Claudius and the Senatorial Mint

C. H. V. Sutherland

The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 31. (1941), pp. 70-72.

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CLAUDIUS AND THE SENATORIAL MINT

By C. H. V. SUTHERLAND

The object of this note is to call attention to a passage in Professor A. Momigliano's Claudius : the Emperor and his Achieve- ment (Oxford, 1934), which appears to stand in need of correction. This duty is all the more necessary because the book-a model of scholarly and concise writing, not easily to be emulated-has rightly won so highly authoritative and influential a place among students. The passage in question is to be found in p. 40 f., as follows : ' In his monetary policy Claudius showed throughout a desire to recognise in full measure the rights of the Senate. Augustus, after making various experiments, ended by restricting the Senate's share of minting to the copper coinage for Italy, and kept the coinage of gold and silver and the remainder of the copper coinage in his own hands, with the principal mint at Lyons. Tiberius continued Augustus' policy in the main, though he tended to restrict provincial minting. In Gaius' reign this tendency was carried to its logical extreme ; a fundamental change was made, the Lyons mint being transferred to Rome. The pretence that it was meant only for the coinage of the provinces was finally abandoned ; and soon afterwards nearly all the other western provincial mints were closed even for the coinage of copper. Now one feature that differentiates Claudius' reign from that which preceded it is the reappearance in large quantities of a provincial copper coinage, easily recognisable by its coarse manu- facture ; and this coinage always bears the mark of the Senate (S.C.).,

There is, here, some misconception of the nature and function of aes coinage in the provinces. I t is certainly true that the Augustan monetary scheme ultimately restricted the activity of the senatorial mint to the supplying of aes to Rome and Italy. (No one, however, will suppose that senatorial aes of Augustus' reign never travelled outside Italy, for it frequently did so.) I t is, moreover, agreed that the Augustan scheme was mainly continued by Tiberius. (But it is better to add, in correction of Momigliano, that Tiberius discouraged the further striking of aes by individual communities- Momigliano's ' other western provincial mints '-in imperial provinces : such aes, struck for instance in Spain and Gaul, had been allowed or even encouraged by Augustus, and, in the absence of all contrary evidence, cannot be thought to have owed anything to senatorial initiative, for the Princeps never abrogated his unwritten right of aes coinage in imperial provinces.) Gaius, as

CLAUDIUS AND THE SENATORIAL MINT 7I

is generally recognised, moved the mint for imperial gold and silver from Lyons to Rome ; and he appears to have suppressed finally the non-senatorial aes of Spain and Gaul, etc., defined above. The following three classes of coinage may therefore be observed :-

I . Imperial gold and silver, struck at Lyons (from c. IS B.c.) under Augustus and Tiberius, and at Rome under Gaius.

11. Senatorial aes, struck at Rome under Augustus, Tiberius, and Gaius : intended primarily for circulation in Rome and Italy, this aes not infrequently travelled further.

111. Aes struck by imperial authority in imperial provinces (mainly in Spain and Gaul) by individual communities : diminished under Tiberius, it ceased with Gaius.

Momigliano, by mistakenly regarding class I11 as senatoria, in origin (a view for which there appears to be no evidence) confuses classes I1 and I11when he implies an increasing restriction under Augustus, Tiberius, and Gaius, of the senatorial powers of aes coinage. Moreover, in seeking to show a Claudian relaxation in this matter, he includes under I1 a class of coinage which, when closely studied, would seem in fact to belong rather to 111.

This class consists of the Claudian aes coins which, as Momigliano remarks, may be easily distinguished by their coarse fabric : they ' always bear the mark of the Senate (S.C.) '. The latter fact is natural enough for, as critical examination of their fabric and occurrence shows, these coins are merely copies, based on the normal senatorial coinage of the time, which was of course invariably marked S.C. I t is not here necessary to discuss in full the origin and incidence of these copies : they have long been recognised and have recently received some sort of clas~ification.~ Many have been found in the Rhineland, and in Gaul and Spain. Romano-British sites have produced great numbers of them : at the particularly significant site of Camulodunum they form a very large proportion of the Claudian ~ o i n a g e . ~ In brief, they show that the senatorial aes struck under Claudius at Rome spread over' the provinces-being diffused by the army and other means-to take the place of the defunct class I11 above,4 but that, being insufficient, it was widely imitated, with varying degrees of success governed by varying factors. This imitation can hardly

Cf. C . Roach Smi th i n Num. Chron. subject o f discussion i n the forthcoming 1841, 147 ; and H . Cohen, Description Report o f the Research Committee o f the historique des monnaies frapp6es sous l'empire Society o f Antiquaries. romain i ( I S S O ) , 257. I t is worth noting that certain , pre-

Cf . C . H. V . Sutherland, Romano- Claudian coins (such as t h e ' Agrippa and British Imitations of Bronze Coins ofClaudius I Provident(ia) ' asses) were fairly widely (American Numismatic Society's Notes and copied i n the western provinces : Gaius' Monographs, no. 65, N e w Y o r k , 1935). closing o f provincial min ts began t o cause a

T h e s e Colchester copies will b e the shortage o f aes i n Gaius' o w n t ime .

C. H. V. SUTHERLAND

have had anything to do with the Senate : it was difficult, in any case, to prevent the copies being made, and at Camulodunum- to take a pertinent example-it was for the imperial authorities, rather than for any senatorial agent, to allow or refuse their circulation. In fact, it may safely be assumed that the imperial authorities, far from conniving at them, instigated their manufacture (as at Colchester), to provide the small change which increasing business demanded : the example, once set in the towns, would spread to the lesser communities. The Senate, however, would have no hand in the business ; and the existence of these coins is no evidence for Claudius' generosity to the Senate. To the contrary : if senatorial coinage was officially copied at the bidding of military authorities, we find the Senate not courted, but technically flouted.

Finally, it is not true to say that, ' while Gaius constantly had his effigy placed upon senatorial coins, no imperial effigy appears on them in the time of Claudius ' (Momigliano, o.c., 41). Claudius' portrait appears regularly on the sestertii, dupondii, and asses of his reign, excepting the commemorative issues which he struck in honour of Nero Claudius Drusus, Antonia, Germanicus, and Agrippina. Herein there is an exact parallel with the coinage of Gaius. Very much still remains to be learned of the status of the senatorial mint, and of its relation to the imperial mint, in the Julio-Claudian period. But it can be said with certainty that Claudius' monetary policy showed no deliberate effort to conciliate the Senate, or emphasise its rights. Was it not Claudius, after all, whose imperial gold and silver coins sedulously repeated, over a number of years, those types which so harshly recalled senatorial discomfiture in A.D. 41-Imper. Recept. (soldier by the praetorian camp) and Praetor. Recept. (Claudius shaking hands with a praetorian) ?