Coinage and Identity in Roman Asia Minor

Marsha B. McCoy (Austin College)

S. Scott and J. Webster (2003) situate the role of provincial art and architecture in the cultural change brought about by Roman imperialism.  This paper examines the images and language on cistophori, the standard silver currency used in Asia Minor during the Roman period, to reveal a little noted but striking development from the late Republic to the early Empire, through which the integration of this area into Roman political and social life can be documented.  So called because they usually had a representation of the sacred cista mystica or woven basket of Dionysus between guardian snakes, also attributes of Dionysus, who was traditionally from Phrygia, these “cistophoric” tetradrachms first began using the Latin language in an issue commemorating Cicero’s governorship of Cilicia in 51-50 B.C.E. (T.E.J. Wiedemann. 1994, 61).  This issue, struck at Apamea in Phrygia (part of the province of Cilicia from 56 to 50), carries the legend on the top of the coin in Latin, CICERO M. F. PROCOS (Cicero, son of Marcus, proconsul), while the legend on the bottom of the coin is in Greek.  This dual combination of Latin and Greek legends both made it readable to local Greek speakers as well as Roman officials and businessmen, and also acknowledged the ongoing presence of the latter groups, while it kept the traditional visual images of cista and guardian snakes intact.  A decade later, however, with the uneasy alliance among Octavian, Antony, and Lepidus drawing the East into closer involvement with events in Rome, cistophori minted in Ephesus in 39 B.C.E. commemorate the marriage of Antony and Octavia in 40 B.C.E. by showing the bust of Octavia on top of the cista mystica flanked by the snakes, while on either side of the snakes the legend reads, in Latin alone, IIIVIR R(ei) P(ublicae) C(onstituendae), indicating that Antony was a member of the Second Triumvirate.  This trend continues as Greek completely disappears and the traditional cista and snakes are displaced or entirely replaced by images reflecting political and social policies emanating from Rome.  By the time of Hadrian, cistophori have been completely integrated into the propaganda apparatus of the Roman emperor, as Asia Minor itself has become a thoroughly Romanized territory.

Brief Bibliography:

Kleiner, F.S. and S.P. Noe. 1977. The Early Cistophoric Coinage. New York.

Metcalf, W.E. 1980. The Cistophori of Hadrian. New York.

Scott, S. and J. Webster. 2003. Roman Imperialism and Provincial Art. Cambridge.

Sutherland, C. H. V., N. Olcay and K.E. Merrington. 1971. The Cistophori of Augustus. London.

Wiedemann, T.E.J. 1994. Cicero and the End of the Roman Republic. London.