Proceedings of the XVIIIth International Congress
of Roman Frontier Studies
held in Amman, Jordan (September 2000)
A conference held under the auspices of the
Department of Antiquities of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,
The Council for British Research in the Levant
and the
Department of Archaeology at the University of Liverpool
Volume I
Edited by
Philip Freeman, Julian Bennett,
Zbigniew T. Fiema and Birgitta Hoffmann
BAR International Series 1084 (I)
2002
Mints and the Roman army from Augustus to Diocletian
Johan van Heesch
Two-thirds of Rome's state expenditure, at least under the reign of Augustus, went to the army. It is therefore quite reasonable to
suppose that to facilitate those payments and money transports, mints were established nearer to the military regions. In this paper a
general survey will be given of the main mints of the principate and we will discuss the reasons why some were established outside
Rome.
It will be argued that the military explanation is only part of the story. After an initial phase under Augustus, where mints tend to be
situated outside Rome for political and military reasons, state coinages are concentrated in Rome from the Flavians onwards. The
creation of mints outside Rome in the C3rd is not only linked with the growth of military activities but also determined by the uncertain
political situation of the emperors and continuous reminting of old coin used as raw material for the production of debased money. It can
be presumed that the use of 4old coins' for state expenditure became gradually less important in the last century of the principate and
that freshly minted coins became increasingly preponderant.
Two-third of Rome's state expenditure, at least under the
reign of Augustus (27 BC-AD14), went to the army
(Wolters 1999a) whose legion's were predominantly
situated near the Roman frontiers on the Rhine, the Danube
and in the east. Only a minority lay elsewhere in Spain,
Dalmatia, Egypt and Africa and some garrisons where
situated near Italian ports, in Gaul etc. (Le Bohec 1989:
173-189, 218-19). To pay all these soldiers, often stationed
in the remotest corners of the empire, huge amounts of
cash were needed and costly and time-consuming coin
transports must have been a daily matter. It would then
have been important for the imperial authorities to organise
the paying of the stipendia, donativa and praemia in the
most practical way.
What I will do in this paper is examine the location of the
imperial mints from Augustus to Diocletian in order to see
if their situation can be linked with an imperial policy to
facilitate those payments. If this was not the case, we will
try to answer the question what actually determined the
choice of the place where these state factories were
located.
It should be remembered that different kinds of coinages
were used throughout the empire. Besides the official state
coinage, regional series consisting of local denominations
were minted by some provinces in the east, and more than
300 cities, situated in the Greek speaking part of the
empire, struck their own coins, mainly in bronze. These so
called "provincial" mints ceased their activities in the
second half of the C3rd, on the very moment that even
Rome stopped minting bronze coins in favour of silver
antoniniani issued at several mints in the different corners
of the empire.
The era of the denarius. From Augustus to Gordian III
(27 BC- AD238)
During the first centuries of the Republic, Rome, as all
great city-states before her, barely needed travelling mints
or decentralised minting. Coinage was usually struck in the
political centre, as in all city-states of the ancient world.
But when eg. after the murder of Julius Caesar (44BC) the
Roman imperators struggled for supreme power, the
Roman mint was not always at their disposal. They needed
money on the spot and were obliged to pay their troops
with gold and silver coins struck at various mints moving
with their masters. Well known are the legionary denarii of
Mark Antony, struck at a travelling mint in 32-31BC. It
does not need much to open a mint; all that is necessary is
an oven, some workmen, metal and a few dies to strike the
coins. If one knows that each obverse die could easily
produce say 30,000 coins, it becomes understandable that
even huge quantities could be produced by these moving
mints. That it was easy to open such a workshop in any
place of the empire is shown also by the coinage produced
by usurpers like Clodius Macer in 68 or Carausius in 286
(or 287). They were able to produce high quality coins
respectively in Africa and Britain, provinces that neither
had a Roman nor a provincial mint at these times. Both
struck gold or silver and Carausius even produced beauti-
ful medallions of some artistic quality and originality.
When Octavian at the age of 15 took the toga virilis in
48BC, minting was not only confined to Rome; in full civil
war, mints were operating at different locations. It should
not surprise us then that Octavian, after peace was
established in 31BC, did nothing to restore the Republican
tradition of a central and unique mint in Rome. In the first
part of his reign different mints were operating at several
places (Fig. 1). Their identification is all but certain, but
we might presume mints at Ephesus (29-24BC),
Pergamum (28-23 and 19BC), Samos (22BC) and probably
as many as five western mints: an unidentified Spanish
mint, Emerita, Caesaraugusta, Colonia Patricia (but this
mint might actually be situated in Nimes (Volk 1997: 77-
78) and Lyons. None of these mints lay on the military
frontiers and it is hard to explain their existence with
certainty. Sutherland explained the minting of aurei and
denarii at Pergamum c.19BC by the hypothetical passage
of Roman legions (Sutherland 1976: 55) and military pay
and bonuses could well explain the existence of the mint at
Emerita, where P. Carisius, propraetor of Lusitania, struck
aurei and denarii in 24-23BC. The latter coins, as well as
the augustan bronzes with a small shield (caetrd) on the
reverse and certainly struck somewhere in the north-west
of Spain, can be linked with the war of Augustus against
the Cantabrians and the Asturians between 27 and 19BC.
Augustus' first massive issues however were those of
Caesaraugusta and Colonia Patricia (or Nimes). Dated
35
Limes XVIII
between 19 and 16BC they were struck after these wars
and represent 25% of Augustus' gold and silver coinages
(Volk 1997: 76). By that time (c.19BC), the senatorial mint
in Rome, managed by the triumviri monetales, reopened in
19BC after decades of inactivity (on the role of the Senate,
see Wolters 1999a). It is clear however that these issues of
Rome were limited in volume and that the main minting
activity lay outside Italy. The emperor as supreme military
commander, probably tried to avoid senatorial influence in
monetary matters and was eager to retain his imperatorial
rights of coinage, just as the military leaders during the
civil war did before Actium.
The most important step towards consolidation of his
financial independence was taken in 15BC when the mint
at Lyons opened. Although official dies, used to fabricate
these coins, are found all over Gaul, and the existence of a
travelling mint can not be excluded (Amandry 1992), we
firmly believe that almost all official Roman silver and
gold coins from 15BC (Rome stopped minting gold and
silver in 12BC) till Nero in 64 were struck at the mint at
Lyons. This central role of Lyons under the Julio-Claudian
emperors is confirmed by Strabo (Geog.lV.3.2: Sutherland
1976: 46-48, Wolters 1999a) and also by inscriptions that
mention a military cohort stationed near the mint. But why
did they prefer Lyons ?
Rheinhard Wolters (Wolters 1999a; 1999b: 82-83) pointed
out two main reasons. First of all Lyons, the capital of the
three Gauls, lay not too far from the main Spanish gold and
silver mines (Domergue 1990). But that on its own could
never have been enough reason to transfer Spanish mints to
Gaul as gold and silver revenues came not exclusively
from Spain (Lehrberger 1995: 117; Edmonson 1989).
Moulds for Roman gold ingots were found in Noricum
(Piccotini 1994), gold might have come from Dalmatia and
Africa also (Giovannini 2000; Duncan-Jones 1994: 103-
105) and although taxes in gold and silver were possibly
exacted from all provinces, the contribution of the three
Gauls, the richest part of the whole empire (Velleius 11.39;
Josephus Bell. Jud. 11.371-373) must have been
considerable. This is illustrated by the story of Licinus,
procurator of Gaul, who presented to Augustus in 15BC
the "many treasures of silver and gold" exacted from this
province (Dio LIV.21). So we could say that Lyons lay
almost in the centre of all these resources of precious
metals.
Secondly, Augustus, staying in Gaul between 16 and 13
(Halfmann 1986: 159) might have judged it more
favourable to transfer his main mint from senatorial
territory (Nimes in Gallia Narbonensis became a senatorial
province in 22BC) to an imperial province which was
under his sole rule. As the main mining areas and the
revenues of these provinces were under his direct
administration, it was easier for him to use these revenues
directly for the payment of his troops. We should not
forget that just in this last decade before Christ, important
military actions were taking place in Germania. When the
sole state mint had been in Rome, it would have been
necessary to transfer the gold and silver ingots as well (as
part of) the tax income to Rome to provide the emperor
with freshly minted coins. In that case, these revenues
would have fallen under the direct authority of the
senatorial functionaries responsible for the aerarium, the
main treasury and the mint. In placing the mint for gold
and silver at Lyons, Augustus withdrew the main revenues
and the paying of his armies in Germania from the direct
control of the Senate.
So Lyons stayed the only mint for gold and silver till Nero.
Why it was transferred to Rome in 64, the year of an
important monetary reform, is not very clear, but the
expenditure linked with the reconstruction of Rome after
the great fire of 64 and the situation of Lyons that far from
the imperial residence in a period of growing resistance,
might have been in itself sufficient reasons to explain the
change of mint.
When Civil War broke out after Nero's death in 68, the
different pretenders struck coins in the several areas where
the money, to pay their troops was necessary. Once
Vespasian came to power, coinage was, after a while,
centralised in Rome. This situation with a unique mint
persisted till the reign of Gordian III in 238. Some
exceptions however do occur, but it is not our intention to
list them all. During Vespasians' reign (c.69-74) denarii
and aurei were also struck at Ephesus, at an unidentifiable
Asian mint and in Antioch. The reason for these issues is
not clear. Some series might be linked with military
expenditure, others were perhaps simply struck by the local
governors and intended to be nothing more than fractions
of the local cistophori and tetradrachms or to compensate
for the closure of the local mint at Caesarea in Cappadocia
(Burnett, Amandry & Carradice 1999: 125). An eastern
mint was also active under Hadrian (Strack 1933:192-199)
and when Septimius Severus was at war with Pescennius
Niger (193), he struck at different places, though his main
eastern mints were at Laodicea-ad-Mare or at Antioch-ad-
Orontem (Bickford-Smith 1994/1995; Mattingly 1975:
cxiv-cxxv). These Severan mints stayed active for some
years, probably till 202; and their activity can be linked
with Severus' Parthian wars (Christol 1997a: 23-24).
The most important fact however is that no permanent state
mint was established outside Rome from Nero until
Gordian III in 238. The implication of this must be clear.
Coins used for state expenditure, be it the pay of civilian
functionaries or the armies, must frequently have been
transported over long distances. Troops in Britain,
Germany and along the eastern borders must have received
regular shipments of fresh coin. That this was judged not to
be an uneconomic or impractical solution is also shown by
the fact that even some major local mints like Ephesus,
Caesarea, Antioch, Alexandria, and mints on Cyprus and in
Lycia (Burnett, Amandry & Carradice 1999: 11) had their
coins, be it exceptionally, made in Rome.
Of course, soldiers were not only paid with coins and
certainly not always with new ones. As Roman money was
36
Johan van Heesch: Mints and the Roman army from Augustus to Diocletian
very probably slightly overvalued, older and worn coins or
those with a lesser silver content could circulate freely
together and the Roman government would certainly have
put these in circulation again after they had entered the
states' treasury. Together with Roman gold, silver and
bronze coins, locally made bronze issues, as the imitative
asses of the reign of Claudius or the civic issues of the
eastern towns, could circulate freely even in Roman
camps. Other silver issues, minted by local authorities in
the East, could be used to make state payments also. The
mints of Caesarea in Cappadocia and of Antioch not
always coined in great quantities, but when they
occasionally did so, these coins were probably used to
cover state expenditure, especially as Roman gold and
silver appears to be excessively rare in the orient during
the Cist. The Syrian tetradrachms minted under Vespasian
between 69 and 73 were struck in huge numbers and it was
calculated that 6,500,000 tetradrachms were issued,
enough to pay four Roman legions during five years,
exactly the number of forces that were used by Titus when
he was at war in the east (Burnett, Amandry & Carradice
1999: 274-275). The same situation occurred under
Caracalla, whose Syrian tetradrachms are very numerous.
Egypt is another case. This province lodged two legions
during the first two centuries (Le Bohec 1989: 189) that
could never have been paid with the 'ordinary' state
coinages minted in Lyons or Rome, as these were not
allowed to circulate there. Soldiers in this province must
have been paid with the Greek inscribed Alexandrian coins
made of bad silver or bullion.
The era of the antoninianus. From Gordian III to
Diocletian (238-284)
All this changed drastically during the C3rd. All of
Caracalla's state coinage was struck at the mint of Rome
only, but under Diocletian, at the very end of the same
century, coin production was spread over 14 mints. This
change occurred gradually: in 251 three mints were active,
in 260 five, in 268 seven and in 274 Aurelian used 9 mints
situated all over the empire, except Africa, Britain and
Spain (for an overview see Christol 1977; Carson 1978).
Most of these C3rd workshops lay fairly close to the limes
or at strategic and administrative centres (Fig. 2). Linking
this phenomenon to the increased military readiness and
the threat of invasion seems in most cases the most
obvious explanation. Faced with enormous dangers at the
Danube and on the Persian frontier, Trebonianus Gallus
(251-253) opened branch-mints at Viminacium in Moesia
Superior and Antioch in Syria. The local Antiochene
tetradrachms were gradually replaced by a massive output
of Roman silver coins (antoniniani). Gallienus opened a
mint in Milan in 258, the seat of his equites, whose
commander can be considered as the most important man
after the emperor (Alfbldi 1967: 408). The closure of
Milan under Aurelian in 274 and the opening of a new
mint only 50kms south of this city was on the other hand
probably due to the distrust of this emperor towards this
same body of soldiers (Gobi 1993: 40). The mints of
Cologne in Germania Inferior (opened in 257) and of
Siscia in Pannonia Inferior (opened in 262) were on or near
the German and Danubian limes where German tribes,
Goths or even the own Roman generals formed a constant
threat. Coin legends as Gallienus cum exer(citu) suo on
antoniniani of Cologne mark clearly the military character
of these new founded establishments. The second half of
the C3rd also witnessed the emergence of the
comitatensian mint, that travelled with the emperor and his
train. All this might seem sufficient a reason to link the
appearance of decentralised minting with the instable
situation of the empire. But in my view this purely military
explanation is only part of the story. As most of these new
mints also struck coin in the absence of the emperor, this
policy cannot have offered any more guarantees for safety
than a central mint in Rome. It is true that mints nearer to
the military regions are more practical for the paying out of
the armies, but how can one explain that it almost took 250
years before this idea was being realised?
The answer must be sought in the monetary policy of the
C3rd. During the reign of Gordian III (238-244) the silver
antoninianus replaced the old denarius. After almost 50
years of continuous weight and fineness reductions of the
silver coins, Gordians' antoninianus, worth two denarii,
contained less than 2gms of pure silver, exactly the same
amount as the denarius of Septimius Severus (Harl 1996:
127, 130). The antoninianus also deteriorated continuously
and its silver content fell from about 48% under Gordian to
27% in the first part of Gallienus reign, to 3% (0.16gms of
silver) at the end of his reign in the years 267-268. The
pressure on the monetary system was enormous and
probably for the first time in Roman monetary history, it
became difficult to maintain the older and better coins for
long in circulation. Taken into account the exhaustion and
the loss of Spanish and other mines (Jones 1980;
Domergue 1990; Andreau 1990), the dramatic increase in
military expenditure (pay rises, more men under arms,
subsidies to barbarian tribes, etc.) the government had to
look for other resources. These were found in the
continuous reminting of the older and better coins. With
the continuous deterioration of the coins, old denarii and
antoniniani often contained more silver than the newly
minted ones. When in the first two centuries coins that
entered the provincial treasuries could easily be spent
again in the same region, this was disadvantageous in the
third, especially the late C3rd. It was then in provinces
where government expenditure was at its heighest, that
newly created mints operated to withdraw older and better
coins to remint these to the inflationary coinage that
became so typical for the last decades of the principate.
In a first stage the Roman state tried to withdraw the
denarii. Although they were valued at half the
antoninianus, two denarii weighed 25% more than the
actual antoninianus (under Gordian III two denarii weighed
6.03gms and an antoninianus only 4.50gms). Under Trajan
Decius (249-251) and Trebonianus Gallus (251-253) old
denarii were sometimes used as blanks and simply restruck
to fabricate antoniniani (Mattingly 1939: 42-44; Callu
37
Limes XVIII
1969: 242). Later on, mints were opened in the provinces
to remelt the old coins and mint new ones. The immediate
impact of a newly created mint on the coin circulation of a
region can be demonstrated with several examples based
on coin hoards.
When Trebonianus Gallus opened his mint of Viminacium
in Moesia Superior in 251 (Carson 1990: 90), denarii
disappeared rapidly from circulation in Illyricum and only
there (Christol 1977: 253; Callu 1969: 256; Bland 1996:
87). Old denarii were apparently recalled to fabricate
antoniniani.
When Gallienus opened a mint at Cologne in 257 (or 256 ?
Christol 1997b), some months after his victory over the
Germans, he started minting antoniniani that replaced the
existing monetary stock in northern Gaul and the
Germanies in a few years time (Christol 1977: 258; van
Heesch 1998: 129. For other hoards in Gaul see Foucray
1998: 15). At that time, old denarii still circulated in fairly
large numbers in northern Gaul. But as is shown in Fig. 3,
these high value coins disappear suddenly from the hoards
in 259-260 (van Heesch 1998: 128; Christol 1977: 260-
263). Their elimination seems to have taken place in such a
short period, that it is difficult not to imagine government
action to withdraw this denomination from circulation.
Although written evidence for a compulsory withdrawal of
old and better coins for newer but poorer ones hardly exist
for Roman times, we think that this is exactly what
happened here. Why should the Roman administration not
be able to do what was possible in medieval Europe, where
recalls of older coins were common practice in a society
where the administration was certainly not more developed
than that of the Roman empire (Spufford 1988)?
Our last example concerns the reign of Aurelian. With his
reform of the coinage in AD274, his 8 or 9 mints became
quasi-permanent institutions, preparing the way for
Diocletian's reforms at the end of the same century
(Watson 1999: 132-136). Their main task must have been
to execute the general recall of old coin mentioned by
Zosimus (Zosimus 1.61.3). Aurelian also closed the mints
of the Gallic usurpers in Trier and Cologne and a new one
was opened in Lyons once more. Internal trouble,
successive Germanic invasions and the weakened position
in the northern parts of the empire made it impossible for
the new and distant mint of Lyons to do its job in renewing
the old pre-reform coinage. In contrast with Italy and the
Balkans, where mints as Rome, Ticinum, Siscia and
Serdica replaced much of the pre-Aurelianic coins with
new antoniniani within a decade, spurious and old money
continued circulating in the Gauls and the Germanies till
the first decade of the C4th (Fig. 4; Christol 1997a: 178;
Estiot etal\99?>: 44-46; Callu 1969: 344-348).
In conclusion: after an initial phase under Augustus, where
mints tended to be situated outside Rome for political and
military reasons, state coinages were concentrated in Rome
from the Flavians onwards. The creation of mints outside
Rome in the C3rd was not only linked with the growth of
military activities or the uncertain political situation of the
emperors. The main reason for their existence was the
shortness of bullion and the continuing deterioration of the
money which necessitated the reminting of old coins used
as raw material for the production of more debased money.
It can be presumed that the use of 'old money' for state
expenditure became gradually less important in the last 50
years of the principate and that freshly minted coins
became increasingly preponderant. This situation was
maintained in the C4th, when decentralised minting
became standard practice and recalls of the bullion coinage
occurred continuously at shorter intervals than ever.
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39
Limes XVIII
Johan van Heesch: Mints and the Roman army from Augustus to Diocletian
Limes XVIII
Hoard denar anto terminu Hoard dena anton. termin
ii n. s rii % us
% % %
Bavay (F) 38 62 251 Blicquy/ V. <3 >97 260
d'And.
Bavay (F) 0 100 251-253 Pommeroeul IX <1 >99 ft
Locquignol 97 3 if Flobecq 19 81 tf
(F)
K/fnn^tipr 43 57 253 Pomrneropiil T A UlllUlVl 111 o 100 261
Steirebeek <1 >99 Leerbeek 6 94 263
Givry 1 92 8 254-256 Belsele <1 >99 263
Blicquy 8 92 255-256 Basecles <1 >99 264-
265
Pommeroeul 61 39 257-258 Howardries '53 0 100 tt
V Lahamaide 14 86 H Velzeke II 50 50 tt
Pommeroeul 47 53 H West- 0 100 265-
X Vlaanderen 266
Thulin 67 33 ft Kortriik 6 94 266
Gallaix 9 91 259 Howardries '55/6 0 100 if
Givry III 0 100 259-260 Grotenberge 0 100 268
Harchies 24 76 ft Thulin <1 >99 tt
Oombergen <1 >99 H Famars (F) <1 >99 tf
Pommeroeul I 0 100 fl Lichtervelde 18 82 tf
Velzeke IV 50 50 260 Bavay '39 (F) 0 100 tt
Montroeul/H 23 77 ff
Fig. 3: Percentage of denarii and antoniniani in coin hoards ending between 253 and 268 found in north-west Gaul {civitates
Nerviorum et Menapiorum: data: van Heesch 1998).
Region Number Coins of
of hoards aurelian %
Britain 9 <1 %
no mint
Gaul 12 2%
Lyons
North-Italy 4 43%
Ticinum
(Rome)
Balkan 7 51 %
Siscia,
Serdica,
Byzantium
Fig. 4 Aurelian's recall of old coin (AD274). Hoards ending between 279 and 285 (data: Estiot 1993).
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