An exceptional deposit of 141 Roman gold coins dating to the late 4th century has been unearthed near Holzthum in northern Luxembourg. The coins are gold solidi struck during the reigns of nine emperors who reigned between 364 and 408 A.D.
Three of the 141 solidi were issued by Emperor Eugenius whose coins are rare because he reigned for only two years (392-394 A.D.) and was never acknowledged as western emperor by the eastern emperor Theodosius. Eugenius was installed by the powerful general of Frankish origin Arbogast after the previous emperor, Valentinian II, was found hanged in his bedroom under mysterious circumstances. Theodosius had appointed Arbogast Valentinian II’s guardian, and he looked askance upon the death and replacement shenanigans.
He looked even more askance when Eugenius fired all of Theodosius’ hand-picked administrators at the imperial court, pacified the dwindling but vocal pagan senatorial contingent by using public moneys to restore the Altar of Victory in the Curia and revived alliances with the Franks and Alemanni, recruiting them for his army. Theodosius blew off the ambassadors Eugenius sent requesting his official recognition as Augustus of the West and instead proclaimed his eight-year-old son Honorius western Augustus. Two years after his ascension to the throne, Eugenius met Theodosius’ army at the Battle of the Frigidus on the border between modern-day Italy and Slovenia and was routed. Eugenius was captured, executed and his head put on display; Abrogast committed suicide.
(These events don’t make Eugenius an usurper, I’ll note, despite the claim made in the press release about the gold solidi. If being installed by powerful military leaders made a Roman emperor an usurper, there would hardly be a legitimate one on the list. It seems to me that if anyone was usurping the western throne, it was Theodosius giving his puppet baby the title.)
In the late 4th century when the solidi were struck, Luxembourg was part of the Roman province of Gallia Belgica, but the Franks were moving in in large numbers, wresting control from the old Gallic tribes. Roman forces left the territory in 406 A.D., right around the time when the last of the coins were issued. The coin deposit is unique on the archaeological record of Luxembourg.
The first gold coins were discovered by a pair of amateur archaeologists in September of 2019. They were looking for potsherds in a field as they had done many times before. One of them took a break and wandered over to the adjacent field where the glint of gold caught his eye. It was a Roman coin, shining in near-mint condition, entirely exposed on the surface of the soil. They scanned the field with metal detectors and in just an hour, found almost 40 coins.
They did not dig them up, thankfully. Instead, they informed the authorities and Luxembourg’s National Institute for Archaeological Research (INRA) carried out professional excavations at the site from 2020 through 2024. The two original finders were invited to be part of the excavation team, much to their delight. The announcement of the finds was kept quiet until last month to prevent looters descending upon the site.
In order to ensure that all the buried objects were discovered, the excavations were carried out with the utmost care and extended over several years. These operations also had to take into account the specific dangers of the region, due to the presence of numerous munitions and explosive devices dating from the Second World War. For this reason, the archaeologists collaborated with the Luxembourg Army Mine Action Service (SEDAL).
In addition to the coin deposit, the excavations also discovered the remains of a late Roman burgus, a small fortified observational tower found most commonly on the Germanic borders of the Empire in the 4th century, with several graves around it.
The gold solidi are in excellent condition and because they include very rare examples, INRA experts have evaluated the value of the coins at 308,600 euros, approximately $322,000. The Ministry of Culture has paid the valuation sum as a finder’s fee to the landowner and acquired the coins for the nation. The ministry is working with INRA to plan where and when they will go on public display after they are fully processed, conserved and studied.
Right next to Luxembourg, just 10km into Germany, Constantine the Great had been using the city of Trier -back then as “Augusta Treverorum”– as one of the western imperial residences, sponsoring monumental buildings such as the Trier Imperial Baths and the still standing Basilica of Constantine.
Magister militum (“master of soldiers”; pl.: magistri militum) was a top-level military rank right below the emperor himself, particularly in the endangered border regions, i.e. the Rhenish Limes or in the East the Sassanid empire. Interestingly, many of those ‘magistri’ were seemingly Franks.
To a certain extent some would end up as local warlords, but with serious power: The daughter of Flavius Bauto, or Baudogast, Aelia Eudoxia was married to the Eastern emperor Arcadius, and she would become the mother of emperor Theodosius II in the East. Arguably, Arbogast had been a son of Baudogast.
However, Flavius Richomeres or ‘Ricomer’, yet another magister militum, notably in both empires, had been the uncle of Arbogast. Eugenius, contrastingly, had been a grammar teacher, but an acceptable one. Another ‘magister’, Merobaudes, is hard to puzzle in, but he was probably buried in Trier/ Augusta Treverorum.
Is anyone else surprised that such a major valuable stash of gold coins was found near a watchtower (as opposed to a villa, town, etc)?
Those were unruly times, and particularly in Luxembourg, that may be no “surprise” at all: The Luxembourg High Security Hub/ the Luxembourg Freeport is a 50-million EUR high security “storage facility”.
According to The Economist, the “attractions are similar to those offered by offshore financial centers: Confidentiality, not much scrutiny, the ability to hide behind nominees, and an array of tax advantages.”
Therefore, the main part of the original stash may be already hidden behind walls, indeed right under the care taking nose of a watchtower, but at least a few coins were successfully “acquired for the nation” 😇️