He allowed the base metal coinage to stay, nominally, in the hands of the Senate. Holding power as the governor and commanding general of a huge composite province, Augustus issued gold and silver coins under this authority and allowed the old senatorial issues - mostly silver denarii - to cease. One of Augustus' achievements was a complete revision of the Roman coinage.ĭuring the period of warfare it had become accepted practice for a great general to issue coinage in his own right to pay his troops. 14, much of Rome's former glory had been restored. He spent his reign resurrecting Rome from the decay into which nearly a century of civil war had plunged her.īy the time of his death of natural causes, in A.D. Emperor in all but name, he ruled as PRINCEPS - First Citizen of a supposedly restored republic. He soon renounced all his powers, but was given them in new form, along with the title Augustus, by the Roman Senate. and brought peace at last to the Mediterranean. Marius and Sulla, Julius Caesar, Pompey and Crassus (the First Trimvirate), Marc Antony and Octavian all contributed to this terrible upheaval.Įventually Octavian defeated Antony and Cleopatra VII of Egypt at the Battle of Actium in 31 B.C. In the first century B.C., Rome was racked by a series of civil wars as various powerful political factions struggled for power. It soon became standard practice for them to issue coins bearing designs which recalled the deeds of their famous ancestors. Under the Roman republic, coins were issued by a college of moneyers, minor public officials who were elected every year. ![]() This coin was to become Rome's standard denomination for several hundred years. These coinages were succeeded by other monetary experiments - including a silver coin called the victoriatus - which finally culminated in the issue of the denarius. They were followed chronologically by AES SIGNATUM, oblong, brick-shaped or quadrilateral cast pieces of bronze with a design on each side, such as an elephant, anchor, trident, etc.Ībout 269 B.C., they were replaced by a proper form of coinage which included large round cast bronze coins, called AES GRAVE, for local commerce, and a series of silver coins, called didrachms, for trade with the Greek cities which had been established in southern Italy. The Development of Roman Coinage: Irregular lumps of bronze called AES RUDE, were the earliest known common measure of value in central Italy. Even Petrarch perceived the historical and documentary worth of the Imperial Roman Coinage. Both Pliny and Plutarch tell us that there were those who were prepared to buy coins no longer in circulations at prices higher than their face value. ![]() The Romans themselves had a penchant for collecting "antiquities". In practice, of course, and as logic outcome, those whose studies are concerned with ancient coins tend to become collectors, while those who begin to build up a collection are usually impelled, at first out of curiosity and then through an increasing awareness of what their coins have to tell them, to acquire a numismatic patina of some kind. ![]() A collector isn't necessarily an expert, nor does the expert have to possess a collection. Even though the word "numismatist" is sometimes used to mean "collector", in fact, there is no reason why this should necessarily be so. It has a great importance in the whole Historical and Archaeological science as a matter of fact into the peculiarity of a people or age the Coin holds a fundamental role: it has always reflected the political, economical, artistic and social trends of the time in which it developed.Īnd who, approaching this subject, isn't charmed - 27 centuries of history, kings, princes, usurpers and tyrants who learnt soon how to use this formidable propaganda instrument, handing down their ideas and customs.Īncient coins are of great interest to the collector as expression of art, as well as portrayals of history. Numismatic is the science of coins under an economic, legislative, metrological and artistic point of view.
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