Trajan Silver Denarius, RIC II Trajan 17

Monetary Context

The emission of RIC II Trajan 17 occupies a crucial juncture in Roman imperial monetary history, coinciding with the transition of power from the senatorial emperor Nerva to Marcus Ulpius Traianus in January AD 98. Upon his accession, Trajan inherited a currency system fundamentally structured by Nero's reform of AD 64, as modified by Domitian's brief restoration and subsequent retrenchment of silver standards. Under Nerva, the denarius operated at a theoretical standard of approximately 96 to the Roman pound (libra), yielding an average struck weight near 3.25 to 3.40 grams and an alloy containing roughly 90 to 93 percent silver. Trajan initially retained these exact metallurgical and metrological standards for his early denarii, maintaining parity with recent Flavian and Nervan issues to foster confidence across military, civic, and commercial markets. The early silver denominations performed an indispensable fiscal function in paying military stipends and discharging state expenditures. At the moment of Nerva's death, Trajan was serving as governor on the Rhine frontier, remaining in the northern provinces for more than a year before celebrating his formal imperial entry (adventus) into the capital in AD 99. The central administrative bureaucracy in Rome immediately undertook a comprehensive series of coin issues to establish the new emperor's legitimacy. Denarii such as RIC II Trajan 17 served as the primary transactional medium distributed throughout the legions and urban populations, assuring state creditors and military recipients of the fiscal stability of the new administration while reinforcing the established silver-to-gold exchange ratio of twenty-five denarii to one gold aureus.

Production and Mint Organization

All specimens corresponding to RIC II Trajan 17 were produced by the imperial mint at Rome (Moneta Augusti), which served as the centralized facility for precious-metal coinage during this period. Although Trajan himself was absent on the Germanic and Danubian frontiers throughout AD 98 and the majority of AD 99, the Rome mint executed his coinage under the direct oversight of the senatorial authorities and imperial freedmen of the rationalis apparatus. Die engraving, blank preparation, and striking occurred across multiple officinae, the organized operational workshops of the capital mint that shared the vast burden of issuing the inauguratory coinage for the second consulship. The production method relied on manual striking between intaglio-engraved bronze or iron dies. Flans were cast in open or clustered molds to achieve consistent planchet volumes, then adjusted by chisel trimming before heating and striking. Die alignment at the Rome mint in this period was consistently oriented close to a regular twelve o'clock or six o'clock axis, reflecting rigorous procedural controls by the mint workers. Scholarly analyses by modern numismatists, particularly Bernhard Woytek in his corpus on Trajanic coinage, reveal that RIC II Trajan 17 was struck across a considerable number of die pairings, indicating a substantial volume of production intended to saturate circulation channels both in Italy and along the frontier garrisons.

Obverse Portraiture and Style

The obverse of RIC II Trajan 17 presents the laureate head of Trajan facing right. In the earliest emissions of AD 98, die engravers at Rome initially worked without a live model of the new emperor, relying instead on official portrait models dispatched from the imperial comitatus or adapting existing stylistic traditions. Consequently, early portraits within this type display a relatively compact, sober physiognomy, characterized by smooth facial planes, straight-cropped hair combed forward over the brow in the Julio-Claudian and Flavian manner, a prominent straight nose, and a firm, square chin. The laurel wreath encircling the head is tied at the occiput with two ribbons falling behind the neck, serving as an emblem of imperial authority and military triumph. The cutting of the hair locks is executed with fine, parallel incision work, contrasting with the more deeply modeled and plastic realism that became the hallmark of Trajanic portraiture later in his reign, particularly around the Decennalia. While minor stylistic variations exist between individual dies, showing slight divergences in the fullness of the cheek or the truncation of the neck, the obverse design remains uniform across the catalogue classification.

Reverse Iconography and Composition

The reverse of RIC II Trajan 17 exhibits the personification of Pax, the Roman goddess of peace and civic order. She is portrayed standing draped and facing left, crowned with a floral wreath. Her left arm cradles an abundant cornucopia (horn of plenty), overflowing with fruits to denote the material prosperity made possible by orderly imperial governance. In her outstretched right hand, Pax customarily holds an extended olive branch, the universally recognized Greco-Roman symbol of concord and pacification. In certain rare die varieties within this designated catalogue type, the object held aloft in the right hand is engraved not as a simple foliage branch, but as a miniature statuette of Victory (Victoria) bearing a wreath. This secondary attribute accentuates the ideological doctrine of pax parta victoriis, peace achieved through armed victory. The drapery of Pax falls in elegant, fluid folds down to her feet, emphasizing classical statuary archetypes frequently resurrected on Roman coinage to project serenity and divine favor across the empire.

Inscriptions and Epigraphy

The epigraphy of RIC II Trajan 17 is characterized by formal imperial capital lettering, deeply engraved with clear serifs along the inner perimeter of the beaded borders. The obverse inscription reads IMP CAES NERVA TRAIAN AVG GERM, expanding in Latin to Imperator Caesar Nerva Traianus Augustus Germanicus. This legend concisely documents Trajan's constitutional titles and legal status: the praenomen of Imperator signifying supreme command, Caesar and Nerva asserting his formal testamentary adoption by his predecessor, Augustus conveying sacrosanct imperial majesty, and Germanicus celebrating his victorious campaigning on the Rhine frontier, an honorific title he shared with Nerva prior to the latter's death. The reverse inscription reads PONT MAX TR POT COS II, which expands to Pontifex Maximus, Tribunicia Potestate, Consul Secundum. This formulaic declaration establishes Trajan as supreme pontiff of the state religion, holder of the civil authority inherent in the tribunician power, and incumbent of the second consulship. The title COS II is the defining chronological anchor for this emission, proving that the type was produced exclusively before Trajan entered his third consulship (COS III) on January 1, AD 100. Furthermore, the absence of the coveted senatorial honorific Pater Patriae (Father of the Country), which Trajan delayed accepting until late AD 98, appears on earlier strikings of the COS II sequence, highlighting the careful chronological progression of his inaugural titulature.

Typology and Chronological Classification

Within the typology of Trajan's coinage, RIC II Trajan 17 forms part of the earliest systematic group of denarii, classified by Harold Mattingly and Edward Sydenham in The Roman Imperial Coinage and refined extensively by Bernhard Woytek in Die Reichspragung des Kaisers Traianus. The issue is circumscribed by the dates AD 98 and 99, specifically commencing shortly after Nerva's death on January 27, AD 98, and terminating before the assumption of the third consulship in January AD 100. Parallel issues struck in the same operational window feature other personifications such as Iustitia, Providentia, and Vesta, as well as military themes depicting Victoria. In Woytek's classification, these early COS II denarii are grouped within his Period 1 emissions (AD 98-99), catalogued under type number MIR 14. Minor subtype distinctions within the broader RIC 17 designation relate to the object carried by Pax, specifically cataloging the regular branch variety alongside the scarce variant where Pax supports a small Victory. Numismatists distinguish this type from later COS II denarii where Trajan's titulature incorporates P P (Pater Patriae) on the obverse or reverse fields, thus placing RIC II Trajan 17 among the initial months of the reign.

Circulation and Hoard Evidence

Denarii of RIC II Trajan 17 circulated widely throughout the western and eastern provinces of the Roman Empire, as well as along the contested frontiers of the Danube and Rhine. Although struck at the capital, these coins were swiftly exported to the military centers where soldiers received their payments, and they subsequently entered civilian trade through market exchange and tax remittance. Extensive archaeological and numismatic research into imperial coin hoards, such as those documented across Roman Britain, Gaul, the Germanies, and the Balkan provinces, reveals that Trajan's early COS II silver remained in active circulation for decades. Because Trajan undertook a comprehensive demonetization and recall of pre-Neronian base silver denarii around AD 107, as recorded by the historian Cassius Dio and confirmed by hoard profiles, his own high-purity issues from AD 98-99 became core components of the mid-imperial circulating medium. Specimens of RIC II Trajan 17 regularly appear in hoards closed during the Antonine and Severan eras, frequently exhibiting substantial honest wear from extended commercial handling. This widespread distribution confirms the durable economic role played by Trajan's initial silver issues across the Mediterranean world.

References

1. Coins of the Roman Empire in the British Museum, Vol. III: Nerva to Hadrian. Trajan nos. 4-9
2. Online Coins of the Roman Empire: RIC II Trajan 17. ric.2.tr.17
3. The Roman Imperial Coinage, Vol. II: Vespasian to Hadrian. Trajan 17, p. 246
4. Die Reichsprägung des Kaisers Traianus (98-117). MIR 14, pp. 195-202