NEW BOOK: HADRIAN - COINAGE AND IMPERIAL POLICY

Hadrian
Coinage and Imperial Policy

By Martin Beckmann

Historians have long sought to understand Hadrian's policies, his priorities, and his approach to his imperial role, but the evidence is elusive. The sparse literary sources, written well after his time, are often unreliable, and epigraphy and archaeology, which are based on fragmentary objects, tend to focus on local audiences. Hadrian's coinage, on the other hand, is of the highest authority: it is available in great bulk, it offers both written and visual evidence, and it was directed at an empire-wide audience. Unfortunately, it also tends to lack the imperial titles that often make imperial coinage easy to date.

Hadrian: Coinage and Imperial Policy addresses the difficulty from a new direction by systematically applying the methodology of die analysis, which previously had been used only in isolated cases. Focusing on coins produced in the name of Hadrian and his relatives at the central mint in Rome, the author uses die analysis to help recreate the sequence of the mint's coin production, which clarifies the interrelationship of the different coin types and allows us to clearly identify the complete iconographic repertoire of the coinage at specific points in time.

The main text details the implications of this analysis for the chronology of Hadrian's coinage, using charts to illustrate the dies and their links. It then traces the development of Hadrian's coinage in detail and across all metals, and summarizes the study's results in a catalogue of reverse types. References to the works of Strack and Abdy (RIC2 II.3) allow readers to look up the relevant coins in the Online Coins of the Roman Empire (OCRE) database hosted by the American Numismatic Society, which provides many more examples of each described and illustrated type. This book is a companion to the recent RIC2 II.3 on the coinage of Hadrian, as some chronological arrangements differ from Abdy.

For more information, or to order, see:
Hadrian: Coinage and Imperial Policy (U.S. orders) (https://isdistribution.com/work/hadrian/)
Hadrian: Coinage and Imperial Policy (International orders) (https://www.brepols.net/products/IS-9780897227575-1)

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