Money in Antiquity, vol. II: Monetary Systems — 1878

The same year, in 40, Labienus, carrying himself like the avenger of Brutus and Cassius, invaded Syria at the head of the Parthian army. He also expressed, in this experi- edition of military coins, an aureus and a denarius bearing his effigy with the inscription Q- LABIENVS. BY- THICVS. IMPerator (4). Until then, when a Komain pre- a nickname is born, formed after that of a foreign nation,

(1) Cohen, pL XV, Cormficia, n"' 1-3.

(2) Cohen, Ft. XVI, Domitia, u"i and 5.

(3) Cohen, pi. XVI, Domilia, ii" 6. . (4)Cohen, pi. VII, ^/ia.

THE LAW IN ANCIENT COINS 349

it was for having defeated her; he had the ignominy of leaving parry by leading the hordes of barbarians into battle against the Komains.

Sextus Pompey was for the triumvirs a nobler adversary and a truly Roman heart. We have indicated que above (section 5 of this §) what are, among the coins which bear his name, those which he had made in Spain, at the end of 45 and in M, when he renewed the war after the Battle of Munda. Caesar died, at the end of kk, he was called to Italy by the re-party publican and received from the Senate the title of praefecttis classis et orae maritimae. He then settled in Sicily, where he offered a asylum for the outcasts of the triumvirate and where he knew how to maintain himself, dominating the sea with its numerous fleet until 36, a moment at peace with the triumvirs, in 39, but no longer often in open war with them. At this period of nine years belong to the gold and silver coins where it is always entitled, to claim the legal origin of his power, MAGnus. PIVS-\lAPerator. ITERwm — PRAErectus. CLASSis. AND. ORAE- MARITmae. EX. Sena- you. Consullo (l). The types relate to traditions of Sicily and sovereignty of the seas. Sextus Pompeius only put his own effigy on an aureus where you can see the other side the heads of his father and his brother Cnseus -, usually, it's the portrait of his father that he prefers represented on its currencies. We also have money from Q. NASIDIVS (2), one of the prefects of Sextus' fleet Pompey, from 38 to 36; they carry the head of the great one on their right Pompey with the attributes of Neptune and the legend NEP-

(1) Cohen, pi. XXXIII, Pompeia, n"' o-lO.

(2) Cohen, Ft. XXIX, Nasidia, i\'' I and 2.

350 LA. CURRENCY IN ANTIQUITY

TVNI, by allusion to the title of “son of Neptune”, which is Sextus appeared.

10. Beyond the year 41 BC. AD, we no longer see, until 27 (727 from Rome) that Octavian received the name Au- taste with the complete organization of its monarchical power quid, coins signed by monetary magistrates regulars subject to the direction of the Senate, quartet or triumvirs. All the numismatics of the triumvirs, of the peace of Brundise at the battle of Actium, is purely im- peratorial in form and appearance, and it is the same of that of Octave-Caesar, who remained sole master of power, during the four years following the fall of his rival. For Antoine, it is quite natural that this should be so; it's in the East that his authority was exercised; he had nothing to do to emissions from the urban workshop. For Octave, whose Most of the currencies during this period were minted in Rome, the fact is more singular. We may wonder- der if he had temporarily abolished the old right of Senate on currencies and the institution of quartet (see in this book, chap. m, § 2), or if it was these magistrates who, continuing to be appointed each year^ manufactured their coins, but no longer had the right to sign them with their name.

In any case, apart from the imperatorial character that all the cash of the triumvirs from the date I just indicated, there is in their numismatics a certain number of military currencies of a more pronounced nature, who were struck in the midst of the armies, by generals the commander-in-chief, who signed them with their name, by the law of their imperium, at the same time as they

THE LAW IN ANCIENT COINS 351

placed the head and name of the triumvir on which they depended directly.

I will first review, at a quick glance, the coins in the names of Antony's lieutenants, who are the most numerous; I classify them in chronological order- as their dates of issue.

CN. DOMITiws. AHENOBARBVS, aureus and denier (1). I spoke earlier of the circumstance in which were struck these coins, which belong to the year 40 av. AD

L. PLANCVS. PROCOnSw^ or L. PLANCVS- mPerator. ITERwm, deniers (2). Munatius Plancus held at the end of 41 and in the first months of 40 the proconsulate of the province of Asia, from where he was driven out by Labienus and the Parthians.

P. VENTIDIW5. POHTifex. mPerator, denier (3). Hit in the campaign of 39-38, where Ventidius repelled the Parthians and killed Labienus.

C. SOSIVS. Quaestor, bronze struck in a town of Syria or Cilicia which are designated by the letters ZA (4). It's of Ventidius that Sosius appears to have been quaestor at the time where this currency was issued.

C. SOSIVS. COnSul, DES\Gnatus, bronze struck in the same city (5). Succeeding Ventidius in government of Syria and Cilicia, Sosius, at the time of his entry into office, is adorned on his currency with the title

(1) Cohen, pi. XVI, Domitia, n° 6.

(2) Cohen, Ft. XXVIII, Munatia, nos. 4 and 5.

(3) Cohen, pi. XL, Ventidia.

(4) Cohen, pi. LXVH, Sosia, No. I.

(5) Cohen, Ft. LXVIl, Sosia, n° 3.

352 CURRENCY IN ANTIQUITY

highest rank he possesses, his designation at consulate for the year 32, which had taken place the year before tooth.

That. SOSIVS-\MPerator, Syrian-made bronze (1). The title of imperialor was acquired by Sosius in this same year, following the defeat of Antigone, king of the Jews, at which refers to the type of trophy between two captives.

Here must be placed the bronzes struck in abundance by the prefects of Antony's fleet, coins issued between 38 and 35 according to the titles given to the triumvir in the legend of the law (2) and the association of the effigy from Octave to that of Antoine on most of the pieces. The prefects mentioned in these documents, so important for the origin of the copper currency system adopted under the Empire (see book VII, cliap. m, § 6, and chap. iv, § 1), are:

L. BIBVLVS. M- Filius. PRAEFedus. CLASSis and L- Bl- BVLVS. M- Filius. Praetor. DES\G7iatus, as (3).

C-FONTEIVS. CAPITO- PRO- PRae/ore, as (4).

Mr. OPPIVS. CAPITO. PRO PRaetore. PRAEpectus. CLASsis, copper sestertius, dupondius, as and seedlings (3).

(1) Cohen, pi. LXVII, Sosia, no. 4.

(2) The reading of the piece where Antoine would have been called an MPerator. ITERum (Borghesi, Oss. num. dec. XIII, 2, Complete Works, t. II, p. 88), what would refer to the year 40 is certainly false; that of the room where he would be QOnSul. ITERwm. CONSUL. DESIGNa/«s. TER<îo (Eckhel, D N, t. V, p. 57), which would bring it down to 34, is doubtful. See. Mommsen, M R, t. III, p. 7.

(3) Cohen, p. Ti, Calpurnia, n"* 33 and 34, pi. L, Calpurnia, No. 7.

(4) Cohen, pi. LV, Fonteia, n°* 6 and 7.

(5) Cohen, Ft. LXI, Oppia, n»^ 4-8.

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L. ATRATINVS. AVGVR. PRAEfeclus. CLASsis, sesterce of copper and ace (1).

If one could add complete confidence to certain publications of old date, it would be necessary to attach:

L. PlNARms. SCARPVS- IMPerator, sestertius of copper (2).

We then have, in money:

Mr. SILANVS- AVGwr. Quaestor. PRO. COnSide, of- deny (3)o According to the titles given to Antoine on the law, the piece is 34' BC. AD, but we do not know in what province she was struck.

D- TyRîdlius^ denier (II). Hit in 31, some time before the battle of Actium, where TuruUius^ one of the assassins sins of Caesar, held an important position on the fleet of Antoine.

SCARPVS- \MPerator, denarii, including one mentioning the LEGio VIII (3). Defeated in 31 in Cyrenaica, where L. Pinarius Scarpus commanded for Antony. Betrayed- Without his leader, he passed to the side of Octave, who kept him in his government. It was then that he hit others deniers where he associates his name with that of CAESARD-DIVI. Pilius (6) and even AVGVSTVS- DIVI- Pilhis (7), this

(1) Cohen, pi. LXVI, Sempronia, n°» S-S.

(2) Eckhel, D N, L V, p. 37.

(3) Cohen, pi. XXIV, Juniay n' 19.

(4) Cohen, pi. V, Antonia, no. 38.

(.'5) Cohen, pi. XXXII, Pinaria, n" 3-3.

(6) Cohen, pi. XXXII, Pinaria, n- G and 7.

(7) Cohen, pl. XXXII, Pinaria, n-8 and 9.

n. 23*

351 CURRENCY IN ANTIQUITY

which proves that his command and his coinage are continued until 27 (1).

It is necessary to attach here, at least for the record, because it leave for the royal retinue of Egypt, the great and so cu- laughing bronze coin bearing on one side TTTOAE- P^AIou and the other KPAZcrou, of which Mr. Feuardent (2) has first found the true attribution; it was issued by Canidius Crassus as tutor of Ptolemy Caesar rion, between the death of Antony and the complete conquest of Egypt by Octave. At the same time, Canidius Cras- sus also had it struck, as commander of the last forces which still held in Egypt, la- tines and Roman system, an ace having on one side the Egyptian crocodile and on the other a ship's bow, with CRAS5WS (3), and a seedling bearing the head of Apollo laureate and the armed fasces of the liaclia, with the inscription CR Assus (4).

The nature of military broadcasts is still unknown. testable, emerging from the types and legends, in the famous series of denarii of the legions of Antony (5). The

(1) Another lieutenant of Antony, unknown to historians, is known to us revealed by bronzes from the colony of Parium in Mysia, at the head of the triumvir, of which unfortunately nothing specifies the date during the duration of Antony's government in the East. It's Q-PAQVIVS-RVFms. LEOatus. Coloniae. Deducendae, on other LEOatus specimens. Coloniae. Antoniae. Deducendae or LEOatus. Coloniae. Antoniae. PARfi. DEDV Cendac: Sestini, Lett. num. t. VII, p. 37 et seq.; Mionnet, Suppl. t. V, p. 394 et seq., n° 702-705.

(2) Ancient Egypt, Roman Domination, p. 1-11, ft. XXXVi, No. 538 bis.

(3) Cohen, pi. LI, Canidia, n° 1.

(4) Cohen, pi. LI, Canidia, n° 2.

(y) Cohen, pi. V and VI, Antonio, n° 39-72. — Mentions of bodies

THE LAW IN ANCIENT COINS 355

manufacturing of these parts must be placed in 32 and at the beginning of 31, during preparations for war of Actium; the very considerable proportion of examples filled pleasers (see above, book II, chap. ii, § 3) characterizes broadcasts made in a moment of necessity sity, where it was necessary to resort to this circuitous and poorly designed to introduce fiduciary cash into the circulation lation, mixed with real species.

soldiers of Antony's army on incontestable funds from the suite that we are talking about are:

LEG. II. LEG. III. LEG. IV. LEG. v. LEG. VI. LEG. VII. LEG. VIII. LEG. Vllll or IX. LEG. x. LEG. XI.

LEG. XII. ANTIQVAE, or only ment LEG. XII. LEG. XIII. LEG. Xllll or XIV. LEG. XV. LEG. XVI.

LEG. XVII. CLASSICAE, or sim- plly LEG. XVII.

LEG. XVIII. LYBICAE, or sim- plly LEG. XVIII (the piece with LEG. XI IX does not appear authentic).

LEG. XVIII or XIX.

LEG. XX.

LEG. XXI.

LEG. XXII.

LEG. XXIII.

LEG XXIV.

LEG. XXV.

LEG. XXX.

CHORTIVM. PRAETORIARVM.

CHORTIS. SPECVLATORVM.

There has been an extraordinary inequality in the abundance of manufacturing tion of these various currencies. Some legions are extremely com- munes, others of great rarity, such as the XXIV, the XXV° and the XXX". Until now, no authentic denarius is known in the name of legions V% XXVP, XXVIP, XXVIIP and XXIX« of Antony's army.

We also know so far four aurei belonging to the series of Legionary coins of Antony; they bear the names of the IV«, the XIV^ and the XIX^ legion, as well as the Praetorian Cohorts (that of the XIV® legion engraved in the Zeitschr. /'. Niim. t. V, pi. I, n"' 10). II. 23.

356 CURRENCY IN ANTIQUITY

From Octave we only know one silver coin legionnaire; it is the one that Morell wrongly placed in Antoine and who mentions the LEGio XVI, with the type one running lion (1), instead of the military ensigns of the deny Antony's legions. The factory seems to be African caine (2).

As for those of Octave's lieutenants until 27 before Jesus Christ, who signed coins with the head or the name of their leader, these are as follows:

Q- SALVIVS- mPerator. Consul. DES\(jiiatus, of- deny (3). This character seems to be the one that the historians nothing calls Q. Salvidienus Eufus; in this case, its military currency would be /|1, where he fought against L. Antonius, in the war of Perugia. He was put to death the following year, during the Peace of Brundise.

BALBVS- PRO- FRaetore, denier (4). L. Cornelius Bal- bus seems to have been a cleaner, around [\\ or 40, in Es- subsequent loincloth, his homeland.

Mr. AGRIPPA. CO?iSw/. DESIGNa«ws, aureus and deniers (5). The date of issue of these coins is indicated on Tau- reus where we see such a remarkable head of Julius Caesar deified and rejuvenated by the apotheosis (6), with the inscription

(1) Eckhel, D N, t. VI, p. 51; Friedlsender, Zeitschr. f. Num. t. IV, p. H7 et seq.

(2) At the advent of Tiberius, the XVI" legion, Gallica, was quartered in Upper Germania. The running lion was to be the emblem of

his shields.

(3) Cohen, pi. XXXVI, Salvia.

(4) Cohen, pi. XV, Cornelia, n° 27.

(3) Cohen, pi. XLII, Vipsania, n°* 1-3.

(6) Von Sallet, Zeitschr. f. Num. t. IV, p. 140. — A similar head is sees on the funds of Mr. Sanquinius (Cohen, pi, XXXVI, SaHquinia)^

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IMPeralor, DIVI- IVLI- Filins. \TERum (1). IIIVIR. Rei. Fublicae. Consliluendae. This legend presents, moreover, a singular chronological difficulty. The renewal of the triumvirate took place in January 37 (717 from Rome), in at the same time that Agrippa took office as con- sul. If we therefore relate iterum to triumvir^ we must suppose that the renewal was mentioned proleptically on currency in the last months of 38, when Agrippa was still only consul designatus; This is the opinion of Mr. Yon Sallet (2), Mr. Mommseu (3), on the contrary, reports carries iterum to imperaior, although we find no another example where the iteration of this title is mentioned in Octave's numismatics. In any case, these currencies relate to Agrippa's campaign on the Rhine, to the end of 38 (4).

In the small bronzes imitated from Caesar's coins type of elephant, which are usually found in the country of Trier and must have been struck there, bronzes whose majority, as we have seen, belong to Caesar himself and Hirtius, there are also those who offer the legend CARIN retrograde (o). This is obviously the

Monetary triumvir in 17 BC. (Eckhel, DN, t. VI, p. 102; Borghesi, Oss. num. Dec. IV, 8, Complete Works, vol. I, p. 243).

(1) The letters IT are grouped into a rather singular monogram.

(2) Zeitschr. f. Num. t. IV, p. 141. (3j Slaatsrecht, t. II, p. 667.

(4) We will notice that from then on we begin to see some examples ples of the use of the title of imperator in first name by Octave (Mommsen, Siaatsrechie, l. II, p. 727), which only became constant from 29 (Eckhel, D N, t. VI, p. 83).

(5) Senckler, Munzen des alien Trierer, in t. XI of Jahrb. d. Ve-

358 CURRENCY IN ANTIQUITY

name of C. Carinas, governor of Gaule Belgium in 31-29 BC AD, which subdued the revolting Morins and repelled beyond the Rkin an invasion of Sueves (1).

1 1. Subsequent to the definitive constitution of the Em- worst in 27 BC. J,-C. (727 from Rome), upon adoption of the name of Augustus by Octave and the sharing of the administration provinces between the Emperor and the Senate, we meet we still have, but only under Augustus, a few proconsular copper coins in some of the senatorial provinces. I mark with an asterisk the in- dication of those of these pieces which have the effigy imperial.

Cyprus.

*CAESAR. DIVI. Filius ~ A. PLAVTIVS. PROCOn-

Snl (2),

*LIVIA. mPeratoris. CAESaris — A. PLAVTIVS- PRO- CONSUL (3). Cyprus, initially an imperial province, did not return in the Senate until 22 BC. (4). We do not know the date of proconsulate of Plautius, but it must not be of

kidneys d. Freunde d. Go th. f. d. Rheinlatide; La Saussa\e, Rev. num. 1848, p. 238.

(1) Dio Cass. II, 21 and 22.

(2) Eckhel, D N, t. III, p. 04; Mionnet, t. III, p. 671, no. 2; Suppl. t. VII, p. 304, no. 2.

(3) Mionnet, Suppl. t. VII, p. 304, No. 3. — As the legend indicates of the law, the efflegy is that of Livia.

(4) Dio Cass. HE, 12; LIV, 4.

1 THE LAW IN ANCIENT COINS 359

much later than the change in condition of the province.

Cyre'naic.

L. FABRIOws — PATELLIV5(I). This character is said to have been the first proconsul of Cyrenaica after 27.

SCATO (2).

*CAESAR. TR Bunitia. POTes/afe. AGRIPPA—SCATO. PROCO?iSt(/ (3). The first plays of Magulnius Scato (4) may have been struck before 23, date where Augustus received tribunician power; but those of which we give here the legend are necessarymeat posterior.

IfAPerator. AyGustus. TRibunitia, POTestate — PALI- Kanus. PRoconsul {^) .

\MPerator. AVoustus. TR Bunitia. POTestate — CAPITO. Quaestor (6). The precise date of Palicanus and

(1) Borghesi, in Cavedoni, Osservazioni sopra le tnonete antiche délia Girenaica, p. 72; L. Millier, Numism. of Vanc. Africa, t. I, p. 16o.

(2) L. Muller, t. I, p. 166, n-430 and 431.

(3) L. Muller, 1. 1, p. 166, n" 433. — There is even a piece (L. Mul- ler, n° 432), where we read, by a singular anomaly in the abbreviation of title, SCATO. PR.

(4) On the family to which this Scato belonged, see. Borghesi, in Cavedoni, Osserv. p, 71. — Borghesi supposes that he was simply quaestor during the issue of his first coins, which do not bear not the title of proconsul.

(o) L. Muller, 1. 1, p. 167 et seq., nos. 434-437. — The coins of Scato, recalled just now, prove that in Cyrenean numismatics, contrary to ordinary custom, the abbreviation PR must read proconsul.

(6) L. Muller, t. I, p. 168, no. 438.

360 CURRENCY IN ANTIQUITY

Oapito, and we cannot decide which of the two pre- ceded the other; but, in any case, they do not move away from many years of the proconsulate of Scato.

Africa.

AFRîca)ius. FAbius. MAXimus. Consul. PROCOnSuL VIIVIR- EPVLO?zww — C- LiVINem^. GALLVS- Qvaeslor. PRO-FRaetore (1). Africanus t'abius Maximus was pro- consul of Africa in 5 BC. AD

*CAESAR. AVGVSTVS - C[N]. P[IS]ONE. [PROCO/i- Sule (2). The proconsulate of Cn. Calpurniiis Piso includes began in 1 BC. AD

*\MPerator. CA[ES]ar. DIVI- Filius. Pater. Patriae — L. PASS[IENVS-] RVFVS. mPerator (3). L. Passienus Eu- He became proconsul in 3 of Christian Father.

We see that none of these pieces exceeds the first early years of our era and the moment when Tiberius, who became the sole heir of the Empire after the death of the sons of Agrippa, took a considerable influence on the mind of Augustus. There is therefore a relationship between the end of the mon- proconsular nayages, in the main senate provinces torial where they took place, and the suppression of the right to monetary figure, first left to the proconsuls of Asia and from Africa.

Naturally, I am only talking about direct currencies here-

(1) With the effigy of the proconsul: L. Millier, t. He, p. 61, no. 37.

(2) With the effigies of Augustus, on one side, of Caius and Lucius Caesars, on the other: L. MuUer, t. II, p. 62, no. 39; Suppl. p. 44; see. Cavedoni, Bulkt. arch. Italy. t. I (1862), p. 174.

(3) With the double effigy of the emperor and probably the procon- sul: L. Millier, Suppl. p. 43, no. 39 a.

I,A LAW IN ANCIENT COINS 361

issued by proconsuls for the circulation of their province. I leave aside the mentions of the proconsul or the legate, in charge at the time of the monetary issue, who, in the imperial as well as senatorial provinces, are frequently read on the provincial coins of Emperor or the Community of the province, or else on the municipal currencies of the cities. These mentions are there to date the piece and have no other character; we will deal with it in chapter ii of book IV. Still on provincial currencies, such as tetra- imperial drachmas from the Antioch workshop, bronzes imperial coins of Bithynia and the currencies of the Commune natality of the Cretans, most often also on the species of copper of Greek cities, the name of the proconsul or le- gat is in the genitive case, preceded by the preposition iizî, which does not allow us to remain in doubt as to what it is about simple date, and excludes any idea that the mention relates to an intervention in coinage. It is the same when the noun is in the absolute genitive case, without a preposition, in Greek legends of city coins, ablative in Latin legends. On the contrary, we can have some hesitation about the meaning to be attributed to the inscription of the proconsul or legate when it is in the nominative form, either in Greek, or in Latin, on a city coin enjoying a certain autonomy or colony under Latin or Roman law; we could indeed, in this case, see it, as pro- posed Cavedoni (1), an indication relating to the origin of the coinage permission. But, even in this hypo- thesis, money would not therefore cease to be muni- cipale; this mention would not make it an issued currency

(1) Bulkt.arch. Italiano, 1862, p. 176.

362 CURRENCY IN ANTIQUITY

by the proconsul in his own name, something which is not experienced no longer after the date we indicated in the reign of Augustus. All the more reason we also leave aside (referring the reader to book IV, chap. ii) the rare examples of legends of coins from Greek cities which offer a name of proconsul in the dative, by a formula of honorary dedication.

In Caesar's provinces we encounter only one only example of coins signed by the governor as issued by his imperium. It belongs to the first first years of the constitution of the Empire and has a ca- essentially military character, in connection with a determined war. I want to talk about the many mon- coins of silver and bronze, denarii, aces and multiples of the ace, of T. CARISIVS-LEGatus. PRO- PRaetore or LE&atus AVousti (1), charged by Augustus with the conduct of the war against the Astures and the Cantabrians, as well as the government ment of Wales and Lusitania, from 23 to 22 BC. AD These coins bear the effigy and legend of Augustus, on the reverse the legend of the legate, with types which relate to the victories over the natives, or to the founding of the Emerita colony with veterans of the employed legions against the Cantabrians.

12. The coins of T. Carisius are the last currencies military on which a general, carrying out a extraordinary sion for the needs of his army in the field loincloth, was admitted to register his name. Later, this right

(1) Eckhel, D N, t. V, p. 16i; t. VI, p. 92 et seq.; Cohen, M C, pi. X and XI, Carisia, n°^ 10-19; pi. Ll, Carisia, n°' 1-4.

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was absolutely taken away from them by the jealousy of the im- perial. From then on, the generals were no longer left, and this only, it seems, in the first century of our era, that permission to apply, on currencies already struck, a countermark in their name, intended to give temporarily give these currencies a value of necessity (i), permission which is also sometimes attributed to com- commanders of legions, counterraaring the figure of their body ("2) (see book IV, chap. v, § 1). If a war gives occasion for an extraordinary production of coins, for the

(1) These generals' countermarks are only affixed to bronze coins; there is there. I believe, the iodine of a limitation of the right already restricted left to military commanders; they could notice senatorial or provincial copper currency, not state currency of the emperor in gold and silver.

The limitation of the monetary powers of the generals to the right of con- notice certain species of copper, to give them a value extraordinary, even applied to certain members of the family imperial placed at the head of the armies. Thus, during the lifetime of Augustus, Tiberius, despite the honorary titles with which he had been given, only ever had this faculty, in the wars where he was commander in chief (Saulcy, Rev. mm. 1869, p. 311 et seq.; Mel. of num. 1875, p, 421 et seq.); and on more sir of his military countermarks he mentions the permission for- letter that he had received from Augustus to act in this way. Tiberitts. Caesar. Permitted. kugusti or TIBertHS. Caesar. Mrjumi. Permitted. To the ass- milk, in the extraordinary powers that Germanicus had received when Tiberius sent him to the East, the faculty of beating currency. The denarius that he then minted in Armenia, and whose type of reverse depicts GERMANICVS putting the crown on his head of ARTAXIAS (D. de Luynes, Rev. num. 1838, p. 338; Cohen, M I, t. I, p. 138, n° 1), is a true imperial military currency, like those of the time of the Republic.

(2) See. the interesting countermarks of the Legio the. Legio XV Primigenia, two-legged army of the Syrian army, who were published by M. de Saulcy: Rev. archaeol. new ser. t. XX, p. 231 et seq.; Numism. of the Holy Land^ p, 83 et seq.; Mel. of num. 187o, p. 329 et seq.

364 CURRENCY IN ANTIQUITY

troop pay and commissary expenses, this way brication is generally based in the imperial workshop re- nearest guier and is made by the procurator of the Emperor placed at the head of this mint. There However, there are examples which appear to involve the creation of an extraordinary and temporary workshop, installed, not precisely in the camps, but in the stronghold where the army has its supply base and depots. In In this case, it is probable that the authority of the general intervened in the manufacture, that the latter, through his officers, had direction and responsibility, although we do not know not to what extent or in what manner his intervention. But the military coins of the time of the Empire, if any exists, are indistinguishable from the imperial gold and silver coinage; and this is the consequence quite natural sequence of transformation that the law monetary system underwent under Augustus, through a learned adaptation from the ancient principles of matter to the new power absolute (see the following §). In gold and silver there is no more that a currency, that of a unique Vimperator which exercises its authority over all armies, over all provinces, and even intra pomoeriwn. The generals placed at the head of armies are legally only the lieutenants of this im- perator, who above them, even when absent, keeps the com- supreme commandment (1). It is therefore in his name that the

(1) Augustus further granted his son-in-law Agrippa and two of his sons-in-law, Drusus and Tiberius, the title of imperator coume military title, not implying the sharing of supreme political power. After him, Tiberius only granted it to one person, and it was the last one who received it, like Tacitus {Ann. III, 74) tells us formally: Con- cessit quibusdam and Augustus in vocabulum {imperatoris); ac tune Tiberius Blaeso posiremum. Since then, the title of imperator belongs without sharing

THE LAW IN ANCIENT COINS 365

extraordinary military currency must be manufactured, like ordinary and normal money; and it does not allow not for his lieutenants to add their names to his or to sign them by themselves, unless admission to title Caesar did not give them a share in the power imperial, with the right to see their effigy and their name placed, with the permission of the Emperor, even on the ordinary currency.

The military coins of the Empire do not constitute therefore not a particular class from the point of view legal, any more than they recognize themselves externally to special characters. It is only according to some indices of types, legends, mint marks, if there are, that we can determine some imperial coins as having been struck under exceptional conditions- nels, in the midst of war circumstances and for the special needs of an army. The same types that we can qualify as military, such as those of FIDES-MILI- TVM, FIDES. EXERCITVS, FIDES- EQVITVM, FIDES. PRAE- TORIANORVM, CONCORDIA-MILITVM, etc., do not imply no notion of extraordinary emissions, make for war necessities; these are polite flatteries ticks to the army, which knew how to do so well and defeat the emperors. Types intended to commemorate victories and in general all the salient events of war, like peace, are usual on currency ordinary and take up at least as much space on the copper coins of the Senate than on gold and silver coins

to the head of state, for whom it becomes the prerogative and distinctive sign of sovereignty; army generals are now designated by the qualification of dux.

366 CURRENCY IN ANTIQUITY

o-ent of the Emperor. It is even important to pay attention to the connection that exists between certain legends, where we could see at first glance the actual emissions index cut in the camps, and the guys they accompany and which give it another meaning. So we read at reverse of an antoninianus of Valerian (1) GALLIENVS. CVM- EXERCISEii. SVO: but this does not mean that the currency was struck by Gallienus in the middle of his army. The guy represents a statue of Jupiter whose base bears the in- scription lOVI-VI CTO RI; it is this statue which was dedicated by Gallienus and his army following a victory, and we we have proof of this by the parallel antoniniani and con- temporary, at the head and in the name of Gallienus (2), where we see on the reverse the same statue; only, this time the legend main one is the OVJ. VICTORI, and it is on the pedestal of the statue that reads MPerator. Cum. Exercise. Suo.

In the 3rd century, with Septimius Severus, Gallienus, Victorinus and Carausius, we see the reappearance of coins bearing on the reverse of the names and insignia of legions, such as those by M arc-Antoine (3). All these legion currencies have were obviously struck, not by the bodies of troops themselves, but for their pay and in impermissible workshops regular rials. Their emission is not linked to circuits constants of external war, but to civil struggles, of same as that of Antony's legionary funds; we can establish it historically in a certain manner and, by

" (1) Eckhel, D N, t. VII, p. 383, Cohen, MI, t. IV, p. 319, n° b3.

(2) Cohen, M I, t. IV, p. 379, no. 236-239.

(3) On these currencies in general, see. especially: Eckhel, D N, t. VIII, p. 488 et seq.; Ch. Robert, the Legions of the Rhine and the Inscriptions of the car- rièreres, Paris, 1867.

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further, prove that the inscription of the name of the legions on the currency was always a political act, a flattery of legitimate emperors or pretenders to the address of troops, which they relied on to support them against their competitors; they believed that they were bonding more their loyalty.

The legionary coins of Septimius Severus (1), in gold and in silver, are dated from his first tributary power- Nician, from the year of his accession; the bodies they mentioned all belong to the armies responsible for guard the lines of the Rhine and the Danube (2), armies which had, in fact, proclaimed him emperor; the historian is in

(1) Eckhel, D N, t. VII, p. 168; Cohen, M I, t. III, p. 252 et seq., n • 156-175.

(2) Here is the exact list, purged of some false indications that found in old works:

Legions.

LEGîo. I. ADIVTna;.

LEGîo. ï. ITAUca.

LEGîo. I. tJWfiervia.

LEG/o. II. ADIVÏn*.

LEG?o. II. ITALîca.

LEGîo. III. ITALica.

LEGjo. He he. FLavia.

LEGîo. V. MPiCedonica.

LEGîo. VII. Claudia.

LEGio. VIII. AVGwsia.

LEGio. X. GEMîna.

LEG/o. XI. Claudia.

LEGîo. XIII. GEMîTia.

LEGIO. Xllll. GEMîîîîa.

LEGîo. Xllll. GEMîwa. Martia. Victrix.

LEGîO. XXII. PRIrnî^'enia.

LEGîo. XXX. VLPîo.

Usual quartering locations.

Lower Pannonia.

Lower moesia.

Germania Inferior.

Lower Pannonia.

Norique.

Rhetia.

Moesia superior.

Dacia.

Moesia superior.

Upper Germania.

Upper Pannonia.

Lower moesia.

Dacia.

Upper Pannonia.

Upper Germania. Lower Gernaania.

■368 CURRENCY IN ANTIQUITY

right to draw from it a list of troops at the head of which Severus left for the East to fight Fes- cennius Niger. The constant type of these parts is, as on the funds of Antoine, the legionary eagle between two cohort brands.

The analogous coins of Gallienus (1), all antoniniani de billon, have the types of their dreams changing with each legion name, because this type is the particular emblem of the corps, the one that its soldiers were depicted on their shield. They have no date of tribunician power, and, consequently, the period The precise nature of their emission is quite difficult to determine. The production continued for some time, perhaps for several years, because the legions there successively receive the epithets of V. P- V. F, VI- P- VI-F and VII. P-VII. F. quintum^ sextum and septimum Pia^ quintum, seactum and septimum Fidelis. This mode of qualification cation, indicating the number of times the emperor had awarded to the legion the titles of Pia Fidelis, also left some traces in inscriptions from the same period ('2); it is obviously linked to the habit which made write on other coins of Gallien VICTORIA-AVousti. II, III, VI, VII, VIII and Vllll (3), FIDES. EXERCitus. VIII (li) . Were the victories numbered in each battle? and to this occasion we saluted again the legions who had there

(1) Eckhel, DN, t. VII, p. 402 et seq.; Cohen, .]//, t. IV, p. 381-388, n"' 258-322; J. v. Kolb, Numism. Zeilschr. de Vienne, 1873, p. o3-91.

(2) Eckhel, D N, i. Vil, p. 405.

(3) Eckhel, DiV, t. VII, p. 415; Cohen, M I, t. IV, p. 42i et seq., n-597-606.

(4) Cohen, M I, t. IV, p. 368, no. 14i.

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took part, from the nickname Pia Fidelis? Or renew it did not the title of the legions rather coincide each year with the new imperial salutation of sovereign? This last o})inion seems the most probable, and would bring down the manufacturing of legionary coins from the 5" to the 7' tribunician power of Gallienus, 257- 259 AD, i.e. at the time of its first war against Postumus, of the one in which he almost seemed to have completely defeated, taking away all his legions. Without doubt, in this year, it is singular that there is no no parallel currencies in the name of Valérien, who was not not yet fallen into the hands of Sapor (1). But, from a on the other hand, coins where Gallienus lists as his own all the legions of Brittany, the Rhine and the Danube (2),

(1) Valérien, when he joined forces with his son, had entrusted him with the governance government of the West, reserving that of the East; but both emperors continued to reign nominally together over the entire em- worse, in such a way that their actions and their words were supposed to include muns. Thus Valérien takes the title of GERMANICVS at the same time as Gallienus, after his victories over the Germans; likewise, following the first successes of Valérien in the Orient, Gallien adorned himself in at the same time as him, on his personal currencies, of the VICTORIA PARTfeîCo, just as if he had won it.

(2) We place here the table of the only indications really au- antiques which are seen on the coins of Gallienus. We have some eliminated a large number of inaccurate and impossible ones, admitted too slightly, according to discarded readings, in all the collections of descriptions numismatics.

Legions,

Titles of Pia Fidelis.

Emblems,

Cannon sites usual.

COHHortes PRAETor/ae. LEG/o. 1- AD\utrlx. LEG/o. 1. ITAL/ca.

LEQio. 1- muervia. 11.

VI, VII. V, VI, Vil. VI. Vile. VI, VII.

Radiate-headed lion. Capricorn. Wild boar. Minerva.

Rome.

Lower Pannonia. Lower moesia. Lower Germania.

24*

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with those of Italy, can only have been struck during his father's lifetime, or during his campaigns on the line of Ehin, either in its first war against Postumum or in that against Ingenuus in Pannonia, of which Postume took the opportunity to rise up in turn (1). In dear- song to set a precise date, we will have to take into account a important fact: it is that in the current state of our knowledge there are only two names of legions, one beyond Pan- lower nonie, the other from Italy, accompanied by the title of Pia Fidelis for the 5th time, and that the legions of Bre- tagne, that of Noricum, those of upper Pannonia, one of those of Dacia and one of those of Lower Moesia.

Legions.

Titles do Pia Fidelis

Emblems.

Cannon locations usual.

LEGio.

II. ADHitrix.

VI, VII.

Pegasus.

Lower Pannonia.

LEG/o.

II. MGusta.

VI.

March.

Upper Brittany.

LEGio.

II. ITAL/ca.

VI.

Wolf of Romulus and Remus.

Norique.

LEGio.

II. PART/t/ca.

V,VI,VM.

Centaur.

Italy.

LEGio.

III. iTALica.

VI.VII.

Gigogne.

Rhetia.

LEG/o.

linen. FLavia.

VI, Vil.

Radiate-headed lion.

Moesia superior.

LEGio.

V. IWACedon/cfl.

VI, VII.

Victory holding the pal- me and the crown, at his feet an eagle.

Dacia.

LEG/o.

Vile. Claudia.

VI, vile-

Taurus.

Moesia superior.

LEGio.

VIII. AVGus^a.

VI, vile.

Bull.

Upper Germania.

LEG/o.

X. GEMma.

VI.

Bull.

Upper Pannonia.

LEG/o.

XI. Claudia.

VI.

Neptune.

Lower moesia.

LEG'o.

XIII. GEM/na.

VI.

Accompanied victory of a lion.

Dacia.

LEG/o.

Xllil. GEM/na.

VI.

Capricorn.

Upper Pannonia.

LEG/o.

XXII. [Primigenia.)

VI, VII.

Capricorn.

Upper Germania,

LEG/o.

XXX. VLP/a.

VI, VII.

Neptune.

Germania Inferior,

(1) Mr. Brock (ZcîYsc/ir. /, Num. t. III, p. 93) nevertheless believes that they must relate to the period of the reign of Gallienus alone, after the captivity of Valé- nothing; Mr. von Kolb, on the contrary, places them in the same historical period as us, between Gallienus' association with the empire and his father's captivity.

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later, disappear from the list when the legions are awarded this qualification for the 7th time.

The legion coins of Victorin (1) are some the billon and the others of gold; they also have the types of evers the particular emblems of the various legions, which are presented there in a more complicated form than on islands of Gallien and often combined with images of protective livinities. These currencies make us known he composition of the army on which the emperors of Jaules, in the 3rd century, supported their power (2); she

(1) Eckhel, D N, t. VII, p. 431 et seq.; Cohen, Mî, t. V, p. 67 et seq., 1"" 37-44; De Witte, Research on the emperors who reigned over the Juules in the 2nd century, p. 100-103, ft. XXVII, n"' 3o-46 (this is only in ;and work that the list is truly complete and without errors).

(2) Here is the table of Victorin's monetary legions:

,. . X, ... Decantoning locations

Legions. Emblems.

used to it.

-EGio.PRllviAlviiNERViA.Pia.F/deiis. Victory accompanied by Germania Inferior.

ram. .EGio. n.TRAiANA. Pya. FideHs. Hercules. Egypt.

-EGio. iiiil.FLAVlA. Pya. Fldelis. Bust of Africa, above Moesia Superior.

of two lions posed facing face. LEGio. V. MACIDONICA. Pya. Fidelis. Bull and eagle placed on a Dacia.

globe. LEGio. X. FRETENSIS. Pya. Firfe/is. Bull. Judaea.

LEGio. XIII. GEMINA. P/a. Fideiis. Lion. Dacia.

LEGio. Xiiii. GEMiNA. Pya. Fldelis. Capricorn and eagle resting on Upper Pannonia.

a globe. LEGio. XX. VALeHa. VICTRIX. Pya. Wild boar. Upper Brittany.

Fideiis. LEGionis. XXII. PRIMIGENIA. Piae. Hercules, accompanied by a Germania Superior.

Fidelis. Capricorn.

LEGio. XXX. VLPia. VICTRIX. Pya. Jupiter, accompanied by a ca- Germania inferior. Fidelis. unicorn.

We do not yet have any Victorin coins bearing the names of the two legions of II. 24.

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included all the legions of the Rhine and Brittany, some of those of Moesia, Pannonia and Dacia, undoubtedly brought to the Rhine during the expedition edition of Gallienus against the Germans; we notice with astonishment the names of two legions from the East, which could only be represented by detachments in this army (1). As for the currencies of the same species, struck by Carausius (2), the historian can

Brittany II" Augusla and Vl" Victrix, no more than that of VIIl" Au- (/usta, whose station was in Upper Germania; but all the probabilities must make one expect to find them one day or the other.

(1) The coin which mentions the Legio X' Fretensis is all the more singular in that it bears the figure of a bull, a well-known emblem of X" Gemina, whom it would be more natural to meet, transported temporarily temporarily on the Rhine, since its cantonments were in the Pan- superior nonie and that we have already seen it appear in the army of Gal- link. The emblems of the X" Fretensis of Judea are quite different on the countermark published by M. de Saulcy (K v, archaeol. nonx. ser. t. XX, p. 252); they are a wild boar and a dolphin. We would therefore be tempted to believe to an error in Victorin's coinage.

(2) Eckhel, D iV, t. VIII, p. 46; Cohen, M I, t. V, p. 506, n" 22-25; p. 519 et seq., nos. 125-138.

I am by no means sure of the authenticity of the only gold coin in this group that has been cited; the only very certain ones are from billon. Here, moreover, the authentic and rectified list of the legions whose names are recorded in the numismatics of Carausius:

tegioi s.

LEG)o. I. Wnervia. lEGio. It- AVGms^û. LEG/o. Mil. FLavia.

lEGlo. linen. FLAVIA. Pya. Felix.

Aries,

Capricorn.

Lion holding a thunderbolt in his mouth.

Bust of Africa above two lions placed face to face (we seem to have resumed for

Places of confinement usual!:.

Germania Inferior. Upper Brittany. Moesia superior.

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373

draw with confidence the indication of the bodies which, gathering wheat under his orders on both sides of the Channel to resist the incursions of Frankish and Saxon pirates, the proclaimed emperor; besides all the legions of armies of Brittany and Germany, there were two who had been extraordinarily detached from the army from Moesia and perhaps one from Italy.

§ 8. — The Roman imperial currency.

1. The long developments that we face are delivered in the previous § will allow us to be much briefer in this one. We studied, indeed, at the time of Caesar and the triumvirate, the trans- gradual transition of republican currency to the imperial birth. We have seen how the coinage of gold, exclusively imperial and military at the time when the institutions of the Republic were still standing, had been introduced to Eome by Caesar, by virtue of Vim-

LEG/o. VI. VICTri: »;. LEGio. VII. CLflM(?/a. LEGio. VIII. AVGHS/a. LEG/o. XX. yaleria. Mitrix. LEGio. IIXX. PRIIVlIGen/a.

Emblems.

this piece, which does double duty with the previous one, an old corner of the coinage of Yictorin men- the same legion).

Wild boar.

Bull .

Bull.

Wild boar.

Capricorn.

LEGio. XXX. VLPIA. Vicirte. Neptune.

Places of cantonment usual.

Lower Brittany. Moesia superior. Upper Germania. Upper Brittany. Upper Germania. Germania Inferior.

We also cite, but I am less sure, a piece mentioning the LEG/o. II. PARTH/cfl, whose cantonments were in Italy.

374 CURRENCY IN ANTIQUITY

military perium which he exercised exceptionally in the city itself. We have also seen that the right of effigy had originally been linked to the title imperator, that it had followed the political vicissitudes, and that it was as qu^imperator that Augustus made this right one of the prerogatives tives of its sovereign power. Just like the old qualification which expressed the authority of the general over his troops, and over the entire province where he commanded, was become the fundamental qualification of the head of the new new monarchy, established universal and permanent Vimperalor nent, likewise the faculty of placing one's head on the coin, including the generals of the Republican Party in the last civil war had used without scruple, as one of the essential rights of their quality to'imperatores, became a signs and exclusive attributes of authority always raine, now expressed by the title of imperator.

From '21 BC (727 de Eome), toate the Roman coinage is struck in the name of Augustus; but until the monetary reform of 15 BC Christ (see a little further on in this §; book III^ chap. iv, § 2, and book VU, chap. iv, § 1), there are almost as many pieces without effigy than with effigy. During the first years of the manufacturing sharing regime currencies between the Emperor and the Senate, as long as the monetary triumvirs sign the senate copper coins toriales, that is to say until around the year 11 of our era, these pieces are often without effigy. It is also in the same period that we saw the proconsuls of Asia and Africa still enjoy permission to put their portrait on coins. But, from the end from the reign of Augustus, the right of effigy on species public intended for circulation becomes an attribute

THE LAW IN ANCIENT COINS 375

essential and exclusive of the sovereign power of the Em- father. At the same time, the presence of this effigy is established as the general and constant rule of all currencies (1). We only encounter very rare exceptions, and, even in these exceptional cases, if we *I do not see the portrait of the sovereign in bust on the face main part of the pieces, its image almost always appears in any way in the type which replaces the portrait, or this type is combined in such a way as to con- hold a eulogy of the Emperor, to be a manifestation of his power.

From the year 68 AD, the monarchical idea attached with the monetary effigy was so well established, so completely passed into the morals, that when after the death of Nero, in the interval which extended to the entrance of Galba to Rome, we hoped to be able to reestablish the Republic or less limit the power of the new Emperor, the Senate hastened to have it struck, as marks of the new state of things, a very great abundance of gold coins and especially money, with a completely republican appearance, without the name nor the effigy of Galba, which the Senate had nevertheless recognized (2). Galba himself, throughout his march

(1] Effegy was only dispensed with on the smallest of currencies copper senatorials, the quadrans, the manufacture of which appears to have had no place only in the first century. Almost all the known quadrans are with heads of deities instead of imperial portraits, and yet it would be very unlikely to relate them exclusively to the months that follow saw the fall of Nero.

(2) D. de Blacas, Rev. mm. 1862, p. 197-234; De Witte, Rev. num. 1863, p. 167-177.

The denier with GALLIA and FiDES, of which we only know one example to please found in the Rhineland, seems to me, as it does to Mr. Hermann, who published first [Eine Gallische UnabhUngigkeifs Miinzp ans romischer

376 CURRENCY IN ANTIQUITY

on Rome, in the coins that he had minted on his route, in Spain and Gaul (1), did not place his effi- gie (2), just as he does not yet take the title of Au- tastes and is entitled only SERvilius. GALBA- IMPera- tor, like a general of the old Republic (3). The new Emperor then proclaimed that he did not want to be that the lieutenant of the Senate and the people, legalum se senatus acpopuli Romani professas is (k).

After this fleeting attempt, which was like the last deny sigh of republican tendencies, the right of effigy becomes more and more one of the first and most important

Kaiserzeit, Gœllingen, 1831), rather belonging to the Gallo-German revolt from Tutor, Civilis and Classicus.

(1) Cohen, MI, t. 1, p. 218 et seq.

(2) Yet we saw, at the same time, Clodius Macer in Africa make an attempt to return to the old usage and to concur- link the introduction of its efQgy on currency with the taking of the simple republican title of propraetor Africae.

(3) In the early days of his arrival in Rome, during the moon of honey of his power, Galba, while putting his effigy on the currency, seems to have still limited himself to taking the title of impraior. The parts with LIBERTAS PVBLICA, LIBERTAS RESTITVTA, SPQR, Senatus PopulusQite Botnanus OB Cives Servatos, most of those with CON- CORDIA PROVINCIARVM, ROMA RENASCENS and VICTORIA Populi fiomani, which are his first coins from Rome, only give him this qualification. I think the ones where it's called Caesar Augistus must be considered a little later, and I would classify chronologically in the following manner the titles of Galba in the numismatics: 1° Servilius Galba imper. itor; 2° Serviliiis Galha impera- tor Caesar Auguslus; 3° Imperator Servilius Galba Caesar Auguslus.

(4) Sueton. Galb. 10. — We still find the echo of this idea, whatever months later, on the large bronze where the legend SENATVS PIE- TATI AVGVSTI accompanies the representation of the personified Senate depo- wearing a crown on the head of Galba: Cohen, M I, t. I, p. 243, No. 232.

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sentient attributes of imperial power. Also we see in history the sovereigns show the most extreme ever lousie against anything that may seem an encroachment on their privileges in this matter, a usurpation of this right. We accuse Commodus Perennis, prefect from the praetorium, to aspire to the empire. Commode refuses at first to believe this denunciation, but he is convinced when we bring him coin tests with the head of this character (1). Under Elagabalus, Valerius Paetus having made strike gold pleasure coins, where his features were re- traced, is sentenced to death for having usurped a sovereign prerogative, although he proves to have intended these pieces to simply compose jewelry for its mistresses (2).

As soon as the legions proclaimed an emperor, his first first care, to note his taking possession of the other authority, is to have money minted in his name. The histo- Nothing is full of indications on this subject. Tacitus (3) shows us Yespasian, acclaimed by the army of Syria, hastening to immediately mint gold and silver in Antioch. Lampride (4) says that immediately after that Macriu had accepted the purple, money was minted at name of Diadumenian, to show that his father associated him linked to the empire. When Septimius Severus had consented to sit down like Caesar, his rival Albinus, Herodian (5) takes care to teach us that, to show this one how much he

(1) Herodian. I, 9.

(2) Dio Cass. LXXIX, 4. ■{3)Hist, II, 82.

(i) Diadumen. 2." (5) II, 15.

378 CURRENCY IN ANTIQUITY

had acted seriously and in good faith, he had Rome coins in the name of Albin. Vopiscus (1) uses numismatic monuments to prove that in Egypt Firmus was truly emperor and not ruler. gands, as some had claimed (2). All- The times Trébellius PoUion (3) speaks of the currencies that Trébel- link made knock to see its power, in the lair from Isauria where he led the life of a thief more than a leader party. Finally, Ammien-Marcellin (U) tells us that the partisans of Procopius^ a moment rival of Valens, in- dragged rillyrie into his cause, by circulating, to prove that he was truly sovereign, currencies in his likeness (5).

We should not attach so much importance to what says Trébellius Pollio (6) that Gallienus, “having associated Odénat to the empire and having awarded him the title of Au- taste, had a coin minted from him, which represented him dragging the Persians prisoners,” Odenatum participato im- perio Auguslum vocavit epeutemonetam, qua Persas captos traheret, cudi jussit. The veracity of this testimony was very attacked, because it is very doubtful that Odénat ever

(1) Firm. 2.

(2) We do not yet have any of these Alexandrian coins of Firmus; that which the Pembroke cabinet prided itself on was a piece retouched by a modern forger; see. Curt, Catal. Pembroke, p. 291; Cohen, M 1, t. V, p. 161.

(3) Trig. tyr. 25.

(4) XXVI, 7.

(3) We have, in fact, a certain number of Procopius coins: Eckhel, D N, I. VIII, p. 156; Cohen, M I, t. VI, p. 423 et seq. •

(6) Gallienus. 12.

THE LAW IN THE ANCIENT AIONNAIES 379

actually received the title of Augustus (l), and moreover there does not exist

(I) What seems to me likely to make people think the opposite is that in the Palmyrtian inscription of a statue which was dedicated to him after his death (Vogué, central Syria, Semitic inscriptions, Palmyra, n° 28) he receives the oriental title of NdSd "Sq "king of kings", and not that of ID^p, who in Palmyra, in the native inscriptions (Vogué, n° 25) expresses the imperial title. M. von Sallet (Die Fiirsten von Palmyra, p. 55) and M. Waddington [Greek and Latin inscriptions of Asia Minor and Syria, p. 601) nevertheless admit that Odénat could have been made Augustus, because a Greek inscription gives it the title of Seêadxïi [Corp. register (jraec. n° 4503 h; Henzen, Bullet. de l'Inst. Arch. 1847, p. 124; Von Sallet, open. cit. p. 42; Waddington, open. cit. p. 604), who cannot belong only as the widow of an Augustus, the same inscription only qua- not yet lifying Augustus with his son Vaballathe. The reason is serious, and the two authorities who admit it are very great. Yet we can- One might wonder if the conclusion to be drawn from this epigraphic text is not not a little modified by the inscriptions of Palmyra itself (Waddington, n° 26H and 2628), where Zenobia, after the death of her husband, takes ment the qualification of paaO.iaoa, and not of (leêaaro. The inscription which gives him this title appears in the time of Aurélien (subsequently, from the first year of this emperor), who was named there first, before Zenobia. He there is nothing impossible about it being from Aurélien himself, at his ment, that the queen of Palmyra received the title of Augusta, which raised posthumously her husband Odénat has the same dignity. It is certain that Auré- The link began by granting new privileges and honors. calves to Zenobia and her son. Until then, the Queen of Palmyra, if she visited the Roman East in his name and in the name of his son, had made, in the last year of Gallienus and under Claudius the Gothic, as previously Odénat, under conditions of legal title which had not per- except that neither his name, nor that of Vaballathe, appeared on the coinage. It was at the advent of Aurélien, and obviously following a con- special cession of rights and titles made by the new emperor, that Latin coins began to be minted in Antioch and Alexandria and Greeks where the head of Vaballathe is associated with that of the emperor of Rome, without the prince of Palmyra being yet qualified as Augustus. It is at the same time that I would report the inscription where Zenobia, qua- lified of i4«^j«/a, appeared after the emperor of Rome and before Vaballathe, called only oeaTiÔTri; and aùToxpâxiop. It seems to me that it was these the very concessions which encouraged Zenobia and her son to try again more. In the second year of the reign of Aurelian, 5^ of Zenobia and

380 CURRENCY IN ANTIQUITY

no money from him, while we have some from him widow Zénobie and her son Vaballathe (1), contemporaries of Aurélien's early years. But it is possible that he is not as inaccurate as is generally believed, that we have only misheard it until now. Indeed, in scrupulously weighing the terms of Trébellius' passage Pollion^ we arrive at this conclusion that he can perfect- ment only relate to the existence of a currency of Gallien whose type of setback would have retraced the triumph of Odénat on the Persians of Sapor. It's in a way similar that we must interpret the saying of the same author that copper coins had been minted for Victorina, of gold and silver of which one could still see the corners of its time at the Trier mint (2). He surely does (3) al-

Vaballathe, they began open revolt, which they manifested in numismatics by excluding the effigy and name of Aurélien from the coins workshops of the East, by striking the pieces in Antioch with \Mperator Caesar VHABALATHVS MGustiis, in Alexandria those who have ATTo- xpàxo^p Kat^a? OTABAAAA0OC AGHNOSwpo; CeBa^xà? or Cen- TIMIA ZHNOBIA CeBaaxô.

Moreover, if Odenata received the title of Augustus from Gallienus, it could not have been, as Mr. Waddington rightly remarks, that very late, in the last months of his life. It would therefore be possible that the fact was true, but that Odénat was not aware of it in the East before his death, ma- able to profile the monetary law that this title would have given him, while he was not attached to his previous dignities, some great whatever his effective power was.

(1) On these currencies, see. Ch. Lenormant, Bey. nuin. 1846, p. 268- 280; Von Sallet. Die Fiirsten von Palmyra, Berlin, 1866; Waddington, Inscriptions from Asia Minor and Syria, p, 60o; Feuardent, ancient Egypt. Roman domination, p. 262-266.

(2) Cusi sunt ejus nummi aerei, aurei et argentei, quorum hoaieque forma extat apud Treviros: Trebell. Hair. Trig. tyr. 30.

(3) De Witte, Rev. mm. 1861, p. 20o and s.

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connection in this way to the beautiful aurei of Victorin which we possess gifts actually and where the perfectly individual portrait Victorina's duel appears on the reverse, disguised under the attributes of Rome (1) or Victory (2); because there is no never had other coins of the Mother of the camps of the Gaul. Without doubt we have not experienced any setbacks so far of Gallienus which corresponds exactly to the description of his biographer, but there is nothing impossible about him being will appear some day following new discoveries green. Moreover, one should not attribute to this description tion an absolutely precise character, and the concordance with the text of Trébellius Pollion should be considered as sufficient, if we managed to note on one of the reverse of Gallien a well-characterized allusion to the admission sion of Odénat to the role of co-regent and to his victories over the Barbarians. It's by guys like this, bringing together two personifications of Concord with the legend CONCORDIA MILITt^m, two standing warriors, armored and laureates, one holding a globe, the other a small Vic- tory, with the legend VIRTVS AVG or VIRTVS MILITVM, that A-urélien, in his first year, recalled about the currencies of the West the situation of political co-regency that he recognized in the East at Vaballathe (3), at the same time time that he received permission to put, on the Latin coins of the Empire struck in Antioch and on provincial Greek coins, his own effigy, associated with linked to that of Aurélien, but with a title which was not

(1) De Witle, Researches on the emperors who reigned in Gaul in the m" century, pi. XXIX, n"* 77 and 78.

(2) Ibid. ft. XXX, n°= 90 and 91.

(3) Von Sallet, Zeitschr. f. Num. t. He, p. 232-257.

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that of Augustus nor of Caesar (1). The difficulty in recognizing born in Gallien's numismatics of ana- logues alluding to the Odénat association will be alone- to be able to find a criterion to distinguish them with certainty of those, well known and numerous, who have relates to the simultaneous reign, and prolonged for several years, of Valérien and his son Gallien. I will call only attention to the extremely rare silver medallion to the legend VIRTVS AVGVSTORVM, where we see Gallien in military clothing, having two ensigns near him, seated on a pile of weapons and crowned by Victory, while another character in military clothing, helmeted, with the shield, stands before him and presents to him a laurel branch (2). According to legend, these are two emperors, one of whom, victorious, pays homage to the other of his victory. There is a distinct nuance between them of superiority for the one who sits and receives homage, analogous to that which we notice in the scenes where include an Augustus and a Caesar. On the contrary, on all the currencies, in large numbers, which trace together Valérien and Gallien, we put them on an equal footing complete. The representation would therefore apply better to

(1) The monetary title of Vaballathe, before the rebellion where he quali- lifia of Auguste, a title whose reading, for a long time enigmatic, is due to Mr. Von Sallet, is on the Latin coins Vir Consularis f^omanorum \Mperato7' Dux Romanorum, on the Greek plays T^ratixoi; ATToxpâ- Twp CTpa-uoyoç P(x)[j.aia)v . In the inscription where his mother is called IsêaTT-A), it is ûEc-ô-crp and auùtoxpâtwp. These are his father's titles Odénat, a Greek inscription from 238 (Waddington, n° 2602) calls ôsdTroTïiç and ûTraTixoç, while Trébellius Pollio {Gallien. 10) seems to indicate that he obtained the ditnperator qualification. in 264, when he said obtinidt totius Orientis imperium.

(2) Cohen, M/, t. IV, p. 3o4, and pi. XVIII, n° 24.

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the nature of the association of Gallien and Odénat than that of of Valérien and Gallien (1), and it should be noted again that the medal has no parallel with the head of Valé- nothing, which constantly presents itself for monuments numismatics relating to their common power. I don't dare However, do not draw from these remarks an attribution certain, and I limit myself to submitting them to the judgment of those who have more authority than me to pro- noncer.

Anyway, if, after the authors, we consult the testimony of the ancient coins themselves, we let us see that all the pretenders to the empire, even those whose businesses were the most ephemeral, made time of their proclamation of numismatic issues ticks in their name and likeness, and which we have still coins of a certain number of these pretensions dants whose names are barely mentioned by historians. We have up to sixteen monetary types from the blacksmith Ma- rins (2), whose power in Gaul did not last only a few days. Without doubt, all usurpers ephemera of the 3rd century, later described as tyrants, that the writers of the Augustan History list, do not are not yet represented in numismatics; but from time to time new discoveries come to light to appear in this kind of heads which were not yet

(l)^if this conjecture were admitted, we should not hasten to conclude that the legend VICTORIA AVGVSTORVM would provide proof decisive of the reality of the title of Augustus awarded to Odénat; in style of the monetary epigraphy of the th century, Augusti applies equally well to an Augustus and a Caesar than two Augustes.

(2) De Witte, Research on the emperors who reigned in Gaul, p. 121-124, pi. XXXI.

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known; moreover, it seems that Trébellius Pollio expanded the list somewhat to arrive at the precise number of Thirty tyrants raised under Gallienus, so as to make a during the Thirty of the history of Atlienes, and that there are included the names of characters who had not taken formally enough the imperial title to mint currency at their name. In addition, we have for compensation a certain number of names of suitors provided by the nu- mismatics which do not appear in the Augustan History; the difficulty consists in assimilating them to the characters whose historians speak, because they have very frequently use of popular nicknames, other than names officials of officially recognized emperors or pre- tending. The names of Caligula, Caracalla, Elaga- bale or Heliogabalus, almost universally adopted by writers, are never read on the currencies of these princes (1). It is the same among the suitors who rose on all sides of the 3rd century. The l\herius. Claudius. MARinus, PACATIANVS of the medals (2) is very positively the character that Zonaras (3) and Zo- sime (4) call only Marinus; he is very professional bable that the L- DOMITIVS- DOMITIANVS, contemporary of Diocletian, of whom we had a Latin coin minted

(1) The name of Eîagabalus is only read on the reverse of coins to designate the god whose one who was first called Varius Avitus Bassia- naked, and later, as emperor, Mr. Aurelius Antoninus, was priest and had introduced the cult to Rome, never as an appellation of the prince (see Cohen, M J, t. Ill, p. 529, n°^ 116-119; 530, n° 126-129; 542, n<'^222 and 223).

(2) Eckhel, D N, t. VII, p. 338 et seq.; Cohen, M f, t. IV, p. 230 et seq.

(3) XII, 10. (i) I, 20.

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Alexandria (1), is none other than VAchUkus of historical nothing (2). Let us add to these uncertainties those which result of the poor state of the text of the writers of Au-History taste and how the names have been there too often disfigured by copyists. Thus we read in Trébellius Pollio (3) Lollianus, in Aurelius Victor (4) and in Eutrope (5) L. Aelianus^ finally in Orosius (6) Aemi- lianiis to designate the emperor of Gaul that the mon- naies tell us that his name was actually Cornelius Ulpius Laelianus; not one writer has rendered exactly his name (7).

When the Sassanid monarch Sapor 1" wanted to add to the troubles which tore the Roman world apart after its victory, by bringing into the running as a contender a

(1) Cohen, M 1, t. V, p. 549 et pi, XIV. — I am not talking here about my Alexandrian .aies with Greek legends bearing the name of AOMC- TIANOC. CGBaa-coç. They present a problem that is still very obscure and which requires further studies. It is not at all certain that they are of the same character as the Domitianus of the Latin plays and that they do not belong, on the contrary, as Eckhel thought, to a whole another pretender, contemporary of Gallien. The Count of Salis and Mr. Cohen [MI, t. V, p. 11 and 549) divided them between two leaders of rebels, one from the time of Gallienus, who would have been Alexander Aemilianus of Tre- bellius Pollion, the other, Domitius Domitianus, from the time of Diocletian. Finally Ch. Lenorraant and M. Feuardent gave them all in bulk to Domitius Domitianus, assimilated to Achilleus.

(2) Ch. Lenormant. Iconography of Roman Emperors, p. 114; Feuar- tooth, Ancient Egypt, Roman domination, p. 285-291.

(3) Salonin. 3; Trig. tyr. 2, 3, 4, 5, 7 and 30.

(4) Caes. XXXIII, 8; Epit. 32.

(5) IX, 9.

(6) VII, 22.

(7) See. De Witte, Rev. num. 1861, p. 206-210,

II. 25

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emperor in his own way, the Cyriades of Trébellius Pollion, the Miriades, Mareades or Mariadnus of other writers (1), he even summoned an aureus to his camp for the new vel emperor, as a material sign of his ])roclamation; only, as we did not have in the Persian army engraver capable of tracing a correct Latin legend, we simulated the inscriptions with disconnected lines and unformed letters. The gold coin to which I light- sion is that of the Cabinet of France, which Ch. Lenor- mant(2) and according to him Victor Langlois (3) attributed to Odénat, a unique piece due to the contrast of the delicate work and living types with the barbarity of legends. Despite this circumstance cannot be classified among the plagia barbarorum (see book \Y, chap. vu, § 2), because it is a currency whose types were executed with care by a skilled handmade artist. The new attribution tion that I propose is based on the close analogy of style with that of Sassanid art at the time of Sapor, on the type on the reverse, which represents a Persian horseman perfectly characterized costume, last but not least on the striking resemblance of the laureate head that we see at right, and which has all the characteristics of a very specific portrait vidual, with the traits given to Cyriade or Miriade on the large monumental bas-reliefs where Sapor retraced cer his induction (4). It is especially marked if we

(1) See, on these various lessons, the interesting note by M. C. Miiller, Fragm, histor. graec. t. IV, p. 192.

(2) Rev. num. 1846, p. 278 et seq., pi. XVI, No. 14.

(3) Numism. Arabs before Islamism, pi. III, No. 1. — This last The last engraving is somewhat arranged to be able to find in the legend of the law of the elements of the name of Odénat.

(4) These bas-reliefs prove that Gibbon {Decline and fall of Roman

THE LAW IN ANCIENT COINS 387

refers to the composition where Sapor, mounted on a che- va who tramples underfoot Valérien laureate and prostrate the face down on the ground, lay his hand on the head of the new emperor, by making him take an oath of loyalty, thus than to the Roman army (1). The features are the same, good that the short beard of the figure is missing in the representations feelings engraved, undoubtedly by an inaccuracy designers, and the head of Cyriade or Miriade is crowned as on the medal, in the bas-relief where Sapor, still trampling Yalerian under the feet of his horse, presents the Augustus of his choice for homage Roman officers {'2). We can still compare that where Sapor, still on horseback, gives the diadem to Cyriades, while Valérien, laureate and very similar, throws himself knees to ask for mercy from its winner (3). On the aureus that he had struck for his suitor, the mo- The Persian narque insisted that the portrait be real and accurate, if he was little worried about the legend; this seems to indicate that, in the thought and ideas of his time, the effigy took precedence over the inscription, as a mark of sovereignty over the currency.

■\Ibut all the leaders of military revolts, described as tyrants, do not seem to have had the audacity to take openly enough the title of Augustes to also dare

Empire, t. I, chap. x) was right to place, despite a sentence from Tré- bellius Pollio, the proclamation of Cyriades as emperor after the capture of Valerien. This is also what M, G. Rawlinson {The seventh yreat oriental monarchy, chap. iv).

(1) Bas-relief of Darabgerd: Flandin, ancient Persia, pi. XXXIII.

(2) Malculm, History of Persia, t. I, p. 23S; Texier, Persia, ft. CXLVI; Flandin, pi. XLIX.

(3) G. Rawlinson, The seventh oriental monarchy, pi. on p. 607.

II. 25.

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use the right to mint money in his image, which was attached to imperial quality. In Gaul, Probus had af- to two simultaneous insurrections which supported each other one another, those of Bonosus and Proculus. Bonus minted coins in his name and head (1); Proculus does not seem to have done the same. Trebellius Pollion ra- tale that he had only thrown himself into rebellion out of fear buildings that could attract the greeting by the title of Augustus, which had been addressed to him as a plea. health in a military meal. Without doubt the weight of this title, and the responsibility for the usurpation of the rights which depended on it, continued to scare him, even after that he had decided to take up arms. In fact, no only we have not yet encountered species that bear his name, but we can even say that he had resorted to a less compromising combination than that of personal coinage, while making to obtain the cash essential to pay his or her find- ers pes. It is to his revolt that we must relate strange hybrid billon coins, whose types were copied of those of different emperors, pieces of which examples pleasers have started to appear very numerous since that attention has been drawn to them and present a wide variety of corners. We see on one side the head of Tetricus, more or less faithfully imitated, with the legend IMP. TETRICVS. AVG or IMP. C. TETRICVS- AVG, and reverse a standing Paciferous Minerva, with COMITI. PROBI. AVG (2).

(1) De Witle, Rev. mm. 1859, p. 148-157; Cohen, M C, t. V, p. 315.

(2) G. Vallier, Revue savoisienne, 1867, p. 77; Directory of the Soc. frank, of numismatics, t. III, p. 28t and s., pi. XVIII, n°* 9-14.

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2. I had the opportunity to recall above (book I, chap. 1, g I, 6) the religious worship given to the images of Emperors and the main members of their families, attached to military ensigns (1); the effigy of Em- pereur on the currency also participated in the character sacred of the imperial person. In general, when a any countermark has been affixed to a currency imperial, we took care to place it on the reverse, remaining pecting the side reserved for the effigy; or, when we have some punched one on the right we managed to avoid that it does not obliterate the sacred representation of the features of the Au- taste. On the aces of the colony of Nemausus, the counters brands are, as we have already said, very frequent, and we often sees several on the same piece; he is not rare to see them affect the law, but we have noted (2) that in this case we had taken great care to ensure that they never reach the head of Augustus, while they frequently begin that of Agrippa, for which we did not have the same religious respect. This respect for the imperial effigy by striking the coinage of countermar- ques can be posed as a rule; we don't meet there only very rare exceptions, and even then most of the time we must recognize that they were intentional, that they have a real historical value. So it is rather on the right than on the reverse, and rather on Teffigie same of Nero as elsewhere, that were printed the Republican countermarks Res Fublica or Senaius Popu-

(1) On this subject, see. especially the Fourteenth memoir of Le Beau on the Roman legion, Ensigns^ in t. XXXV of the old series of Metn. of the Acad. Registrations.

(-2) Saulcy, Rev. num. 1869-1870, p. 401.

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lusQue Romanus, affixed by the order of the Senate at most large possible number of pieces of this Emperor (1). It is also always on the portrait of Nero that are struck paid, to obliterate it in part, the countermarks of which the army of Syria stamped, in the year following the fall of parricide, the currencies of the towns of the country bearing his effigy, by successively inscribing the names of the three temples that she recognized or proclaimed one after the other while This year, \MPerator. OALba, \MPeraior, OTHO, IMPerator yESpasianus (2), or else the countermark con- monogramming the letters W ES? ASianus, that the army of Moesia applied on everything it had to its scope of Nero's copper coins, as soon as it was declared for Yespasian (3). We know the copper terces from Nerva with the legend FISCMVDAiCI. CALVMNIA-SVBLATA (4), recalling the order given by this emperor to abandon inquisitorial research commissioned by Domitian to find Judaizers secrets to whom to apply the special tax on the Jews. He is therefore not surprising to see coins from Domi- tien^ found in Judea and Samaria^ with the effigy stamped with a countermark containing the portrait of Nerva or that of Trajan (5); the population of these pro- vinces, who had suffered greatly from the inquisition of Domitian, substituted the circulating species for the traits of his benefactors to that of his persecutor. On

(1) Saulcy, Mél, of mm. 1875, p. 186.

(2) Saulcy, Rev. archaeol. new ser. t. XIX, p. 415-427.

(3) Saulcy, Mél. of num. 1875, p. 190.

(4) Eckhel. D N, t. VI, p. 404; Cohen, M f, t. I, p. 475, no. 83.

(5) Saulcy, Mél. of mm. 1875, p. 339.

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the municipal currencies of towns in several provinces, for example from Neapolis of Samaria (I), the effigy of Elaga- bale is canceled or accompanied by a countermark offering the initial A of the name of Alexander Severus,

In these facts there is a real proscription of the image of a determined emperor, proscription caused by political reasons. The measures which caused the erasure in the inscriptions the name of this or that emperor were applied in many localities in their monetary form (2). The head of Domitian on the coins of Cibyra, that of Geta in Stratonicea of Caria (3), in Pergamum and in Smyrna, are most often crossed out with lines which obliterate them. Other times, it is in legend that the proscribed name has was scratched out with a chisel, while the Effigie remained intact. Mr. Von Sallet (4) reports this fact for the name of Géta on a piece of Metropolis of Isauria. Good coins known from the Spanish municipality of Bilbilis bear the date consular Tl. CAESARE- V. L- AELIO. SEIANO; but on the majority of copies the name of Sejanus has been erased more or less completely after his death and his torture (5).

I will add that, in certain cases, without proscription of memory and the image of an emperor, we did not believe breach the principle of the sacred and inviolable character of the effigy of the sovereign by superimposing the portrait of a

(1) Saulcy, Mél. of num. 187o, p. 336.

(2) Von Sallet, Zeitschr. f. Num. t. III, p. 261.

(3) Friedlgender and Von Sallet, Das koenigl. Miinzcabinet, No. 6H; Zeitschr. f. Num. t. II, p. 371.

(i) Zeitschr. f. Num. t. III, p. 261.

(b)FloTez, Medallas de Espana, i.l,Y>. 183; Aoïs Heiss. Description gen. monn. ant. of Spain^ p. 184.

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prince, dead for some time now, from a counter- mark containing that of a new prince, which we wanted to honor by multiplying his images on cash circulating, even on old broadcasts. Thus, several towns in Syria, including Rabbathmoba (1), countermarked the head of Septimius Severus with that of their compatriot Elagabalus, at the time of his accession. By acting in this way, if one were to lay one's hand on a sacred image, it was only done to replace it one no less august and sacred. There is something there analogous to the changes of heads of impervious statues riales, which were not always the result of a pros- scription of the image of the emperor thus dispossessed, but many times that of a simple eagerness of the service public lity to have as quickly as possible — and with the less expensive — statues of the new master.

3. In possession of the exclusive right of monetary effigy and that which all the public cash put into circulation lation was minted in their name, the emperors gave shares in this privilege of the sovereign power to the members bers of their family, to their sons and those of their loved ones parents, whom they decorated with the title of Caesars, even to their women, their mothers, their daughters and their sisters, that they took on the purely honorary qualification of ^w- gusta (!2), which conferred no political power,

(i) Saulcy, Mél. of num. 1875, p. 338.

(2) The title of Augusta was sometimes given to daughters of Emperors, married to individuals, for whom this rank attributed to their wife does not carried no sharing of power or imperial titles. It is

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but involved in the religious holiness of the dignity imperial (1). It was also an action considered a model of piety, on the part of certain emperors, like Trajan, than placing on coins the effigy memorial of their father, who had not been raised in the empire (2). In the same spirit, Yespasian or Titus, we does not know exactly which of the two, awarded the title post- hums Augusta to Domitilla, the wife of Vespasian, died before her husband's elevation to the empire (3).

It is important, moreover, to distinguish from the effigy of a living commemorative effigy of a character, placed on the currency after his death. The latter was since for a long time in Roman customs-, it had been permitted under the Republic to the monetary decorating the currency ur- bathe portraits of their illustrious ancestors; the effigy posthumous had no political significance, while that that of a living person had many. We saw that Antoine had been the first to place on coins Roman portraits of living family members,

as well as even today, in Turkey, the daughters of the Sultan, married to individuals, keep the title of Sultanes and have precedence over their husbands.

(1) Eckhel, D N, t. VIII, p. 3d6 and 364. — Claudius was the first Emperor who gave to his wife Messalina, a stranger to the blood of Augustus, the title of ^î/^Ms/à; still it only appears in numismatics on coins of Greek cities.

(2) On coins bearing the effigy of Trajan the father, see, Longpérier, Rev. num. 1839, p. 137 et seq. — It is only on the local currencies of Philippopolis of Arabia, his homeland, which we see placing the divine effigy born of Marinus, the father of the Emperor Philip: Tôchon of Annecy, Memoir on the medals of Marinus, Paris, 1817; Waddington, Rev. num. 1863, p. 36-66.

(3) Eckhel, D N, t. VI, p. 336 et seq.

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of his wife and his eldest son. He did not, however, that by placing these portraits on the reverse of the coins, in subordinating them to his own head, the only true effigy legal, occupying the main side of the room. Likewise manner, Augustus allowed to be placed, on some of the last silver coins signed by monetary triumvirs, before 739, the three heads of Julie and her two sons Caius and Lucius, on the reverse of his own effigy (1). It is, from remains, the only example of a fact of this kind that we can rise under Augustus, whose prudence refrained from prodi- to give to the members of his family an honor which was repugnant still in the habits of the Romans. We left the cities Greeks multiply effigies of this kind, where they are manifested celebrated their taste for flattery; but we avoided choosing challenge the Romans by placing them on the coinage of Rome. If he allowed several Roman coin coins to be combined the effigy of Agrippa to his (2), it is that Agrippa was almost for Ini a colleague, to whom he had allowed to share the privilege of tribunician power, and that the portrait of this glorious general, after him the first character of the Empire, could not have anything offensive for the most suspicious susceptibilities.

Also Augustus himself admitted Agrippa to a private much larger and more significant light than that of a effigy association in a subordinate position. From Agrippa's lifetime, some coins were minted on his own name and in his sole effigy, whose legend recalled his famous third consulate, under which Torga- •

(1) Cohen, M C, pi. XX VU, Maria, n°^ 10 and 11.

(2) Cohen, .U C, pi. XV, Cornelia, no. 29; ft. XXXVIII, Sulpicia. Nos. 7 and 8.

THE LAW IN ANCIENT COINS 395

nization of the Empire (I). The same honor was given to Caius Caesar when Augustus designated him as his heir (2). Under Tiberius, coins bearing the image of Drusus were minted during the two years he was associated with the power tribunician (3). As for Germanicus, apart from denarius which we spoke a little above, and that it struck in Armenia by virtue of his extraordinary powers, there is only one coin in his name issued during his lifetime, it is the triumphal medium-bronze that the Senate had made after he had reconquered from the Germans the ensigns taken from Varus (4). We still don't see his portrait there. in bust; his figure is only shown in full length in types compounds. All the bronze pieces at his head are com- memorials, struck under Caligula and Claudius, likewise that the coins bearing the effigy of Nero Drusus were made under the principate of Claudius. It was only with the Flavians that we get into the habit, since then constant, of hitting species bearing the effigy of the sons of emperors proclaimed Caesars, parallel to those of their father.

But it is especially against the presence of effigies of women on the currency that the spirit of the Romans showed a great repugnance. So Augustus never admitted Livia honored to see her head represented on the species Roman corner. When Tiberius, in 22 and 23 AD, paid this tribute to his mother, on the occasion of the honors reported that the Senate awarded him, he did not introduce his portrait on the currency only in a roundabout way, in

(1) Cohen, M 1, t. I, p. 109, n°* 2 and 3.

(2) Cohen, M I, t. I, p. 113 and pi. V, Caius Caesar.

(3) Cohen, M/, t. I, p. 131.

(4) Cohen, M I, t. I, p. 138, no. 5.

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giving the features of Livia to the heads of goddesses, PI AND AS, IVSTITIAor SALVS AVGVSTA (1). This is how, from time of Augustus, a monetary was pleased to give the features of Julie to a bust of Diana (2). All other coins bearing the effigy of women of the family of Caesars are posthumous and commemorative: those of Agrip- pine the ancient^ minted under Caligula; those of Antonia, under Claudius.. Of Caesonia, Messalina and Poppaea, as well that of Octavia, Nero's first wife, we have no head only on coins of Greek cities or colo- nies, as Men as sisters of Caligula, and again, for the latter, except for Julia Livilla, all the effigies known after their death. Alone, the am- biting and dominating Agrippina managed to associate her effigy to that of her husband, the weak Claude (3), and to that of her son Nero (4), at the time when she. dominated, on the gold and silver coins which the emperor had at his disposal entirely. But the Senate, however servile it was, did not admit this woman's head on the copper coin of which he had the direction, and Agrippina did not dare either going so far as to mint money in his image alone (5). For begin to encounter pieces of this kind, having not effigy than the portrait of a living woman, in the senatorial copper as well as in the gold and silver of the

(1) Cohen, MI, t. I, p. 106 and pi. V. n°* 1-3.

(2) Cohen, M C. pi. XXVII, Mara, n° 9. ;3) Cohen, M I, t. I.p. 174, ii«' 2-4,

(4) Cohen, M/, 1. 1, p. 176, ti°^2-6.

(5) The bronze coin (Cohen, MI, vol. 1, p. 173) where its efflBgy would be isolated was only seen by Vaillant and seems as suspicious as unlikely in the habits and legal data of the time.

THE LAW IN ANCIENT COINS 397

prince, we must go down to the coins that Dominion you had it struck in the name of his niece Julie, daughter of Titus, with whom he lived publicly as husband and wife, without them having yet been linked by just marriage. A date from this moment, the habit is so well established, contrary- lies to the ancient spirit of Roman morals, that the virtuous Trajan himself, this crowned representative of the liberal party of his time and legality, has no scruples about have the effigy of his wife Plotina placed on the coinage of all metals, no more than to have struck, during the lifetime of his sister Marciane, an aureus whose main face offers the portrait and the name of it (1), and another whose two sides offer the heads of Plotina and Matidia (^2). Even after this profound modification uses, and until a late period, there were still effigies of women that we did not dare to introduce on the currency only with a disguise and in a disguised manner tour. Such was Marcia's, because she was not legally as Commodus' concubine and not his legiti- time wife. At the time of his greatest passion for her, Commodus had represented on several medallions (it's not even about actual currency- so-called, intended for circulation) his head attached to that of a helmeted Amazon, with very pronounced features in their individual character, where we must recognize Marcia, to whom

(1) Cohen, M I, t. II, p. 93, no. 1. — The Senate has not admitted, on the naies that he administered, the effigy of Marciane only after his death, during his Consecration.

(2) Cohen, M I, t. II, p. 92. — The currencies of Matidie vivant are subsequent to the death of his mother Marciane, and consequently of the reign of Hadrian, his adopted brother-in-law. He was given the title of Au- gusta, although she was only the niece and sister-in-law of Emperors.

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he liked to put on this Amazon costume, qualifying himself himself trusting Amazonius (1). We reported everything per hour (in section 1 of this §) the gold coins of Yictorin, where he gave the bust of Victory or the one of the goddess Eome the features of her mother Victorine. There does not exist no, as we have said, any other currency of the Mother of camps of Gaul, although she was Auyusta^ as mother of an Augustus. No doubt the legions who made and unmade know then the emperors on the banks of the Rliin, while accepting Victorine's political influence and showing great deference for the opinions of this virile woman, would not have seen with pleasure the effigy of a woman holding first place on currency. And it is at this disposal formation of the army of the borders of Gaul and Germany that we must attribute the absence of any imperial currency trice in the group of numismatics of the emperors Gallic from the 3rd century ('2).

4. All currency bearing the effigy of the emperor, or people in his family to whom he granted par- participate in this privilege, had become in its exclusive form imperial vement. Taking possession of cash by the power of one, as an external sign of authority

(1) Eckhel, D N, t. VII, p. 128; Lenormant, Rev. num. 18o7, p. 212-246.

(2) Poslume only did, in imitation of certain reverses of Septimius Severe with the heads of Julia Domna, Caracalla and Géta, place on the reverse of an aureus, with the legend AETERNITAS. AVG, the three radiated heads, and of small size, of his wife, his son and his daughter: P. Dupré, Rev. num, 1846, p. 20-27; De Witte, Research on the emperors who reigned in Gaul, pi. I, n°' H and 12.

THE LAW IN ANCIENT COINS 399

monarchical, had become complete. Yet Augustus, in his skillful policy in temperaments, in the pieoc- cupation to respect as much as possible the frameworks of the former republican government, by adapting them to the creation of the most absolute power, had not seized in a comprehensive manner of direction and responsibility bility of coinage. In this matter, as for the ad- ministration of the provinces, he had made a division between the prince and the Senate, leonine division in favor of the first, which his successors respected for several centuries. It was, moreover, only after several trial and error that Auguste arrived at the definitive combination in this matter- nitive, which became the rule after him. We saw everything time (in the previous §, sect. 10) as of the date of second or third year after the constitution of the triumvirate, the names of the ordinary monetary magistrates submitted to the leadership of the Senate (then the quartet) dis- absolutely appear to be money, which becomes for fifteen entirely imperatorial years of as- external pect, whether these magistrates had been temporarily rarely deleted, or because they had only been removed the right to sign the cash they had produced. It was only in 27 BC (Kome 727), at the same time as Octave became Augustus and the imperial government received its organization, it is only then is the ancient office of the trium- monetary vires (see later, in this book, cbap. m, I 2), and that they again began to put their names on the currencies as a mark of their responsibility. The mon- ordinary ornament of gold and silver, although always bearing the name of Augustus and most often his effigy, is then for twelve years, from 27 to 15, original senatorial and

400 CURRENCY IN ANTIQUITY

of legal right, struck by the monetary that directs the Senate, and signed by them (1); this which does not prevent, from remains, the Emperor to use the right of his imperium to have it manufactured in parallel, when it deems it appropriate, his own and personal currency, of which he alone has the direction tion and responsibility, where the Senate has nothing to do and which bears no trace of the intervention of this body. This system of two parallel coinages, subject to different authorities and therefore being able to arrive at divergences while simultaneously hitting the same metals, would necessarily, after a short time, cause serious inconveniences. 11 could not be tolerated only as a transitional regime, and it was important to put an end to it before it had produced the unfortunate effects who would not have failed to come out. So we came to a more rational and regular combination. From- then Sylla (book VII, chap. m, g~5 and 6), we had stopped in Eome all manufacturing of extra currency copper, which was originally minted there in large quantities tities and almost exclusively. In 17 or 16 BC Christ (737 or 738 from Rome), this manufacturing was there restored, and we then have two monetary triumvirs, M. Sanquinius and P. Licinius Stolo (2), who sign at the both silver and copper coins. But, from in the year 15, the names of the triumvirs can only be read on copper species, now very abundant.

We see from this that it was in 16 or 15 that the par- definitive and legal stage of the manufacture of currencies between the Emperor and the Senate, division based on distinction

(1) Mommsen, M R, t. III, p. 6.

(2) Mommsen, il/ iî, t. III, p. 8.

THE LAW IN ANCIENT COINS 401

metals. To the Emperor, the exclusive and unconditional right role of minting gold and silver currency, which it regulates the quantity, weight and title in the fullness of its personal power, and which is now called official- ment moneta auraria argentaria Caesaris (i); in the Senate, the direction and responsibility of copper coinage of Empire, which must always bear the mention of the senatus- consults under which it was issued; this is the principle cipe which is then put into force and continues to regulate the material until the second half of the third century. Thing quite singular and which clearly shows the insufficiency of literary sources to make the so- ancient city, not a historian's or jurisconsult's text does not mention this crucial fact of sharing management and the responsibility of currencies (2); but it is established by the inscriptions, with the special designation that they give to gold and silver coinage, and especially by the study of the currencies themselves, where two circumstances above all make it manifest^ the character exclusively imperial species of gold and silver, where nothing ever recalls, even from a distance, an intervention by the Senate and magistrates dependent on him, the constant presence on the copper species of the abbreviated formula Se7iatus Consulta, which alone gives them legal tender throughout the Empire (3). Note, moreover, that if the Senate did not have any

(1) Corp. register lat. t. VI, n°* 42-44. Moneta Caesaris: Corp. register lat. t. VI, no. 791.

(2) We only find a trace of it in the story of Dion Cassius (LX, 22) on the order of the Senate prescribing, in hatred of the memory of Gara- calla, to recast all the copper money in his image; he does not order it was born only for this metal because it was the only one to which he had the right.

(3) Eckhel, D N, t. I, p. lxxiii; Mommsen, M R, t. III, p, 9 et seq.

II. 26

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right on the Emperor's coinage in gold and silver the Emperor, at least in the 5th century, claimed a( surveillance and greater power of control over h copper coin of the Senate (1); indeed, the controllers; and auditors of currencies, who were officers di imperial tax office, are officially titled, in inscriptions tions of 115 CE, options et exactores auri ar- genti aeris (2) .

We will see further (in this book, chap. m, § 2J that, until the abolition of senatorial copper coinage torial, in the third century, it was administered by the trium- monetary virs, which kept for a long time, pai tradition, their ancient title of tresviri auro argento aert flando feriundo, although only having power over one only metal, but ended up exchanging it for that of tresviri monetales. I have been since the last third of the reign of Augustus, they had lost the right to put their name on the monuments. Nero tried for a moment to usurp on the Senate the coinage of copper and to take it into his hand; this attempt left its mark in the bronzes quite numerous at the head of this Emperor, who have not the mark SC, although obviously belonging to the number raire of Empire, and not to provincial broadcasts (3). But it had no consequences, any more than that of the Senate to resume the manufacture of everyone's currency metals between the death of Nero and the entry of Galba into Rome; this is marked by the adoption of re-types

(1) Moramsen, M R, t. III. p. M; 0. Hirschfeld, Unterstichungen auf dem Gebiele der œinischen Verwallungsgeschichte, t. I, p. 9o.

(2) Corp. register ht. t. VI, no. 4244.

(3) Eckhel, D N, t. VI, p. 284; Mommsen, M R, t. III, p. H.

THE LAW IN ANCIENT COINS 403

)ublicans, of which we have already spoken (1), because it is note that the letters SC are only seen on the ) coins struck in Africa by Clodius Macer (2), without loute because their inscription on urban currency money was not in the old traditions of the )Republican period.

Following the organization regulated by Augustus, said )/L Mommsen (3), “all currency had become )essentially imperial principle. From the point of view of Iroit, it is however not without real importance to ;observe that the Senate of Rome was specially responsible issue the copper currency current in all Empire, and particularly intended first for Italy, soon after to the whole West, while in the East this )rerogative had been conferred on the provincial authorities it municipal. It was, in a way, recognizing the ) sharing of sovereignty between the Emperor and the Senate; i' was a barrier opposed, not to the absolutism of military regime, but at least to the definitive establishment it is legal for despotism. The Senate and local bodies which who still had the right to mint coins drew a clear advantage of this state of things: first of all they find were going to make a fairly considerable material profit, then they continued served the right to prohibit the Emperor from issuing ,a currency with a fictitious value. We can get an idea the practical importance of this restriction, referring to both to the countless abuses committed by the Ptolemies, to

(1) D. deBlacas, Rev. num. 1862, p. 197-224. Mommsen, M R, t. III, ?. 10.

(2) L, Millier, Numism. of the anc. Africa^ t. II, p. 170 et seq.

(3) M R, t. m, p. H and s.

II. 26.

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means of copper coinage (book VI, chap. vi, § i2), abuse that we will find later, in the post- later than Constantine (book VII, chap. vi, § 1 and 2). This clever precaution to place the issue of cash nominal value under the control of advertising and safeguard of the Senate can be compared to what is seen nowadays, when governments resort to sanction of opinion and control of the great bodies of the State, when it comes to issuing paper securities. The goal that we proposed was perfectly achieved, because the depreciation of the Roman currency did not come from copper, but money, and yet we can say that the number copper coin should have been the weak part of the watch is Roman, since this metal had not been used for a long time more than a fictitious value, and yet we use it even going to pay considerable sums (1). »

5. In chapter IV of this book, g 2, we examine- let us address the question of the monetary workshops where the gold and silver coinage of the emperor, more mul- tiplied in the provinces than is admitted by ordinary opinion nary. Legally dependent on the house of the emperor, these mints were administered by procu- failures taken from the equestrian order or from the freedmen

(1) We do not discover anywhere a line of demarcation which would have was all the more necessary since Roman copper had originally used for the payment of large and small amounts. Furthermore, Paul- \us {Sent, recept. Y, 23, 1) says: Lege Cornelia tenetur qui vultu princi- pum signalam monetam praeter adulterinam rerobaverit. Finally, at the last In the early days of the Empire, large sums were often paid in copper.

THE LAW IN ANCIENT COINS 405

imperial; their existence, the restriction or multiplication tion of their number depended solely on the good pleasure of the sovereign will. On the contrary, the law had determined the number and location of the senatorial workshops intended for the manufacture of copper coins, at the same time time that she had submitted this fabrication to the Senate. There is no had only two of these workshops for the entire empire, one in Rome, the other in Antioch. That of Eome was the most important; he made all the extra money for the intended to circulate in the Orient, which was sent from Eome in the provinces. The coinage of the Antioch mint was much less abundant; its products were destined for the Orient; but, as they almost encountered competition from provincial and local currencies everywhere of the same metal, they hardly came out due to the pro- provinces of Syria and Cyprus, and it is only there that they usually discovers. The area of their circulation was therefore in reality, and by force of circumstances, the same as that of the provincial silver tetradrachms of the temple reur, also beaten at Antioch.

Copper coins issued from one or other of two senatorial workshops, that of Antioch as well as that of that of Rome, also bear in an invariable manner the formula Senatus Consulta^ mark of their legal origin, to which was attached the course that they had everywhere, while the circulation of provincial or local species was limited by law to the province or locality. But, apart from this common point, the two classes of currencies are completely different in appearance. As for the bronzes of Roman corner are remarkable for the care of the work, the beauty of the art, the perfection of the typing, the interest and variety of types, as those of Antioch are uniform

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and monotonous, of a more than mediocre art, of a work crude and imperfect (1). On the right, the head of the emperor; on the reverse, the large letters SC, occupying the whole field in a laurel wreath; these mon- naies do not offer a variation in their types until reign of Elagabalus; a spread eagle, placed on the letters SC, is only added to the reverse from Septimius Severus. The legend which accompanies the head of the right is Latin up to that in the reign of Trajan, as it is also sometimes on municipal copper coins, which up to Galba are issued at the same time by the city authorities^ with on the right the head and the legend of the emperor, and on the reverse a Greek inscription in a crown, composed of the word ANTIOXEflN and a date indicating the serving imperial legate of Syria (2). Indeed, in the first two centuries AD, the mint of Antioch produced simultaneously, in pharmacies various and under the direction of agents of different authorities annuities, four absolutely distinct types of money: 1° aurei and imperial silver denarii with legends Latin, belonging to the numerary of the empire; 1° the tetra- Imperial silver drachmas of low fineness, with Greek legends ques, struck for the particular use of the province of

(1) Eckhel, DiV, t. III, p. 300 et seq.; Mionnet, t. V, p. 191-214; Suppl. t. VIII, p. 139-143.

(2) Eckhel, D iV, t. III, p. 279-282; Mionnet, t. V, p. 167-169; Suppl. t. VIII, p. 130 et seq. — After Galba, the municipal copper currency of Antioch does not cease, but it only offers small pieces of furniture entirely autonomous parentage, without names or effigies of emperors, with dates from the Caesarian era of Syria which lead to the year 226, under Marcus Aurelius: Eckhel, D N, t. III, p. 283; Mionnet, t. V, p. 159-166; Suppl. t. VIII, p. 127-129.

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Syria, which was discussed above (in this chapter, §4,2); 3° senatorial copper coinage; 4° currency municipal copper.

Under Trajan, the imperial legend of currency law of copper minted in Antioch under the authority of the Senate of Rome, with the letters SC, becomes Greek; it's one of the most remarkable signs of the step which tends to then do towards the advent of Greek to the state of language official, on the same rank as Latin, in half eastern part of the Empire. At the time when, when Hadrian wanted to punish Antioch, the manufacture of tetradrachms provincials of the emperor stops for a while in this city, the senatorial copper coinage does not does not experience the same interruption, because it does not depend It was not the will of the emperor. We still have a few senatorial coins of the old type, the letters se in large, placed in a crown and occupying the reverse, with the heads of Elagabalus, Julia Mamsea and of Emilien. But, from the reign of Elagabalus, almost all the copper coins struck at Antioch, in con- serving the same modules and the same sizes of the sestertius and the ace, take types of a local character, in relation to port with the city, and bear a Greek legend on the reverse containing the name Antioch, with the title of colony that Caracalla had awarded him -, ANTIOXenN. MHTPOto>.iç. KOAOvta (1). But they nonetheless continue to carry in the field the letters SC; it's like the result of the confusion into one of the local cash of the municipality

(1) Eckhel, D N, t. III, p. 302 et seq.; Mionnet, t. V, p. 205-214. — The Maximin's reign is not represented in the pieces that we know so far; but it would be very surprising if we did not find any coins from this series.

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pale and of the one who stood for the Senate of Rome. He there is certainly a first indication of the trend towards the assimilation of local currencies to the currency of the empire, which was to come true half a century later (see some similar facts that we have cited in this chapter, § 4, 6). Moreover, a similar confusion is established towards the middle of the 3rd century, still in Antioch, between the mon- Provincial silver coinage of the emperor and coinage senatorial, until then exclusively limited to copper, con- trained in the principles of law established by Augustus. Under Gordian III, the letters SC begin to be inscribed on the tetradraclimes of the provincial series, including the quality of silver always falls further, and they remain there from then until the end of manufacturing. cation of these pieces (1) • under Philippe, we also inscribe on the tetradrachms the words MOHeta VRBi'ea, which assimilate to properly Roman corner pieces and their give current throughout the Empire, with the value of a certain number of denarii that we would not know today to determine today (see above, in this chapter, | -4, 6). The two series from the Antioch workshop with impervious heads riales, now also marked with the letters SC, ending- feels at the same time; the last tetradrachms are Trebonian Galle and deVolusian, the last piece of bronze from the beginning of Valerian's reign.

6. Sharing the direction of coinage, following metals, between the emperor and the Senate, results, by a

(1) EckheL D N. t. III, p. 298; Mionnet, t. V, p. 184 et seq.; Mommsen, ilfif, t. III, p. 323.

THE LAW IN ANCIENT COINS 409

necessary consequence, that the vicissitudes of revolutions political, competitions of pretenders to the empire, are not reflected in the same way in the currency of copper or in gold and silver coinage, including, as is right, in this one, the bill of bad quality and the sauced copper that the imperial government gave to the century for money, and which was considered legally as such. Whoever took the title of Augustus took thereby appears to have the right to mint species of gold and money, and hastened to use it, as we have shown, as an external manifestation of his power and proclamation of its claims. But, like the mon- Empire copper plate was only manufactured by order of the Senate and in the only two cities of Rome and An- tioche, he was only struck by the name and effigy of the princes who were masters of these cities and who made recognize their authority by the Senate of Rome. Without talk about the ephemeral tyrants of the 2nd century, who did not bring purple only for a few weeks, and which self- rity barely extended to a single province^ Pescennius Niger, master for a year of almost half of the Em- worse, do not count a single piece of bronze in the Roman series, because his authority did not extend to Rome and that Septimius Severus did not let him proclaim by the Senate, whatever this body might desire. Albin is not entitled Augustus only on gold and silver coins, whom he had struck by his own authority, when he entered into open struggle with Severus; on bronze, it is never called Caesar, because his rival, master of Rome, never allowed the Senate to recognize another quality. On the other hand, we have copper corner coins Roman of the two Gordians of Africa, father and son, whose

410 LA. CURRENCY IN ANTIQUITY

reign lasted six weeks and who could not reach Rome, because the Senate had acclaimed them, in hatred of Maximin. The only character who, before Aurélien, struck bronze coins by having its power confined in a region other than Italy, and without ever having been re- known by the Roman Senate, was Postumus. And, circumstance very remarkable, all its bronzes, similar to those of which the broadcast was legally within the Senate's remit riales, bear the letters SC in the field, as if they had been struck in Rome by virtue of a senatus-con- regular result. It is that Postumus, in his left empire- laws, had completely established all the workings of the organization constitutional position of the Roman State. Not being recognized by the Senate of Rome, which Gallienus forced to treated as a public enemy, he had, like Sertorius formerly in Spain, created in Gaul another Senate, sitting in Colonia Agrippina or Burdigala, and he had invested it the same monetary rights as that of Rome (1). None another, under the same conditions, could not do the same, for none other, among the soldiers of fortune who rose around the same time with purple in the various parts of the Roman world, was gifted with the same organizational genius tion and did not seek to achieve the same design of a complete empire, without claiming possession of Rome. Postume finally gave substance to this idea of Vi7nperium gallicum^ both national and constituted on the ro- model hand, that patriots of Gaul had dreamed and attempted without success in putting it into practice from the first century, and nothing better than its bronze coins reveals the character of the political edifice that he had built.

(1) Eckhel, DiV, t. VII, p. 445.

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The abbreviation of the words Senatus Consulta, inscribed on the bronzes which came out of the senatorial workshop of Antioch, was not an empty formula; we didn't actually hit in this workshop only on the formal order of the Senate of Rome. This is what results in the most obvious way from the examination of the series of coins which came out of it. We does not find there all the princes who have been recognized Rome by the Senate; it sometimes happened that their ri- values, proclaimed in Syria by the army, prevented follow on this point the prescriptions which came from the Eternal City. But in this sequel we do not encounter a single head of suitor who has not had the sanctity official position of the Roman Senate, even when Antioch was the main seat of its power. If those who found in this situation had the means in hand of coercion which allowed them to prevent nayer in the name of their rival, none of them, at least, dared infringe on senatorial rights by issuing in his name the copper coins with the letters SC before the . senatus-consulte who ordered its publication was arrived from Rome. They were waiting for their legal recognition scabies speaks of the body which, despite its degradation and its lity, still retained a certain prestige, and respected the constitutional fiction which left him a share of support truthfulness. This is how Vespasian put an obstacle to the issue of currencies of the kind that concerns us in the name of Vitellius, Pescennius Niger to that of coins of Per- tinax and Didius Julianus, although these three emperors would have been solemnly recognized by the Senate of Rome. But Pescennius Niger having never obtained this re- knowledge, neither was he struck by his name and his effigy in the Antioch workshop of copper coins at

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the senatorial mark, although, as de facto sovereign in the city, he used other pharmacies in the same hotel coins to mint the extremely rare aurei (1) and the silver denarii with Latin legends entering into the system of the general currency of the Empire, and although there also made provincial tetradrachms in his name. There he executed all the types of coins which de- depended solely on the imperial authority that he had arrogated, but not those which could only be issued by order of the Senate.

Several literary texts confirm these facts, that numismatics observes. We recalled a a little above the passage where Tacitus (2), recounting the pro- proclamation of Vespasian by the army of Syria, speaks of coins immediately struck by the new emperor in An- tioche, in order to meet the costs of the war against Vi- tellius. The terms he uses are important to note: Apud Antiochenses aurum argentumqiie signalur. So it is only gold and silver money that we manufactures, because we cannot yet legally make them else; for copper, we must wait for recognition of the Senate. The emperor, barely elected by the legions, seizes the truly imperial workshops of the mint of Antioch; he respects the senatorial workshop, on which he has no authority. In his narration of the advent of Macrinus, Lampride, after having related how the new vel emperor, to reassure the legions seized by a superstitious fear at the idea that there was no longer one

(1) On the gold coins of Pescennius Niger, see. Cohen, Rev. num. 1868, p. 441 et seq.

(2) Hist. II. 82.

THE LAW IN ANCIENT COINS 413

Aiitonin at the head of the Empire, presented his son Dia- Dumenian by making it take this name, then if popular laire, adds: “Immediately coins were minted in Antioch in the name of Antoninus Diadumenien; but we postponed for that of Macrinus until the arrival of orders from the Senate (1). » The monetary monuments agree in the most precise with this testimony and provide a valuable comment. We waited for Ma's recognition - horsehair by the Senate to strike his name and effigy not only the copper coins with the Senate mark- rial, but even provincial silver tetradrachms, because on the latter he always bears the title of con- sul, YnATOC, which he was never able to take until after having received the senatorial ornaments (2) which were dedicated to him by the Senate (3). As for the coinage minted in all haste in the name of Caesar Diadumenian to note his proclamation and above all make known to the people that it had adopted the name of Antonin, we possess it: it is a provincial tetradrachm, such as they could be issued on the sole order of Augustus and without needing the proclamation of the Senate, There was so much haste to execute it, that we did not take the time to engrave a corner new only for the head; for the reverse, we used from a corner of Caracalla, mentioning in his legend the fourth consulate, AHMAPX. ei- YnATOC- TO- A,

(1) Staiim apud Antiochiam moneia Antonini Diadumeni nomine percussa est: Macrini, usque adjussum Senatus dilata est: Lamprid. Ant. Dia- dum. 2.

(2) We know that after Septimius Severus the presentation of senatorial ornaments riaux gave the right to take the title of consul, without one having to this effectively exercised the consulate; Eckhel, D N, t. VIII, p. 429 et seq.

(3) Dio Cass. LXXVIII, 13.

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when Macrinus' son was never even once consul (1). As for the legend of law, it only calls you ment Mr. One^.oç. ANTCONINOC KA[ICAP, without his co- anterior gnomen of Diadumenianus^ given to him, jointly with that of Antoninus, on the currencies which we hit a little later, when the protocol of his titles was definitively settled, among other things on the copper species from the senatorial workshop of An- tioche.

There remains the singular problem presented by the reign of Otto, of which we do not have a single copper coin of Roman corner (2), while we have it in the products of the senatorial workshop of Antioch (3). It has become a species commonplace than to explain the absence of Roman bronze of Otto, saying that he had not obtained recognition session of the Senate. But this is a pure historical error. Otto had been proclaimed emperor by the Senate with all regular forms, and Tacitus even says that it is the prestige of this proclamation which kept him faithful all eastern provinces {h); and, in the absence of this testimony so formal, it would suffice, to prove the fact, to the existence of copper coins minted at Antioch in its name, according to a senatus-consulte attested by the registrant

(1) Eckhel, D N, t. III, p. 291; t. VII, p. 243.

(2) Eckhel, D N, t. VI, p. 302 et seq.

(3) Mionnet, t. V, p. 193, n<" 356 and 3S7; Cohen, MI, vol. I, p. 253 and ft. XIV, no. 21.

(i) Longinquae provinciae, et quidquid armorum mari dirimitur^ bolts Othonem manebant, non partium studio, sed erat grande mommtum in nomine Urbis ac praetexta Senatus, et occupaverat animos prior auditiis: Tacit. Hisl. 1, 76.

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tion of the SC formula. It was Mr. Mommsen (1) who de- covered the real and incontestable reason for the absence of Roman coin Otto copper coins. The scholar Prussian proved, in fact, that throughout the duration from the 1st century, until the death of Domitian, the title of Pontiffœ Maximus was considered the highest and the most august of imperial titles. The Senate, in particular bind, did not legally hold the power of the Emperor as complete as when he had assumed the Sovereign Pontificate, and it is only at the time of the inauguration of a new Augustus as Pontifex Maximus as the senate coinage copper ring began to be struck in his name (2); until then, only gold coins were issued for him and money at his disposal. However, the election and the investiture of the Sovereign Pontiff only took place on a specific time of the year, in the month of March; he was only twice made an exception to this rule in all the course of the 1st century, for Galba, the date of which is unknown of elevation to the title of Pontifex Maximus^ but who necessarily received between July and January, and for Vi- tellius, who forced himself to create Sovereign Pontiff the July 18 (3), after being recognized in Rome on April 19. For all other emperors whose accession to the purple took place during the pontifical year, we

(1) Zeitschr. f. Num. t. I, p. 238-2-44.

(2) Sometimes at this time the Senate had the currency minted copper from the new Emperor in sufficient quantity to provide a single blow to the needs of his entire reign. This is what was done for Claude, of which all the senatorial bronzes bear the date of the first power tribunician power, while we have gold and silver of all the years of his reign.

(3) Tacit. Hist. II, 91; Suet. Vitell. 11.

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postponed their nomination and investiture to the regular period related, the Senate is also waiting for this moment to proceed to the issuance of their copper currencies. This was the case of Otlion. Proclaimed and recognized by the Senate on January 15 life 69, and having killed himself on April 15 of the same year- born, his reign, although very short, would have offered a time sufficient for the manufacture of copper coins by the au- authority of the Senate, parallel to those he struck per directly itself in gold and silver, if one did not want to wait for his elevation to the dignity of Pontifex Maximus. But we know now, speak recently discovered fragments of the acts of the Arvales, that the priestly comitia for his election as such did not take place until March 9, five days before he left Rome to march against Vitellius. He couldn't be installed regularly, and moreover from this moment its affairs were so compromised that it is natural rel as the Senate, not very heroic in its nature, which had stretched so far according to the precedents of jurisprudence, judged it more prudent to wait a little longer, before understanding begin its coinage, to see what would be the outcome of the fight between the two rivals.

Nothing proves that in the Antioch workshop, considered as less important than that of Rome, we expected also the investiture of the Sovereign Pontificate to begin take the manufacture of copper money to a new level father, especially since the qualification of Pontiffop Maximus does not appear in the titles given to sovereigns the legends of the pieces of this workshop. 11 is very- possible that the order to mint was sent there immediately after political recognition by the Senate. But, even in the case where this body would have followed for its workshop

THE LAW IN ANCIENT COINS 417

monetary of Antioch the same rule as for that of Kome, time, which was lacking in the Queen City to en- to tame after March 9 the manufacturing of Otto's coins, was not lacking in the same way in the Syrian city. It is avoided tooth that at the very least, as soon as the date of the elections where the Emperor was to be elevated to the Sovereign Pontificate had was fixed, we had to send to Antioch the necessary orders necessary to start coinage in his name at the same time as in Eome; assuming they arrived in March, it was only in June that we could know in Syria the death of Otto, which was more than two months ago for the manufacture of coins from the senatorial workshop to name and to the head of Otho, even by constricting it in these narrow limits and delaying the beginning as much. From no longer, in Syria, the news of the progress of Yitellius will not cause the same fears and the same hesitations tions than in Rome. There was strong support for Otto, whose head the legate Mucien had placed on the municipal copper coins of Antioch immediately that he had learned of its proclamation (1). We still felt far from the reach of the legions of Germany, and, jealous of these, the army which occupied the province was already resolute read to make herself an emperor rather than recon- Yitellius was born. The existence of copper coins of Otho from the senatorial workshop of Antioch is therefore explained historically, as well as the lack of currencies bables from the Rome workshop. The difference of events policies which then took place in Italy and Syria is the cause which made the recognition of Otto by the

(1) Eckhel, D iV, t. UI, p. 282; Mionnet, Suppl. t. VIII, p. 131, nMS.

II. 27

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Senate did not have the same consequences in the world senatorial swimming of the two countries.

7. After Gallienus, at the same time as the world ceases flooding of Greek cities and Eastern colonies, the letters SC disappear from Roman corner pieces, the- which soon cease to be struck (see book Vil, chap. IV, g 2). In the silence of historians, who have transmitted so little information about this period of imperial annals, we conclude with great truth- semblance that Aurélien put his hand for the imperious authority rial on the entire monetary law (1), following the great revolt of the coiners of Bome, which he had to beat at the start of his reign (2). Tacitus and Florian, elected of the Senate and representatives of an attempt which sought to restore political preponderance to this body, it seems having tried to hand over to him the manufacture of copper money (3). But this test did not survive them

(1) Eckhel, D iV, 1. 1, p. lxxvii; Mommsen, M R, t. III, p. 13.93 et seq.; Fr. Lenorraant, Organization of currency in antiquity, p. 31.

(2) Vopisc. Aurelian. 38; Aurel. Vict. Caesar, 3o, 6; Eutrop. IX, 14; Vict. Epit. 3S, 4; Suid. v. ixovtxàpioç.

(3) Copper coins from Florien marked with the letters S C: Ramus, Cat. num. vet. Mus. reg. Daniae, n" 35 and 36; Cohen, M I, t. V, p. 21S, No. 44; p. 219, no. 60; p. 220, no. 77.

Two centuries later, the letters SC reappear in the field of reverse of the large bronze pieces of Zenon (Sabatier, Descr. des mon- Byzantine naies, t. I, p. 140, no. 16, pi. VIII, n° II) and of Zeno and Leo (Sabatier, 1. 1, p. 141, n° 21) struck in Rome, with the type of Victory and the legend INVICTA ROM A. At the time of the suppression of the Empire of the West by Odoacer, Zeno, who nominally became the sovereign of all Romanity, at the same time as he gave the royal investiture and the

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not, etruncienne senatorial auxiliary currency disappears definitively after them in the face of the transformation of the meraire of silver in copper simply sauced with this metal, at the same time as the right of the Senate to issue it.

When Diocletian reconstituted the Empire, ready to fall dissolved following the troubles of the third century, and formed tifia in an even more complete way than his predecessors- Despite the system of centralization that presided over it, he had no guard, in the measures he took regarding the currencies (book YII, chap. iv, § 2), one of the subjects which called for The most prompt reform, he was careful not to abandon person the important right that Aurélien had thus placed in the power of the sovereign. The considerable revolution that this last prince had operated in the organization of the system The Empire's coinage system remained incomplete until we had organized a . other system. This work, the troubles which had desolated the ro- hand had not allowed it to be undertaken; Diocletian realized it.

title of patrician to the barbarian chief, had returned to the Senate of Rome his ancient right of copper coinage, he kept it under the Ostrogoths. The large copper coins of King Teodahat, struck in Rome with the legends VICTORIA PRINCIPVM and VICTORIA AVG (Sabatier, t. 1, p. 202, nos. 1 and 2, pi. XVIII, nos. 24 and 23), also relate to the field of reverse the letters S C. It must also be considered as struck by the authority of the Senate, under Theodoric and his first successors, the autonomous of Rome in copper, with the helmeted bust of the personified City, with the ins- script INViCTA ROMA, and on the reverse of the eagle, the she-wolf or the Ruminai fig tree (Eckhel, D ^, t. VIU, p. 216; Sabatier, t. I, p. 210 et seq., ft. XrX,' nos. 25-29). We know that the Ostrogoths also left mint of copper autonomous by the Municipal Senate of Ravenna (Sabatier, t. I, p. 211, n°^8-10, pi. XIX, n°' 31-33) and the Vandals by that of Carthage (Eckhel, DN, t. IV, p. 138; Sabatier, t. I, p. 221 et seq., ft. XX, n-22-28).

II. 27.

4i>0 CURRENCY IN ANTIQUITY

For a long time now, For and imperial money have been circulating milk throughout the Empire; but it was not the same for copper. The copper coin currency does not does not transport great distances: it is of its birth too cumbersome and too expensive to transport, compared to its real value or its nominal value conventional, even when it significantly exceeds the intrinsic metallic value. It only circulates there where she was struck and within a restricted radius to the surroundings turns. Also, until the reign of Aurelian, we have proof by the extreme rarity of bronze discoveries of Roman corner in the Hellenic countries, the mass of the copper circulating as auxiliary currency in the Orient of the Empire was exclusively composed of currencies hit by the Greek cities. Between Aurélien and Dioclé- Hey, we had stopped making these coins; but, like the manufacture of official imperial currencies had not been sufficiently established in the Orient, as we no longer made donated copper coins as such, with a minimal value, the mass of copper in the circulation of this moist world subject to Rome remained the same, composed of parts formerly issued. There is more: as we showed in § 4, 6 of this chapter, the unbridled alteration of currency of Empire had ended up making old copper coins from Greek cities a metal commodity, sought after for its intrinsic value, which was used for payments of large sums, without worrying about the origin original nance of the parts. Under these conditions^, this merchandise had started to take the road to Oc- resident, deprived of cash having value in itself, and the government had favored the movement of attraction

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tion by which the West pumped copper cash municipal of the Orient, now legally assimilated to the Empire currency. The emperors sought a rest there source in the monetary crisis that their deplorables me- sure of alteration of the species had produced, and they did not succeeded in generalizing the crisis by impoverishing health the circulation of the Orient^ without providing a remedy seriously to the plight of that of the West.

Diocletian, wanting there to be only one mon- law current in the Empire, both for copper that for gold and silver, that of the Emperor, for achieve such a result and meet the needs of all parts of the immense territory of Romanity, greatly increase the number of pharmacies manufacturing these currencies in the provinces. But, by multiplying the at- linked, it was necessary, in order to achieve regular control of stability in manufacturing, distinguish by means of particular brands the emissions of different hotels monetary. This is how the use was introduced, continued by all the successors of Diocletian in the East and in the West cident, to indicate on the coins, by means of the initials of their names, the places where they were made, while that before this emperor, with rare exceptions, we had never written similar information on the Roman imperial coinage. In fact, the indications of provincial monetary workshops on official currency of the Empire are extremely rare before Diocletian, and we do not know a single one on pieces prior to Gallien (1). This does not mean, moreover, as is

(1) Already, under Philip, Trajan Decius, Trebonian Galle and Volusian, we had started, but without bringing great regularity, not to

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too generally believes that there was not before this period, outside Rome, a certain number of workshops of the gold and silver coinage of the emperor. Several of these workshops of the emperor in the provinces existed certain ment, and we can have the hope of being able to determine their products; there are some, like that of Lugdunum, which have operated without interruption since Augustus, for the entire duration of the empire; only we did not use, at the time of the High Empire, marks to distinguish the parts coming out of this or that of these workshops. I will give some, I believe, the proofs in chap. iv of this book, . § 2, where I will also take a look at the various workshops monetary coins after Diocletian and their marks (1). But if there were a few provincial workshops of the mon- imperial birth before Diocletian, it was this emperor who multiplied the number, regularized it and fixed it definitively. existence, by systematically distributing them so that there were in all parts of the Empire, who could provide cash to each

use marks to indicate the different mints, but in some of these hotels, in particular in that of Rome, distinctly guer by letters or numbers the emissions of the various pharmacies that they understood (see Brock, Numismatiske Vntersogelser betraefende den senere romerske Kaisertid, Copenhagen, 1874; Numismatic Untersu- Chungen iiber die spdtere romische Kaiserzeit, mit besonderer Beziehung auf die Munzmarken, in the Zeilschr. f. Num. t. II, p. 189-245; t. III, p. 61- 102). This method, still very imperfect, since it neglected the the most essential brand, continued to develop and become more widespread from Gallienus to Diocletian.

(1) The only slightly developed work that has been done so far on these mint marks of imperial coinage after the 3rd century is that of MM. J. and L. Sabatier: Production of gold, silver and copper at ancient hs and mints of the Roman and Byzantine Empires (Saint- Petersburg, 1850), p. 100-159.

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a certain constituency. This large organization, created on new bases, had, as we have just show it, as a corollary the inscription now cons- aunt, on any coin, of the hotel brand where it came from and even the special indication of that, of the different pharmacies between which divided the mint, where the coin was minted.

8. The system of concentrated coinage as direct- tion in the hands of the Emperor, and executed in workshops established in the various provinces, remained as that it had been established by Diocletian until the moment when the kings of the Barbarians, who had invaded the empire, took over manage, on the currency minted in their States, the right that the Empereui'S had reserved for themselves. This does not It was not, moreover, in a uniform manner that they started in possession of this right. The revolution that really ends the era of ancient numismatics, to open that of Middle Ages and modern times, took place gradually, through successive stages. But, to fully understand the phases, it is important to realize the pretension which the emperors elevated to the exclusive possession of right to mint gold coins^ right of which they claimed to impose recognition not only to their vassals, but to all foreign peoples.

We saw above (in this chapter, § 1, 2) that the Achaemenid monarchs of Persia, very easy when it came to leaving princes and representatives bliques placed in their dependence the right of coinage in other metals, reserved the manufacture of the gold currency as a prerogative of their sovereignty

424 CURRENCY IN ANTIQUITY

superior, and were so jealous on this point, that in general their immediate neighbors avoided create difficulties with them by issuing cash of this metal. We have also seen (§3, 3) that the Republic Roman blique had in turn, at the time of its greatest great power, raised the same pretension, forbidding the coinage of gold to his subjects and his vassals, that even, in countries which remained nominally independent dants, the extension of its influence, the entry of the country into the orbit of the Roman alliance, had always brought cessation of the minting of gold coins. It was the same all the more so under the emperors, for whom similar pretension was not just a matter of vanity, but a real financial interest, because they prevented thus all competition in the markets on their own gold currency, which they issued in large quantities, and, by ensuring the privilege of providing cash of this metal the commerce of the civilized world, they assure themselves would for themselves alone the benefit which resulted from its manufacture cation.

The emperors' claim was therefore that the mon- sinking of gold belonged exclusively to sovereignty of Rome and its Augustus, universal sovereignty in its principle and in its essence, from which should arise all the crowns; and that foreign kings had not does not legitimately have the power to do the same, because that none of them could place themselves on a point of equality with the Emperor. “The king of Persia,” says Procopius(l) in the time of Justinian, can mint silver coins people as long as they want; but neither he nor any barbarian king has

(1) Bell, goth, III, 33.

THE LAW IN ANCIENT COINS 4i>5

the right (Ôlfxtç) to put his brand or portrait on no gold coin, whatever quantity of gold he possesses, and such a coin could not circulate among the com- merchants, even among the Barbarians. » Certainly, it was necessary all the childish vanity of the Byzantines to imagine that the prestige of the imperial dignity would have prevented the mar- chands, “even among the Barbarians,” to accept a mon- gold plate of good quality which would not have carried the sacred effigy of the Emperor, Those which were then struck, for the most part shares time by modeling itself on the sizes of currencies Romans brought to them by trade, the kings of countries far enough away to feel beyond the reach of Roman weapons, those of India (book VII, cLap. v, § 2), of the Homerites of Yemen (1) and the Axumites of Abyssi- nie (2) (book VII, chap. vi, § 4), circulated until the borders of the Empire, and the money changers of Alexandria will see browsers bring more than once to their counters (3). These are political reasons, this is the

(1) Until now, we only have one silver coin in terms of monuments. numismatic ments of the Homerites [Hev. num. 1868, p. 168-176). But the existence of their gold coins is attested by the passage of acts of the martyrs of Najran (Bolland. Act.Sanclor. Octohr. t. X, p. 723) where we read: a What we call holcas is a royal coin of the Homerites. a having the weight of a Roman aureus of 12 siliques", ëctti 5è aux/i -h, It^o-

|j,£v/) ôXxà; [AovrJTa paoïXixr] 'OjAYjptitxri, (TTa6(AÔv £j(oyaa xp^iou 'Pco[jiaïxoy,

xepaTtiùv ôExaôOo. The noun transcribed in Greek ô).xàç is obviously em- borrowed from the Coptic holok, which in Egypt was the indigenous name for soli- Constantinian gold dues (see Peyron, Lexic. copt. s. v.).

(2) On the coins of the kings of Axum, from the 4th to the 7th century, see. the two memoirs of M. de Longpérier and M. d'Abbadie in the Rev. num. 1868, p. 28-62. Gold coins are engraved with pi. II, n"' 1-4.

(3) In 1860, I bought in Tripoli from Syria, from a peasant who came from find it in the ground, a corner-flush copy of small change copper, partly gilded, of king OTAZHBAC, engraved Rev. num.

426 CURRENCY IN ANTIQUITY

fear of the material power of the Empire which made that the most neighboring peoples did not risk a coinage of which the Caesars were so jealous. But I don't would know how to place myself among those who believe they see a denial of the fact affirmed by Procopius in the existence of a certain number of Sassanid gold coins. These currencies, all very rare days, belong, in fact, exclusively to the first reigns of the dynasty (1), to the times when the struggle was almost continuous between the Persians and the Empire and where success hardly ceased to be on the side of the first (book VII, chap. iv, § 1). Procopius could only speak of the state of affairs of his time. However, at that time, since more than a century and a half, since the reign of Sapor III, the kings of the Persians had only minted coins of money, for some reason that we do not know, perhaps because consideration for the emperors of Constantinople. There is no there is nothing impossible, nor even improbable, that the elevation of this fact to the state of diplomatic stipulation was the subject of an article in the famous treaty between Justinian and Chosroes I, known to Byzantine historians under the name of “Perpetual Peace”. Indeed, if the same Chosroes had the only gold coin we know minted. births in the last portion of the monetary series of Sassanids (2), it was only at a very late period of

1868, pi. III, n° 1. This piece had obviously been brought from Axum in antiquity by some merchant or rather by a Christian pilgrim, came from Abyssinia to the Holy Places. The example in question is handmade part of the rich collection of Mr. d'Amécourt.

(1) Do we know any from Artaxerxo?•", Sapor I, Hormisdas I, Varahran I, Homisdas II, Sapor I and Sapor II: Mordtmann, Zeitschr. d. deutsch. Mor- genl. GeseUsch. t. VIII, p. U6.

(2) Longpérier, Medals of the Persian kings of the Sassanid dynasty, pi. X,

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his reign, the year 34 (564 CE), after his break with Justinian, his wars against Belisarius, and his great conquests in southern Arabia and towards India.

More than a century later, we are shown Justinian Rhi- notmete (from 68o to 711) declaring war on the Arabs because they had paid the tribute in gold coins minted of a new Arab type, and not in pieces with the imperious effigy rial (1). And this information is certainly very- exact, because the first Arab gold dinars were indeed struck by the Caliph Abdelmélik, contemporary of Justi- nien Rhinotmete.

It is certain that, with the exception of the Sassanids, of whom gold coinage until Sapor III had, as in time of the Republic that of Mithridates wherever he extended his conquests (see in this chapter, § 3, 3), the character of a challenge to imperial pretensions, the supremacy of the Empire was so generally recognized naked, in the East and in the West, only for several centuries nor the provinces subjugated mediately or immediately directly to the Augustans, nor even the States more or less independent which bordered the Empire^ are not tried to make gold money. Or at least they only did so by giving it the character of a currency local of the Emperor.

n" 4; Mordtmann, Zeitschr. d. deutsch. Morgenl. Gesellsch. t. VIII, p. 92, No. 288.

(I) Zonar. XIV. 22: Ta; ■J^po; to'jî "Apa6a: duvôiQxaç uapÉXyirev alttav cD.Ylçw;, OTt yj(TS> VQ[Li(j\ioLXi ya.çiv.'zriipa. £vi-j7iou(j6at r) Tôv Toy padO.Ew; 'Pwfiai'wv. Cf. Gibbon, Decline and fall of Roman empire, chap. READ.

428 CURRENCY IN ANTIQUITY

In Dacia or Upper Pannonia, at the same time time when the provincial copper currency of Dacia with effigies of Philip, Hostilian and Emilian, which we spoke about in § 4, 8, we see the appearance singular pieces of gold, which are never encountered only in this country and were surely struck there, in the mining region, by the Goths and other Barbarians who were already beginning to be established there in large numbers (1). Their types offer a bizarre mix of imitations of those of the imperial coins of the 3rd century and the denarii republicans, who were still circulating in abundance at this period in the lower Danube countries (2). These are not slavish copies of known pieces, of which we would have re- simultaneously produces the face and the reverse; these are new species that the Barbarians created, in combination giving their imagination heterogeneous elements borrowed to coins from very diverse periods (on this process, familiar to Barbarians, see. book IV, chap. seen, § 2). But it is obvious that in creating them, they wanted to mark- request submission to the supremacy of the Empire and to obey the jealous rule which did not allow the existence of a gold currency other than that of the Emperor, in fact in their own way of imperial currencies. It is, in indeed, in the name of the emperors that these barbaric currencies are struck, and not in the name of peoples or leaders indigenous. The law always bears an imperial legend, and it should be noted that it is executed with great care relative, always intelligible and presenting only a small

(1) Eckhel, D N, t. IV, p. 179; Mommsen, il/fi, t. III, p. 121 and 291.

(2) Mommsen, M R, t. III, p. 51 ell21.

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number of errors, while the reverse legends are only simulated by abso- clearly unintelligible. We have Gordian IIIs of this type, where the head of the emperor is surrounded by a radiated crown, which is not seen on Roman corner Tor, with at the re- towards Mars accompanied by a legend where MARTEM PROPV- GNATOREMbecameMLETHRM PROPVGNATERENfl), and pieces where the head of Rome helmeted with the funds of the République is associated with the legend of Philippe, PHILIP- PVS. FIVS (for PIVS). AVGG (sic), while the reverse is copied from the coins of Philippe fils PRINCIPI IVVEN- TVTIS (2), but with the inscription transformed into ENTI- LOIC KCSS (3). Next are classified the aurei {li) which have on the right a head surrounded by a radiated crown and of- fring a fairly close resemblance to that of the aurei Barbarians of Gordian, with the legend IMP. SPONSIANI, and on the reverse the servile copy, including the legend, of the denarius republican of Minucius Augurinus (5). Mr. Mommsen (6) is willing to believe that SPONSIANI is corruption barbarian by GORDIANI; however, as the name is par- entirely possible and probable, such as the inscription

(1) Neumann, Popul. and urb. num. vet. t. I, p. 89; Eckhel, D N, t. VII, p. 316. — The imperial legend of law is much more correct; she doesn't understands only one fault: IMP. GORDIANVS. PIVS. FELT (for FELIX). AVG.

(2) Cohen, M/, t. IV, p. 220, n-31 and 37.

(3) Pellerin, Mixtures, t. I, p. 161; Neumann, /. c; Eckhel, D N, t. VII, p. 329.

(4) Eckhel, DN, t. VII, p. 340; Cohen, MI, t. IV, p. 231 and pi. XL — Mr. Cohen has since contested the authenticity of these documents {M I, t. VII, p. 2o4), but, it seems, wrongly.

(5) Cohen, M C. pi. XXVIII, Minucia, no. 3. (6J M R, vol. m, p. 121.

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appears to be engraved with care, I would rather believe that the name of Sponsianus must be the numismatic designation of one of the ephemeral suitors who were proclaimed in the 3rd century by the legions of the Danube, and which is perhaps be mentioned under a completely different name in the writers from Auguste History. We have clearly observed in a way positive that the Marinus of Zonaras and Zosimas is called Pacatianus on coins; there would be nothing more surprising that, for example, the Ingenuus of Trebel- lius PoUion was the same as the Sponsianus of numisma- tick; but, if we can have any suspicion, the proof lacking so far. In any case, this coinage barbarian gold from Dacia or Pannonia, which had no that a small number of years of existence in the middle of disorders of the th century, does not offer a formal denial to the rule that we pose;, it rather confirms it, because its au- tors, whoever they were, insisted on complying with the principle of public law in force under the Empire; in fact- gold coins, they set out to make them in the name of the Emperor.

The numismatics of the kings of the Cimmerian Bosphorus (book VII, chap. iv, § 5) offers for several centuries a more exceptional character. As we already have says (book II, chap. l, § 3, 4; and in this chapter, § 4, 9), these kings of the Bosphorus were the only vassals to whom the Roman emperors allowed the manufacture of watches dawn of gold. They were led to authorize them with this exception. tion by the particular economic conditions of the region, where circulation, since the most ancient times ciens, consisted exclusively of gold and copper (1),

(1) Mommsen, M R, t. III, p. 292 et seq.

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in such a way that silver coinage, which had never been there but was very little developed, there was entirely disappeared since the 3rd century BC (book II, cliap. i, § 1,3; book YI, chap. viii, § \). But by allowing the local coinage of gold, which was not possible to delete without causing a deep disturbance in the trade of the region, without coming up against the in- vincible of things, the emperors submitted to certain conditions, which we can see by the monuments numismatics themselves, conditions which safeguarded the pretensions of their suzerain authority and left sub- sister, in the very derogation that was made, the principle of gold currency reserved exclusively for the Augustus.

The Cimmerian Bosphorus managed to escape until a relatively late period for Roman supremacy maine. Even after the defeat and death of Mithridates, his son Pharnaces, then Asandre and queen Dynamis (1) con- kept a gold coinage presenting all the characteristics of full independence, without worrying about the susceptibilities lities of the Republic and Augustus. It's only when Agrippa had installed Polemon 1"' at the Bosphorus, in i4 av. BC, that the country recognized the sovereignty of Rome. We do not have gold staters of Polemon^ and he seems to have only struck copper at the Bosphorus, while that he was authorized to issue silver coinage in his kingdom of Pontus. But after his death, the Aspurgians, who had conquered by the greatest force of arms

(1) The golden stater of this queen (Longpérier, Ann. de Vlnst. Arch. t. XIII, p. 320; From Kœhne, Prince Kotchoubey Museum, t. II, p. 136) bears the date of the year 281 of the Bosphorus era, 17-16 BC. J.-G.