RAC/TRAC Session 12: Roman Colonial Coinages in the 2nd and 3rd Centuries CE
Details of the RAC/TRAC Conference session 'Identity, Integration, and Roman Colonial Coinages in the 2nd and 3rd Centuries CE.'
Conference Sessions and Abstracts - Friday 12 April 2024
12. Identity, Integration, and Roman Colonial Coinages in the 2nd and 3rd Centuries CE
Szymon Jellonek – University of Warsaw
Robyn Le Blanc – The University of North Carolina at Greensboro
This panel considers Roman colonial coinages from the second to third centuries CE, focusing on how coins functioned as indicators of colonial identity and cultural and political integration. Many studies (e.g., papers in Howgego, Heuchert, and Burnett 2005) consider how coinages reflected civic identities, but this panel aims to focus on the numismatic manifestation of colonial identities and on local approaches to negotiating them. In particular, we ask: how did these coinages present their relationship with Rome and assert a colonial identity while simultaneously promoting local cults, myths, and priorities? What numismatic transformations coincided with colonial status, and what regional or chronological patterns can we trace? Aulus Gellius asserted that colonies were miniatures or copies of Rome, an assessment often invoked to understand the significance of colonial motifs; to what extent is this framing helpful in elucidating the messaging on these coins, and their reception? Are colonial coins proof of spontaneous integration with autochthonous culture? Or were they used to manifest Roman domination? Or can both approaches be traced? The ultimate goal of this panel is to challenge and deconstruct how Roman colonies used coins to negotiate a colonial identity, and to make connections to Rome, other peoples, and communities.
Bibliography:
Howgego, C.J., Heuchert, V. and Burnett, A.M. 2005. Coinage and Identity in the Roman Provinces. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Session schedule
Abstracts
Roman Coinage and Local Narrations
Charikleia Papageorgiadou – National Hellenic Research Foundation
A neat numismatic iconography, using mostly symbolic and static figures, was normally ideal to disseminate the Roman state’s messages. However, there are few instances, where more complex scenes are represented, a tendency which is more evident at the Eastern provincial mints where scenes of narrative and popular informal character are represented, denoting interaction and time continuity. It is possible that these numismatic types can be seen in a context of a policy of remembrance of the glorious past of indigenous people or of declaration of a local identity, especially as they are dated to the 2nd century onwards and related to the “Greek Renaissance” of the Antonine period. Since most of them represent scenes from well-known myths, traditions and novels, which are also reproduced in other forms of art, they can be also explained as part of a wider imitative tendency, based on sketches circulating though the empire in the hands of itinerant artists, to be used privately or stately.
The Emperor and the City – imperial portraits as markers of colonial identity?
Francesca Bologna – Università di Verona
The image of the Emperor appeared on coins minted throughout the Roman Empire, from the capital to its most remote outposts. It was his face – and that of other members of the imperial family – that ensured the validity of local currencies. This was true also in the eastern Empire, where cities with a long and established civic tradition included imperial portraits on the obverse of their coins. Yet, studies exploring the relationship between coinages and civic identities have focused almost exclusively on reverses, overlooking the informative potential of obverses. Imperial portraits were variously received, showing different attitudes and local visual traditions. This paper will focus on imperial numismatic portraits of Emperors and Caesars in the east of the Empire in the 3rd century CE, assessing whether colonies showed a distinctive attitude towards imperial images. This in turn will highlight if the different legal status of the colonies entailed a different approach from that of their neighbouring cities, exploring how the relationship with Rome shaped civic identities. The paper will focus on two case studies: coins showing Geta and Caracalla (198-211 CE) and Macrinus and Diadumenian (217-218 CE).
Language of Roman Colonial Coins: Code-switching or Linguistic Incompetence?
Szymon Jellonek – Uniwersytet Warszawski
Latin remained the sole language of Roman colonies in the 1st century BCE and 2nd century CE. However, in the 3rd century ten of the newly established colonies decided to strike coins with Greek inscriptions. Furthermore, there are coins bearing bilingual or even trilingual legends. Simultaneously, Latin was still in use on coins of old veteran colonies and some founded in the 3rd century. Nonetheless, plenty of linguistic errors occurred on colonial coins in the 3rd century. The presented paper will challenge the phenomenon of bilingual colonial coins. Was it an effect of code-switching or rather the result of the engraver’s linguistic incompetence? The author will present arguments in favour of either possibility and argue that both are correct.
Mouse God or Plowmen? Comparing the Roman Coinage of Alexandria Troas and Parion and their Iconography of Identity
Amanda Herring – Loyola Marymount University
This paper proposes to examine the coinage of two Roman colonies in the Troad: Alexandria Troas and Parion. Alexandria Troas and Parion, like the other few Roman colonies in western Anatolia, were already established cities that were re-founded as Roman colonies. While Roman colonists were brought to the cities and Roman civic structures were imposed after their re- foundations in the first century BCE, it is difficult to see these cities as miniature Romes due to their previously established Greco-Anatolian urban structures, populations, and cults. In the second and third centuries CE, both cities minted coins with a bust of the emperor on the obverse and a symbol of the city on the reverse. Alexandria Troas’s coinage regularly featured images of the locally important and distinctly Anatolian cult of Apollo Smintheus, who had also appeared on the coinage of Alexandria Troas before Roman colonization. In contrast, in Parion, the reverse of their coinage often depicted oxen and men plowing. Plowing was associated with the foundation of a Roman colony, so the image celebrates Parion’s status as a colony, rather than local history or cult. This paper will examine why Parion asserted their Roman-ness more forcefully than Alexandria Troas on their coins, despite the cities’ proximity and similar backgrounds. It will argue that the differences in numismatic iconography can be attributed to differences in how identity was renegotiated in tandem with economic and social status in the cities in the Roman imperial period.
Cassandreia deconstructed
Olivia Denk – Universität Basel
New insights into the coin iconography of Chalcidice were produced within the framework of my PhD project. The paper is dedicated to the Roman colony of Cassandreia, former Potidaea, and deals with an interesting reverse type that Hugo Gaebler mentioned in a footnote (Gaebler 1906, 54‐55). Speaking of a pantheistic connection of Ammon with Zeus and Dionysos or with Zeus, Dionysos, and Asclepios, the coin images reflect local cults from the incorporated sanctuary of Aphytis (Nea Kalithea). I aim to analyze this syncretic phenomenon with an interdisciplinary approach based on coin material from the 2nd and 3rd centuries and archaeological findings from Aphytis and Potidaea. Furthermore, the appearance of the nymph Nysa on the reverse type (e.g., Gordian III, Coin Cabinet Winterthur) will be discussed in the context of myth‐making. This focus on Cassandreia demonstrates a case study to trace the numismatic interplay of colonial identities and stylistic citations of local cults on Roman colonial coinages.
New Legends in the Land of Byzas: Roman Identity and Civic Competition in Byzantium and Perinthus
Emily Hurt – John Cabot University, Rome
In 196 CE, Septimius Severus drove his rival, Pescennius Niger, out of his stronghold in the city of Byzantium on the Bosphorus. In the wake of Niger’s defeat, Severus took the city, executed its soldiers and magistrates, stripped it of its lands and walls, and placed it under the control of nearby Perinthus. Numismatic evidence reveals that Severus also granted to Perinthus a temple of the imperial cult and the right to hold a series of games. Soon after this display of civic punishment, Severus refounded Byzantium as Byzantion Colonia Antoninia. This paper examines and compares the coinages of the colony of Byzantium and the city of Perinthus to ask how these cities used the language and mechanisms of Roman power to negotiate regional power dynamics. In doing so, the paper considers how local cults and foundation legends were refashioned in the dialogue with both Roman and local histories. Numismatic iconography offers a window into how Rome engaged with the long tradition of peer-polity rivalry in the east to establish and normalize colonial identity as it was mapped onto existing city states.