is to show the regional pattern of coin circulation and the evolution of the coin supply to Durocortorum from the end of the Gaulish period to the late Roman Empire. For this examination, the coins have been divided into ten chronological periods: Republic, Augustus, Tiberius–Claudius, Nero–Domitian, Nerva–Hadrian, Antoninus–Commodus, Severus–Gordian III, Philippus–Postumus, Claudius II–Constantine/Licinius, and Constantine–Arcadius.

Furthermore, and itself a tremendous task, the coins of Reims (from each phase) have been compared with the coin-finds from 126 Western European sites divided into three areas: Military North, Civilian North and Centre/West/South Gaul. It appears that Reims matches either the Civilian North or Centre/West/South Gaul. In addition, numerous numismatic matters have been examined and discussed, including the frequency of the different denominations, the ritual mutilations, the length of circulation and the wear on the coins (the author has used ten grades), the Republican and Augustan halves, the military countermarks, the Julio-Claudian bronze imitations and the subaerati denarii, the moulds and the casts of the third century, and the production and the circulation of the Barbarous radiates (divided into four typological classes).

The reader will also discover several new and very interesting things. In the first Altar series of Augustus (RIC 229/230), two stylistic and metrological groups had been identified by J.-B. Giard; this had suggested the existence of an auxiliary mint to that at Lyons. According to distribution maps and historical facts, D. suggests that this so-called auxiliary mint could have been created c. 7/5 b.c. in Ara Vbiorum (today Cologne/Köln-Alteburg), capital of the military district of Germany, a sort of twin-sister town of Lugdunum with its imperial cult altar founded by Drusus.

More important for us is the superbly detailed study (metrology, style and prototypes, epigraphy, distribution maps) of the Romano-Gaulish provincial bronzes in the names of Germanus Indutilli l. (RPC 506) and Augustus, bull butting r. (RPC 509). These small Augustan coins are very common in north and east France but have never been well dated and attributed (Lyons, Trier?). D. brings forward convincing arguments to demonstrate that these leaded brass semisses were struck in Reims as small change for the province of Gallia Belgica, and that the series Augustus, bull butting r. (c. 12–8 b.c.) closely followed the Germanus Indutilli l. series (c. 19–12 b.c.).

Finally, in the appendices of this important publication are gathered a study of the 19 medallions found in Reims (together with an inventory of the medallions found in the Western Roman Empire), a list of the sites used for comparison, and a list of the 31 hoards known in Reims, 15 of which are then fully studied with catalogues and photographs.

There are many reasons why this book will interest Roman archaeologists and numismatists: first, because the publication of coin-finds from Roman towns in France has been pretty rare, a gap which this study starts to fill; second, because the large number of European site-finds used by the author for comparison with Reims offers a Continental view of Roman coin circulation; and third, because the author has presented some very new and convincing ideas. In addition, the layout of the book is very attractive, the text is accompanied by a lot of clear tables and maps, and the catalogues are fully illustrated with good colour photos.