The Chronological Development of Roman Provincial Coin Iconography

Abstract

Abstract The Aims of this Chapter are to Provide a brief introduction to Roman provincial coinage as background to the book as a whole, and to outline the key developments in Roman provincial coin iconography from a chronological perspective. Geographical diversity will only be touched on here, but emerges strongly from the regional studies within this volume. It is also the main theme of Burnett’s paper which compares the Roman East with the Roman West. This chapter is based mainly on the material contained in the first two volumes of the Roman Provincial Coinage (RPC) series, which cover the Julio- Claudian and Flavian periods from 44 BC to AD 96, and the database of the RPC IV project. The latter embraces the Antonine period, the time from the accession of Antoninus Pius in ad 138 to the death of Commodus in AD 192. Provincial coins from the reigns of Nerva to Hadrian (ad 96–138) and the third century AD have not yet been catalogued systematically. Consequently, their treatment within this chapter can only be impressionistic, and will require refinement and revision once the RPC series has been completed. Readers in search of a more extended, but still impressionistic, treatment of key themes in the iconography of the period from ad 180 onwards are referred to Harl 1987. Finally, many of the examples given in this chapter are deliberately drawn from the rich material from the Roman province of Asia, as this region is not the subject of a dedicated chapter in this book. Types of Roman Provincial Coins and their Characteristics During the three and a half centuries from 44 BC the Roman empire embraced different categories of coinage. Scholars have divided the material into two main groups: ‘Roman imperial coins’ on the one hand and ‘Roman provincial coins’—also known as ‘Greek imperial coins’—on the other. Roman imperial mints produced coins in gold, silver, and ‘bronze’. Roman imperial gold coins (aurei) circulated throughout the empire, with the possible exception of Egypt. Imperial silver coins (denarii) and—from the reign of Caracalla onwards—also radiates or antoniniani increasingly circulated alongside provincial silver in the east.