grave), Roman coinage down to the late second century bcdid not differ funda-
mentally from its Greek civic counterparts with regard to form or designs, aside from
the occasional intrusion of specifically Roman figures such as Janus. The long period
of unchanging designs in the second century after the introduction of the denarius
in around 212 bcsaw a fairly fixed range of types in use for both silver and bronze
denominations, dominated again by profile busts of different gods on the obverse –
Roma, Saturn, Hercules, etc. Action scenes dominated on the reverse of the denarii,
galloping Dioscuri and a range of divine charioteers becoming standard (fig. 11.2).
In the 130s bcsomething happened in Roman coin design that would change its
character for the next four centuries or more, and make Roman coins stand apart
from all that had gone before in the Greek world. Types began to change annually
as successive monetary magistrates, the tresviri monetales(the board of three in charge
of the mint) began to exercise what can only have been personal choice over what
types were to appear on the Roman coinage, often drawing on themes from their
family’s history. This is a familiar story which has been most commonly understood
as a function of changes in Roman political life – the introduction of secret ballot-
ing at elections leading to the rise of a new form of self-promotion on the part of
rising stars among the political classes. More recently it has been reinterpreted as
an aspect of a wider trend toward the monumentalization of various aspects of
Roman public life, seen also in the late second-century bcexpansion in historical
and antiquarian writing, in reaction to a changing social and political environment
(Meadows and Williams 2001). One of the main characteristics of the new-style coin
types was the enlargement of the range of religious imagery available for use far beyond
what had previously been normal in Greek traditions. No longer restricted to por-
traits of gods in profile or full length, the coinage came to depict, often in consider-
able detail, the material culture of Roman religious practice, from sacrificial vessels
to temples and monuments. Such motifs had occurred on Greek coinages, but much
less frequently (for a useful overview, see Anson 1911–16: parts iv–v). Italic bronze
coins from Etruria dated to the third century bcshowing sacrificial implements on
one side and a male head wearing what looks like a priestly hat, or apex, on the
other perhaps betray the local antecedents of the new religious imagery (fig. 11.3).
An exceptional issue of Roman gold dated to about 220 bc, showing two figures
taking an oath by touching their swords onto a pig in the Roman fashion, points in
the same direction (fig. 11.4). There were parallel developments on some Hellenistic
city coinages around the same time. Specific cult statues begin to appear as civic types
in western Asia Minor from the 170s onward (Carradice 1995: 79). Similarly, Seleucid
144 Jonathan Williams
Figure 11.2 Roman silver denarius, c. 212 bc, with Roma and Dioscuri. 19 mm.