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Some historical coins of the late Republic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

Harold Mattingly
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Extract

The object of this paper is to indicate, by the aid of a few chosen examples, the kind of contribution that can still be made by Republican coins to history. Numismatic detail has, therefore, deliberately been curtailed: those who wish for more are referred to Grueber's Catalogue of the Coins of the Roman Republic in the British Museum, with its full index of moneyers' names in vol. iii, and to an article by the author of this paper, due shortly to appear in the Numismatic Chronicle, on ‘The Roman Serrati.’ A few words, by way of preface, on some points of numismatic method may, however, be in place here:

(a) From about B.C. 125, hoards of Roman coins supply us with invaluable evidence of date. A find buried in B.C. 100, for example, obviously should contain no coins of a later date than that year. Further, if it is at all a large hoard, it will probably present a fairly reliable picture of the coinage of the years just preceding. But there are two possible errors to be guarded against. Many hoards, as they reach the numismatist for description, contain a few ‘stragglers,’ i.e. coins of dates certainly later than the main body of the hoard, added, whether by accident or by intention, after the original burial. Again, there may have been special circumstances, often quite beyond our knowledge, which shut out from the hoard many issues of dates only a little earlier than the date of burial. Both these sources of error can, as a rule, be detected and allowed for, when we have a group of hoards of about the same date.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 12 , November 1922 , pp. 230 - 239
Copyright
Copyright © Harold Mattingly1922. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

page 231 note 1 Cp. Grueber, , op. cit. ii, pp. 255Google Scholar ff.

page 231 note 2 Cp. Grueber, ibid. i, pp. 199 f, 204 ff.

page 233 note 1 Professor Reid reminds me of two other colonies of the time, Tarentum (Minervia) and Carthage (Iunonia) and suggests that the democrats may have entertained the thought of founding twelve burgess colonies with the names of the twelve great gods.

page 233 note 2 Pliny, , Nat. Hist. xxxvi, 26Google Scholar.

page 233 note 3 Mars is, of course, as Dr. Macdonald has reminded me, always closely connected with this sacrifice. But the great. prominence given to him here and the enrolment scene point to something more than the ordinary ‘lustratio.’ The foundation of a colony was normally preceded by a ‘lustratio’ of the site, comparable to the annual ‘lustratio pagi.’

page 234 note 1 Cp. Pliny, , Nat. Hist. xxxiii 9, 46Google Scholar: igitur ars facta denarios probare, tam iucunda plebei lege ut Mario Gratidiano vicatim tota statuas dicaverit.

page 235 note 1 A Crepereius appears as one of the jury that tried Verres (Cicero, , Verres i, 10)Google Scholar.

page 237 note 1 A denarius of Q. Maximus occurred in the Cingoli Find, buried c B.C. 86; but in that find a few odd coins of later date are known to have occurred.

page 238 note 1 Two members of the ‘gens Fabia,’ Q. Fabius Maximus Aemilianus and Q. Fabius Maximus Servilianus had been prominent during the Spanish War against Viriathus : probably Valentia, founded after that war, was under the patronage of a Fabius and borrowed types from Roman coins of a member of the ‘gens.’

page 238 note 2 Possibly at the nominal price of a dodrans per modius.

page 239 note 1 See von Müller, Iwan, Handbuch der klassischen Alterthumswissenschaft, iii, 327Google Scholar, Topographie der Stadt Rom. Cp. Cic., , Ad Quintum Fr. ii, 3Google Scholar, B.C. 56 ‘a.d. vii. Id. Febr. senatus ad Apollinis fuit, ut Pompeius adesset’: Cicero, In toga cand. (Ascon. p. 115), tells us that Cataline ‘caput (sc. M. Marii) etiam tunc plenum animae et spiritus ad Sullam usque a Ianiculo ad aedem Apollinis manibus ipse suis detuiit.’