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Some Political Notions in Coin Types between 294 and 313*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

C. H. V. Sutherland
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Extract

Within the next few years greater attention will be given to a period of Roman Imperial coinage which, apart from special and isolated studies, has so far lacked a broad and balanced treatment. The completion, now near, of volumes VI, VII and VIII of ‘Mattingly-Sydenham’ will fill the large and difficult gap between the end of the third century and Pearce's volume IX, i.e. from c. 294 to 364. For the earlier Empire the great sequence of British Museum catalogues has furnished a powerful instrument by which imperial achievement can in some degree be measured against imperial claims or aspirations; and it is now reasonable to assert that a valid distinction is to be made between the imperial image as the emperors presented it and that which the ancient historians wished or chose to reflect. In the third century, and especially in the middle of the third century, the imperial coinage suffered an increasing debasement, not only in actual metal but also in types used with such indiscriminate generality that they must have diluted the previously selective imperial image to an ultimately negligible significance. Hence the interest of the coinage from c. 294 to 364. Avoiding altogether the excessive type-variation of the mid-third century, this seems often to wear a stereotyped or even rigid air; but in fact this economy of usage will allow a much more perceptive interpretation of those lesser variations which were from time to time permitted or necessitated. Such interpretation, against the general historical context of the time, should be a major exercise in the coming years.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 53 , Issue 1-2 , November 1963 , pp. 14 - 20
Copyright
Copyright © C. H. V. Sutherland 1963. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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Footnotes

*

In an earlier form this paper was the subject of a lecture given to the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies and also at Dumbarton Oaks in 1962.

References

1 cf. Sutherland, in JRS XLIX (1959), 46 ff.Google Scholar

2 A considerable literature has grown up around the question of the date. For studies supporting the year 294 see, most recently, Cahn, H. A. in Bull. Soc. franc. de num., Nov., 1954, 307 f.Google Scholar and in Schweiz. Num. Rundschau XXXVII (1955), 5 ff.; Sutherland, in JRS XLV (1955), 116 ff.Google Scholar and in Atti del Congr. Internaz. di Num. Roma, 1961 (forthcoming); Thirion, M. in Rev. belge de num. CVII (1961), 192 ff.Google Scholar

3 In quantities which can only now be at all properly estimated as a result of A. Jeločnik's publication of the Sisak hoard (‘The Sisak hoard of argentei of the early Tetrarchy’) in Situla III, 37 ff.

4 cf. Bolin, S., State and Currency in the Roman Empire to 300 A.D. (Stockholm, 1958), 291 ff.Google Scholar; Sutherland, in JRS LI (1961), 94 ff.Google Scholar, and in Archaeometry IV (1961), 56 ff.

5 cf. Thirion, o.c. (n.2), and Sutherland, Atti del congr …. Roma, 1961, cit. (n. 2). New coinage in Britain could not have appeared before 296.

6 ‘Flexibility in the “reformed” coinage of Diocletian’, in Essays … presented to Harold Mattingly (ed. Carson, /Sutherland, , London, 1956), 174 ff.Google Scholar

7 See, e.g. M. Grant, ibid., 108 f.

8 See references in note 4 above.

9 Genio Populi Romani (295–316): contribution à une histoire numismatique de la Tétrarchie (Paris, 1960).

10 ibid. 28.

11 See note 2 above.

12 Callu, o.c. (n. 9), 9 ff.

13 This view, which will be the basis of arrangement in Roman Imperial Coinage VI, is contrary to that of Callu, o.c.

14 See below for the association of Siscia with the Italian mints.

15 See Elmer, in Num. Zeitschr. 1932, 23 ff.Google Scholar

16 Though it is much more exact than Callu's monograph would suggest.

17 The views which I put forward in the American Numismatic Society's Centennial Volume, 627 ff., require modification in the light of Bastien, P.'s paper in Rev. belge de num. CV (1959), 33 ff.Google Scholar

18 cf. my analysis in Latomus LVIII, 1454 ff. Permutation and variation in the head-dress and drapery of Genius have not yet been satisfactorily explained. It seems likely that it was primarily due to the provision to mints of prototypes that were themselves not deliberately differentiated. Certainly there would be difficulty in reading into this variation overt competition between western and eastern ideas (cf. Callu, o. c. (n. 9), 62).

19 Pace Callu, o.c. (n. 9), 37 ff., 113.

20 Contrary to the view of Maurice, J., La numismatique Constantinienne II (Paris, 1911), 285.Google Scholar

21 Num Zeitschr. 1930, 25 ff.

22 See the articles of Sutherland (in Atti del Congr. Internaz. di Num. Roma 1961) and Thirion cited in note 2 above, as against Callu, o.c. (n. 9), 20 ff.

23 cf. the articles cited in the preceding note. The XCVI silver of the central mints should fall in the same period.

24 See the excellent remarks of Callu, o.c. (n. 9), 16 ff., 82 f.

25 Callu (o.c. n. 9), 69, 71, has already indicated almost the same view, though with the important difference that he has stressed the association of actual rulers rather than their legitimacy in that association; the differences in regional usage make the latter view much more probable.

26 The difficult problem of the date at which Constantine became Augustus has been treated afresh by Strauss, P., Rev. num. 1954, 33 ff.Google Scholar, whose arguments, in the light of their subsequent examination by MissKing, C. E., Amer. Num. Soc. Museum Notes IX (1957), 127Google Scholar (cf. Num. Chron. 1959, 56 f.), are—short of absolute proof—convincing.

27 Kent, , Num. Chron. 1957, 42, nos. 247–52.Google Scholar

28 cf. Sutherland, in Amer. Num. Soc. Museum Notes VII (1957), 67 ff.Google Scholar

29 Alone of his mints at this time Trier struck gold and silver in addition to aes. The western preeminence of Trier is strongly emphasized by the contemporary panegyrists.

30 o.c. (n. 9), 75, note 3.

31 Elmer, o.c. (n. 15), 32 f.

32 Maurice, o.c. (n. 20), 1, 180.

33 Illustrated London News, 14 November, 1959, 650, fig. 1 (now in the British Museum).

34 ibid. 651, fig. 7.