RIC II, Part 1 (second edition) Titus 122 Silver Denarius

Monetary Context and Imperial Policy

The silver denarius was the foundational silver coin of the Roman Empire, mediating major fiscal outlays including military pay, administrative expenses, and substantial imperial building programs. When Titus became sole emperor in June of AD 79, following the death of his father Vespasian, the Flavian regime had already stabilized imperial finances after the civil wars of AD 68 to 69. Titus largely adhered to the monetary baseline established by Vespasian, who had continued Nero's post-reform standard of approximately 96 denarii struck to the Roman pound. Although silver fineness fluctuated slightly during the Flavian era, denarii minted under Titus in AD 80 generally hovered around an intrinsic silver content of roughly seventy-five to eighty percent, with copper forming the principal alloy base. In AD 80, Rome faced extraordinary financial pressures, including relief funds following the devastating eruption of Mount Vesuvius in late AD 79, rebuilding efforts after a massive fire swept through central Rome, and emergency responses to an outbreak of plague. Titus's coinage during this crucial year served not only as a fiscal vehicle for government expenditures and the dedication of the Colosseum, but also as a public ideological medium communicating imperial piety, social stability, and divine restoration.

Mint Organization and Production Techniques

During the reign of Titus, precious-metal coin production was heavily centralized at the municipal mint of Rome. Earlier provincial mints that had operated during Vespasian's consolidation of power, such as those at Antioch or in Asia Minor, had ceased regular denarius output by AD 80. The Rome mint operated as a highly organized imperial workshop divided into distinct production units or officinae. Mint artisans prepared blank planchets by casting silver rods or using open droplet molds, which were subsequently trimmed and adjusted to approximate standard weights. Obverse and reverse dies were individually hand-cut by master engravers using hardened iron punches and gravers. The striking process was entirely manual: a hot or cold planchet was positioned between a lower die fixed into an anvil and an upper die held by a coiner, then struck with a heavy hammer. This manual execution naturally produced variations in flan thickness, centering, die axis alignment, and peripheral striking quality. The issue catalogued as RIC II, Part 1 (second edition) Titus 122 formed part of a substantive coordinated emission, with dies showing close stylistic coherence across shared workshops operating within the capital.

Obverse Portraiture and Style

The obverse of RIC II, Part 1 (second edition) Titus 122 presents a right-facing laureate portrait of the emperor Titus. The Flavian portrait style under Titus deliberately balanced dynastic continuity with youthful vigor and regal authority. While inheriting the broad, fleshy facial structure, prominent jowls, and determined jaw characteristic of his father Vespasian, portraits of Titus from AD 80 display slightly refined modeling, softening the pronounced verism of earlier Flavian portraiture. The laurel wreath encircling his head is tied at the back with ribbons that cascade gracefully toward the neck. The portrait bust terminates cleanly at the truncation of the neck without draping or cuirass, concentrating attention on the ruler's facial features and the imperial insignia. Engravers at the Rome mint captured the emperor with heavy eyelids, a slightly hooked nose, and carefully arranged tiers of hair crowned by laurel leaves, projecting a figure of solemn responsibility and dignified majesty suitable for a princeps navigating a crisis-ridden year.

Reverse Iconography: The Pulvinar and Crescents

The reverse of this denarius features a square seat or stool draped with ceremonial textiles, surmounted by a semicircular arch or frame containing three crescents. This composition belongs to an extensive series of coin reverses struck under Titus in AD 80 featuring sacred couches or seats, known in Latin as pulvinaria. In Roman religious ritual, a pulvinar was prepared during a lectisternium or supplicatio, a solemn public ceremony where images, emblems, or attributes of deities were placed on sacred cushions to invite divine favor, avert disasters, or express communal thanksgiving. Scholars have extensively debated the specific deity symbolized by the three crescents framed above the draped seat. While earlier numismatists often suggested Luna or Diana due to the lunar symbolism of the crescents, comparative liturgical analyses suggest the pulvinar may honor Venus, Sol and Luna together, or an astral celestial deity invoked to restore harmony between Rome and the gods. The inclusion of these sacred furnishings on the coinage coincided with the disastrous calamities of AD 79 and 80, transforming the denarius into an explicit instrument of religious propitiation and Flavian piety.

Epigraphic Formulas and Imperial Titulature

The inscriptions on both faces of the coin provide precise administrative, religious, and chronological data. The obverse legend reads IMP TITVS CAES VESPASIAN AVG P M, proceeding clockwise around the portrait from the lower left. This formula presents the emperor's preeminent titles: Imperator as a praenomen denoting supreme military commander, Titus Caesar Vespasianus establishing his personal name and Flavian lineage, Augustus affirming his constitutional standing, and Pontifex Maximus indicating his position as head of the Roman state religion. The reverse legend reads TR P IX IMP XV COS VIII P P, continuing around the border. This sequence records Titus holding the tribunician power for the ninth time (Tribunicia Potestate IX), fifteen military acclamations (Imperator XV), his eighth consulship (Consul VIII), and the revered honorific Pater Patriae (Father of His Country). The combination of these specific titles establishes that the coin was minted in Rome during AD 80, as Titus entered his eighth consulship on January 1 of that year. The epigraphy displays the sharp, regular Roman serif lettering characteristic of high-quality urban engraving under the Flavians.

Typological Placement and Chronological Sequence

In the revised second edition of Roman Imperial Coinage (RIC II.1), Ian Carradice and Theodore V. Buttrey established a detailed chronological sequence for the coins of Titus, assigning this type the identifier RIC 122. It forms part of the large pulvinar series that dominated denarius and aureus production at Rome during AD 80. This series encompasses multiple related reverse motifs, including seats draped and draped thrones bearing thunderbolts, ears of wheat, helmets, or wreaths, alongside the semicircular frame with three crescents seen on RIC 122. Within the chronological structure of AD 80, the type is securely dated by the combination of TR P IX and COS VIII. It was preceded by earlier AD 79 issues celebrating his initial accession and succeeded by later issues of AD 80 and 81 that advanced his tribunician count to TR P X. RIC 122 is distinguished from closely related variants by its specific combination of the square seat, draping, and the three crescents set inside the semicircular frame, making it a well-defined iconographic type within the Flavian corpus.

Circulation History and Hoard Context

Denarii of Titus, including RIC II, Part 1 (second edition) Titus 122, circulated broadly across the Roman Empire and along its frontier military garrisons. Flavian silver coins formed the dominant circulating medium across the western provinces, Britannia, the Rhine and Danube frontiers, and Italy itself well into the second century AD. Because Titus ruled as sole emperor for only twenty-six months, his individual denarius types were produced in smaller aggregate volumes than the abundant issues of his father Vespasian or his brother Domitian. Consequently, individual types such as RIC 122 appear in modest numbers within major imperial silver hoards. When Domitian reformed the coinage in AD 82 and 85, raising the silver purity of newly minted denarii, older Flavian coins nevertheless remained in active circulation because silver coinage continued to trade largely by face value within the empire. Wear patterns observed in hoards dating from the reigns of Trajan, Hadrian, and the Antonines indicate that Titus's denarii circulated continuously for decades before being gradually eliminated by natural attrition or Trajan's general recoinage of older silver stock around AD 107.

References

1. Coins of the Roman Empire in the British Museum, Vol. II: Vespasian to Domitian. pp. 235-236
2. The Metallurgy of Roman Silver Coinage: From the Reform of Nero to the Reform of Trajan. pp. 297-315
3. Online Coins of the Roman Empire: RIC II, Part 1 (second edition) Titus 122. ric.2_1(2).tit.122
4. The Roman Imperial Coinage, Vol. II, Part 1: From AD 69 to 96: Vespasian to Domitian (second revised edition). p. 206, no. 122