Wiltshire, Breadbasket to the Roman Rhineland

SPEAKER: Dr Sam Moorhead FSA, historian and numismatist, based at the British Museum, is a leading expert on Roman coins, and is the author of several books on the history and coinage of the Roman Empire.

TOPIC: Forty years ago, the speaker studied two groups of Roman coins in Devizes Museum which came from Wiltshire sites.  There was an unusual peak in late Roman coins which has been a focus of research ever since.  It appears to show that late Roman Wiltshire was the epicentre of officially-controlled agricultural activity, required for the export of grain and other foodstuffs to the Continent.