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The Coins of Pontius Pilate: Part of an Attempt to Provoke the People Or to Integrate Them Into the Empire?

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The Coins of Pontius Pilate: Part of an Attempt to Provoke the People Or to Integrate Them Into the Empire? THE COINS OF PONTIUS PILATE: PART OF AN ATTEMPT TO PROVOKE THE PEOPLE OR TO INTEGRATE THEM INTO THE EMPIRE? BY HELEN K. BOND AberdeenUniversity Pilate's coins have often been used to substantiate a link between the governor and Sejanus, the allegedly anti-Jewish prefect of the Praetorian Guard and a man with considerable influence over Tiberius.' E. Stauffer suggested that as part of a world-wide action against the Jews Sejanus ordered Pilate in A.D. 29 to put provocative pagan sym- bols on his coins. The intention was to rouse the Jews to open rebel- lion which was then to be brutally crushed; Sejanus's fall in A.D. 31, however, prevented the final realization of these intentions.' Smallwood, too, notes that Pilate's last issue of coinage (A.D. 31/2) corresponds to the year of Sejanus' death, suggesting that with the removal of Sejanus Pilate did not dare to issue any more offensive coins.' However, a closer examination of Pilate's coins does not support such a hypothe- sis. Pilate's coins do not appear to have been unduly offensive to the Jewish people and his intention appears to have been to use both Roman and Jewish designs in an attempt to emphasise the common 1 Only Philo, Legatio159-60 and the beginning of In Flaccum(followed by Eusebius, Ecc. Hist. ii.5.5), records Sejanus' anti-Jewish policy. Whilst Suetonius (Tiberius36.1), Tacitus (Annalsii.85.5) and Dio (Ivii.18.5a)write of an expulsion of Jews from Rome in A.D. 19, they do not link it to Sejanus. Unfortunately, Philo's account cannot be substantiated by Tacitus since his account of A.D. 30/ 1 in the Annalshas not survived. 2 Jerusalemund Rom im zeitalter JesuChristi (1957), pp. 16-18. This view was also taken up by E. Bammel, "Syrian Coinage and Pilate," JJS 2 (1950/ 1),pp. 108-10; J. Blinzler, Der ProzeßJesu (1951); P. Winter, On the Trial of Jesus (1961); P.L. Maier, "Sejanus, Pilate and the Date of the Crucifixion," ChurchHistory 37 (1968), pp. 3-13 and, most recently, by H. Hoehner in his article on Pilate in the Dictionaryof Jesusand the Gospels (1992). 3 E.M. Smallwood, TheJews underRoman Rule (1976), p. 167. 242 features of Judaism and paganism in an attempt to integrate his province further into the culture of the Roman empire. This article will first look at the years in which Pilate struck coins and the symbols used on them before going on to assess how they would have been received by people of first century Judaea. Dating the Coins Under the principate, the striking of bronze/copper coins was per- mitted throughout the provinces, leading to a rich variety of civic and regional coinage; gold and silver coinage was the sole prerogative of the emperor, though on exceptional occasions important cities were sometimes given the right to mint silver coins.' Following the Hasmo- naeans, Herod I, Archelaus and previous prefects of Judaea, Pilate's coins were struck only of bronze. All these rulers followed the Seleucid monetary system, striking coins with a value of 1 perutah (Jewish) = I dilepton (Seleucid).' Perhaps the Roman governors continued to use the established monetary system in an attempt to avoid arousing hos- tility amongst the Jews by the introduction of a new one.' It was not until the rule of Agrippa I (A.D. 41-4) that the Roman monetary sys- tem was introduced into Judaea.' 4 See F.W. Madden, Coinsof theJews, p. 107; OCD (Second Edition), "Coinage." 5 See Maltiel-GerstenfeldNew Catalogueof AncientJewish Coinspp. 31-2 and the table on p. 34. The connections between the coinage systems can be seen from a com- parison of the average weights (2-2.5 g.) and sizes of the coins; these, however, varied widely since the importance of copper/bronze coins lay in their fractional value, not in their weight as with silver and gold coinage. See B. Oestreicher "The Denominations of Ancient Jewish Coins," INJ 1 (1963) p. 10; also Y. Meshorer, AncientJewish Coins, vol. II, p. 187; T. Reinach Jewish Coins,p. 41, n. 1. J. Meyshan, however, takes the perutah to be worth only one lepton, ("What is the Lepton?," Essays in Jewish Numismatics,vol. vi, p. 52), as does B. Oestreicher, op. cit., p. 7. Similarly, the relationship between the perutah and the Roman quadransis also debatable. Meshorer, Reinach and Maltiel-Gerstenfeld (same references as above) argue that 1 perutah = 1 quadrans, i.e. 64 perutot = 1 silver denarius. This may also be supported by Mk. 12:42. However, E.W. Klimovsky,"Danka and Prutah" p. 170, Meyshan and Oestreicher (same references as above) prefer to follow a Talmudic pas- sage valuing 1 perutah at half a quadrans (Kiddushin 71.41; a passage belonging to the time of Trajan). 6 J. Maltiel-Gerstenfeld,260 Yearsof AncientJewish Coins,p. 32. 7 The location of the procuratorial mint is uncertain. Either Caesarea or Jerusalem are the likeliestpossibilities. In the absence of literary or historical proof that these coins were struck in Jerusalem, Hill (CBM (Palestine)p. ci) and Meyshan ("The Periods of Jewish Coinage" p. 46) favour Caesarea since the prefect/procurator and his entourage were stationed there. Meshorer, op. cit., p. 186, however, favoursJerusalem for two rea- sons : 1) this was the former capital and location of Archelaus' mint, and 2) an uncir- .
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