Imprints of Roman Imperium : Bronze Coinages in the Republican Eastern Provinces

Sammanfattning: This study concerns bronze coinages of the Roman Republican provinces in the eastern Mediterranean during the 1st century BC. The Eastern Mediterranean is conventionally thought to include the areas east of the Adriatic Sea, which during the Hellenistic period included various kingdoms that had emerged from the fragmented empire of Alexander the Great. The basic criterion for the geographical boundaries used in this research is the formal transfer of those eastern regions into the Roman domain in the pre-Imperial period. Accordingly, the areas that are being studied are those that were converted into administrative provinces by the Romans before the battle of Actium and the beginning of the reign of Octavian in 27 BC; namely, the provinces of Macedonia, Asia, Cyrenaica-Crete, Bithynia-Pontus, Syria and Cilicia-Cyprus.The main aims are to consider all the currently known bronze coin issues from the eastern provinces, and to offer a comparative overview of them. This overview is framed both by the newly established Roman provincial administration and also the evolving idea of Roman hegemony arising from Rome’s crucial intervention in the eastern Mediterranean during the war against Mithridates VI of Pontus. More specifically, the study identifies continuity and change in bronze coin production from the Greek East under early Roman rule in order to situate these coinages in the broader historical and numismatic context of the period. This is achieved through consideration of the symbolic language (iconography and legends), the economic value (metrology) and the production patterns of coins.The last century of the Republic bears the signs of a rapidly transforming reality, and acts as a prelude to the Imperial era. There might not yet be an emperor appearing as a dominant individual, but the supreme authority of Rome as imperium populi Romani is present in the provinces, via her agents, and is reflected in provincial coinages. In this respect, provincial coinages are viewed as an integral part of the currency that was in use in the Roman eastern Mediterranean, which emerges as a ‘common pool’ in base metal coinage, as a common canvas for inspiration and interactions in coin iconography and metrology. Finally, provincial minting is considered as a potential mirror for the various administrative attitudes and needs of the Romans across the different provinces in the East.