Augustus Bronze As, RIC I (second edition) Augustus 157

Monetary Context and Western Currency Needs

The monetary reorganization under Augustus confronted a severe structural shortage of low-value bronze coinage in the western provinces during the initial decades of the Principate. Following the civil wars that dismantled the Roman Republic, the central mint at Rome had ceased large-scale production of base-metal fractions for decades. Although the moneyers at Rome resumed bronze striking around 23 BC or shortly thereafter, their output was largely retained within Italy or distributed irregularly. The provinces of Gallia Narbonensis, Gallia Comata, and the Rhine military commands required a high-volume everyday medium of exchange to support Romanized market transactions and soldier payroll dispersals. To bridge this monetary deficit, the colonial mint at Nemausus received authorization to issue an extensive series of bronze denominations. Catalogued as an as in the second edition of Roman Imperial Coinage, the denomination has sparked debate among numismatists regarding its precise legal tariffing. The weight standard of the series typically ranges between 10 and 14 grams, an interval that overlaps both heavy colonial asses and light dupondii. Scholars such as C. H. V. Sutherland and J.-B. Giard have noted that regardless of whether the coin was initially struck as an as or as a colonial dupondius tariffed at two asses, it fulfilled the role of official imperial bronze across the western provinces, trading freely alongside imperial copper asses struck at Rome and later at Lugdunum.

Production and Minting at Nemausus

The issue RIC 157 was produced exclusively at Nemausus, modern Nîmes, situated in Gallia Narbonensis. The colony, established as Colonia Augusta Nemausus, possessed extensive civic prerogatives and seems to have housed an expansive mint infrastructure staffed by highly capable engravers. Die studies and hoard analyses indicate that the production volume of Series I, to which RIC 157 belongs, was enormous, requiring hundreds of obverse and reverse die combinations operating over several years. The metallurgical composition of the Nemausus issues differs distinctly from the contemporary copper asses produced at Rome. While the imperial capital used nearly pure copper for asses and brass (orichalcum) for sestertii and dupondii, the mint at Nemausus employed a mixed leaded bronze alloy containing copper, tin, and modest amounts of lead. The flans were cast in open or tiered moulds, often leaving visible beveling along the edge and small casting sprues. Striking was performed with heavy hammer blows, resulting in coins that display wide diameter variations and robust relief capable of enduring prolonged commercial wear.

Obverse Iconography: The Dual Portraits

The obverse of RIC 157 features an arresting dual-portrait composition: the heads of Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa and Augustus facing back to back (often termed 'adossés'). Agrippa is placed on the left facing left, while Augustus appears on the right facing right. This joint portraiture represents one of the most explicit visual expressions of Augustan dynastic and military partnership anywhere in Roman coinage. Agrippa is rendered with realistic, severe facial features and wears a distinctive composite crown consisting of a laurel wreath interlaced with naval rostra (ships' beaks). This combined rostral and naval crown (corona rostrata et navalis) celebrates his decisive maritime victories at Naulochus against Sextus Pompey in 36 BC and at Actium against Mark Antony and Cleopatra in 31 BC. Augustus, depicted as the youthful princeps, is shown bare-headed on this issue, devoid of any diadem, wreath, or veil. This absence of headgear securely separates RIC 157 from later series produced at Nemausus, where Augustus wears an oak civic crown (corona civica) or a laurel wreath.

Reverse Iconography: The Chained Crocodile

The reverse of RIC 157 portrays an Egyptian crocodile chained to an upright palm shoot, with the branch tip curved gently to the right. Above the back of the crocodile, positioned in the upper left field, hovers a laurel wreath adorned with long, fluttering ribbons (lemnisci). Beneath the crocodile, two small palm branches or shoots extend into the lower exergual area. This imagery directly references the subjugation and annexation of Egypt following the Battle of Actium and the fall of Alexandria in 30 BC. The crocodile served as the traditional geographic personification of the Nile and the Ptolemaic realm. Its tethering to a palm tree, a long-standing Mediterranean emblem of victory, symbolically declares the pacification and enslavement of the kingdom (Aegypto Capta). The presence of this explicitly Egyptian triumph on the civic coinage of a Gallic colony has been explained by scholars as reflecting the settlement of veteran soldiers at Nemausus who had served under Octavian and Agrippa during the eastern campaigns, providing the veterans with a permanent civic badge recalling their primary victory.

Epigraphy and Legends

The inscriptions on RIC 157 are economical, conveying essential imperial and civic identities with minimal abbreviation. The obverse carries the legend IMP DIVI F, conventionally arranged across the field with IMP positioned above or between the heads and DIVI F located below. The letters stand for Imperator Divi Filius ('Emperor, Son of the Deified [Julius Caesar]'). Notably, neither Augustus nor Agrippa is named directly; the title Imperator and the divine filiation serve as complete and sufficient legal authority for the princeps, while Agrippa is identified purely by his rostral attributes. The reverse inscription reads COL NEM, flanking the lower portion of the palm shoot and crocodile. This legend abbreviates Colonia Nemausensis (or Colonia Augusta Nemausus), naming the minting community. The epigraphy is characterized by well-formed, classical Roman capitals without punctuation stops, though minor variations in letter spacing and palm-frond alignment occur across the vast corpus of surviving dies.

Typological Classification and Chronological Placement

In the modern classification system of Roman Imperial Coinage, volume I, Sutherland placed the Nemausus bronze series under numbers 154 through 161. Within this framework, RIC 157 represents the fundamental baseline variety of Series I: bare head of Augustus, rostral-crowned head of Agrippa, without additional control marks, letters, or symbols in the field. Sutherland established an approximate issue bracket of 20 BC to 10 BC for this type, aligning it with the period prior to the inauguration of the imperial altar coinage at Lugdunum. In Roman Provincial Coinage (RPC I), the series is designated under entry 522 as Group I, where the authors suggest production may have commenced slightly earlier, around 28 to 27 BC, shortly after the formal founding of the colony. The sequence of the Nemausus coinage is clearly delineated across three successive series: Series I (RIC 154-157), featuring the bare head of Augustus and the legend IMP DIVI F; Series II (RIC 158-160), where Augustus receives the corona civica; and Series III (RIC 161), which incorporates the titular honorific P P (Pater Patriae), proving that Series III was struck after 2 BC and into the first decade AD. RIC 157 remains firmly anchored as the definitive late-first-century BC phase of the emission.

Circulation, Hoards, and the Phenomenon of Halving

The circulation footprint of RIC 157 was immense, extending far beyond the borders of Gallia Narbonensis. Archaeological excavations have recovered specimens in substantial numbers throughout central and northern Gaul, across the Iberian peninsula, in northern Italy, and heavily concentrated along the military installations of the Rhine and Danube frontiers. In early Augustan military camps such as Dangstetten, Haltern, Oberaden, and Kalkriese, coins of this type constitute a significant percentage of all recovered base-metal currency. Because the Western provinces suffered from a severe deficit of smaller fractional coins such as semisses and quadrantes, specimens of RIC 157 were routinely cut in half or quarters by merchants and military paymasters. These cut fractions, frequently found in excavation layers, circulated legally at half or quarter the value of an intact piece. The robust weight standard and reliable alloy of the Nemausus issues enabled them to remain in active circulation for generations, with heavily worn and countermarked examples persisting well into the reigns of Claudius and Nero.

References

1. Catalogue des monnaies de l'Empire romain, I: Auguste. pp. 93-98, nos. 401-440
2. Online Coins of the Roman Empire: RIC I (second edition) Augustus 157. Type record ric.1(2).aug.157
3. The Roman Imperial Coinage, Volume I: From 31 BC to AD 69. pp. 51-52, no. 157
4. Roman Provincial Coinage, Volume I: From the Death of Caesar to the Death of Vitellius (44 BC - AD 69). pp. 152-154, no. 522