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Two ‘Virtues’ of Tiberius: A Numismatic Contribution to the History of his Reign

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

C. H. V. Sutherland
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Extract

Mr. M. P. Charlesworth's Raleigh Lecture, ‘The Virtues of a Roman Emperor: Propaganda and the Creation of Belief,’ serves admirably to illuminate a new aspect of the history of the Roman Empire, in which the debt of pure history to numismatics (and notably to the work of Mr. Mattingly in the British Museum Catalogues) will be plain. From the numismatic point of view there is, indeed, one curious omission in Mr. Charlesworth's argument; and attempts to make good the omission have opened up a series of speculations which are here discussed.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 28 , Issue 2 , 1938 , pp. 129 - 140
Copyright
Copyright © C. H. V. Sutherland 1939. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 London (Milford), 1937.

2 Op. cit., 10 f.

3 RIC = H. Mattingly and E. A. Sydenham, The Roman Imperial Coinage; BMC Emp. = H. Mattingly, Coins of the Roman Empire in the British Museum.

4 Moderationis (sic) on an example in Paris: see below, pl. xiii, no. 8.

5 See BMC Emp. i, p. cxxxvi f., and RIC i, p. 100 f., for a formal statement of reasons.

6 Cf. Mowat, R., ‘Bronzes remarquables de Tibère, etc.,’ in Rev. Num.4 xv (1911), 335 ff.Google Scholar

7 RIC i, p. 95, nos. 1, 2 (? and 3).

8 Sestertius in the Ashmolean Museum, as RIC i, p. 105, no. 19, but with TR. POT. XXII, has the two final strokes unnaturally cramped: possibly blundered. Cf. BMC Emp. i, p. 129.

9 See RIC i, pp. 113, 117 (Gaius' ADLOCVTIO type: no S C); and JRS xxviii (1938), 94Google Scholar.

10 See BMC Emp. i, p. cli.

11 C. H. V. Sutherland, Romano-British Imitation of Bronze Coins of Claudius I (Amer. Num. Soc., Notes and Monographs, no. 65).

12 RIC i, pp. 105–7. Mr. Mattingly (BMC Emp. i, p. cxxxvii) has conjectured that Drusus was TR. P. early in 22, becoming TR. P. II on his father's day, 27th June, A.D. 22, and thus continuing until his death early in 23.

13 RIC i, p. 95, nos. 4–7.

14 Ibid., i p. 106 no. 21.

15 Ibid., i, p. 118, no.42.

16 BMC Emp. i, p. cxxxv; Tacitus, Ann. iii, 64Google Scholar. Mr. Mattingly has explained to the present writer the reasons (incorporated in this paper) which have led him to abandon his original opinion in BMC Emp.

17 Tacitus, Ann. iv, 74Google Scholar.

18 Op. cit., p. 10.

19 BMC Emp. i, p. cxxxv, notes 3 and 4.

20 BMC Emp. i, p. cxxxii; p. 132, note *.

21 The ‘Moderatio’ issues are, incidentally, less common than those with ‘Clementia.’

22 Cf. Hinks, R. P., JRS xxiii (1933), p. 34 f.Google Scholar Group ii of the following catalogue consists of an isolated pair of dies; the obv. portrait suggests early work in the series. Were further examples known, it might be possible to merge it, by means of die-linkings, early in Group i.

23 It has been estimated that the Alexandrian mint, in year 7 of Tiberius, must have produced over 600 obverse-dies: cf. J. G. Milne, Catalogue of Alexandrian Coins in the Ashmolean Museum, p.xlii.

24 See Mowat, op. cit., 338 ff.; BMC Emp. i, p. cxxxvi.

25 Res Gestae Divi Augusti, 34.

26 BMC Emp. 1, pl. 3, no. 13.

27 Op. cit., pp. 340, 341.

28 For the circumstances in which imagines clupeatae were made, and for the period during which their manufacture was common, reference may be made to Daremberg-Saglio, Dict, des antiq. gr. et rom., s.v. ‘Clipeus,’ p. 1259, where the known facts are well summarised. The imago clupeata is further studied by Münsterberg, R., ‘Bronzereliefs vom Limes,’ in Jahreshefte d. Österr. Arch. Inst., vi (1903). 77Google Scholar; Salatch, A., ‘Imago clipeata et εὶκὼν ἒνοπλ ος’ in Rev. Arch.6 ix (1937), 14Google Scholar; and, in its wider bearing on later portraiture of Christian character, by Bolten, J., Die Imago Clipeata (Studien zur Geschichte und Kultur des Altertums, Band xxi, Heft 1. Paderborn, 1937)Google Scholar.

29 BMC Emp. i, pl. 6, nos. 4, 5, 15; pl. 13, nos. 7 ff.; pl. 33, nos. 9–10.

30 Cf. Ann. i, 73.

31 Ann. iii, 38.

32 Ibid. 49 ff.

33 Ibid. 56.

34 Commentary,2ad loc.

35 For his exercise of this quality, see also Suet., Tib. 26.

36 Ann. i, 73, 74; ii, 50; iii, 22.

37 BMC Emp. i, p. cxxxvi.

38 Ann. iii, 70.

39 Ibid. 66, 70.

40 Ibid. 18, 22, 24, 66 ff.

41 F. B. Marsh, The Reign of Tiberius, 113.

42 See, e.g., Suet., Div. Iul. 75.

43 Suet., Tib. 26.

44 The alternative view—the production of the dupondii to coincide with the erection of the altar—is of course obvious. The acceptance of this view would nullify the significance of Tacitus' statement in Ann. iii, 56; it would place the coins in a chronological no-man's-land, isolated from the dated groups before and after it; and (perhaps most important) it would presuppose the granting of shields simultaneously with the erection of the altar—surely too much, even for an anxious and subservient Senate of the type usually postulated.