Huddersfield in Roman Times
By Ian A. Richmond
ROMAN PIONEERS IN THE HUDDERSFIELD DISTRICT
A.D. 71-79
PREVIOUS RELATIONS WITH ROME
Tacitus records that Petilius Cerialis annexed the greater
part of the Brigantian land, which covered at least six
northern counties of England, and belonged to a large and
powerful tribe. Between these folk and Rome relations already
had been somewhat stormy, for among them, as within most
frontier tribes of the Roman Empire, there existed pro-Roman
and anti-Roman parties. As early as A.D. 50 their Queen,
Cartimandua, who issued coins of which copes now are in
the Museum, had shown her good will towards Rome by giving
up the defeated chief Caratacus to Ostorius Scapula, the
Roman governor.
But soon after this event she disgusted her people by contracting
a marriage with her husband’s armour-bearer, and a
relief column of Roman troops, sent by Didius Gallus, rescued
her with difficulty during the strife which followed her
rashness.
Meanwhile Roman influences had been making headway in the
Brigantian land. Among evidence of commerce at this period
may be adduced a seal-box from Honley, found in association
with a brooch of native manufacture and coins dating from
about 209 B.C. to A.D. 72-73, of which five are British
and eighteen Roman.
The latest Roman coins are in very fresh condition, and
the deposit therefore may be dated to A.D. 74-78. Full details
about two other local hoards of this period are lost. One
came from Lightcliffe, dated from 184 B.C. to A.D. 40, and
was composed of golden British coins with at least thirty-five
Roman silver coins; the other was found in 1829 on Castle
Hill, Almondbury, and consisted of some seventeen British
coins.
Again, the name Colusius, which appears in Celtic form
as Volisios on certain Brigantian coins of which copies
are in the Museum, looks Roman, and may show that Roman
financial agents or moneyers were at work among the Brigantes,
just as according to Caesar they worked in Gaul a century
before. Thus the Huddersfield district forms no exception
to the rule that the way was prepared for Roman troops by
Roman traders.
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