[Burkeman1]

It amazes me why we even find coins at all from antiquity much less 20,000 of them in ne spot. What do you suppose the story behind this cache is? A wealthy merchant hiding money from the tax man but whose was killed or died suddenly without revealing this fortune? Or had inflation made the money worthless in the late 4th century in Britain? Was Rome's influence so weak that it's currency meant little and only those things that kept you alive mattered?

[GeronL]

The tax man had collected the local taxes and was transporting them by wagon to the coast where a ship would haul them to Rome. The locals didn't like this "outsourcing" and they blew up a nearby dam which flooded the area and buried the treasure.

[Polybius]

It amazes me why we even find coins at all from antiquity much less 20,000 of them in one spot. What do you suppose the story behind this cache is? A wealthy merchant hiding money from the tax man but whose was killed or died suddenly without revealing this fortune? Or had inflation made the money worthless in the late 4th century in Britain? Was Rome's influence so weak that it's currency meant little and only those things that kept you alive mattered?

Caches were the ancient world's version of a Swiss bank account.

When there was civil war or when the barbarians were coming, you gathered up your wealth, put it in a pot and buried it in your super-secret hiding place.......Maybe by the big oak tree that, 1,700 years later, is no longer there. After the bad guys went away, you dug it back up. If the bad guys got you, some fellow in the 21st Century ended up with your 401 K.

This cache was probably buried in the troubled times when Roman civilization in Britain was under attack by the barbarian invasions.

Caches are important in ancient numismatics because they give a time capsule snap shot of which coins circulated with other coins at a certain time. This is not as important in Roman Imperial coinage that can be dated by the Emperor but it has allowed the dating of Roman Republican coinage that had generic designs with no associated Imperial ruler.

[Martin Tell]

What do you suppose the story behind this cache is?

Just speculating (my guess is as good as any else's): Rich man/family buried the loot to hide it from the invading barbarians (Anglo-Saxons). Lots of families in the South did the same thing to hide their money from the thieving Yankees during the War of Northern Aggression. Some of it is still dug up occasionally

[Indrid Cold]

Maybe he thought Rome was gonna take his spear away, and he was saving up to skip the country.

[infowarrior]

Was Rome's influence so weak that it's currency meant little and only those things that kept you alive mattered?

Bingo! 4th Century Britain was the time of the first of the invasions of the the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. Rome had withdrawn their legions from Britain, and the empire in rapid decline. Swords, more than coin reigned in Britain of the late 4th century, as it was the time of "Arthur", if such a personage ever existed (and he may well have been a composite of several strong leaders, slowing, but never succeeding in stemming the tide which turned Roman-Celtic Britain into Anglo-Saxon Britain)...

the infowarrior