Description
Book SynopsisCoins of the best-known Roman revolutionary era allow rival pretenders to speak to us directly. After the deaths of Caesar and Cicero (in 44 and 43BC) hardly one word has been reliably transmitted to us from even the two most powerful opponents of Octavian: Mark Antony and Sextus Pompeius - except through coinage and the occasional inscription. The coins are an antidote to a widespread fault in modern approaches: the idea, from hindsight, that the Roman Republic was doomed, that the rise of Octavian-Augustus to monarchy was inevitable, and that contemporaries might have sensed as much. In this book eleven new essays explore the coinage of Rome's competing dynasts. Julius Caesar's coins, and those of his 'son' Octavian-Augustus, are studied. But similar and respectful attention is given to the issues of their opponents: Cato the Younger and Q. Metellus Scipio, Mark Antony and Sextus Pompeius, Q. Cornificius and others. A shared aim is to understand mentalities, the forecasts current, in an age of rare insecurity as the superpower of the Mediterranean faced, and slowly recovered from, division and ruin.
Table of ContentsAnton Powell (1947-2020) Kathryn Welch Introduction and Acknowledgements Anton Powell and Andrew Burnett 1 Coin types as political
topoi: the paradoxical proximity of numismatic discourses during the Civil Wars of the late Roman Republic (44-29 BC), Raphaëlle Laignoux 2 Mark Antony and the bronze revolution in the East, Lucia F. Carbone 3 Scipio and Cato in 47-46 BC: ideals and expectations seen through coins, Claudia Devoto and Barbara Spigola 4 Quintus Cornuficius, heir of the ‘Africana causa’? The testimony of coins, Guillaume de Méritens de Villeneuve 5 Sextus Pompey, Scylla and south Italy, David J. Wright 6 A place for peace in a time of war, Hannah Cornwell 7 The significance of imagery in coin hoards from the time of the Roman revolution: reflections on the
aurei deposit from Martigues, Arnaud Suspène and Jean Chausserie-Laprée 8 The SC coinage and the role of the Senate under Augustus, Amy Russell 9 Money, media and cultural memory under Augustus, Clare Rowan 10 Re-examining the design types of the renewed college of moneyers in c. 19 BC, David Woods 11 Augustus as eagle: analysing a symbol of Augustan coinage, Ben Greet Index
