DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51762#0166
HISTORICAL ROMAN COINS
mint. The process is now complete; these gold coins
are part of the regular currency, struck by the regu-
larly appointed officials of the mint, without reference
to the military imperium. Equally important, how-
ever, is the emphasis laid on the personalities of the
triumvirs. The portrait of Julius Caesar was the first
to appear, quite irregularly, as the portrait of a living
person, on the coins ;1 then, in exceptional circum-
stances, came the portrait of M. Antonins ; now, with
the portraits of the triumviri reipublicae constituendae
side by side before us, we no longer feel that there is
anything exceptional in the portrayal of the living
rulers of the state. Another blow has been struck at
the “ republican ” nature of the coinage. On the coins
of Q. Voconius Vilnius and Ti. Sempronius Gracchus,
which De Salis has attributed to 37 b.c., the heads of
Antonins and Lepidus do not occur, and their absence
illustrates the growing power of Octavian, who alone,
with Divus Julius, is represented. This is the next
stage. Finally, after this year, not even the names of
the quattuorviri or other moneyers are inscribed on
the coins, while the types refer wholly to Octavian,
not to the moneyer’s family history; we have, to all
intents and purposes, reached the full imperial stage
of the coinage. With the revival of the bronze or
brass coinage in 16 b.c., the moneyers’ names reappeared
1 On the significance of the portraits of living persons on Roman
coins, see Macdonald, Goin Types, pp. 192 f,
120
mint. The process is now complete; these gold coins
are part of the regular currency, struck by the regu-
larly appointed officials of the mint, without reference
to the military imperium. Equally important, how-
ever, is the emphasis laid on the personalities of the
triumvirs. The portrait of Julius Caesar was the first
to appear, quite irregularly, as the portrait of a living
person, on the coins ;1 then, in exceptional circum-
stances, came the portrait of M. Antonins ; now, with
the portraits of the triumviri reipublicae constituendae
side by side before us, we no longer feel that there is
anything exceptional in the portrayal of the living
rulers of the state. Another blow has been struck at
the “ republican ” nature of the coinage. On the coins
of Q. Voconius Vilnius and Ti. Sempronius Gracchus,
which De Salis has attributed to 37 b.c., the heads of
Antonins and Lepidus do not occur, and their absence
illustrates the growing power of Octavian, who alone,
with Divus Julius, is represented. This is the next
stage. Finally, after this year, not even the names of
the quattuorviri or other moneyers are inscribed on
the coins, while the types refer wholly to Octavian,
not to the moneyer’s family history; we have, to all
intents and purposes, reached the full imperial stage
of the coinage. With the revival of the bronze or
brass coinage in 16 b.c., the moneyers’ names reappeared
1 On the significance of the portraits of living persons on Roman
coins, see Macdonald, Goin Types, pp. 192 f,
120