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The Coinage of the Early Roman Empire1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

Shelagh M. Bond
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Extract

The first 150 years of the Roman Empire, from the settlement of Augustus in 27 b.c. to the death of Hadrian in a.d. 138, saw the emergence of Rome as a power which in various ways was to influence the future of Europe, the Near East, and the whole civilized world for many centuries. Among other aspects too numerous to mention, a new system of government emerged, and a new theory of the place of the ruler in the state. On the emperor depended all prosperity, from him alone came the blessing of peace, and he was the sole source of victory. It is a period, therefore, in which the emotional and psychological relationship between ruler and ruled is of interest and importance, as it was in Elizabethan England.

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 4 , Issue 2 , October 1957 , pp. 149 - 159
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1957

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References

page 149 note 2 For a discussion of the value of the sources see C.A.H. x. 866–76 and xi. 854–7, and the bibliographies to each chapter.Google Scholar

page 149 note 3 Coins of the Roman Empire in the British Museum. These are in five volumes, covering the period from Augustus to Elagabalus (Vol. i, Augustus to Vitellius [1933]; Vol. ii, Vespasian to Domitian [1930]; Vol. iii, Nerva to Hadrian [1936]). Mr. H. Mattingly, the editor, has contributed a valuable introduction to each volume, containing information on the organization of the mints and other technicalities, as well as a discussion of the historical significance of the coin types. My great debt to these volumes will be obvious in the pages which follow. All the coins referred to are to be found in these catalogues. Separate references have not been given.

page 151 note 1 The Lugdunum mint was also used for some aes issues: e.g. the ‘altar’ series struck by Augustus from 10 b.c. until his death, and again by Nero. There were also official provincial mints under the early emperors, in Spain, Gaul, and the East.

page 152 note 1 C.A.H. x. 130.

page 153 note 1 Suet. Vesp. 25.

page 155 note 1 Cf. Cic. De Nat. Deor. i. 118,Google Scholar ‘gods are personifications of things beneficial to the life of man’; ibid. ii. 60, referring to temples of Salus, Concordia, and Victoria, ‘all of them things, but designated as gods themselves, for gods who were the authors of various benefits owed their deification to the value of the benefits they bestowed’; and Pliny, , H.N. ii. 18Google Scholar, deus est mortali iuvare mortalem.

page 156 note 1 p. xii.

page 156 note 2 Roman Anniversary Issues, pp. 31–40.