Lucilla Silver Denarius, RIC III Marcus Aurelius 784

Monetary Context

The silver denarius remained the primary silver denomination of the High Roman Empire during the joint reign of Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus (AD 161-169). While the monetary framework established by Augustus and reformed by Nero retained its core structure of gold aurei, silver denarii, and orichalcum or copper aes denominations, the mid-160s AD marked a period of subtle economic transition. In AD 166, Marcus Aurelius reduced the intrinsic fineness of the denarius from approximately 79 percent fine silver to around 75 to 76 percent, lowering the mean silver content slightly below 2.6 grams while maintaining a nominal weight standard near 3.2 to 3.4 grams. This fiscal adjustment coincided with substantial imperial expenditures incurred during the Parthian War (AD 161-166), the initial outbreaks of the Antonine Plague, and escalating conflict along the Danubian limes. Within this imperial financial system, coin issues honoring royal women served an indispensable ideological purpose alongside general state finance. Coinage struck for imperial Augusta figures was integrated directly into mass army distributions, administrative disbursements, and regional commerce. By issuing denarii such as RIC III 784, the imperial administration balanced urgent state payments with visual promotions of dynastic legitimacy, fertility, and divine blessing.

Production and Mints

All standard silver denarii of this type were produced at the imperial mint of Rome, the sole facility authorized to strike precious-metal currency for the central administration during this period. The mint at Rome operated with organized workshops, known as officinae, which managed the casting of flans, the cutting of dies, and the striking process. Blanks were cast in moulds or prepared from flattened silver bars cut and trimmed to weight, yielding planchets with an average diameter ranging from 17 to 19 millimeters. Dies were hand-carved in intaglio by skilled engravers who maintained standardized imperial portrait models distributed by the palace. Because dies were aligned manually by mint workers using handheld tongs, strike alignments cluster around a regular median, frequently approaching twelve o'clock or six o'clock die axes. Surviving specimens exhibit varying degrees of die wear, flan cracking, and minor striking off-centering typical of rapid, high-volume production during the mid-to-late 160s AD. Die studies of contemporary Antonine denarii suggest that individual obverse dies were paired with multiple reverse dies as reverse dies wore out faster under the direct blows of the minting hammer.

Obverse Portraiture and Style

The obverse of RIC III 784 presents a refined, right-facing bust of Lucilla, depicted bare-headed and draped. The portrait exhibits the distinctive coiffure popularized by her mother, Faustina the Younger, but adapted to Lucilla's youthful physiognomy. Her hair is rendered in delicate, undulating horizontal waves that sweep back from the forehead and temples, gather neatly over the ears, and terminate in a tightly braided, spherical chignon pinned securely at the nape of the neck. The draping is meticulously detailed, with folds of fabric gathered over the shoulders and chest, conveying classical restraint and imperial modesty. Engraving variations across individual dies display subtle differences in the roundness of the cheek, the prominence of the nose, and the vertical placement of the chignon relative to the truncation of the bust. Unlike the portraits of her mother, which progressed through numerous distinct hairstyles over decades of issues, Lucilla's primary imperial portraits maintain an exceptional iconographic consistency, emphasizing her aristocratic elegance, dynastic descent, and elevated role as consort to Lucius Verus.

Reverse Iconography and Symbolism

The reverse of this issue depicts the Roman goddess Venus standing draped, facing left. In her outstretched right hand, Venus holds an apple, while her raised left hand rests upon a tall, vertical sceptre. The imagery reflects the divine patronage of Venus in her dual aspects as Venus Genetrix, the mythological ancestral mother of the Roman people and the Julian-Claudian lineage, and Venus Felix, the dispenser of marital happiness and legitimate succession. The apple held by the goddess directly recalls the Golden Apple of Discord awarded to Venus by Paris in classical mythology, denoting supreme feminine beauty, grace, and divine favor. The long sceptre held in her left hand elevates the goddess beyond private charm, serving as an ancient emblem of divine authority, majesty, and celestial sovereignty. Within the context of the Antonine court, the combination of Venus with marital and filial themes symbolized the divine guarantor of Lucilla's marriage to Lucius Verus, projecting the hope of future dynastic heirs who would secure peace and administrative continuity for the Roman state.

Inscriptions and Epigraphy

The legends on RIC III 784 are clear, grammatically precise, and deliberately structured to emphasize royal lineage and divine patronship. The obverse legend reads LVCILLAE AVG ANTONINI AVG F, an abbreviation of the Latin formula Lucillae Augustae Antonini Augusti Filiae. Set in the dative case, this inscription acts as a formal public dedication to Lucilla Augusta, Daughter of Antoninus Augustus (Marcus Aurelius). The explicit identification of Lucilla as the daughter of Marcus Aurelius reinforced her primary claim to imperial dignity, uniting her husband Lucius Verus and her father in a cohesive dynastic message. The lettering is executed in classic Roman imperial capitals, characterized by neat serifs and balanced spacing along the beaded border. The reverse legend consists solely of the word VENVS in the nominative case. Positioned unadorned alongside the figure of the goddess, this brief label unambiguously identifies the deity, allowing the visual attributes of the apple and sceptre to convey the theological and dynastic layers of the design without competing epigraphic clutter.

Types and Chronology

The chronology of Lucilla's coinage presents complex classification questions in Roman numismatics. In the traditional framework of Roman Imperial Coinage Volume III, Mattingly and Sydenham grouped Lucilla's entire body of coinage under Marcus Aurelius, assigning it a broad date range from AD 164, the year of her wedding to Lucius Verus at Ephesus, through AD 180, the year of Marcus Aurelius's death. However, modern chronological studies, such as the typological corpus compiled by Wolfgang Szaivert in MIR 18, have refined this timeline substantially. Szaivert demonstrated that the issues bearing the filial legend LVCILLAE AVG ANTONINI AVG F belong almost exclusively to the period of her first marriage, between AD 164 and the sudden death of Lucius Verus in early AD 169. Following Verus's death, Lucilla was remarried to the senior senator Tiberius Claudius Pompeianus, during which period her official standing within court hierarchy changed, and the production of denarii naming her as the active Augusta diminished sharply. RIC III 784 is distinguished from similar contemporary issues by its specific reverse stance and attributes, separating it from related reverse types where Venus sits holding a Victory, stands holding a dove, or leans upon a column.

Circulation and Archaeological Evidence

Denarii of Lucilla bearing the Venus standing type circulated widely across the Roman world alongside the extensive issues of Marcus Aurelius, Lucius Verus, and Faustina the Younger. Archaeological hoard data from Britain, Gaul, the Rhineland, the Danube basin, and the Levant consistently show that Antonine denarii remained in active circulation for several decades after their initial minting. Because the silver denarius was accepted at official face value across all provinces, RIC III 784 traveled through administrative payments to imperial legions stationed on the northern frontiers as well as through private commercial transactions in Mediterranean port cities. In major hoard deposits, such as the Shapwick and Falkirk hoards, specimens of Lucilla frequently show light to moderate wear alongside older coins of Trajan, Hadrian, and Antoninus Pius. These pieces continued to circulate through the Severan period until the dramatic debasements under Caracalla and subsequent third-century emperors caused pre-Severan silver coins of higher fineness to be systematically hoarded, melted down, or replaced by the radiate antoninianus.

References

1. Coins of the Roman Empire in the British Museum, Vol. IV: Antoninus Pius to Commodus. pp. 570-571, nos. 322-325
2. Online Coins of the Roman Empire: RIC III Marcus Aurelius 784. ric.3.m_aur.784
3. The Roman Imperial Coinage, Vol. III: Antoninus Pius to Commodus. p. 276, no. 784
4. Die Münzprägung der Kaiser Marcus Aurelius, Lucius Verus und Commodus (161-192), MIR 18. Series 27 (Lucilla, AD 164-169)