Huddersfield Chronicle (09/Dec/1865) - Cambodunum

The following is a transcription of a historic newspaper article and may contain occasional errors. If the article was published prior to 1 June 1957, then the text is likely in the Public Domain.

Cambodunum.

Notwithstanding the wet week the excavations at Slack have progressed, and another hypocaust is now cleared of soil and rubbish. This is the fifth compartment laid open, and proves beyond reasonable doubt that they were the public thermae of the Roman camp. Several tiles, marked COH. IIII. BRE. in full, have been thrown up from this last hypocaust. We shall now give some information to our general readers, of the coins found at Slack from time to time. The first in interest is the large brass coin of Vespasian, struck to commemorate the destruction of Jerusalem and consequent subjugation of Judea by his son Titus. The epigraph is the laureated head of the emperor to the right, and in the exerque LMP. CAES. VESPASIAN. AVG. P. M. TR. P. P. P. COS. III., which reads Imperator Cæsar Vespasianus Augustus Pontifex Maximus, Tribunitia, Potestate Pater Patriae Consul III. On the obverse a palm tree, rising in the middle of the field, on the left side of which a female captive is seated on a cuirass weeping. On the right is the figure of the emperor reaching nearly to the top of the palm tree, bareheaded, and in military costume ; in his right hand he holds a spear erect, and in the left hand a parazonium ; his left foot rest on a helmet lying at the foot of the palm tree. In the exergue IVDAEA. CAPTA. S. C. i.e. Senatus Consulto. In these letters (S.C.) Akerrman says :— "Everything appears to indicate that the coinage of brass was under the direction and control of the Senate, while that of gold and silver was at the disposal of the Emperor ... These letters generally appear in the field of the coin, but are sometimes placed in the exerque." Of this coin, called by way of distinction "the Judea Capta," no less than five distinct and different types were struck, agreeing only in one particular, namely, the palm tree, as the emblem of Judea. There are other coins of Vespasian cast up at Cambodunum, but at present we must say "to be continued in our next."