From Lydia to Byzantium:
A Short History of Ancient
Mediterranean Coins"
by Mark Lehman
The following "performance" was written and delivered
at the Singletary Center, University of Kentucky by our opera-singing numismatist
ACE President Mark Lehman to students attending the National Junior Classical
League Convention, August 2, 2002.
It accompanies a navigable set of coin images entitled "Images: From
Lydia to Byzantium" on the ACE CD which you can show students in your
classroom.
Feel free to adapt any portion of the following presentation for your classroom
use, including, if the spirit moves you, the singing! The narration features
clever techniques for introducing students to basic coin concepts as well as
a wealth of historical information and entertaining news tabloids befitting
those colorful Roman emperors.
Some excerpts of historical information are based upon John
Ryan's lecture outline
"Ancient Coinage of the Mediterranean World" also available on the
ACE CD. Emperor tabloids come from "The Imperial Tattler" (http://www.joviel.com/tn/)
written by Scott Uhrick.
Image Cues in Red
1. Modern US, a few foreign, "the washer"
 US Change with Washer
I've got to start this out with a question for all of you: What is
a coin? What is a coin? Anyone?
Now, I suppose you all think you know everything you need to know about the
change you have in your pockets (go in pocket to produce quarter, washer, etc
- hold them up). But, can anyone tell me what is it, exactly, that distinguishes
THIS, from THIS? Look, they're both stamped metal discs, just about
the same size, hey, with luck, you might even be able to stick this one (washer)
in a parking-meter and get away with it, right? Why can't you expect
that the counter-person at the Donut shop would accept it too? Sing: "There's
a hole in yer quarter and it goes right through, says I, there's a hole
in yer donut too", right?
Anyone? No?
Not because there's hole in the washer- as you can see -
2. Modern coins with holes Plenty of countries have used coins
with holes in them in recent years and some still do.
 Coins with holes
These are all 20th century
coins, the Spanish piece is 21st century. OK - Anyone want to trade
me a quarter for this washer?
(wow, I should have brought more washers, they're only three cents apiece
- but those quarters cost even less to produce - alternately, no? why not?
They're both stamped metal discs?) - so what is a quarter, anyway, except
an overpriced, defective washer? What it is that distinguishes a coin
from a washer is that we all agree that this one is worth a quarter
of a dollar and that this one, well, it's valuable for other reasons, very
useful if you happen to need one - but just because it's a stamped
metal disc doesn't make it a coin, does it?
A quarter is "money" because of a Social Contract
we all have with each other - a mutually accepted authority - the United States
government - has put its official stamp on this, otherwise fairly useless stamped
disc of metal - see, no hole, you can't even use it as a washer in a pinch
- It's only valuable because we agree it is - that's our social
contract.
You'll see, too, as we go along, how changes in the social
contract are clearly represented in the changes in Roman coins, You remember
Roman coins, right? "We came here to hear about Roman coins, so
what's this maniac raving about social contracts and washers for?" -
bear with me please while we stroll briefly down memory lane.
Now, not too long ago,
3. 20th century. - Familiar looking
-US including gold
 US Silver and Gold coins
and as I look around I see I'm just about (well, maybe not)
the only person here who can remember this - OUR US coins, most of them at
least, had intrinsic value - not quite as much silver as their nominal value,
but our pocket change was solid silver within living memory. (tap head - memory
may be getting dim, but sometimes we remember) A generation or two earlier,
gold was legal tender in the US, too -it was more money than most people walked
around with, but it was out there - my grandfather saved the gold coins in
this picture out of circulation just before gold was demonetized in the 30's. Back
then, almost all coins had an intrinsic value - a significant fraction
of their nominal value - regardless of the issuing authority, they were worth
at least the value of the precious metal they were made from.
This sort of arrangement is known as SPECIE or BULLION coinage -
Now, humans managed to trade commodities by Barter since, well,
since forever.
The intrinsic values of commodities like a cow, or a chicken, or a loaf of
bread, were obvious - they might have varied from time to time and place to
place, but their values were easily recognized.
Unfortunately if you weren't in a mood to eat a loaf of
bread, or a chicken, or a cow (pause) you had to DO something with your
barter item or it might lose its value quickly. Metal was durable, it
had many practical uses, and its value was universally recognized, so from
its first discovery it was a natural as a medium of exchange - and you didn't
have to eat it, feed it or worry about it running away.
Nuggets of Electrum, a naturally-occurring alloy of silver and
gold, that washed-out of streams in a part of the world we call Turkey today,
and that happened to be occupied at the time by people who called themselves
Greeks, proved very convenient as barter objects - they seemed ideal for commerce
- and they were used for centuries - but the problem was, how much metal was
in each nugget? - and if it was a precious metal, how pure was it? So,
convenient as these nuggets were for trade items, they each had to be weighed
and assayed at every transaction.
4. Early (EPI PHANOS/ siglos,
etc.)
 Epiphanes and slugs
And so this, this is where it all began - where it all came
from - "hallmarked slugs" we call them - some early king decided
to settle the issue of weight and purity of the metal in commerce, and at the
same time - get his own name advertised around as the guy smart enough to say "It's
a known weight of good metal because I say it is and if you don't
like it you may discuss it with my army!" That's essentially
what the inscription on this piece says "I am the Badge of Phanos" So
the first Western coins were basically "slugs", but NOW they were
slugs of a known weight and fineness. And it was convenient for people to accept
this part of the social contract, since the coin's worth was still precisely
the value of the precious metal it was made from.
Interestingly, but of no great concern to this discussion,
the Chinese came up with essentially the same idea, government-issued discs
of metal, at almost exactly the same time, certainly within fifty years, give-or-take. Was
this a totally coincidental occurrence?
Or did both societies merely achieve the needed "critical mass" at
the same time? We have no historical evidence to say either way, but interestingly,
the Chinese went straight to token coinage -
- bullion coins wouldn't be widely used in China for
quite a while yet, but remember, the Chinese invented paper money at just about
the same time, too, and the fact that the government enforced its legal-tender
status with draconian penalties was sufficient to ensure its acceptance, for
all debts, public and private, as they say. An enforced social contract.
Meanwhile, back in the West,
5. Pre-Hellenistic
 Pre Hellenistic coins
The shot-in-the-arm provided to commerce by the new, dependable,
portable, widely accepted store-of-value in the form of coined precious metals
had the effect of spreading this idea like wildfire throughout the Mediterranean
basin- within a century, or so, all the city-states of Magna Graecia had
to have their own variety.
The result was a multitude of types and weight standards, all
competing for "product placement"
and "brand-recognition" - usually a region's coinage designs
reflected the products or favorite deities of that region.
Almost all city-states had their own "Name-brand logos"
6. Tiny Greek Fractions & Greek
bronzes
 AR Fractions, bronze
One big problem with intrinsically-valued, strictly bullion
coins was, that to make small change, one had to make, well, small coins -
some were so tiny that people are reported to have carried them in their mouth
in order not to lose them. - you'd better hope nobody slapped you
on the back on your way to market, right? - The solution - Token Coinage, made
of bronze - now bronze was certainly valuable in its own right as well, but
not nearly so highly valued as silver - by the way, even though a few gold
coins were minted in pre-Roman times, they were only intended as a store of
value, or for making major transfers of wealth - like "A king's ransom"
ferinstance - Gold in general has always been so valuable that coins made of
it were of about as much use in everyday commerce as a thousand dollar bill
at a garage sale. You see, nobody could afford to make change! Many
Greek cities came up with similar solutions to the small-change issue and token
coinage was born as a new part of the social contract - Just like our quarter
isn't worth a quarter unless we agree it is. This is important to
remember because the Romans would really embrace and develop the concept of
token coinage as we'll see later.
7. Hellenistic/Republican
 Hellenistic and Republican coins
Along came folks like Darius and Alexander and with them the
concept of empires spanning the "known-world", and although many
localities continued to issue their own distinct types and denominations, some
types were recognized, accepted and copied universally.
In this era we tend to see beautifully crafted coins - usually
the highest artistic standards and workmanship, which might be issued using
the same basic designs with only minor changes over long periods of time.
Now of course, some states copied the designs of more established
coinages so that their coins could ride on the coattails of existing reputations
in international trade. This is where Rome comes into the
picture, both chronologically and stylistically, as their power and influence
in the Hellenistic world grew.
This picture shows how coins looked when the Romans were just
getting started, right after Alexander the Great "conquered" - actually
connected-the-dots around the known world - despite their high opinion of themselves
the early Romans at this time, by and large, were still pretty much living
in mud huts and you can see in their early coins how they crudely tried to
imitate the pinnacle of Hellenistic culture with which they were beginning
to trade. Note how much the early Roman denarius looks like a knock-off
of the stater of Corinth - how the Janiform As is about the same size as that "paperweight" bronze
of one of the Ptolemies.
8. Golden Age-late Republican, Early Empire through Antonines
 Roman Coins
By the time of the "Pax Romana" say, late-middle of
the first century BC to the middle of the third century AD or thereabouts,
and with the notable exception of Parthia - modern Iraq and Iran, approximately
- which continued to issue a Hellenistic-style regal coinage - and I'll
talk more about that eastern empire when we get to Valerian and Gallienus,
a little later -
PAUSE
FOR EMPHASIS
all significant areas of the Classical World were under Roman
rule or influence by the reign of Augustus Caesar.
You can see how far Rome had come in sophistication of execution
by the time the Republic was becoming Empire. The portraiture was trending
towards photo-realistic and the Romans were really working with an idea - originally
the Greeks' idea for "advertising" the wares or power of individual
city-states- the Romans were nothing if not great adaptors of what worked well!
- the Romans were working the idea of using the coin as a sort of "advertisement" for
the state - a tiny billboard in your purse - or maybe in your mouth - beginning
with proclamation of representative government side-by-side with empire - the "SC" types
- and working through an entire pantheon of deities and allegorical personifications
to tell the Roman in the street what sorts of virtues the emperor espoused,
and by association he should be espousing too.
So beginning in the late Republic, and expanding dramatically
in early Imperial times, the coinage shifts from long-term designs to constantly
changing designs of short duration. - Somewhat like our modern "State
Quarters" series. With the Classical world pretty much under one
(Roman) roof, the coinage was co-opted by the Imperial propaganda machine. There
were three main objectives this constantly changing coinage tried to achieve:
9. "Anatomy" Plate of Nero Obverse with Inscription
Explained
 Anatomy of a coin obverse
The first objective was Bringing the Emperor and His Family
to the People.
In the early Imperial period, the concept of an absolute monarch
was alien to the Romans. The Emperor was originally viewed as simply a "first
citizen" (princeps) "primus inter pares", and justified his
authority by simultaneously holding a number of the political offices of the
old Republic.
So quite often Emperors proclaimed on their coins the various offices and titles
they held, I call these the "laundry list inscriptions" listing offices
like consul, imperator, censor, holder of the tribunican power, and pontifex
maximus. Honorary names and titles such as Caesar, Augustus, Germanicus
(victor over the Germans), Britannicus (victor over the Britons), Parthicus
(victor over the Parthians) Pius ( faithful to the memory of a preceding Emperor)
are very common parts of inscriptions, too. Beautifully executed and
highly (sometimes even brutally) realistic portraits of the imperial family
on the coins brought their faces to every corner of the Empire.
10. Typical Reverses
 Typical Reverses
The second objective was "Cranking" The Imperial
Propaganda Machine
Since the Romans didn't have printing presses or newspapers,
not to mention internet-news or soundbite-teasers with "film at eleven" they
hit upon the idea of using the coinage to bring the people a broad spectrum
of news, commemorations, religious instruction, and whatever other messages
or propaganda happened to be being pushed by the Imperial authorities. This
was particularly true of the large bronze "small change" -
with the large "frame" they afforded, the engravers-"celators" as
they ere called - were able to express complex ideas to a proto-literate public.
Coins' designs were usually changed dozens of times each year: Had
the Emperor beaten the Germans again? Conquered a new province? Built
a new temple? Given a donative to the plebs? Reduced taxes? Traveled
around the Empire? Brought in a big new shipment of grain for the public
dole? All these things, and many more, could be and were advertised on the
coinage. And if the Imperial authorities wanted to exalt a particular
god, or to tout a virtue such as justice or clemency, particularly if that
virtue was to be attributed to the Emperor or was emblematic of a behavior
they wished more people would adopt, that could go on the coins as well.
11. A Few DIVVS Types
 Divvs Types
A third major objective was to produce an Emperor's Final
"Report Card".
Emperors who were
"popular" and did well, were often deified by the Senate following
their deaths, with an accompanying coinage issue to commemorate this fact. The
better the Emperor, the more extensive his commemorative coinage. The "so-so"
Emperors were denied deification and a posthumous coinage, and a really bad
Emperor like Caligula or Elagabalus might receive the "damnatio memoriae",
or declaration of cursed memory. In such event, the Emperor's statues
would be destroyed after his death, and even his coinage defaced. Caligula's
coins are often encountered with deliberate-looking gouges and scratches.
12. Run of "Silver" from Early Empire to Septimius
Severus
 Silver coins thru Septimius Severus
Debasement of the Silver Coinage.
At first, since money was only worth it's weight in whatever
precious metal from which it happened to be struck, silver and gold were typically
as pure as the refining technology of the era was able produce, but when the
social contract made the trading value of coins exceed their bullion value,
and since people were already used to token coinage for small change, it was
no great leap for a financially strapped empire to start debasing. Debasement
of the purity of the Roman silver coinage began gradually, starting in the
infamous reign of the notorious narcissist and reputed nutcase Nero from 54
to 68 AD. Most people don't know that the Colisseum did not earn
that name merely because it was colossal - it was of course - and still is,
but it was originally and officially called "the Flavian Ampitheater"
for Vespasian and his sons Titus and Domitian during whose "Flavian" dynasty
it was built and dedicated - it was called colisseum because of its location
- the site of the Colossus of Nero, a huge gilded bronze statue that stood
at the gates of his 80 acre "golden palace" in the middle of Rome
- clearing all the valuable urban real-estate necessary for building that palace
was probably the reason for the great fire you've undoubtedly heard the
old chestnut about Nero fiddling through. Historians of the age do record
that Nero was much taken with his musical talents and made the senate, among
others suffer through his singing recitals, accompanying himself on organ and
lute as this pigheaded idiot styled himself as the young Apollo - Can you imagine!?!
- It must have been even worse than sitting through this lecture! The silver
in the denarius remained at a purity of roughly 80%, give or take, from Nero's
reign until the time of Commodus in 180 AD. Then the debasements started
coming one after another, so that within 30 years the denarius was no more
than maybe 45-50% silver.
Septimius Severus, who came out on top of the heap of contenders
and pretenders to the throne after January 1st 193 AD and Commodus' demise
-I suppose you all saw "Gladiator"? Well, Forget
"Gladiator" and Commodus dying in the arena! I know, the picture
that movie paints of the Roman Empire is vivid and compelling and is total
fantasy, historically speaking- Even though he eventually became crazy enough
to fight animals in the arena and think he was Hercules' reincarnation,
Commodus was actually stabbed to death by a bath-attendent while "on the
commode" - Isn't it too bad that pun only makes sense in English?
-
Septimius Severus, who won the imperium during the ensuing period of chaos,
had risen to power through the military ranks although born of humble African
Provincial stock - He became profoundly self-conscious about his origins once
he reached snobbish Rome - so much so that he had himself proclaimed to be
officially adopted by Antoninus Pius - posthumously, of course - Antoninus
had been dead for 32 years at the time, so he wasn't in any position to
object, you understand - Septimius evidently wanted to have a nice influential
brother, like Marcus Aurelius, who of course had been dead for 13 years, and
so the scions of the Severan Dynasty all wound up with official names like "Antoninus
Pius" and "Marcus Aurelius" and "Marcus Aurelius Antoninus" -
a tradition, incidentally, that was carried on by most emperors for another
hundred years - just about all of them - all except for Caracalla's younger
brother Geta - quite a story there, maybe he would have done better if he'd
HAD an Antonine-sounding name -
Now I've told you how coins were the newspapers of the age
- let's imagine for a moment what it might have been like if there had
been supermarket tabloids in the Roman empire, this is what you might have
read at the time.
13. Plug for Scott's Uhrick's website and "The
Imperial Tattler" - (www.joviel.com)
 Tabloid Numismatics!!
I'm reading here from a wonderful website by ACE member
Scott Uhrick
"Emperor Stabs Brother in Mother's Arms - Gains Support
of Elder Brothers Everywhere."
"He kept looking at me funny", says Caracalla. "And
Mom always liked him better".
14. Group of Severan portraits
 Severan Family
"Dateline Rome - February, 212 - Anyone with children knows
that they just can't seem to share their toys. So why did our late Emperor
Septimius think his sons could share the world? It probably wasn't his
fault. There are few indications that he intended to share the Empire he had
won between his two sons. The eldest, Caracalla, was raised to Caesar in 193
when he was seven years old. Raising the younger son, Geta, seems to have come
as an afterthought - although only one year younger, Geta wasn't raised
to Caesar for five more years - in the same ceremony in which Caracalla was
raised to Augustus. Geta finally gained the title of Augustus in 209 - eleven
years after Caracalla. So why promote Geta at all? One word -
"Mom". Julia Domna, wife of Septimius, has been consistently protective
of the interests of her youngest son. While Geta proved far more personable
than Caracalla, this enforced equality seems to have been his undoing. Since
Septimius passed to Hades, er, Eleysium, last summer the two brothers have
been plotting against each other. Plans to divide the empire between them broke
down when Julia asked them how they planned on dividing Her. (It is lucky for
her she didn't have Nero for a son - he might have taken her literally!).
Caracalla won the contest last week when he lured his brother to a conciliation
meeting at their mother's house. Conciliation was indeed achieved, as Geta
was attacked by Caracalla's hired thugs. The murder wasn't a clean
one; Geta staggered into his Mother's house followed by the assassins where
he was finished off in his mother's arms. This publication publicly deplores
the actions of our Emperor and demands a Senatorial inquiry into the mur...
URK! Note from new editor; This paper fully supports our Augustus
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (occasionally referred to by his military nickname
of Caracalla) and rejects as spurious any allegations that our Emperor ever
had a brother.
15. Run of Silver - Caracalla through Gallienus
 Antoninianus: Carracala thru Gallienus
Caracalla followed in father Septimius' footsteps and continued
debasing the silver coinage until in about 212 AD he made a "minor adjustment" that
would cause a tremendous change in the coinage that would actually dictate
the sort of coins the empire used for the next century. He introduced
the antoninianus - now we don't really know whether or not the Romans called
this coin by that name, but that's what we numismatists call them - the
most prevalent coin of the 3rd century. It contained only
1 and ½ times the silver of the current denarius. It was distinguished
as a "double unit" by the radiate crown on the emperor's head,
and was tariffed as the equivalent of two denarii. Neat trick, eh? We
can see what sort of trouble it got the Romans into - You know, It's something
that has always struck me - there's a real irony here - what was arguably
the pinnacle of portraiture on Roman coins occurred just as Rome came to the
brink of the fiscal cliff.
And indeed, only 50 years later, the "noble" Antoninianus,
once the "3rd century flagship" of Roman coinage, now
thoroughly and repeatedly debased, was a smallish bronze coin, about the size
of a US cent, perhaps issued with a thin, silvery wash, or maybe, depending
on the mint, just bronze.
Now you'll remember I said the Parthian empire had remained
politically independent of Rome and kept on with their own "Regal" coinage
back when everyone else had "gone Roman" right?
Well, just when things were getting dicey in the Roman Empire, this eastern
empire, a continuous antagonist of Rome, got an infusion of "new blood"
when its moribund Parthian dynasty was replaced by the Sassanid dynasty and
then, they started becoming really troublesome to the Romans - this is what
the tabloids of the time might have recorded:
Emperor Captured by Sassinian Foe, made into Footstool.
"Keep sending me Emperors", says Shaipur, "I
need the furniture. It's a shame I missed Nero, I could have made a whole
bedroom suite"
-Dateline Rome, 263 A.D.-
Rumor has come to Rome that our former Emperor Valerian has
passed away while a prisoner of the Sassanians. We say, good riddance. The
source of Rome's greatest shame has passed from human vision and perhaps
we can now begin to repair our reputation and our empire. Ever since Valerian
was treacherously captured during negotiations three years ago Shaipur has
used him as a means to humiliate and demean the Roman people. Keeping him in
a cage, parading him in front of foreign ambassadors like a paid dancing boy
- never was Rome's pride brought so low. Hopefully now Rome's shame
can be properly buried.
Dateline Antioch, 264 A.D. -
Well, it looks as though you can't keep a mediocre man down.
Reports from friendly envoys to Ctesiphon report that Valerian hasn't completely
dropped from sight. It seems that Shapur has decided to prolong Rome's
humiliation by preserving the body of our deceased Emperor. Conflicting reports
have Valerian either skinned and hanging on a wall or stuffed and turned into
a footstool to assist Shapur in mounting his horse. No official report has
come from the palace but insiders have relayed that Rome has warned Ctesiphon
that when it comes to interior decorating, in their humble opinion, purple
clashes with everything.
So, the supposedly "silver" coinage continued to be
debased until by the early 260s AD, the antoninianus had been reduced to a
very small, and usually crude, billon or copper coin with a silver wash. Later,
even the silver wash was abandoned. Once the antoninianus had for all practical
intents and purposes been reduced to a base metal coin, around 240 or so, production
of the larger, standard bronze denominations that were supposed to be its fractions
ceased, and so did the output of almost all of the once-multitudinous, local,
provincial issues, often with Greek inscriptions, from hundreds of mint-cities
throughout the fringes of the empire.
So, The Romans were faced with one terrible fiscal crisis after
another resulting in runaway inflation, because all their silver and gold was
going east to pay for their expensive, luxurious tastes, and also to pay for
an even more expensive defense budget because the empire was continuously beset
with pretenders and contenders for the throne from within, and hostile "barbarian"
neighbors all wanting a piece of the Roman pie from without. They didn't
have a John Kenneth Galbraith or Alan Greenspan to tell them how to run a deficit
budget, either, so their solution was to debase and downsize the coinage -
unfortunately the government did it without asking anyone else if THEY thought
it was a good idea, so public confidence in the value of the money was eroded
- the social contract had been unilaterally breached - and consequently, the
coins became almost worthless. Aurelian, who came along in about 270
AD restored some modicum of order and somewhat improved the coinage, but soon
after his death it deteriorated again, along with the political situation.
16. Later Antoniniani - Aurelian, Probus, House of Carus
 Later Antoninianii
The Late Roman Period, 250 - 498 AD.
17. Diocletian through Constantine
 Folli: Diocletian to Constantine
So, when Diocletian came along and restored order again at the
end of the 3rd century, his reforms scrapped what little was left
of the old Imperial coinage system in favor of a new, empire-wide coinage based
on a large, silver-washed billon coin. A new system of mintmarks - relatively
easy to understand even today, identified what mint-city the coins came from
even though the designs were now the same throughout the empire. One
of the only names we have for the myriad of bronze coins from the late Roman
era is "Follis" - what Diocletian called his new denomination - and
it's not even clear if that denomination-name
"Follis" meant the coin, or a whole bag-full of them. The very
last of the local, provincial issues with Greek inscriptions were finally abolished,
and the new, standard Imperial denominations and types with all inscriptions
in Latin were now issued simultaneously and exclusively from the centralized
imperial mints in a system that spanned the ancient world in an arc that extended
from London, through Europe and Asia, all the way to Alexandria in Egypt. Unfortunately,
the cycle of debasements soon resumed, and the Follis rapidly declined in weight
and silver content. So, By the time of Constantine the Great and his
extended, dysfunctional family, the real circulating money was once again just
about all small token bronze coins, occasionally with a silvery wash, but more
often, just bronze.
So this is an excellent place for me to put in a big plug for
Ancient Coins for Education! The Roman government issued these small
coins in astronomical numbers to try to make-up for inflation, but pouring
more coins into an inflationary market without enough public faith in government
to support the social contract worked precisely like trying to put out a fire
with gasoline, And the Romans went on inadvertently feeding the inflationary
spiral ensuring that ever greater numbers of nearly worthless coins had to
be struck. These coins didn't have sufficient intrinsic value to
make them worth melting down, and a lack of anything like banks as we know
them caused vast amounts of them to be buried for safekeeping. The worse
things got, the more people buried their money and the less likely it was they
were going to survive to dig it up again. So many of these pieces
have survived and are just now being dug-up and coming on the market in "as-is",
uncleaned condition that our organization is able to donate, free of charge,
genuine, uncleaned late-Roman coins to enrich the classics curriculum for students
in Latin and History classes in High and Middle schools as they clean and study
the coins - 40 schools from coast to coast and in Canada participated last
season and we hope we will be able to provide enough free coins to enable even
more schools to participate this coming year - So, if you think your class
might want to participate AND you feel you have an exceptional teacher - because
it takes a special teacher to make the program work properly - a teacher who
has imagination and can really take advantage of our cleaning - identification
- and essay-contest program, or, if you happen to BE that teacher, please let
me know at the end of the lecture and I'll give you information about how
your school can apply for the program.
So, lets go back to the dysfunctional family of Constantine
the Great and what the "tabs" might have made of it.
18. Constantinian Era AE Family Group
 Family of Constantie
Constantine Believes Wife, Kills Son, Then Believes Son, Kills
Wife. Is This Guy Great, or What?
Rumor has it that the Emperor's wife is really steamed. -
Dateline Rome - June, 326 A.D. -
How often do we have to hear the same sad stories caused by
broken families? The latest tale of our royal family is so sadly typical -
boy meets girl, girl has child, man leaves girl for Emperor's daughter,
Emperor's daughter accuses first girl's child of treason, boy executes
child, repents and executes Emperor's daughter. The boy in question in
our present Emperor Constantine. A product of yet another broken marriage,
Constantine's father (Constantius I) left his bar-maid wife Helena to marry
Theodora, step-daughter of our late Emperor Maximian. This pattern of broken
families continued to Constantine - he chose to leave his paramour Minervina
to marry his step-mother's step-sister Fausta, daughter of Maximian and
Theodora. This marriage strengthened Constantine's claim to power but left
a pretty dysfunctional family in its wake. It also left a son behind with Minervina,
our late Caesar Crispus.
At least our Emperor Constantine proved a better supporter of his children
than the average single father. Crispus was educated by the best minds in the
Empire and at age fifteen he was raised to the purple, becoming Caesar along
with his step-brother Constantine II. The following year saw Crispus serving
as Consul and beginning his military career. This military career saw its high
point five years later when Crispus led a fleet of 200 ships against the much
larger fleet of his father's rival, Licinius. Crispus' victory was
complete and his destiny as Constantine's heir seemed assured. Yet
now we are deprived of our Caesar. His very success seems to have led to his
fall. Last June our Crispus was put to death, accused of rape by his stepmother
Fausta. We shall never know the validity of Fausta's accusations - the
justice administered by our Emperor was harsh and swift. But the result may
show the motivation - Fausta's sons Constantine and Constantius are now
destined for the purple.
Update - October, 326 A.D.
In a stunning reversal of fortune, reports from the palace indicate
that Constantine has apparently repented executing Crispus. The recent arrival
of the Emperor's mother Helena may have something to do with this change
of heart. Now disbelieving Fausta's allegations, Constantine reportedly
had his wife boarded up in a bath and the hypocaust stoked until she boiled
to death. Imperial spin doctors are trying to convince the public that Fausta's
death was a suicide but this observer doubts that anyone would choose to die
in such a horrific way - steamed like a prawn.
Contributions to erect a golden statue to Crispus are being accepted at the
palace. Donations are, of course, voluntary - but highly recommended.
19. Late Roman - Folles Ae 1's and Descending Sizes, Siliquae
 Late Roman Coins
Over the next century, the billon and bronze issues change size
so often that nobody knows now where most of them stood in relation to gold
and silver, and history has not recorded the names of this multitude of denominations.
Around 350 or so AD, the Mints finally gave up for good trying to silver-wash
the low value coins, and simply issued bronze coins without trying to disguise
them as silver.
Since we don't really know what to call the late Roman bronze
denominations, we classify coins from this time by size and call them: AE1,
AE2, AE3 and AE4, with AE1 being roughly silver-dollar sized, like the old
imperial sestertius and the smaller the coin, the lower its "AE. Number".
The late imperial bronze coins themselves declined in size,
until by the early fifth century, mostly, only very tiny (about 15 millimeter,
or smaller than a US Dime) bronze coins were being regularly issued.
Interestingly, in the fourth century, as the final decline of
the Roman bronze coinage proceeded, a viable gold and silver coinage was reestablished. Constantine
I (307-337 AD) introduced a new gold coin, called the Solidus, which stayed
at a consistent weight and fineness of about 4 and a half grams of pure gold,
and continued unchanged well into the Byzantine era, right down to the eleventh
century AD. By the end of the fourth century, gold fractions of the Solidus
- the Semisis and Tremisis - respectively ½ and 1/3 of a Solidus - began
to be issued in large enough quantities that they actually circulated. Constantine
also resumed the issue of a high purity silver coinage, about the weight and
fineness of Nero's denarius, initially coined at a confusing array of different
weights, but settling down by the end of the fourth century to become the widely-circulating
Siliqua, worth 1/24 of a Solidus.
From the late third century AD, the Roman Empire typically was
divided administratively between two or more Emperors.
After Constantine I founded Constantinople, the normal division was into eastern
and western portions roughly demarked by a north-south line drawn from Belgrade
in Serbia to Bengazi in Libya. When Theodosius I, the last man to rule the
entire Roman Empire, died in 395 AD, the Empire was divided between his two
sons, Arcadius in the East and Honorius in the West. Soon, the western
half of the Empire was crushed by invading Germanic tribes -Ironically the
most dishonorable "sack of Rome" by Alaric's Visigoths in 410
AD occurred during Honorius' not very honorable reign.
This surviving eastern portion of the Roman Empire after about
500 AD is known to us as the Byzantine Empire, after the Greek city of Byzantium,
that Constantine I made his new capital of Constantinople. Of course "Byzantine" is
a misnomer, since the so-called Byzantine Empire, with full justification,
always considered itself "THE Roman Empire", AND her citizens,
Romans - THEY called themselves "Romaion" However, the Eastern Roman
coinage soon developed into forms very different from anything known in more
Classical Roman times.
20. Byzantine AE's
 Byzantine Coins
For numismatic purposes, we usually say the Byzantine coinage
begins and the purely Roman Coinage ends with Anastasius I, who reintroduced
large bronze coins, which, in marked contrast to the Roman Imperial bronzes,
invariably carried a numeric mark of value. The value of each denomination
was a multiple of those tiny bronze AE4 "nummus" coins that had made
up the bulk of small change for the past century, and the denomination was
represented by a Greek numeral. So, "M"
was 40 nummi, "K" was 20, "I" was 10, and "E' was
5. Since we need some point in time to divide the "ancient" Roman
coinage from the more properly medieval Byzantine coinage, and the political
events of the era don't provide us with a convenient temporal
"landmark", AND the introduction of a mark of value was a true innovation
in the Roman Imperial coinage, the monetary reform of Anastasius is generally
accepted as the dividing line between the Roman and the Byzantine coinages,
if not generally between the Roman and Byzantine imperial eras which sort of
segued one into the other. The eastern, Byzantine division, of the Roman Empire
was not finally extinguished until the Turks conquered its capital, Constantinople,
on May 29, 1453, only 39 years before Columbus' fateful voyage.
And there we have to end our own voyage through the history of the Romans.
http://ancientcoinsforeducation.org
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