Summary:

- Archaeologists have discovered a 1,700-year-old Roman hoard in the UK that includes over 550 gold coins depicting the image of Sponsian, an obscure Roman emperor who ruled a breakaway province in the 3rd century AD.
- The hoard, which was found by miners in the 1800s and recently rediscovered, provides rare physical evidence of Sponsian's existence and rule, which was previously only known from a few ancient written sources.
- The discovery sheds new light on a turbulent period in the Roman Empire's history when the central authority in Rome was weakened, leading to the rise of regional strongmen like Sponsian who sought to establish their own independent realms.