Roman Coins and Roman History pg6

Nero, for reasons beyond our ken, after adhering to Augustan style in general, departed from it and introduced a harsh verisimilitude into his portraits. His fleshy chin and neck, receding mouth and rounded chin, long wavy hair, sideburns, and beard (see especially nos. 73-75) make Nero one of the most readily identifiable of all Roman emperors. (The change from idealized to realistic portraiture on Nero's coins is almost a paradigm case of Tacitean historiography, for Tacitus assumed that emperors at first dissimulated or hid their true, i.e., evil, character and then sooner or later let their real selves be seen; the parallel is striking, but we ought not think that Nero's coinage actually influenced Tacitus in this regard.) Given his generally debauched appearance, it comes as no surprise that his reign was marked by turmoil. The need for increased funds to rebuild Rome after the disastrous fire of A.D. 64 and to cover military expenses in the East, as well as a rise in the price of precious metals, led to monetary reform (see nos. 74, 79). Both the aureus and the denarius were reduced in weight, the denarius was debased (a debasement which, once begun, continued periodically), and the bronze sestertius was reintroduced (nos. 75-79). These larger-sized sestertii allowed Nero's die-engravers to indulge themselves artistically in carefully developed portraits and, much to historians' delight, in a wealth of realistic detail, neither of which, however, could disguise the fact that the emperor at least, and perhaps even the empire, was in trouble. Nero was assassinated in A.D. 68, and the next year witnessed four emperors in succession, each of whom adopted an uncompromising realism as his portraiture style (cf. nos. 80, 81), as would logically befit military men.

The "Year of the Four Emperors," as A.D. 69 is often termed, was critical for the future of the empire. Galba, Otho, Vitellius, and Vespasian had each been proclaimed emperor by their respective legions, and a military dictatorship could easily have resulted. That it did not ranks as Vespasian's signal achievement: he restored peace, reaffirmed the civilian character of the governmental apparatus, guaranteed the succession of his sons Titus and Domitian (thereby founding a new dynasty), and resumed the task of governing the empire. He was a no-nonsense emperor, and the portraits on his coins depict him in precisely that fashion (see nos. 82, 83). His realistic features stamp him as a man of the people and as the restitutor orbis, "restorer of the world." During his reign two events stand out, at least in retrospect, namely, the capture of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 by his elder son Titus and the construction, begun the next year, of the Flavian Ampitheater, later dubbed the Colosseum, and both events are featured on coins of the era (nos. 83, 84). All three Flavian emperors were military men, and their efforts at strengthening and consolidating the empire's frontiers brought considerable prosperity to the provinces as well as new subjects for their coins (nos. 82-88). Domitian's early coins (see nos. 85, 86) honor Minerva, the warrior goddess and his patron deity, but later coins (see no. 88) honor Jupiter, the supreme god of all; it may not be coincidental that Domitian became increasingly autocratic during his tenure as emperor, which ended in a reign of terror and his own murder in September of A.D. 96.

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