Ancient Coins: The Evolution of Roman Portraits

Roman coins had portraits on them for the better part of 500 years. During this time, the evolving artistic styles predominant on Roman society influenced how portraits were depicted on coins.

Today, lets explore how Portraiture evolved on Roman Coins, starting on the first century BC, all the way to the Late Roman Empire.

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[donklaser]

Fascinating to see the evolution of portraiture of the centuries. I'm currently adding to my early Byzantine collection, and it is interesting to see how each emperor chooses to present himself. Thanks for another great video!!

[pio]

I remember when I was in Rome last, I visited this one museum where they had an exhibition charting the coinage of Italy across 2, 500 odd years, all the way up to the late 20th century (may even had the Euro, I don't recall). I found it mind blowing, there was hardly a decade missed. Empire or not, the Italian spirit goes on, transcending any and all regimes.

[acertainshape]

You are good at explaining the cultural reasons the coins changed with each emperor. Fascinating.

[Sasseverk]

I absolutely love that you pick broad themes like this for your videos, it's so interesting

[oliet]

Fascinating video! It would be great to have another video continuing with Eastern Roman/Byzantine coins

[AKatz]

This is coming at a particularly fascinating time, as I'm currently reading "Twelve Caesars" by Mary Beard, pretty much talking about this very thing. Great to see another backing all this up.

[hridgreximp]

The portraits are definitely interesting. I would say that the late Julio Claudian coinage and Flavian coinage have the best portraits. Also, some provincial coins also have nice portraits. The cistophorus or tetradrachms sometimes even have better style than the imperial coinage. Another intriguing aspect of the coinage may be the fonts. In the republican era, the text on the legends were somewhat rounded and had dots on the ends of the letter, this definitely shows some influence from greek coinage. Later the font evolved to be more refined and sharp. As the second estuary passes the style of coinage during the third century now have a distinct style of font, sharp but also quite thick and bold, finally, int the fourth and fifth century, the everyday coinage starts to really degrade, by the end of that, the coin legends can even appear to be illegible.

[jedkrantz]

Very well presented and illustrated, avoiding both overgeneralization and pretensiousness. Bravo! .

[andrewpopper]

My favorite emperor and his coinage is Julian II with his stunning Pagan beard. I have a nearly uncirculated AE-1. On the reverse is a wonderful Mithraic bull. When I was in highschool I starved for 4 years saving my lunch money, going to Coin Galleries where I made the acquaintance of a real scholar, George Weher, who came from Prague. (Not long after his country was invaded and occupied by the Soviet Fascist Empire.) The Russians reminded me of evil emperors such as Caracalla. and Constantine (Who murdered his eldest son Crispus)
Ancient coins were very inexpensive in those days. George was a heavy smoker, I begged him to quit and sadly, he passed away not many years after.

[davemarks]

Video well done and very interesting. Thanks for the effort involved.

[TheJamie]

I do love the detail of the Caracalla portraits where you can see his little furrowed brow. Trajan also has some lovely portraits.

[BopWalk]

Portraits were good up until the 2nd century AD imo. I especially love the portraits in Denarius during the Five Good Emporers Era.

[SDArgo_FoC]

I’m really fond for the spear over shoulder solidii, amazing design.

[histguy]

I have a theory that Nero just couldn't see what his coins looked like(He had terrible eyesight).

[tadevustadevus]

Great channel! Very informative! Thank you for your job!

[romanancientcoins]

Love your content, keep up the good work 👍🏻

[isabelcrb]

Excellent! The julio claudian busts are unbeatable for me

[neptunesmarsh]

Nero may not have been a handsome man in person, but he made sure his portraits showed the most graceful, dignified obese man of antiquity. Imagine if Apollo was a glutton... that's Nero's portraiture.

[keithlightizer]

So happy to have found your channel. I’ve collected ancient coins for over 30 years, mostly republican denarius. Thanks
Ps... found you through the Told in Stone channel

[Jon.A.Scholt]

The forward facing portraits of Postumus are my absolute favorite. Ridiculous they were still putting out that quality in the Crisis of the 3rd Century; let alone from the "break away" Gallic Empire