Celtic Gold Coin Of The Vendelici Tribe
This gold stater was struck in the early 1st century BC. It shows a triskeles within a wreath-like torc with an annulet at each open end. The reverse side shows a pyramid of eight annulets: five, on the bottom, each enclosing a pellet, and three, forming the top two rows, each enclosing a smaller annulet; all within a wavy torc.
The Vindelici lands were known to the Romans as Vindelicia (map) and were considered bounded by the Danube and Germanic frontier to the north, the Inn (Œnus) to the east, Raetia to the south, and the Helvetii to the west. These lands today form northeast Switzerland, southeast Baden, and southern Württemberg and Bavaria. The chief town is assumed to have been the oppidum at Manching before the Romans; after the Roman conquest, the tribe’s capital was moved to Augusta Vindelicorum (“Augusta of the Vindelici”, modern Augsburg).
Together with the neighboring tribes, the Vendelici were subjugated by Tiberius in 15 BC. The Augustan inscription of 12 BC mentions four tribes of the Vindelici among the defeated, the Cosuanetes, Rucinates, Licates and Catenates.