I collect and study Roman imperial coins because of their direct reflection of the activities and intentions of the emperors, and their resulting importance as a historical source.
In Jan. 2005 a similar question came up and I responded as follows, quoting from a
Forvm thread that is now in Classical
Numismatics:
The recent contention that some
Roman coins are "overrated" made me think of Eckhel's introductory remarks in
vol. VI of
his Doctrina Numorum,
Vienna 1796, which may be translated/paraphrased from the original Latin as follows:
I proceed to the explication of the coinage of the
Roman Empire. The world has not yet seen an empire more revered and famous than that of the
Romans, whose very name evokes a magical admiration. But that great
merit would matter little for my present project, unless the
Roman Empire overshadowed earlier empires not only in power and majesty, but in the
abundance, importance, and variety of its surviving coinage. Although an incredible quantity of
Roman Republican coins have come down to us, they nevertheless leave us unsatisfied in many ways. The earliest
Republican coins were in bronze only, silver was only introduced at a later date, and gold was hardly used at all. The
types on the coins in either metal showed little variety, until the vanity of the
moneyers and their desire to boast about their ancestry alleviated the boredom caused by the ancient simplicity. Yet the result was
still not what later generations might have hoped for. Instead of ancient exploits, some of them fabulous, we would have preferred to see
contemporary events depicted in the coinage, along with at least some indication of when the coins were minted. The coins of the emperors present a different picture. Apart from the regular use of all three metals, the
types often recorded
contemporary history, be it exceptional deeds accomplished at
home or abroad, benefactions granted by the emperors to the people, honors voted to the emperors, and whatever else seemed worthy of record thoughout the great empire. In this respect Roman imperial coins far surpass those of earlier empires, however famous, which with almost no aid to
history tended to repeat a single
type, so that if you have seen one coin of a particular
king you might think you
had seen them all. Compare the coins of
Philip II,
Alexander the Great, the Ptolemies,
Lysimachus, and others. As to dates, although we do not always know the exact year of issue, we can at least be certain that the coins were struck during the reign of the emperor whose
portrait they bear. Another fact which is bound to bring pleasure to those who are interested in the
history of the past is that the series of
Roman emperors extends over fully fifteen centuries from
Julius Caesar to
Constantine XI, and the coins show us their
portraits, and offer reliable, uncorrupted testimony of an empire at one time the greatest in the world, gradually laboring under its own
weight and declining, and finally lapsing into utter barbarity and losing its former artistic capabilities.
Since this vast and extensive class of
ancient coins not only brings great profits to historical studies, but delights the soul through its reflection of the past, they have been collected with an astonishing avidity from the Renaissance on, not only by noblemen but by private people too, with an affection that has remained undiminished until the present day. It is to their enthusiasm and efforts that we owe the rich
collections known from that time, and published for the benefit of the educated world. Once collectors
had done their duty by acquiring and assembling these treasures, scholars did not want to be remiss in performing theirs, whether by publishing catalogues of the
collections, or explaining the coin
types, or showing how to distinguish genuine coins from false ones, an ability which is among the most essential in this branch of studies.
Eckhel then proceeds to a review of the literature on
Roman coins up to
his day.