by Cole Schenewerk from the California Numismatist Magazine

Every coin tells a story. Coins can tell stories of love, greed, hate, and many other things. Anyone who collects coins can do a little research and bring these stories to light. Ancient coins tell especially amazing stories. The paragraphs below tell of two coins that I earned through the ANA’s David R. Cervin Ancient Coin Project and the story that they tell.

I recently acquired a Septimius Severus Silver Denarius through the ANA’s David R. Cervin Ancient Coin Project. I researched the coin recently and I found out many interesting things. The coin told a story that encompassed a whole era of Roman History.

In my research, I discovered that the emperor that is depicted on the obverse and the reverse of the coin, Septimius Severus, is one of the greatest Roman Emperors of all time. His full name is Imperator Caesar Lucius Septimius Severus Pertinax Augustus Arabicus, Adiabenicus, Pius, Parthicus Maximus, Britannicus Maximus.

These titles came from a variety of sources: “Arabicus”- Meaning Arab, refers to place of birth, “Adiabenicus”- referring to one of the peoples that Severus conquered, “Pius”- meaning humble, “Parthicus Maximus”- meaning greatest Parthian, “Britannicus Maximus”-meaning greatest Briton.

He ascended to the throne through the murder and defeat of his political rivals. This took some time, but when he succeeded, Severus held a fi rm grip on the empire and conquered many lands. He had two sons, Caracalla and Geta. Caracalla was notoriously cruel and was known for murdering his brother, wife, and father-in-law in A.D. 211. But aside from all this bloodshed, Caracalla also made his own contribution to numismatics. He instituted a new denomination of coins in the Roman Empire, the antoninianus.

This coin is believed to have been valued at twice that of a denarius, but its metal content at the time of its institution was only 1.5 times that of a denarius. To add to this, the metals were gradually debased after that to a point where the denarii were hoarded because the coins that were said by the government to be worth twice as much were actually worth less. The metal content of the antoninianus was debased because of the lack of silver and gold coming into Rome from its dominions. The government still needed to bankroll its large army and had to make more coins with a debased metal content to continue paying its troops, which were guarding the empire from invaders along the borders. When the general public found out about the debasement of the coins, a period of hyperinfl ation occurred. This continued until the monetary reforms of Diocletian, when the economy was stabilized. Diocletian completely reorganized the monetary system, creating new denominations and values for Roman Currency.

Diocletian had all the citizens of the empire turn in their old currency and exchange it for the new, reformed currency. This is similar to what happened in the early 1920’s in Germany when prices doubled every two days and people would burn their old currency in lieu of wood because it lasted longer than the amount of fi rewood that it could buy. The German government then reformed the currency system and stabilized the economy. They had all the citizens of Germany turn in their old, devalued marks in exchange for new ones at a rate of a trillion (1,000,000,000,000) to one. This near-collapse of the empire from within marked a new era in Roman history. This era would last until the military defeat of the empire and the sacking of Rome by Germanic tribesmen several centuries later.

The period of economic mayhem described above can be traced all the way to Caracalla and his institution of the antoninianus. I happened to acquire an antoninianus, also through the David R. Cervin project. It was issued by a rebel emperor in Gaul (modern day France.) This coin is also known as barbarous radiate because of the shape of the crown depicted and also the fact that the persons depicted on them were frowned upon by Roman citizens because they were attempting to overthrow the true emperor. This coin would have never been minted if it were not for Caracalla. Caracalla would have never become emperor if his father had not fought his way into becoming emperor. I wonder how this coin or the person depicted on it affected world history.

All coins tell a story. These stories can tell of greed or love, hatred and revolts, but all of these stories are refl ected through the coinage of the time. Those who are fortunate enough to own or to collect ancient coins, or any type of coins for that matter, can take a trip back in time to learn about history, economics, and our world as it was many years ago.

Cole Schenewerk will be submitting part 2 of his article to run in the next issue of TCN. Look for it! [GB]