Rinvenimenti monetali da siti militari romani repubblicani: il caso degli accampamenti di Grociana Piccola e San Rocco (Trieste)

The preliminary surveys on San Rocco and Grociana piccola fortifications yielded a total of three Roman coins, and more are expected to be unveiled. Despite their small number, they represent very important documentation in several aspects. First, they constitute one of the few Roman coin finds from an archaeological context dating to the Republican age coming from the surroundings of Aquileia to date. This enables the analysis of the beginnings of the circulation of coins in the Latin colony and, in general, the understanding of the way in which the Roman coinage first spread in the southeastern Alpine area. All of these aspects are currently known only from hoards and stray finds evidences. Furthermore, coin discovery on two military sites dating with absolute precision between the beginning of the 2nd and the last quarter of the 1st century BC allows the investigation of the role played by the Roman army in the monetisation of the eastern border of Italy and, possibly, of the coins’ function within a Roman Republican military context. As regards this last aspect, comparisons can be made only with finds recovered on sites related to the Roman conquest of the Iberian Peninsula belonging to the same period.