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Collection record · Small worlds

Stater: Three-Petal Flower (obverse); Horse and wheels (reverse)

The collection record classifies this work as coins. It is dated 20 BCE–10 CE. Recorded culture or place: England, Iceni.

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OBJECT RECORD

A closer look at the details.

Museum title
Stater: Three-Petal Flower (obverse); Horse and wheels (reverse)
Date
20 BCE–10 CE
Culture / origin
England, Iceni
Materials and technique
gold
Dimensions
Diameter: 1.9 cm (3/4 in.)
Artist / maker
Not specified by the museum
Museum
The Cleveland Museum of Art
Accession number
1969.156

FROM THE MUSEUM

In the museum’s words

The following description is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art’s original English record.

The Iceni were a native tribe inhabiting Norfolk, Suffolk, and parts of Cambridgeshire. They were described by the Romans as powerful, unbroken by war. In AD 61 the king of the Iceni, Prasutagus, died, leaving his apparently considerable wealth to his two daughters and to the Roman Emperor, as joint heirs. However, while the Roman legions under Aulus Plautius were in Wales taking drastic steps to exterminate Druidism, Boadicea, the widow of Prasutagus, was ill-treated by the Romans and her two daughters were outraged. The Iceni rose in revolt and helped by their neighbors the Trinovantes, they overran the Roman settlements. It is said that 70,000 Romans were massacred at Camulodunum, and the Iceni, with Boadicea in a war chariot at their head, sacked and burned Verulamium (St. Albans, Hertfordshire), and London. Suetonius, one of the leading Roman generals, returned from the west with all possible speed and came up with the Iceni in the northwest of Roman London. Here a great battle was fought, resulting in a complete victory for the disciplined Roman forces; thousands of Britons were killed. The site of this battle is supposed to have been near what is now Kings Cross, in central London, commemorated by Battle Bridge Road.

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Text and image sources

The Cleveland Museum of Art · The Norweb Collection · CC0

The summary is based on public collection data. Refer to the museum’s latest record for the title, date and attribution.

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