Hill, George Francis: A handbook of Greek and Roman coins (London: Macmillan, 1899)

94

GREEK AND ROMAN COINS

[bk. I

Silani (at Berytus), Permissu L. Aproni procos. Ill (at Clypea).
The mention of these permissions ceases in the time of
Tiberius The most abbreviated form in which they are
found is PPDD (Permissu Proconsulis, Decurionum Decreto).
Colonial coinage in the West has but a brief duration. In
Sicily, it ends with Augustus ; in Africa and Numidia, with
Tiberius; in Spain, with Caligula ; in Gaul, about the time of
Nero : Babba in Mauretania, curiously, strikes as late as Galba’s
reign. The exceptions are only apparent. When Commodus
perpetrated his freak of colonizing Rome, the new colony
struck coins with the title Col(onia) L(ucia) An(toniniana)
Com(modiana) (Fig. 18). The coins of the fourth consulate of


Fig. 18.—Reverse of as of Commodus (a.d. 190): COL (onia) L(ucia)
AN(toniniana) C Ο M (modiana). P(ontifexl M(aximus), TR(ibu-
nicia) P(otestate) XV, IMP(erator) VIII, CO(n)S(ul) VI. S. C.
Priest ploughing.

Postumus (a. d. 265-266) struck at Cologne, reading Col(onia)
Cl(audia) Agrip(pina) or C(olonid) Claudia) A(ugustd) A(grippind),
are really imperial, not colonial coins. In the East the colonial
coinage lasted down to the time of Aurelian.
The official language of these colonies was of course Latin.
Still we find Greek in some of the colonies of late foundation,
as Thessalonica, and Philippopolis in Arabia. Greek in fact
is the rule in the remote East, where it must have been difficult
to inculcate Latin. And even in Asia Minor the Latin legends
are often sadly blundered 1 2. The later coins of Antiochia on the
Orontes reading S C and Μ^τρο. Κολωνία have been explained, on
1 But Corinth, which received again from Domitian the right which it
had lost under Vespasian, records the fact in the legend Perm(issu)
Imp(eratoris).
2 For instance, the title of Volusian appears (in the dative) on coins of
Pisidian Antioch as IMPCVIRAPCALVSSIANOAVG.