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Roman Minting Volumes and Quick Response to Emperor Changes

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Heliodromus:
Issuing coins appears to have been a surprisingly high priority for at least some emperors. A particular case in point is Maximinus II who very briefly took control of Licinius' Heraclea mint in 313 AD while Licinius was in the west meeting with Constantine. It seems Maximinus only controlled the mint for a couple of weeks, yet issued surprisingly plentiful coinage from it while he did so.

Of course back then if you wanted to get the word out that there was a new boss in town, there would have been limited ways of doing it. I'm not sure if they had anything equivalent to England's town criers to spread the news. Coins, especially the bronze which would get into may hands, was one way of doing it.

I'm somewhat reminded of the recent rapid takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban, with little resistance. I've read that part of how this happened was by just spreading the word on social media that they were already in control!

Maybe getting the message out as fast as possible, to represent any regime change (especially by a usurper) as a fait accompli, was considered as a smart thing to do?!

Lech Stępniewski:

--- Quote from: Heliodromus on November 22, 2021, 02:29:49 pm ---Maybe getting the message out as fast as possible, to represent any regime change (especially by a usurper) as a fait accompli, was considered as a smart thing to do?!

--- End quote ---

You are absolutely right: the importance of propaganda should not be underestimated. As for Maximinus, I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out that some of these coins were minted earlier in Nicomedia with false Heraclean mintmark.

SC:
And not just propaganda.  Many new Emperors, especially in turbulent times, would have had a need or interest in paying at least some soldiers relatively quickly.  Even though the official donatives and other payments were likely primarily made in precious metal, base metal coinage would also be needed as change.

There was clearly an understanding among the bureaucracy of what had to be done during the turn over of rule from one Emperor to another.  Jovian (363-364) is an interesting case.  He began rule on 27 June 363, effectively still on the battlefield, and then turned back westwards passing through Antioch in October 363.  He passed through no other mint city before he died near Ankara on 17 February 364.  But his coinage is common and was struck across the Empire.  Thus even in the field - in the comitatus - the bureaucratic machine got into motion rapidly.  Interestingly even his bust designs were radically different from Julian's.

Even usurpers like Procopius new what to do.

SC

Virgil H:
Thank you all for those latest comments. The comments about Afghanistan ring true, although in most of the country, the Taliban were never out of control, especially outside of Kabul. As a poor country, my experience there was that most folks in rural areas and even small towns and cities didn't even have electricity. Yet, all it takes is one rich guy with a satellite phone to get the word out. I was in one district there that was super rural and I spent time with some folks from the Afghan National Police. They told me only one person in that district had a TV and that was run with a generator when it was used. hat person was the richest guy in the district, too. So, things haven't changed so much in some parts of the world as far as modern communications. I had an Afghan cell phone and most places I had no signal. To be honest, I actually loved not being able to check in with my boss at a distant FOB. LOL. Not being connected has its attractions.

Anyway, in thinking about the Romans and news flow, they did have a very good network of couriers, so I imagine that news of importance was sent overland rather quickly, a matter of days, at most a week or two. I am thinking about the transmission images mentioned, as well as other important news. As Mark's article mentions, news going to places like Egypt was much slower, requiring ships and longer journeys. But, as you all have mentioned, the mints seem to have been very quick to act and the engravers must have been pretty quick. And it seems that coins as means of propaganda, as well as just news in general, were much more important that I had previously thought.

Thanks again for such great responses from all. Truly a fascinating topic to me.

Virgil

lawrence c:
A comment and a question on the imagery. At times, it was clear that the news that a new sheriff was in town preceded the imagery. Several coinages featured somewhat generic portraits initially. A good example that is noted in RIC was an initial coin of Vespasian that looked an awful lot like Vitellius. An example of this is at https://www.forumancientcoins.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=7253&pid=169318#top_display_media Several other early coins of others seemed to follow a similar pattern.

My question is that I seem to recall reading somewhere that the images of the new emperors/wannabees were in the form of busts rather than 'flat' portraiture. Is this correct (as near as we know)?

Finally, a very interesting article by Mark.

Best,
Larry

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