Willi the rise of Roman civilization, coins lost 

 consiclcrai)ly in tluir esthetic qualities. Shaped by 

 the more utilitarian character of tiie Romans — who 

 revered national i;lory and family tradition more 

 than culture and art coins tended less to be olijects 

 of relined artistic interpretation and were invested, 

 instead, with the more jiractical characteristics of a 

 gazette."'^ 



(^ne of the iiasic approaches es[)ecially favored l)\ 

 the Roman Emperors was the use of coins as an 

 important medium of propaganda, with the intention 

 of diffusing and, at the same time, preserving for 

 posterity an account of glorious events. This fact 

 im|)liciily conferred on coins the character of historical 

 documents and, indeed, they did jirove to l)e ideal 

 records for the Romans. Small, easy to store, almost 

 impervious to mutilation or decay. relati\ely easy 

 to obtain, coins could hardly have failed to a{)[)eal to 

 the history-minded Romans as objects which were 

 immediate witness<-s to the past. 



It was customary in Rome, as it also had been in 

 Greece, to present coins as sjifts on fesli\e occasions, 

 a tradition which Ovid has recorded."' The historian 

 Suetonius (in Augustus 73) records that Emperor 

 .'Xuynstus would distril)Uti' on the occasion of the 

 Saturnalia festivities, anions; other ])recious gifts, 

 various unknown foreign coins or coins with portraits 

 of ancient kings: ". . . nummos onmis notae, etiam 

 veteres regios et peregrinos." Aiiparcnlly, .Augustus 

 was following a general trend when he inelutied in 

 his largess old coins as precious and desirable objects. 



Interest in old coins was continued by some ol 

 .'\u<;ustus" successors, Titus, Domitian, and especially 

 Trajan; in fact, the latter reissued some silver and 

 even a few gold coins of not only his predecessors 

 but also of the Roman Republic. Such "restitution" 

 coins, marked clearly as such by the addition of the 

 inscription RiiSifrruM ], duplicated exactly the design 

 and legend of the originals. They furnish signifi- 

 cant e\idence for the existence of some sort of 

 collection of old coins which could ha\e served as 

 models for the "restitution" issues — without sup- 

 portint? Roliert Mowat's greatly tlisputcd theory that 

 tlu- Roman mint had a collection of old dies which 

 were used in I he striking of these special issues.*" 



-■^ .\lf6lui, "Main .\spect->! of Political Propaganda on tlic 

 Cloinagc of the Roman Republic" (19.S6). 



-'" MuNSTrRDEKG, 'Ubcr die Anfiinge tier Nuinismatik" 

 (1914). 



5" Mow.\T, "La rcconstiiution dcs collections de coins aux 

 ler ct lie siiclcs' (1900); .see also Munstkrbikc, op. cit. 



.'\t any rale, these "restitution" coins do reveal a 

 certain "numismatic" interest which could have been 

 responsible in part for initiating the issues, althoua;h 

 tmdoubtedly the chief motivation was the attitude 

 toward coins as an official chronicle of past glory." 

 Trajan, for example, reissued in .\.D. 107, among 

 other coins, silver denarii struck during the Republi- 

 can era by the moneyer Quintus Tatius (fig. 3) : he also 



Fig. 3. — Roman Rf.plbi.ic.a.v Dii.x.ARius, top, 

 and Trajan"s "restitution" coin (author's 

 photo). 



leissued the so-called Romano-C^ampanian didrachm 

 w Inch had been struck e\en earlier, sometime between 

 235 and 220 B.C. In using coins which were o\er 

 three hundred years old, Trajan not only recognized, 

 as did his predecessors, the political anci religious 

 importance of coins, but al.-.o their historical signifi- 

 cance. In a sense it might be said he helped to foster 

 "numismatic" interests among the Romans. 



The rapid expansion of the Empire brought Romans 

 into contact with strange and hitherto unknown 

 ci\ilizations. It is reasonable to assume that the 

 enormous booty brought back to Rome by its vic- 

 torious generals contained, among other objects of 

 value, innumerable coins which found their way into 

 private collections, along with gems and cameos — 

 items related to coins through subject matter and 

 ensjravinsj technique. E\en if the discriminating 

 taste of the art-lo\ ing Greeks was not always evident 

 in the Roman public art "collections," in the parks, 

 or in the magnificently adorned villas of patricians, 

 the Romans certainly tried to imitate the refinement 

 of Greek culture and to appear as patrons of the arts. 

 It is a well-known fact, mentioned by Horace, that, 



3' Mattinglv, "The Restored Coins of Trajan" (1926), with 

 a good bibliography on the subject, and "The 'Restored' Coins 

 of Titus, Domitian and Nerva" (1920): see also Bernhart, 



fiihliographischn Wegwfiser, p. 57. « 



10 



BULLETIN 229: CONTRIBLTIO.NS FRO.M THE .MUSEUM OF HISTORY .WD TECHNOLOGY 



