Domitian, A.D. 95-96

This aureus of Domitian was issued in A.D. 95-96, a year before the emperor’s assassination.1 On the obverse of this coin, a right-facing portrait of Domitian is encircled by a border of dots2 and a legend which reads DOMITIANVS AVGVSTVS. On the reverse, a right-facing Minerva Promachus stands on a ground line. She is helmeted and positioned for battle, with shield and spear raised in her left and right hands respectively. Like Domitian’s obverse portrait, the image of the goddess is also encircled by a border of dots and a legend. The legend, which reads GERMANICVS COS XVII, proclaims one of the emperor’s 23 titles3 (i.e., Germanicus) and his consular year at the time of minting.

The obverse portrait depicts a thick-necked man with a prominent brow, sunken eyes and copious tousled hair. Domitian’s expression is neutral: he appears neither determined nor aloof, but merely present. For the most part, this is consistent with Suetonius’ description of the emperor: “Domitian had a ruddy complexion; large, rather weak eyes; and a modest expression. He was large and well-made, except for his feet which had hammer-toes. Later, he lost his hair. . . He took as a personal insult any reference, joking or otherwise, to bald men. . .”4 However, when one examines the portrait on the aureus in the context of Suetonius’ description, a major discrepancy becomes apparent. Instead of showing a balding man, the image depicts Domitian with the same youthful hairline that can be seen on his coins from A.D. 81, the first year of his imperial reign (fig. 15). Therefore, whether it was the choice of the moneyers or the princeps himself,6 it is clear that Domitian’s insecurity necessitated the creation of a portrait that was idealized rather than realistic.

Figure 1

The reverse image and legend are a direct reference to Domitian’s meager military achievements (e.g. his victories over the Chatti, Sarmatians and Dacians7), which he emphasized throughout his reign. In the autumn of A.D. 83, Domitian took the title “Germanicus” after his legions defeated the Germanic Chatti tribe. This victory led not only to Domitian’s first triumph but also to a numismatic celebration of the emperor’s purported military prowess,8 which he continued to accentuate until his assassination. Furthermore, Minerva, Promachus or otherwise, was a frequent image on Domitian’s coins. As the goddess of arms and letters, Minerva was an appropriate patron for Domitian, who considered himself to be skilled in both.9

An interesting component of Minerva’s image is the unidentified object which is visible in the left field beneath her right arm. The object is not unique to this coin; on the contrary, it appears to be standard in Domitian’s numismatic Promachus images.10 However, despite the object’s prevalence, an explanation of its significance has yet to be given.

In conclusion, this aureus of Domitian serves as an example of imperial propaganda. The wear that is visible on the obverse (i.e., on Domitian’s hair and right ear) and the reverse (i.e., on Minerva’s head and upper body) indicates that the coin had been in circulation, which enabled a number of people to come into contact with the imagery found on it. These images depict the emperor in an idealized manner and stress his military accomplishments. As a result, the creation of the coin served the two-fold purpose of pleasing the princeps while conveying not only his power, but also his self-fashioned mythos to the people of the empire.

Back to top

Notes

Back to top

Bibliography

Back to top

The University of Virginia’s numismatic collection contains, at this writing (2008), ten splendid gold coins ranging in date from the Hellenistic dekadrachm of the Sicilian tyrant Hiketas (287-278 B.C.E.) to the two late Roman solidi of Valentinian I (C.E. 364-375) and Valentinian II (C.E. 388), dating to the period after Constantine had moved the capitol from Rome to his “new Rome” at Constantinople. Between those extremes are the remaining seven Roman imperial aurei that span the arc of empire from the Julio-Claudians (aurei of Claudius and Nero), through the Flavians (aureus of Domitian), to the second-century emperors (aurei of Trajan, Hadrian, Lucius Verus), and finally to the Tetrarchy (aureus of Maximian).

The Roman coins from Claudius to Valentinian II cover a period of well over 300 years and evoke the aspirations of several dynasties and document various approaches to the organization of the empire. As works of sculpture they present fine portraits of many of the key players in the extended drama of the Roman empire. Using these nine coins as touchstones, one could narrate the whole history of the Roman empire from its beginnings to the point at which it evolved into Byzantine empire.

In this collection of Roman coins the dekadrachm of Hiketas is an outlier. It was purchased because it had a good provenance, was available, affordable, and above all, beautiful. As a Hellenistic coin it anchors the collection of gold coins in the Greek period and documents the influential Greek presence in Italy (Roman coinage owed a great deal to the coinage of the Greek cities in Italy). Although Hellenistic in date, the head of Persephone on the obverse is Classical in style. It is a fine example of Greek sculpture and forms an important point of reference for other coins in the collection.

As works of portraiture the nine Roman coins present many of the changing sculptural styles that appeared between the inception of the empire under Augustus and the late empire of the time of Valentinian I and Valentinian II. While aurei of the first three emperors are not present in the collection, Trajan’s “restored” aureus of Tiberius (Rome’s second emperor from C.E. 14 to 37) presents the idealized portrait style of the early empire. By the time that the aurei of Claudius and Nero were struck the pendulum had swung in the direction of more accurate renditions of the emperor’s appearance. Domitian belonged to the next, i.e., the Flavian, dynasty begun by Vespasian. Our aureus was struck late in his reign (he was assassinated in C.E. 96), but it masks any signs of aging and emphatically denies that the emperor was balding. Changing hairstyles are always part of the imperial portrait, and the aureus of Hadrian presents the new fashion for longer hair and a beard. The beard continued to be worn by the emperor until Constantine, in the early fourth century, broke with tradition, shaved his beard, and created a portrait that served as a precedent for the portraits of Valentinian I and Valentinian II.

Hadrian not only grew a beard, but also wore his curly hair longer than the emperors who immediately preceded him. That style set a trend, and the aureus of Lucius Verus depicts one of Hadrian’s successors with a very full head of curly hair and an ample beard. The “soldier emperors” of the third century wore close-cropped, military-style hair and beards and presented vivid countenances that displayed psychological depths rarely found in imperial portraiture. No gold coins of the soldier emperors are in our collection, but the sestertius of Maximinus Thrax ( C.E. 235-238) illustrates the style.

In the late third century Diocletian and his co-emperor, Maximian, brought to an end the chaotic period of the soldier emperors. Each emperor took a junior colleague who was to succeed him, the result being that the empire was controlled by a tetrarchy, or a rule by four individuals. The new tetrarchic form of government required a new portrait style that emphasized the harmony and cooperation among the tetrarchs. Consequently, most of the individual characteristics that are seen in the earlier portraits are erased from the portrait of Maximian who appears strong and powerful, but devoid of individual features that distinguish the emperors on the other coins (View Essay). Within our collection we cannot compare Maximian to his co-emperor, Diocletian, but such a comparison would show that the two appear to be nearly identical to support the idea of the harmony that existed between them. The portraits of Valentinian I and Valentinian II stand at the threshold of the Byzantine world. They look backward to the portraits of Constantine and forward to the icons, mosaics, and frescoes of the Byzantine period of the sixth century and later.

The essays on the gold coins are the product of a graduate seminar on Roman Numismatics that I offered in the fall of 2007. Each of the nine seminar members wrote an essay on one of the ten gold coins. Seminar members were Jared Benton, Katherine Boller, Robert Coleman, Nicholas Genau, Renee Gondek, Ethan Gruber, Stephanie Layton, Ismini Miliaresis, and Carrie Sulosky. In addition, seminar member Ethan Gruber designed the present website with the help of a grant from the University of Virginia Library.

Back to top