I was both pleased and flattered by Charlotte Higgins’ generous acknowledgment of my discovery of the Virgilian Eclogue tag on the coins and medallions of the rebel Roman emperor Carausius and his regime in Britain (The 50p coin recalls the first, ill-fated Brexit, 31 October).

But Carausius was no antique Brexiteer or Boris Johnson. Quite the reverse in fact. Everything about his propaganda, flaunted on his coins which depict an array of traditional Roman virtues and aspirations, shows that he claimed to be restoring the decrepit, violence-ridden Roman empire – Renovator Romanorum (“Restorer of the Romans”), he bragged on one. He never claimed to be restoring Britain.

Carausius was turning the clock back three centuries to the great days of Augustan Rome, so he said, but starting in his power base in Britain. He even opened the first mint in London in order to produce some of his coins.

Had he been around today, far from leading Brexit, the swaggering Carausius would be claiming to be restoring the great aspirations and ideals of the European Union, but in London rather than Brussels.

In short, Carausius was the original remain hero (and martyr).

Guy de la Bédoyère

Welby, Lincolnshire

• Boris Johnson “minted on to a coin wearing a toga and surrounded by quotations” to mark a second ill-fated Brexit? “Per ardua ad calamitas”?

Austen Lynch

Garstang, Lancashire

• “Peace, prosperity and friendship with all nations”, the words on the proposed 50p piece to celebrate Brexit are OK, but a bit bland. Half a century ago, MLK quoted words that are unsurpassable re the Brexit coin: “Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty we are free at last.”

Dai Woosnam

Grimsby, Lincolnshire

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