The Numismatic Chronicle 172 Offprint - Royal Numismatic Society

The Numismatic
Chronicle 172
Offprint
REVIEW ARTICLE
The Roman Imperial Coinage of Trajan
by
CURTIS L. CLAY
LONDON
THE ROYAL NUMISMATIC SOCIETY
2012

REVIEW ARTICLE 347
REVIEW ARTICLE
The Roman Imperial Coinage of Trajan
CURTIS L. CLAY
BERNHARD WOYTEK, Die Reichsprägung des Kaisers Traianus (98-117), MIR vol.14,
Vienna, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2010, two volumes. Pp. X +
682, plates IX + 156. ISBN 978-3-7001-6565-1; €136.
BERNHARD WOYTEK’S new book on the Roman imperial coinage of Trajan, the latest
in the series Moneta Imperii Romani (MIR) published by the Austrian Academy
of Sciences in Vienna, deserves very high praise: it makes a tremendous advance
not only in cataloguing and illustrating the types and varieties known, but also in
reconstructing the original type sequence and chronology of the coinage.
Woytek has based his catalogue on an enormous body of material: photographs
of over 23,600 specimens (p. 6), assembled from (a) public collections, a couple
of which sent photographs of their Trajanic holdings, but most of which Woytek
or colleagues and predecessors of his have visited and photographed, and (b) a full
harvest of coins illustrated in published catalogues or articles, the sales literature, and
the internet. A very important source, hitherto virtually unknown, is the collection
of approximately 2,500 Roman imperial coins of Trajan and family assembled by
Dr H. Schürmann (c.1891-1979), now on deposit at the Dutch Royal Coin Cabinet
(Geldmuseum) in Utrecht, and accessible to Woytek through photographs taken by
his colleague Franziska Schmidt-Dick.
Woytek’s classification of Trajan’s bust types on the coins is thorough and
original. He distinguishes 26 basic bust types, which he designates with the letters
a-z, not in typological order, for example by increasing complexity, but simply in the
chronological order of their first appearance on Trajan’s coins. Since Trajan’s coins
show only two types of headdress depending on their denomination, both types are
included under the same bust codes: the reader has no trouble understanding that a
dupondius with a particular code must show the radiate crown, whereas a coin of any
other denomination with the same code must show the laurel wreath. Portraits facing
left, however, get codes different from those for portraits facing right with the same
bust types. Between busts with head only except for fold of either cloak or aegis on
front shoulder, and deep frontal busts with one of the same two adornments, Woytek
distinguishes two intermediate types, i.e. busts showing a narrower section of the
emperor’s frontal chest, again with fold of either cloak or aegis on front shoulder
(types d and e). Woytek points out that the common ‘bust draped’ type of Trajan’s
late coinage, generally described as ‘seen from the back’, has the emperor’s right

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CURTIS L. CLAY
shoulder not pushed forward to under his chin, but pulled slightly back to under
his throat, revealing a sliver of his breast with a V-shaped fold of cloak covering it,
so should better be described as ‘seen from the side’ (bust type v, p. 87, also type
g, p. 79). To indicate a globe added below the emperor’s bust, Woytek doubles the
relevant bust-type letter, so aa, ff, qq, and tt; a plus sign after the bust letter, on the
other hand, indicates a bust with a belt added across the emperor’s bare or cuirassed
chest, so e+, q+, tt+, x+, and y+. Plates I-VII are devoted to illustrating this total
of 35 bust types of Trajan, showing between one and 24 obverses per type. Since
Woytek begins his discussion with an account of the development of bust types
on Roman imperial coins before Trajan, including, as everywhere in his book, a
full presentation and analysis of what earlier scholars have written about the same
subject, and since in his treatment of each type he often refers to sculptural parallels
and says which emperors before and after Trajan also used the same type and what
it might signify, his classification of Trajan’s bust types, pp. 73-90, can also serve
as an excellent introduction to the study of bust types on Roman coins throughout
the early and middle empire, and is moreover an important original contribution to
that study.
The same virtues of thoroughness, originality, and illuminating evaluation of
previous scholarship characterize Woytek’s treatment of the portrait types of Trajan
on the coins of his fifth consulship (AD 103-111), on pp. 55-73. Woytek distinguishes
four numismatic portrait types, the first of which, type A, shows Trajan with a large,
almost square, head on a broad neck, the truncation being almost straight, sometimes
with two or three slight indentations. The second, third, and fourth types, B-D, all
show Trajan with a smaller, flatter head of oval shape, but differ in the form of their
bust truncations. Types B and D both have a substantial downwards extension of
the truncation at the front, as though showing part of the emperor’s chest; in type D
as opposed to B, however, there is generally less of an indentation separating this
frontal extension from the back of the truncation, and in type D one of the emperor’s
wreath ties often turns inward and overlaps with the back of his neck, whereas in
type B both wreath ties usually curve away from the neck. Between these two types
came type C, which has a normal truncation without the frontal extension, usually
with two slight indentations, as in type A but combined with the new smaller, oval
head of the emperor. Because of the similarity of type A to type C and of type B to
type D, previous researchers have often confused them, but as Woytek demonstrates,
there can be no doubt about their definition and sequence: type A had been in use
before Trajan’s fifth consulship, from AD 99 on; shared reverse types within the COS
V issue lead from type A to type B, and other shared reverse types lead from type B
to type C and then from type C to type D; type D, finally, continued after Trajan’s
fifth consulship until the end of his reign in 117. Woytek’s grouping of the COS V
reverse types based on this sequence of portrait types seems very convincing, a result
which confirms that his portrait sequence is correct, while in addition conclusively
solving the old problem of the sequence of the two main reverse legends, SPQR
OPTIMO PRINCIPI and COS V P P SPQR OPTIMO PRINC, on the gold and silver
coins of this large issue. As an aid to the reader, Woytek illustrates the shapes of

REVIEW ARTICLE 349
the four portrait types with several black silhouettes for each type in his text, and
on Plates VIII-IX he gathers twenty coin obverses showing portrait type A, twenty
showing type B, twenty showing type C, and seventeen showing type D. On pp.
67-73, finally, Woytek discusses the relationship between the surviving sculptural
portraits of Trajan and his portraits on the coins. Woytek accepts and strengthens
Strack’s identification of Woytek’s type B with an important group of portrait busts
that include not just the emperor’s neck and shoulders, but a large section of his
bare chest, but whereas Strack dated this type to AD 108 and therefore called it
Trajan’s ‘decennalian portrait’, Woytek dates it a couple of years earlier, to c.105,
and speculates that it may have been created in connection with Trajan’s departure
to his Second Dacian War on 4 June 105. Woytek gives a detailed account of how
art historians since Gross in 1940 have classified Trajan’s sculptural portraits, and
discusses how that art-historical classification might accord with Woytek’s own new
analysis of the evolution of Trajan’s portrait on the coins.
Woytek’s system for incorporating these 35 bust types and four portrait types
into his catalogue numeration is simple and practical: each coin type as defined by
legends, reverse type, and denomination gets its own catalogue number, to which the
bust codes a-z and, if more than one portrait type can occur, also the portrait codes
A-D are appended. So for example catalogue 195cB specifies the aureus type 195
(COS V / SPQR OPTIMO PRINCIPI, Trajan in quadriga left) , combined with bust
type c and portrait type B. Under each catalogue number, in order to spare the reader
bothersome page turning, Woytek always actually describes the bust types that occur
with that reverse type in addition to naming their codes, so in this case ‘c laureate r.
with aegis on left shoulder’.
The last comprehensive catalogue of Trajan’s coinage, published by Paul Strack
in 1931, generally cited for each common variety only three museum collections
plus a published illustration if available, so documenting the type but giving no
indication of its relative commonness in collections and on the market. Woytek,
following the practice of Bastien in his Lyon catalogues, gives a specimen count,
that is the number of examples in his material, for every variety. For rarer varieties
he also cites the location, pedigree, weight, and die axis of each known specimen,
whereas for commoner varieties he gives details of only a selection of the specimens
known, starting with those in the British Museum, usually adding those in Paris and
the Schürmann Collection (it would have been good always to cite the specimens in
those two important collections, and maybe those in Vienna too), followed by some
in other museum collections or the sales literature. For the commonest variants of
common denarii, Woytek not infrequently knows over 100 specimens; the number of
individual specimens that he lists usually tops out at c.20-25.
Each of Woytek’s catalogue entries is cross referenced to the previous standard
references: Strack and RIC, plus for restored coins Mattingly’s article in NC 1926 and
Komnick’s Restitutionsmünzen (2001), for quinarii Cathy King’s recent monograph,
for the semisses and quadrantes of the mines Woytek’s own article on them in NZ
111/112 (2004), for Syrian bronzes struck in Rome McAlee’s Antioch catalogue.
Quite a few of the entries also include additional information, for example notice

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CURTIS L. CLAY
of die links observed either among the specimens cited or between those specimens
and coins with other reverse types in the catalogue, these latter links also being
illustrated on Plates 138-156, which are dedicated to showing die links between
types; dismissal of variants reported by earlier cataloguers but not verified by Woytek
in the collections named; and warnings about deceptive modern casts, which Woytek
usually also illustrates alongside the genuine specimens in his plates, signaling their
falseness by adding an F before their catalogue numbers and enclosing the whole
number in a box.
Woytek’s rule for illustrations is simple: illustrate at least one specimen, obverse
and reverse, of every attested variety. With all the bust and portrait varieties, that can
amount to up to twenty illustrations for a single coin type. The number of unillustrated
varieties, e.g. MIR 278e and 278h, is very small. It is reassuring to the reader to know
that to verify the existence of virtually any variety, he has only to consult the 134
excellent plates that Woytek has devoted to illustrating his type catalogue.
The following are some of the more noteworthy new types or new specimens, or
important reinterpretations of known types, that Woytek presents in his catalogue:
A very early sestertius with Trajan’s entire titulature exceptionally gathered into his
obverse legend instead of being divided between obverse and reverse, with reverse
type CONCORDIA AVGVST, MIR 11Aa, in Vienna ex Trau Collection.
Another very early sestertius with the astonishing reverse type CIRCENS CONST,
Sol mounting quadriga, MIR 10Aa, in Vienna, unknown to Strack because he
visited Vienna before Elmer had rescued this piece from its unwarranted relegation
to Vienna’s forgery collection, previously published by Woytek in NZ 2008, where
he interprets the figure in quadriga as Neptune.
Several new reverse types on COS IIII bronzes: Libertas standing on a sestertius,
MIR 102, Mazzini Collection (1957); Roma seated on a sestertius and several
dupondii, MIR 108 (Berk 127, 2002), MIR 109 (several provenances), and MIR
X5a (p. 546, J. Soubriez Collection; Woytek is undecided whether this coin is
official or an ancient imitation of excellent quality); finally Victory crowning
emperor on a sestertius, MIR 122a, published by F. Guido in 2000 as coming
from Sardinia, previously illustrated by both Banti (1983, ‘private collection’) and
BMC III (1936), pl. 26.9 (reverse only, description and provenance erroneously
omitted in text).
Woytek (p. 113) has observed a shared sestertius obverse die linking two Circus
Maximus reverse dies (MIR 175) with a die showing the rare type of Trajan on
a platform addressing a group of Roman citizens in the Circus (MIR 182), so
confirming the synchronicity of the two types and hence their interpretation as
both commemorating Trajan’s dedication of his addition to the Circus, which
consisted of precisely the new northeast façade that the Circus sestertii display
plus seating for 5000 additional spectators. According to an inscription from the
Circus, that dedication took place in AD 103, a date which accords with Woytek’s
assignment of the two types in question to the second half of 103 on numismatic
grounds.

REVIEW ARTICLE 351
A new variant of the sestertius type Pax standing left placing foot on head of Dacia,
showing a small trophy behind Pax, MIR 200bA-2, Schürmann Collection and
Aureo Sale, 2008.
Diana standing on a COS V aureus, MIR 226, Ben Damsky Collection, ex Gorny
115, 2002, the same specimen also in Calicó’s catalogue of Roman aurei (2003).
A new dupondius and two new asses in the small issue of bronzes dated COS V
DES VI, MIR 383 and 386-7, the first in Glasgow, published in Anne Robertson’s
catalogue (1971), the second two published by J. Gricourt in SM 21 (1971), the
third now also in Paris, published in Besombes’ recent Paris catalogue (2008).
Three legible specimens of Trajan’s COS VI / VIRTVTI ET FELICITATI sestertius,
MIR 471, in CNG 12 (1990), CNG 33 (1995), and Gorny 147 (2006), previously
known only from two illegible specimens in Vienna and Munich.
A silver medallion in sestertius size with the sestertius reverse type FORT RED
SENATVS POPVLVSQVE ROMANVS, MIR 541v, in Leu 72 (1998), acquired
by Paris and now in Besombes’ Paris catalogue.
Sestertii of the REGNA ADSIGNATA type without Parthicus in the obverse legend,
a combination previously known only on aurei: MIR 550v, one specimen in
Freiburg and four more in recent auction catalogues.
Three new denarius types, Mars advancing, bust of Sol, and Providentia standing,
with PARTHICO on reverse and TRAIANO rather than just TRAIAN in obverse
legend, MIR 566 and 568-9, a legend variation which Woytek has recognized as
forming a brief transitional issue at the time of the transfer of PARTHICO from
the obverse to the reverse legend. A FORT RED denarius with the same legend
variation, unknown to Woytek, appeared in Münzen & Medaillen Deutschland
35, 17 November 2011, lot 204, so now only the Virtus standing type needs to be
found in order to complete the issue.
The second recorded example of the famous aureus of Trajan and Hadrian as Caesar,
MIR 582f, Berk 94, 1997, now also in Calicó’s aureus catalogue and Beckmann’s
die study of Trajan’s late aurei, AJN 19, 2007. The first example of this coin, from
the same pair of dies, was lost from the Paris cabinet in the deplorable theft of 1831,
but is known from several examples of Mionnet’s sulphur cast. Woytek might have
added, since he is scrupulous about recording pedigrees, that the Paris coin was
earlier in the de Cleves Collection and was first published by Belley in ‘Dissertation
sur l’adoption d’Hadrien par l’empereur Trajan, a lecture delivered on 23 June 1750,
printed in Mémoires de litterature 39, pp. 325-350, and also, according to Eckhel, in
Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, vol. XXIV.
A gold quinarius of Matidia with reverse FORTVNA AVG, MIR 726, in Lanz 97,
2000, now also in Cathy King’s quinarius book (2007); the same specimen was
also recorded from a private collection in Bernhart’s catalogue of Roman coins
of c.1944 that was only published by Jacquier in 2003. Woytek points out that the
same reverse die was also used for a silver quinarius of Trajan datable to 112-114.

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Two new Republican denarii restored by Trajan and a bust variety of a restored
aureus of Titus: MIR 817, offered by Pete Burbules on the internet in 2004, then
also published by G. Seelentag in Klio 89, 2007; MIR 847A, in UBS 78, 2008; and
MIR 869, Gemini I, 2005.
A surprising number of sestertii of Trajan and one of Diva Marciana struck on
oversize or bimetallic flans and apparently meant to serve as medallions, which
Woytek catalogues in the same entries as the ordinary sestertii of the same types,
and all but two of which he also illustrates in his plates: MIR 5a, 41e, 175g, 203cB,
250b, 310c, 317b, 357f, 476f, 483v, 547v, 549v, 594v, 920g, 921. Many of these
coins are in museum collections and have been previously published so are not
discoveries of Woytek’s, but Mittag’s recent corpus of Roman medallions from
Caesar to Hadrian (2010) seems to record only about half of them.
Die links may be expected between gold and silver quinarii of Trajan, but his aurei
usually seem to have been struck from dies different from those of his denarii.
Woytek, nonetheless, has ferreted out no fewer than eleven die links between aurei
and denarii of Trajan’s reign: in two cases both obverse and reverse dies are the
same, in seven cases just the obverse dies, and in two cases (Plotina and Matidia)
just the reverse dies. All these links, plus some between gold and silver quinarii,
are illustrated on Woytek’s Plates 138-155 (‘Die Links’), where the interested
reader will easily be able to find them.
On a sestertius of c.AD 104 (MIR 187l), Woytek recognizes the first appearance
of a togate bust type for a Roman emperor. This obverse die had been known
before, for example from BMC 846 and Egger Sale 43, 1913, but was always
misdescribed. Also noteworty is the first appearance of the cuirassed bust type
seen from the front, which Woytek finds coupled with the same sestertius reverse
type of c.AD 104 (MIR 187k; Leu 13, 1975, plus a second specimen in Banti),
then on a sestertius of 107 (MIR 312k, BMC 770) and a denarius of 114-116 (MIR
520k, Schürmann Collection and Kunst und Münzen 20, 1979).
Woytek catalogues coins with spelling errors along with the correctly spelled coins
of the same type: so an As with TAIAN for TRAIAN, MIR 28a, and a dupondius
with ARAB DAQ for ARAB ADQ, MIR 455b. Coins with mislabeled reverse
types get their own catalogue numbers, but are also placed alongside their correctly
labeled brethren: so an aureus with the REST ITAL reverse type but labeled ALIM
ITAL (MIR 352f), a denarius with the Pax burning arms reverse type but labeled
PIET (MIR 353b), and an As with the ALIM ITAL reverse type but labeled ARAB
ADQVIS (MIR 370b). Martin Beckmann has recently observed, incidentally, that the
erroneous inscription ALIM ITAL on the aureus die in question was later corrected
in the die to REST ITAL: see AJN 23, 2011, p. 176 and Woytek’s images of the die
in both states, Plate 77, 349f² and 352f. Coins struck from mismatched official dies,
finally, similarly take their place in the correct chronological position in the body
of the catalogue, labeled ‘Hybrid’ and with an [H] also added to their catalogue
numbers: so for example MIR 92[H]f, 93[H]c, and 94[H]a, a sestertius and two asses

REVIEW ARTICLE 353
with TR P(OT) on both obverse and reverse, since the obverse dies were meant to
be coupled with reverses of the next issue labeled COS III DES IIII P P rather than
of the preceding issue labeled TR POT COS III P P. Woytek does not make Strack’s
mistake of relegating such official hybrids to an appendix, since they are, after all,
products of the official mint and may help us to reconstruct the sequence of the
issues.
Woytek gathers in an appendix to his catalogue, and illustrates on Plates 135-137,
a number of ancient counterfeits or modern forgeries that have deceived previous
cataloguers, for example a dupondius in Naples whose reverse type of Trajan riding
down an enemy has been altered into Pegasus springing right; a COS V bust-left
sestertius in Rome, probably originally of the same type, but whose reverse has been
remade into the BASILICA VLPIA type; and the sestertii showing Trajan’s column
surmounted by an owl rather than a statue of the emperor, a type which is a modern
invention and never appeared on an unaltered original coin.
Woytek’s ordering of his catalogue entries brings substantial progress in our
understanding of the original type sequence of Trajan’s coinage. In the first place,
within a particular issue, Woytek always lists first the types that were carried over
from the preceding issue, and he lists last the types that were continued in the next
issue. Second, the many die links that Woytek has observed, including those that
he knows from Allen and Beckmann’s die studies of Trajan’s COS V and COS VI
gold coinage respectively, help him to form smaller groups of contemporaneous
types from among the remaining types in each issue that were not also struck in
either the preceding or the following issue. Third, as already mentioned, Woytek’s
identification of Trajan’s four successive portrait types A-D allows him to establish
a fairly precise reverse type sequence among the large number of types in Trajan’s
great COS V issue, a type sequence which incidentally also solves the old problem of
the correct order of the two main reverse legends on the gold and silver coins of that
issue. Fourth, in Trajan’s quite large issue as COS VI but not yet Optimus (AD 112-
114), Woytek’s grouping of the denarius types is aided by his observation, following
Strack, of a change of bust type on that denomination, apparently in the course of
113, from head only, sometimes with fold of cloak or aegis on front shoulder, to
draped seen from the side. And finally, Woytek correctly rejects Beckmann’s recent
suggestion that Trajan’s COS VI coins with PARTHICO on the reverse may have
been struck concurrently, perhaps in a different officina, with his COS VI coins
that include PARTHICO in the obverse legend. The coins with PARTHICO in the
obverse legend were definitely struck before those with PARTHICO in the reverse
legend; the latter were clearly Trajan’s final issue, as shown among other proofs by
the omission of PARTHICO from the obverse legend of the aureus of Trajan and
Hadrian as Caesar.
Yet how did the mint normally proceed with its production of coins under Trajan?
Were there the same number of types in each successive issue, were those concurrent
types struck in the same or different volumes, and were they generally replaced all
at once by the new set of types forming the next issue? Woytek quite often observes
that particular groups of denarius types seem to have been struck five types at a time

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CURTIS L. CLAY
and in equal volume, but he does not attempt to extend this pattern to Trajan’s entire
denarius coinage, nor to determine whether the gold and bronze coins were being
produced in similar groups of types or on some other system. Woytek assembles, one
could say, most of the information necessary to establish the original order and the
relative volumes of production of the types of Trajan’s entire coinage, but then stops
short of carrying out that essential final reconstruction himself, leaving the task, as it
were, to the reader! This is my one major criticism of his wonderful book.
The root of the problem, in my opinion, is Woytek’s decision to list Trajan’s entire
coinage, in gold, silver, and bronze, in a single chronological sequence, rather than
treating the coins of each denomination separately. The major divisions in Woytek’s
catalogue are provided by the emperor’s titulature: COS II, COS III, COS IIII, COS
V, COS VI without Optimus, COS VI with Optimus, COS VI with Optimus and
Parthicus. Within each division, Woytek lists the coins of all metals that bear that
date, separated into groups and ‘clusters’ of types (Woytek’s term for subgroups),
which sometimes include coins of one metal only, sometimes both aurei and denarii,
and sometimes aurei, denarii, and bronze coins, depending partly on whether
reverse types were shared between the denominations. But this arrangement of the
coinage unfortunately has the effect of obscuring the sequence of the types in each
denomination, and on a practical level also makes it difficult for a user of the catalogue
to find a particular type within the large COS V and COS VI without Optimus issues,
since he may not be aware of the developments in reverse types, portrait type, and
bust type which could help him to narrow down his daunting search.
I would contend that arrangement by denomination, as practised for example by
MacDowall in his monograph on the coinage of Nero, is the correct route to the
desired goal. It is essential to group like with like. When we try to establish the
original order of types in a particular denomination, we want to examine only that
denomination, not what the mint might have been producing at the same time in other
denominations. The reverse types of the different denominations were often different,
and sometimes their bust types were different too, for example only denarii changed
from the head-only to the draped bust type in 113. So we must keep the denominations
separate, so as not to mix coins showing different type sequences on the reverse and
often on the obverse too. Die links, as a rule, will occur under Trajan only between
coins of the same denomination, and possibly also between the two middle-bronze
denominations of dupondius and As when they happen to use the same reverse
types. Therefore we want to catalogue and illustrate the denominations separately,
so we can more easily search for die links among the coins of each denomination.
Specimen counts in hoards can provide reliable indications of the relative production
volumes of different reverse types, but only within each denomination, since hoards
tend to include only coins of one metal, either gold, silver, or bronze. Therefore
we should catalogue the denominations separately, so that the relative commonness
of all the types in that section may be judged from specimen counts from one and
the same group of hoards. Individual denominations may have specific uses and
specific patterns of production, for example I have been able to show that during the
Antonine and Severan periods, and as early as under Hadrian in AD 117, the mint
was regularly producing substantial issues of bronze medallions and/or copper asses

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in November-December of each year, but with the emperor’s titles dated ahead to 1
January of the next year, obviously so that the pieces could be used as New Year’s
gifts. See my paper on medallions in the Acts of the 1973 International Numismatic
Congress in New York and Washington D.C.; I treated the New Year’s asses in a
paper presented at the 1986 Congress in London, which I have unfortunately never
published, but whose results I summarized on the internet in 2007 and will summarize
again below. Therefore we should catalogue Trajan’s few proper medallions and
his asses separately, to make it easier to investigate whether these denominations
were issued at the same time of year and with the same purpose during his reign as
well. Of course the type sequence or die links in one denomination may help with
the correct arrangement of types in another denomination, but that does not mean
that the two type sequences should be catalogued and studied together: study them
separately, merely bringing in the information supplied by the other sequence at the
appropriate points. Once the type sequences of the different denominations have
been established, then we can compare the sequences and try to figure out how the
mint’s production of coins in the different denominations and metals may have fit
together chronologically. But that discussion should take place in the commentary,
based on diagrams showing the type sequence in each denomination, and leaving the
coinage arranged by denomination in the catalogue, since those type sequences by
denomination are our solid building blocks, whereas how the different sequences may
have fit together chronologically will often be mere speculation, upon which it would
be inappropriate to base the arrangement of the coins in the catalogue, in addition to
all the other reasons favouring the arrangement by denomination. The arrangement
of the catalogue by denomination, finally, will also make it easier to locate particular
types within large issues, because a user searching for an aureus type, for example,
will of course only need to consult the aureus section of the catalogue and will not
also have to look through the lists of denarii, quinarii, and bronze coins bearing the
same date! The diagrams of the type sequence in each denomination will also serve
as very convenient indexes to the catalogue.
Woytek uses his specimen counts as indicators of relative volumes of production,
but surely, for denarii, hoard statistics will be more reliable. Specimen counts from
collections and publications are bound to be affected by the historical and artistic
interest of the reverse types, influencing how eager collectors have been to add them
to their collections and how often dealers have illustrated them in their catalogues.
The five denarius types MIR 394-396, 398, and 406, with the obverse legend variants
MIR 401 and MIR 435-437, for example, were produced in approximately equal
volumes to judge from their specimen counts in the Reka Devnia hoard (45, 61,
63, 55, 43) and in a hoard in commerce that I have inventoried (16, 15, 16, 18,
20). Woytek’s specimen counts, in contrast, have clearly been influenced by the
collectability of the reverse types: VIA TRAIANA 179, DIVVS PATER TRAIAN
168, Equus Traiani 153, ALIM ITAL 122 (substantially fewer), and ARAB ADQ
only 87. As to bronze coins, few large hoards have been published, but the Garonne
hoard, containing 997 sestertii of Trajan, should prove useful for that denomination.
For the aurei of 103-117, account should be taken of the number of reverse dies for
each type that Allen and Beckmann have found in their die studies.

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I cannot follow Woytek in his attempt to move Trajan’s issue of restored Republican
denarii and imperial aurei from its traditional date of c.107 to c.112-113 (pp. 168-9).
Woytek’s chief argument, inspired by a footnote of Strack’s, is that Divus Nerva is
unlikely to have appeared in Trajan’s restoration coinage before 112, since it was
only then that he appeared for the first time on Trajan’s ordinary coins, namely
together with Trajan’s consecrated natural father in an aureus reverse type, Trajan
having struck no coins for Divus Nerva immediately after consecrating him in 98.
Therefore in Woytek’s opinion Trajan’s restoration coinage, including his restored
aurei of both Nerva and Divus Nerva, will not have been produced before 112. But
surely Nerva’s inclusion in Trajan’s restored series had nothing to do with Divus
Nerva’s appearance or non-appearance in Trajan’s ordinary coinage. In the restored
series all other consecrated emperors, namely Julius Caesar, Augustus, Claudius,
Vespasian, and Titus, got coins both as living emperors and as Divi, so Nerva too
was bound to receive coins both as living emperor and as Divus, whenever Trajan
produced the series. It made no difference that Trajan had struck no normal coins for
Divus Nerva upon consecrating him in 98; that fact would not have prevented him
from commemorating Nerva on his restored aurei whenever they were produced.
Nor do we need to postulate that the restored aurei of Nerva must have been struck
in 112 in order to explain Divus Nerva’s appearance on Trajan’s ordinary aurei of
that year. The correct explanation of those ordinary aurei is quite different: Trajan’s
natural father was apparently consecrated in 112, and the mint therefore wanted
to show the emperor’s two deified fathers together in a reverse type labeled DIVI
NERVA ET TRAIANVS PAT. So the appearance of Divus Nerva on the regular
aurei of 112 has nothing to tell us about the date of Trajan’s restored coins. Now the
reason for the traditional dating of the restored coins to c.107 is that, according to
Cassius Dio, Trajan melted down all of the badly worn coins in circulation at around
the same time that he returned to Rome from his Second Dacian War in 107, and it
seems very probable, as Eckhel was the first to propose, that the restored series was
produced in connection with this great recoinage. An acute observation of Woytek’s
(p. 169) confirms this traditional dating of the restored series: the same unusual
detail, small piles of rocks around the bases of the standards in a three-standards
type, appears both on a reverse die used for Divus Augustus and Divus Nerva on
their restored aurei (MIR 855 and 877) and on asses of Trajan datable by their portrait
type C to c.107-8 (MIR 295). The form of the standards is also virtually the same
in both cases: wreath atop the first standard, eagle on thunderbolt facing right atop
the second, hand atop the third, curved protrusions below on the left side of each
shaft. Woytek regards these asses as merely providing a terminus post quem for the
production of the restored coins, but in my opinion the shared odd detail of rocky
ground below, added to the similarity of the standards themselves, suggests outright
synchronicity. Moreover I think we can find some confirmation of Dio’s dating of
Trajan’s recoinage to c.107 by identifying when in Trajan’s sequence of issues that
recoinage might have begun. According to hoard figures, the volume of Trajan’s
silver coinage increased substantially in an issue of denarii that Woytek dates to
107-108, and the same issue contained an Aequitas or Moneta standing type, MIR
222 followed by MIR 278, that was exceptionally struck in twice the volume of its

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companion types. The purpose of Aequitas/Moneta in double volume may have been
to stress to the Roman people that the government was putting the right amount of
silver or gold into every restruck coin! At the same time the number of concurrent
reverse types on the aurei was increased from one to five. Quite early in this issue,
possibly in connection with the reorganization and expansion of the mint required
by the recoinage, the reverse legend of Trajan’s aurei and denarii was changed from
SPQR OPTIMO PRINCIPI to COS V P P SPQR OPTIMO PRINC. So we should,
I think, refuse to accept Woytek’s new dating and instead return to the traditional
chronology and explanation of Trajan’s restored coins: they were produced c.107
in connection with the measure mentioned by Cassius Dio, Trajan’s withdrawal and
restriking of all the worn-out coins in circulation. It could even be that the recoinage
started in 106 or early 107, some months before Trajan’s return to Rome, since the
issue with Aequitas/Moneta in double volume, which in my view might mark the start
of the recoinage, began as Trajan’s portrait was transitioning from B to C (Woytek,
p. 119), whereas the Quadriga and Third Largesse types that signal the emperor’s
presence in Rome occur only with portrait C, plus two specimens with portrait D for
the Largesse type (MIR 312). So these two reverse types were apparently later that
my hypothesized beginning of the recoinage. This dating of the recoinage would
nevertheless still accord with Dio’s vague indication that the recoinage occurred ‘at
around the same time’ (κατὰ τοὺς αὐτοὺς χρόνους) as Trajan's return to Rome.
Although Woytek, as he states on p. 5, plans to present his complete historical
interpretation of Trajan's coinage in a forthcoming monograph, he does propose
interpretations of some types in the present work, or has done so in earlier articles.
In a couple of cases I have difficulty accepting his conclusions. So according
to Woytek, in NZ 2008, Trajan’s new CIRCENS CONST type on a sestertius of
early in 98 can be satisfactorily explained by reference to Nerva’s rare NEPTVNO
CIRCENS CONSTITVT As of the preceding year, AD 97. Since Nerva’s As
shows Neptune, Woytek proposes that Trajan’s sestertius does so too, though there
the figure in the quadriga does not hold a trident, the beard that Woytek sees is
not clear, and the interpretation of the small figure below the horses as a Triton,
appropriate for Neptune, also seems doubtful. As to the occasion of the two types,
Woytek suggests that Nerva’s As might commemorate that emperor’s introduction
of horse races, attested in later centuries, at the Neptunalia, which were celebrated
every year on 23 July. Trajan would obviously have had no reason to revive memory
of Nerva’s benefaction half a year later, but, Woytek hypothesizes, perhaps the mint
had prepared the CIRCENS CONST die for use by Nerva early in 98, and it was
then brought into use for Trajan after Nerva’s death. Woytek’s discussion is wellinformed,
well illustrated, and enlightening in many ways, but these arguments do
not appear to me solid enough to justify his confident conclusion that Trajan’s new
sestertius definitely shows Neptune in the quadriga and a Triton below, and refers to
Nerva’s establishment of horse races at the Neptunalia six or seven months earlier.
According to Woytek (pp. 128-130), the famous Bridge type of Trajan’s bronze
coins cannot depict Trajan’s Danube bridge, because there is ‘not the slightest
similarity’ between the coin type and the Danube bridge as depicted on Trajan’s
Column, and it is inconceivable that coin artists would have rendered the Danube

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bridge as spanning the river with only one arch, when the actual bridge consisted of
twenty-one arches supported by twenty stone piers rising from the riverbed. Woytek
suggests that the type may instead depict the Milvian Bridge across the Tiber north
of Rome, the first bridge that Trajan and his army would have crossed when setting
out from Rome in 105 for the emperor’s Second Dacian War, so a suitable symbol for
the beginning of the campaign. That interpretation would also explain the appearance
of a similar bridge on coins of Septimius Severus in 208, since in 208 Septimius too
led an expedition northwards from Rome, departing on his British campaign. But
it does not seem to me that Woytek has adequately countered Strack’s arguments
(pp. 127-9) that Trajan’s coin type must indeed show the Danube bridge. First, the
arch of the bridge on the coins is in fact very similar to the arches of the Danube
bridge as shown on Trajan’s Column, except that the arches on the column support
a level roadway above, which is omitted from the coin type. The gates at both
ends of the bridge are also similar in the coin type and on the column. Second, the
Milvian Bridge too needed piers to cross the Tiber, so one cannot argue that the coin
type would be more realistic, and less reductive, if it depicted the Milvian Bridge
rather than the Danube bridge. The piers have been omitted, whichever identity one
chooses. Third, is it likely or demonstrable that the Milvian Bridge, or any other
Tiber bridge at Rome, had stone gateways at each end? Fourth, the rocks sometimes
shown below the gateways of the bridge in the coin type seem to indicate a river with
cliff-like banks, a feature that would exclude the Tiber near Rome. Woytek does not
allude to this point in his commentary, though he mentions the rocks in his catalogue
description of MIR 314, and they can be seen in several of his illustrations, especially
Plates 63-64, 314bC², 314bC 3 , 315b 1 , and 316bC². Finally, the Danube bridge, one of
the most famous constructions of Trajan’s reign, and crucial to his conquest of Dacia,
seems much more likely to have been depicted on the coins than a Tiber bridge near
Rome, not built by Trajan, which was only peripherally connected to the emperor’s
Dacian wars. It seems to me that these arguments lead inescapably to the conclusion
that the bridge in the coin type is Trajan’s Danube bridge. The bridge on Septimius’
coins of 208 cannot be the Milvian Bridge either, though its correct identity and the
reason for its appearance on the coins in 208 remain unknown.
Martin Beckmann, in AJN 12 (2000), pointed out an interesting bust variety on
Trajan’s ‘draped and cuirassed’ aurei of 112-114: some dies show the usual draped
and cuirassed bust with a clasp fastening the emperor’s cloak above the shoulder
flaps of his cuirass (Beckmann’s type b, pl. 25, b1-b20), but on other dies the clasp is
omitted and a strip of the cloak crosses the shoulder horizontally in several parallel
folds, covering all but the lower ends of the cuirass flaps (Beckman’s type a, pl.
23-25, a1-a56). Woytek is of course aware of this variation, and often illustrates
both varieties of the bust type when they occur with the same reverse type, e.g.
MIR 290f 1-2 , 291f 1-2 , 393f 1-2 , 404f 1-2 , 405f 1-2 , 418f-3 1-2 , 420f 1-2 , 426f 1-2 , 428f-2 1-4 . But
Woytek nevertheless includes the two varieties under the same bust code f, explaining
that there is no difference in meaning between them and that they can be hard to tell
apart on worn coins (p. 79). I would have thought that the variant type deserved its
own code, and would have been grateful if Woytek had written more about when

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and on what denominations it occurred, and how it might be explained. Both the
standard and the variant ‘draped and cuirassed’ bust types seem to have been in
use simultaneously on Trajan’s aurei of 112-113, but the variant type disappeared
on his latest aurei as COS VI without Optimus (Beckmann’s Group 3), and it never
reappeared on his aurei as Optimus and then Parthicus (Beckmann, AJN 19, 2007,
pl. 23-32). On aurei the variant type certainly goes back to at least c.108-110, e.g.
Woytek Plate 58, 290f 2 , 291f 2 , 294f 1 . Maybe it arose as a simple mirror image of the
left-facing type m, where the clasp was deliberately omitted, because the emperor’s
left shoulder is shown and the cloak was normally pinned on his right shoulder:
see Woytek p. 82 and Plate 58, 290m 1-2 and 292m. Or the variant type could be an
artistic simplification of the standard right-facing type: this solution is suggested by
an aureus die showing a strip of cloak across the shoulder as in the variant type, but
with a small clasp added atop the strip (Woytek Plate 58, 294f 2 ). The variant bust
type occurs predominantly on aurei, but I note it also on both gold and silver quinarii
(Woytek Plate 88, 440f, 441f 1-2 , 442f), on two denarii (Plate 57, 287f; Plate 86, 421f),
and possibly on several sestertii (Plate 68, 326f 2 ; Plate 89, 448f; Plate 90, 451f).
On pp. 533-6, Woytek catalogues six asses of Trajan with the emperor’s portrait
and titles on both obverse and reverse, plus eight asses which in contrast show reverse
types of Trajan on both sides, sometimes the same reverse type from different dies
and sometimes two different reverse types. Woytek points out that ‘hybrid’ asses
of this kind first appeared under Nero (see his article ‘Nero and the making of the
Roman medallion’, NC 171, 2011, p. 117, pl. 13, 19-21), but that they only began to
be produced with some regularity under Trajan, and that their production continued
until the reign of Commodus. Woytek rightly rejects several earlier attempts to
explain these coins, but has no convincing explanation to propose himself. I think
such asses may have been produced for use as New Year’s gifts, the purpose of the
doubled obverse or reverse type being to surprise the recipient, and to distinguish
the gift from ordinary circulating asses; perhaps more particularly to increase the
coin’s potency as a good luck symbol, since it would allow the recipient to win every
coin flip! I mentioned above that I had discovered that during the second century
AD the mint regularly produced issues of both bronze medallions and copper asses
at the end of each year for use as New Year’s gifts on 1 January. In my unpublished
1972 Oxford B.Litt. thesis on the Severan coinage of 193-198 AD, I noticed that the
three New Year’s issues of bronze medallions for 1 January 194, 195, and 196 were
each accompanied by a substantial issue of copper asses, and that when Septimius
cancelled the issues of New Year’s medallions in the course of 196, the issues of asses
struck at the same time stopped also. Later I noted two earlier cases in which the mint
had clearly produced asses late in the year that were dated ahead to the upcoming 1
January, presumably for use as New Year’s gifts. First the asses of Hadrian in 118
with reverse PONT MAX TR POT II S C, Three standards, but old obverse legend
IMP CAES DIVI TRA PARTH F DIVI NER NEP TRAIANO HADRIANO AVG,
BMC 1117-1119. In every other denomination, when COS advanced to COS DES II
in the reverse legend late in 117, that old obverse legend was replaced by a shorter
legend in the nominative case, IMP CAESAR TRAIANVS HADRIANVS AVG,

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which was then of course the only obverse legend used on those denominations
in 118. Only the asses appear to carry the old obverse legend on into 118, clearly
because they had been struck late in 117, before the change of obverse legend, but
with their reverse legend dated ahead to 1 January 118!
Second, the HILARITAS S C, FELICITATI CAES S C Galley, and PRINCIPI
IVVENTVTIS S C asses of Commodus Caesar, the last showing clasped hands
before standard on prow, all with the enigmatic obverse legend COMMODO CAES
AVG FIL GERM SARM COS, BMC 1643-1645 and Cohen 118. COS means 177
AD, but we know that Commodus was more than merely Caesar at that date: late
in 176 he was granted the title imperator and the tribunician power so that he could
triumph together with his father on 23 December 176. All other denominations
accordingly always call Commodus IMP and TR P in 177. Again, as in the case of
Hadrian in 117, these asses were apparently produced for use as New Year’s presents
late in 176, at a time when it was known that Commodus would become consul on
1 January 177, but before it had been announced that he would also be assuming the
tribunician power and the title imperator before that date! The bronze medallions of
Commodus meant for use on that same New Year’s Day were produced later than the
asses, since they all correctly called him IMP and TR P as well as COS. Similarly,
the mint would later produce the New Year’s asses of Septimius Severus for 194
before the large medallions, since the asses, all dated ahead to 1 January 194 (TR P
II COS II), called the emperor either IMP or IMP II, while the medallions called him
IMP III. The news of Septimius’ victories over Pescennius Niger at Cyzicus (IMP II)
and Nicaea (IMP III) evidently reached Rome at the very time in c. late November-
December 193 when the mint was preparing his New Year’s asses and medallions for
1 January 194. My paper at the 1986 London International Numismatic Congress,
entitled ‘Bronze medallions, contorniates, and the circus games of Sol established
by Trajan’, in which I first presented my argument that the mint regularly produced
New Year’s asses in addition to New Year’s medallions, was unfortunately never
published, but I have written in some detail about these topics in two threads of 2007
and 2008 entitled ‘The role of medallions’ and ‘A New Year’s issue of asses and the
date of Sept. Sev.’s IMP II and III’ that may be found under Classical Numismatics
in the Forvm Ancient Coins online discussion group.
From at least AD 117 until 195, then, asses, and only asses of the normal
denominations, seem to have been regularly produced by the mint of Rome late in each
year for use as New Year’s gifts, often along with bronze medallions. This choice of
denomination is not surprising, since we know that the As was the traditional Roman
New Year’s gift. Ovid tells us that old Republican asses with the head of Janus and
a prow were customary gifts on 1 January, although ‘nowadays gold gives a better
omen’ (Fasti I, 218-230). On Roman New Year’s lamps and coin boxes, a coin with
head of Janus was usually shown along with other New Year’s gifts around a Victory
holding a shield inscribed with the Roman New Year’s wish, ANNVM NOVVM
FAVSTVM FELICEM (Walters, Greek and Roman Lamps in the BM, no. 780, pl.
25; H. Graeven, ‘Die thönerne Sparbüchse im Altertum’, Jahrb. des Deutschen Arch.
Inst. 1901, pp. 178-9, fig. 21). Martial VIII, 33, 11-12 similarly mentions the lowly

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client bringing his meagre As on New Year’s Day. Clearly by the second century AD
the As was not valuable enough to have served as the emperor’s New Year’s gift to
any of his subjects or servants, so the mint was apparently producing New Year’s
asses, and perhaps the bronze medallions too, for use as New Year’s gifts by ordinary
citizens.
Now the double-obverse or double-reverse asses, as Woytek rightly stresses, show
this same denominational exclusivity: such ‘hybrid’ type combinations occur on
asses only and no other denomination. This fact suggests that they too might have
been produced for use as New Year’s gifts, along with the ordinary New Year’s asses.
Two recently discovered types tend to confirm this hypothesis. First, an As that I
acquired from Spink NCirc, September 1994, lot 5477, shows portraits of Hadrian on
both sides, with his long early obverse legend of 117, IMP CAES DIVI TRA PARTH
F DIVI NER NEP TRAIANO HADRIANO AVG. The only normal As known to
use this obverse legend is the New Year’s issue mentioned above, that combines the
old long obverse legend with the Three standards type dated to 118 (COS II). My
double-headed specimen therefore quite probably formed part of that same New
Year’s issue. Second, a double-headed As of Trajan published by Woytek, MIR 904,
from the Ben Damsky Collection, ex CNG 67, 2004 and Kunst und Münzen 29,
1993, curiously combines a COS V legend of Trajan on one side with a COS VI
legend on the other side. This anomaly is easily explicable if the As in question was
a New Year’s issue meant for 1 January 112, whose dies should have called Trajan
COS VI, but which had of course been struck in advance late in 111, when COS V As
dies were still current, one of which might mistakenly have been used for the New
Year’s issue. It is true that Trajan’s COS V DES VI coin legend intervened between
COS V and COS VI, but there is no reason to follow Strack, hesitatingly accepted
by Woytek (pp. 12, 383), in dating Trajan’s designation to his sixth consulship, and
hence the introduction of his DES VI obverse legend on the coins, to c. October 111.
Whenever the designation itself occurred, the DES VI coins are so rare that the mint
apparently only began using the new title at a considerably later date, perhaps in
the first half of December 111. It is therefore entirely plausible that COS V obverse
dies may still have been current when the New Year’s asses for 1 January 112 were
produced in c. late November or early December 111. Hadrian’s New Year’s asses
of 118 described above, after all, were similarly produced before the emperor’s title
COS DES II, and with it the new shortened obverse legend in the nominative case,
made their appearance on the coins.
Woytek reports two middle bronzes of Trajan with overstruck reverse types:
a COS V dupondius with Salus seated struck over Octastyle temple containing
standing figure (p. 131), and a COS VI As with Column of Trajan struck over
DACIA AVGVST PROVINCIA (MIR 474v, Plate 96, with enlargement). Overstruck
reverses of this kind, always combined with obverses which themselves surprisingly
show no signs of overstriking, occur with comparative frequency on Roman sestertii
and middle bronzes, on provincial bronze coins, and (more rarely) on Roman denarii
and antoniniani, suggesting that there was a technical reason for them. What that
reason must be occurred to Colin Kraay in 1974 when he and I were discussing an

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As of Caracalla with overstruck reverse type that the Ashmolean Museum had just
acquired: it would appear that two reverse dies were being applied alternately and
at rapid speed at one and the same obverse die, and the overstrikes occurred when
a finished coin was erroneously not removed from the obverse die and replaced
by a fresh blank, so was struck with the second reverse die before the workman
responsible could notice the mistake and interrupt his routine! If this explanation
is correct, it follows that the two dies involved in the overstrike, and presumably
the two types in question too if the dies showed different types, must have been
in use simultaneously at the mint, and moreover that different reverse types were
not always produced in different workshops at the mint, as many modern scholars
have believed, since the overstrikes show that two types were often being struck
simultaneously at one and the same anvil! Possible reasons for adopting this method
of production might have been to speed up the rate of production at each obverse
die, and to prevent overheating of the reverse dies, since each of them was only
used to strike every other coin. Colin Kraay never published this idea, and Woytek,
understandably, was not aware of it. I have explained it previously in various online
numismatic discussion groups since c.2000, in several Harlan Berk sale catalogues
including Gemini IV, 8 January 2008, lot 478, and in Alfredo De La Fe’s online
Journal of Ancient Numismatics, Vol. 2, Issue 1, 2008, in a short article entitled
‘Colin Kraay’s explanation of the phenomenon of overstruck reverses on Roman
Imperial and Provincial coins’. Chris Howgego kindly informs me that the overstruck
Caracalla As which sparked Kraay’s idea was acquired by the Ashmolean Museum in
August 1974, and was published in the museum’s Report of the Visitors, 1973-1974,
p. 45, pl. IX, 8, there with the incorrect explanation that the undertype was of AD
206 (it is of 207, like the overtype), and that the coin therefore might ‘be evidence for
the re-minting of stocks of out-dated coinage at the beginning of a following year’.
MIR 464f, Plate 92, should probably be deleted from the corpus: the one specimen
known, in Paris, has had the drapery of the emperor’s bust recut, and is probably
actually from the same obverse die as the piece illustrated beside it, MIR 464v1, with
which it also shares its reverse die.
Both Woytek, pp. 200 and 228, and before him Strack, pp. 298-9, nos. +15 and
+26, were confused by Cohen’s citation of certain gold coins from ‘old catalogues’
(anciens catalogues). Cohen means the old manuscript catalogues in the Paris
cabinet describing the gold coins that were later lost in the great theft of 1831; see
his Preface, vol. 1, p. XI, note 1.
In conclusion, I congratulate Bernhard Woytek on his marvelous achievement. I
will be using his book constantly, so am grateful that it has hard covers rather than
paper covers and that its pages and plates are stitched rather than glued. I hope that
an English translation of the book may eventually be published, to facilitate its use
not only by academics and museum curators, but by coin dealers and collectors the
world over. Readers who know of new coin types or varieties for either Nerva or
Trajan are urged to contact Bernhard Woytek, since he is now working on the revised
edition of RIC for those two emperors.