COINAGE AND IDENTITY IN THE ROMAN PROVINCES This page intentionally left blank COINAGE AND IDENTITY IN THE ROMAN PROVINCES Edited by Christopher Howgego Volker Heuchert Andrew Burnett AC AC Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox26dp Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. 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No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Coinage and identity in the Roman Provinces / edited by Christopher Howgego, Volker Heuchert, [and] Andrew Burnett. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0–19–926526–7 (alk. paper) 1. Coins, Roman—Rome—Provinces. 2. Group identity—Rome—Provinces. I. Howgego, C. J. II. Heuchert, Volker. III. Burnett, Andrew (Andrew M.) CJ909.C65 2004 737.4937—dc22 2004020237 Typeset by SPI Publisher Services, Pondicherry, India Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wiltshire ISBN 978–0– 19–926526–8 (Hbk.) 978–0– 19–923784–5 (Pbk.) 13579108642 Preface Coins were the most deliberate of all symbols of public communal identities in the Roman provinces, but no general treatment of the topic exists. This book approaches the subject through surveys of the broad geographical and chrono- logical structure of the evidence, through papers which focus on ways of expressing identity, and through regional studies which place the numismatic evidence in local context. The iconography and inscriptions on the coins are the focus of the greater part of the book, but the patterns of production of the coinage and its circulation have a significant part to play too. The scope of the volume arises from the nature of the evidence. The cessation of the last regional coinage under Diocletian provides a natural ending. The Roman Provincial Coinage (RPC) series has a purely pragmatic beginning around 44 bc, but for our purposes it has been illuminating to range back earlier. Thus Spain is considered from the time it came under Roman sway as a result of the Second Punic War. We have also invited a contribution on the British Iron Age in order to consider how to approach ‘Roman’ elements in a coinage prior to conquest and issues relating to transition to empire, and in order to draw lessons from a different and more archaeologically-driven tradition of scholarship. The coinage of the two Jewish Revolts has likewise been included in order to obtain an alternative and ostentatiously non-Roman perspective. We have sought to vary the geographical focus of chapters to bring out the benefits of considering the empire as a whole, without losing the increasing contextualization possible through studies of indi- vidual regions, provinces, or cities. Much of the existing literature on our topic has been devoted to the spectacular evidence from Asia Minor, and this emphasis inevitably informs several of the general discussions. But we have set out to even up the balance with chapters which range from Britain and Spain to Syria and Egypt. We have not imposed a formal structure on the book. It is arranged with general introductory material at the beginning. Howgego introduces the topic of coinage and identity in relation to Roman provincial coinage, Williamson looks at issues relating to identity in the Roman world more generally, Heuchert provides an introduction to Roman provincial coinage and traces the chronological develop- ment of the iconography, and Weiss examines control over the coinage (which informs our interpretation of the numismatic evidence as evidence for identity). The papers which follow are arranged loosely by geography, from Britain in the west to Egypt in the east, and include studies of specific regions and treatments of specific aspects of identity on the coinage. The final paper by Burnett looks at regional contrasts embracing the whole empire. The time is ripe to review the rich evidence of the provincial coinage, much of which is only now becoming readily available through the publication of the Roman Provincial Coinage series under the aegis of the British Museum and the Bibliothe`que vi preface nationale de France. This series represents a systematic attempt to create a full typology of the provincial coinage. Two volumes of ten have appeared, covering the period from 44 bc to ad 96, and most of the later volumes are in progress. Volume IV (Antoninus Pius to Commodus) is currently being undertaken in the Ashmolean Museum, as a seven-year project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Board and the University of Oxford. It is this project which suggested the occasion for holding a meeting in Oxford and for the publication of the book. Two of the editors are engaged on this project, and they have been joined in editing the volume by Andrew Burnett, the British architect and general editor of Roman Provincial Coinage. For help, advice, and encouragement the editors are grateful to Roz Britton-Strong, Nick Mayhew, Andy Meadows, Simon Swain, Greg Woolf, and Liv Yarrow. The book is based on papers given at the Seventeenth Oxford Symposium on Coinage and Monetary History held on 19–22 September 2002 in Worcester College, Oxford. The Symposium was attended by thirty-eight invited scholars from ten countries. All contributions were solicited with the intention of achieving a broad coverage of the subject, accessible to those without specialist numismatic know- ledge, and of making available in English the results of leading international research. The Symposium was generously funded by the Robinson Charitable Trust in memory of Fay Gordon Hill, secretary to Sir Edward (Stanley) Robinson, and also by the Barclay Head Fund (University of Oxford), and the Heberden Coin Room (Ashmolean Museum), and was underwritten by the UK Numismatic Trust. Contents The Contributors ix List of Maps xi Abbreviations xiii 1. Coinage and Identity in the Roman Provinces 1 Christopher Howgego 2. Aspects of Identity 19 George Williamson 3. The Chronological Development of Roman Provincial Coin Iconography 29 Volker Heuchert 4. The Cities and their Money 57 Peter Weiss 5. Coinage and Identity in Pre-conquest Britain: 50 bc–ad 50 69 Jonathan Williams 6. Coinage and Identity in the Roman Provinces: Spain 79 Pere P. Ripolle`s 7. ‘Belonging’ to Rome, ‘Remaining’ Greek: Coinage and Identity in Roman Macedonia 95 Sophia Kremydi-Sicilianou 8. Religious-Cultural Identity in Thrace and Moesia Inferior 107 Ulrike Peter 9. Local Mythologies in the Greek East 115 Simon Price 10. Festivals and Games in the Cities of the East during the Roman Empire 125 Dietrich O. A. Klose 11. Pergamum as Paradigm 135 Bernhard Weisser viii contents 12. Information, Legitimation, or Self-Legitimation? Popular and Elite Designs on the Coin Types of Syria 143 Kevin Butcher 13. City Eras on Palestinian Coinage 157 Alla Kushnir-Stein 14. Coinage and Identity: The Jewish Evidence 163 Martin Goodman 15. The Nome Coins of Roman Egypt 167 Angelo Geissen 16. The Roman West and the Roman East 171 Andrew Burnett References 181 Geographical Index 203 General Index 207 Key to Plates 217 Plates The Contributors Andrew Burnett is Deputy Director and Keeper of Coins and Medals, British Museum. He is the co-author of Roman Provincial Coinage, vols. i and ii (1992, 1999) and Coinage in the Roman World (1986). He has been President of the International Numismatic Commission, and Vice-president of the Royal Numismatic Society. Kevin Butcher is a professor in the Department of History and Archaeology at the American University of Beirut. He is the author of Roman Provincial Coins: An Introduction to the Greek Imperials (1988), Roman Syria and the Near East (2003), and the forthcoming Coinage in Roman Syria: Northern Syria 64 BC–AD 253. Angelo Geissen is Akademischer Direktor and Keeper of the collection of coins of Alexandria and of Asia Minor in the Institut fu¨r Altertumskunde at the University of Cologne—Arbeitsstelle fu¨r Papyrologie, Epigraphik und Numismatik der Nordrhein-Westfa¨lischen Akademie der Wissenschaften—and teacher of ancient numismatics. He is author of the Katalog Alexandrinischer Kaisermu¨nzen der Sammlung des Instituts fu¨r Altertumskunde der Universita¨tzuKo¨ln. Martin Goodman is Professor of Jewish Studies in the University of Oxford and Fellow of Wolfson College. He is the author of books on both Jewish and Roman history, and has edited Jews in a Graeco-Roman World (1998) and The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Studies (2002). Volker Heuchert is Collections Manager of the Heberden Coin Room in the Ashmolean Museum.