Roman Historians and the Roman Coinage

Abstract

There is no novelty in suggesting the importance of Roman coins as a source for the study of Roman history; a considerable number of works have explored the possibilities of the subject. The chief problem, however, has always lain in appreciating how far they can take us in an understanding of events: the coins are after all often as tendentious as the literary sources are sometimes alleged to be–or even more so. Further, when the historian moves from attempting to explain the legends to such matters as interpreting features of the portraiture, he is moving on to very subjective ground: for example, what may be the significance of the fact that on Nerva's Divvs Avgvstvs coins, the portrait of Augustus begins to look uncannily like that of Nerva himself? Or again, what are we to make of the fact that the obverse portrait on early coins of Trajan bears a resemblance to that of Nerva?