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The silver coin in the Smithsonian’s National Numismatic Collection is small, about 19 millimetres across, and it carries the face of a man who had weeks to live. On one side is Julius Caesar, head turned to the right. On the other is Venus, holding a small figure of Victory in …
Every time you say “money” you’re saying the name of a Roman goddess. Juno Moneta had a temple on the Capitoline Hill, the Romans made their coins …
The coin is silver, struck at Rome, and weighs under four grams. On the front there is no emperor at all. The bust is a woman’s, draped, with the …
An Augustan denarius held about 3.8 grams of silver. An antoninianus of Claudius II, struck about 290 years later and tariffed at two denarii, held …
Rome was not the first state to use coinage, but it was the first to use it at the scale of an empire. The denarius — the standard silver coin of the …
