Philip I Silver Antoninianus, RIC IV Philip I 19: Subtype 2

Monetary and Historical Context

During the mid-third century AD, the Roman monetary system rested almost entirely on the billon radiate piece conventionally called the antoninianus. Introduced initially under Caracalla in AD 215 as a double-denarius unit and temporarily discontinued under Severus Alexander, the denomination was revived by Pupienus and Balbinus in AD 238 and quickly superseded the traditional denarius as the principal silver denomination of the empire. By the reign of Philip the Arab (AD 244 to 249), the silver alloy had declined noticeably from early third-century standards, typically hovering around forty percent silver content, with base copper constituting the remainder. This ongoing debasement reflected heightened fiscal pressure generated by large-scale military subsidies, frontier defensive actions, and extensive ceremonial distributions. In AD 248, the Roman state commemorated the arrival of its one-thousandth year since the traditional founding of the city by Romulus in 753 BC. Philip the Arab utilized this epochal anniversary to stage the Ludi Saeculares (Secular Games), combining lavish gladiatorial contests, public theatrics, religious sacrifices, and spectacles involving exotic wildlife captured across Africa, the East, and Europe. To immortalize the games and distribute cash donatives across the civilian and military populace, the imperial mint initiated the vast Saeculares coinage program. RIC IV Philip I 19: Subtype 2 forms part of this commemorative issue, using the medium of state-managed base silver to disseminate an ideological message of cosmic renewal, imperial legitimacy, and urban grandeur amid an era of geopolitical vulnerability.

Mint Production and Workshop Organization

The entire Saeculares series commemorating the millennium was centered at the primary imperial mint in Rome. Under Philip the Arab, the Rome facility operated six distinct officinae (workshops) responsible for striking silver coinage for the senior Augustus, the Augusta Otacilia Severa, and the young Caesar Philip II. Numismatists have recognized that during the AD 248 celebration, the mint organized its output systematically, assigning specific animals or symbolic reverses to designated workshops. The fifth officina, frequently represented by the numeral V or the equivalent Greek numeral Upsilon (V or U in Latin transcription), was tasked with the stag reverse type recorded under RIC IV 19. Production followed standard Roman manufacturing methods: flans were cast in open or closed molds, heated to promote ductility, and struck by hand between engraved iron or bronze dies. The target weight of antoniniani under Philip I generally clustered around 3.8 to 4.3 grams, though weight variation across single issues was substantial due to bulk flan preparation (al marco) rather than strict weighing of individual blanks. Dies were executed by experienced imperial celators in Rome, who maintained high stylistic coherence across the series despite the immense volume of flans struck in a short production window.

Obverse Iconography and Variations

The obverse of RIC IV Philip I 19: Subtype 2 displays a right-facing portrait of Philip I. He wears the radiate crown, which served as the official numismatic diagnostic mark identifying the denomination as a double unit (antoninianus) rather than a laureate denarius. The bust treatment specified for Subtype 2 is draped and cuirassed, seen from either the side or slightly from behind, with overlapping metal scales or plates visible beneath the folded fabric of the paludamentum. Stylistically, the portrait presents the emperor with short-cropped military hair, a close-trimmed beard, and a heavy, furrowed brow typical of the third-century soldier-emperor aesthetic. Engravers at the Rome mint captured Philip's mature features with strong linear definition in the jawline, nose, and ear, conveying stability and executive authority. Minor die-cutting variations exist among surviving dies of Subtype 2, visible in the precise arrangement of drapery folds over the shoulder, the curvature of the breastplate, and the angle of the crown's radiate spikes.

Reverse Iconography and Attribution

The reverse design of Subtype 2 depicts a stag advancing toward the right. The animal is modeled with four slender legs, an upright head, and branched antlers, captured in a steady walking gait. In nineteenth- and early twentieth-century numismatic scholarship, including parts of the original Roman Imperial Coinage text, this animal was occasionally queried as an elk or related cervid due to variations in antler rendering and body proportion, but standard modern corpora catalog it consistently as a stag (cervus). Within the broader context of the Millennium games, the stag represented one of the diverse wild animals exhibited and slaughtered during the venationes in the Circus Maximus and Colosseum. Philip's wild-beast series showcased creatures associated with Roman majesty, wilderness mastery, and far-flung imperial reach, including lions, hippopotamuses, gazelles, and stags. The stag was also historically sacred to Diana, goddess of the hunt, reinforcing religious themes of piety and divine patronage alongside urban entertainment. The workshop designation, typically placed in the exergual area beneath the groundline, links this reverse die directly to the fifth workshop of the Rome mint.

Epigraphy and Legends

The obverse legend reads IMP PHILIPPVS AVG, expanding to Imperator Philippus Augustus. This concise titulature, omitting prolonged enumerations of tribunician power (tribunicia potestate) or consulships, was standard for antoniniani of Philip's middle and late reign. The imperial title Imperator (IMP) opens the legend, asserting supreme military command, while Augustus (AVG) concludes the formula, affirming sovereign constitutional rank. The reverse inscription reads SAECVLARES AVGG, expanding to Saeculares Augustorum. The double 'G' in the abbreviation AVGG explicitly denotes the joint rule of the two Augusti, Philip I and his young son Philip II, who had been elevated from Caesar to co-Augustus in AD 247. The legend translates as 'The Secular [Games/Celebrations] of the Augusti', pairing the games directly with the reigning dynasty and attributing the preservation and millennial renewal of the state to their joint stewardship. Letterforms on the Rome dies are clean, upright Latin capitals, with occasional variations in spacing and terminal serifs depending on the individual engraver.

Typology and Chronological Placement

RIC IV Philip I 19 forms part of the large fifth-issue sequence struck at Rome during the consulship year of AD 248. The wider RIC 19 complex comprises antoniniani issued for Philip I featuring the walking stag reverse, subdivided principally by bust details and workshop marks. In the classification scheme reflected in Roman Imperial Coinage and digital typologies such as OCRE, Subtype 2 isolates the specific combination of the radiate, draped, and cuirassed bust facing right with the officina-marked stag reverse. This distinguishes it from Subtype 1 or variant catalog entries that may record drapery alone without cuirass or lack the clear fifth-workshop signature. The entire Saeculares series was struck within a tightly compressed chronological frame centered on the celebration of the games in April of AD 248, continuing through the remainder of that calendar year. Because Philip the Arab was killed in late summer or autumn of AD 249 at the Battle of Verona against Decius, the Saeculares coinage stands as the definitive culminating issue of his reign, preceding the rapid transition to Trajan Decius's monetary types.

Hoard Evidence and Circulation

Antoniniani of the Saeculares issue circulated extensively throughout the western and eastern provinces of the Roman Empire. Because of the vast quantities struck for the games and the subsequent pay of soldiers stationed along the Danube and Rhine frontiers, coins of RIC IV 19 are routinely recovered in mid-third-century hoards. Notable hoard assemblages containing substantial numbers of Philip I's Saeculares antoniniani include the Normanby hoard in Britain, the Dorchester hoard, and numerous continental European deposits buried during the heightened barbarian incursions and internal revolts of the AD 250s and 260s. Circulation patterns indicate that these coins did not remain confined to Italy. They rapidly moved across provincial trade networks and military supply lines, continuing to circulate alongside earlier Severan silver and the increasingly debased radiates of Valerian and Gallienus. Many specimens display signs of sustained circulation, including edge wear, flat spots on high-relief hair curls, and softened reverse detail, before they were hoarded or withdrawn during the currency reforms of Aurelian in AD 274.

References

1. Coin Hoards and Hoarding in the Roman Empire. pp. 115-142
2. The Roman 'Virtues'. Harvard Theological Review, Vol. 30, No. 2, pp. 103-117
3. Online Coins of the Roman Empire: RIC IV Philip I 19 (Subtype 2). ric.4.ph_i.19.2
4. The Roman Imperial Coinage, Vol. IV, Part III: Gordian III - Uranius Antoninus. pp. 68-72, no. 19