Roman Coins and Roman History pg5

Augustus re-emphasized those traditional Roman virtues of family and religion, which had been cast aside during the age of revolution, and gave them a renewed vigor in Roman life, law, and literature, as various iconographical details on even his gold and silver coins attest. The metaphor of the family, divine or human, served him particularly well. On coins nos. 61 and 62 Octavian is identified as imperator and as consul respectively, but early in 27 B.C. he received from the Senate the honorary title Augustus, which was henceforth used by him and succeeding emperors and which therefore appears on his and their coins (nos. 63 and following). He himself chose Princeps, an unofficial title, to designate his own constitutional position; it was a particularly felicitous expression, at one and the same time linking himself with all citizens but unambiguously according him primacy of place as the "first citizen." From there it was but a small onomastic step to being proclaimed Pater Patriae, "Father of the Fatherland" (no. 69), and provincial altars to Roma and Augustus soon proclaimed the cult of the emperor. The symbolic accouterments of such titles were guaranteed to remain the exclusive property of the emperor, for Augustus had seen to it that Roman coinage, whatever its provenance, displayed the emperor's portrait on obverse. Moreover, he reopened the mint at Rome and opened another imperial mint at Lugdunum, modern Lyons, in Gaul (see no. 68); soon the names of the tresviri monetales disappeared entirely from coins (see no. 63), for the mints were now under the control of the emperor's slaves and freedmen. Augustus therefore stabilized not only the empire but also its coinage, and since the pattern--an imperial portrait on obverse and propagandistic, but historically significant, symbols on reverse--was set for centuries to come, the matter of style becomes much more of an issue. Romans knew what to expect to see on their coins, but the manner of presentation was another matter entirely.

The veristic style of Caesar was not for Augustus. Instead he opted for a youthful, idealistic visage (nos. 62-68), which he continued imprinting even as he aged (no. 69). The youth, the eternal youth, of the emperor matched the youth of the empire, which was encapsulated in the figure of the emperor. Augustus' hairstyle is distinctive (the locks are combed down over the forehead), and his features are idealized; the empire is well administered, and there is something more to its emperor than meets the eye. The symbols on the reverse were unambiguously Augustan as well. These defining characteristics continued to play a stylistic role in Roman coinage until the very end of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, for so great was Augustus' popularity that his successors wished to capitalize on whatever symbolic associations with him they could adduce. After all, in an empire succession is not just the name of the game, it is the game. Thus when Tiberius succeeded Augustus, his aurei and denarii emphasized the close relationship between stepson and stepfather, especially since the latter had intended his adopted grandsons Gaius and Lucius Caesar to succeed (see no. 69). Due to the boys' untimely deaths, Tiberius was adopted and so inherited the throne; legitimizing that succession was a task reserved in part for his coinage, and so in both hairstyle and idealized features Tiberius adopted an Augustan style on his coin portraits. Caligula (nos. 71, 72) and Claudius followed Tiberius' lead in emphasizing their putative Augustan virtues and characteristics, as did Nero at first.

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