MVNIFICENTIA. Munificence. ― Another term for expressing the magnificent liberality of the reigning prince to the Roman people, in giving them public shews, or spectacles, with the accustomed exhibition of games. We find it commonly presented on coins of Antoninus Pius, Commodus, Severus, and Elagabalus, by the symbol of a lion or of an elephant. On a brass medallion of Gordianus Pius, which presents the figure of a man sitting on an elephant, and fighting with a bull in the Flavian amphitheatre, the inscription added is MUNIFICENTIA GORDIANI AVG.―The incomparable munificence of Hadrian is most elegantly complimented on that most rare coin, in first brass, which bears the epigraph LOCVPLETATORI ORBIS TERRARVM. ― The munificence displayed by different Emperors, at stated times, in the distribution of largesses to the Roman people is frequently recorded on their coins, under the designation of CONGIARIA DATA POP. R., or LIBERALITAS AVG.― Other examples of imperial munificence, either in the remission of taxes (centesimę, ducentesimę, quadragesimę), or in the abolition of outstanding claims on state-debtors are to be found in the same series of Roman coins.
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