Beyond the Boundaries of Fantasia: An ancient imagining of the future of leadership

Step Two: Learning to Read Roman Coins (00:45)

In this unit, we will examine the development of Roman coinage from the 3rd century BC to the 1st century BC in order to trace the emergence of numismatic portrayals of leading Roman figures. To familiarize yourself with examining the iconography and legends on a Roman coin, see Victoria Győri's lecture: “Reading Legends on Roman Coins”. (For further reference, check out these links.)

Numismatists tend to use a tripartite division for categorizing Republican coin types that roughly corresponds to the last three centuries of the Republic. Early Roman coinage from the third century BC to the late second century BC is interchangeably termed “state”, “ancient”, “traditional”, “fixed”, “public”, or “general”.  Coins from the late second century BC to the time of Sulla are known as “familial”.  From Sulla to c.32 BCE, coins are “factional” and/or “personal”.  The specific employment of the term “personal” has thus led to the cataloguing of the Octavianic CAESAR DIVI F (CAESAR DIVI FILIVS – Caesar, son of a god) and IMP(erator) CAESAR coin series (c. 32-27 BC) minted in Rome as the first “imperial” coins.

Further Reading

Alföldi, A. (1956) ‘The main aspects of political propaganda on the coinage of the Roman Republic’, in Carson, R.A.G and Sutherland, C.H.V. (eds) Essays in Roman Coinage Presented to Harold Mattingly, Oxford, 63-95.
 

Listening for Leadership

Possible Group Activity

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