Trajan Silver Denarius RIC II Trajan 785

Monetary Context and the Restitution Coinage

Trajan's restored coinage represents one of the most remarkable antiquarian and economic projects of the High Roman Empire. According to the historian Cassius Dio (68.15.3), following the conclusion of the second Dacian campaign and the celebration of his triumph in AD 107, Trajan ordered the general recall and melting down of older, worn coinage circulating throughout Italy and the provinces. For over a century, pre-Neronian Republican denarii had remained in everyday commerce due to their high silver purity, which resisted Gresham's law and persisted alongside debased imperial issues. By retiring these antiquated silver pieces, the imperial treasury reclaimed substantial bullion, restriking it to prevailing imperial standards established after Nero's reform and further modified under the Flavians. Simultaneously, Trajan instituted a special commemorative program reproducing selected historical coin types from the Republican era and earlier Julio-Claudian reigns. RIC II Trajan 785 constitutes an integral part of this restorative enterprise. Unlike standard imperial denarii, which served fiscal expenditures for military pay, grain distributions, and building projects, the restored denarii served a dual purpose. They replenished circulating silver while transforming recalled ancestral designs into deliberate numismatic monuments. By affixing the restorative mark REST (restituit) to historical types, Trajan presented himself to the senatorial elite and the Roman public as the guardian of res publica traditions, bridging Rome's Republican heritage with the stability of the Nervan-Trajanic principate.

Production, Technology, and Mint Attribution

Numismatic consensus attributes the production of RIC II Trajan 785 exclusively to the primary imperial mint at Rome. During Trajan's reign, the Rome mint operated with sophisticated administrative and technical efficiency, comprising multiple officinae dedicated to striking precious-metal and base-metal denominations. The restitution series required particular technical oversight, as engravers were tasked with reproducing centuries-old Republican designs while cutting fresh dies conforming to contemporary imperial proportions. Die production for RIC II Trajan 785 demonstrates fine imperial workmanship. The dies were hand-cut into tempered bronze or iron using gravers and punches. The blanks were prepared by casting silver globules in ceramic molds and flattening them prior to striking between aligned hand-held dies. Although the Republican original of Lucius Lucretius Trio had been struck on wider flans around 3.8 to 4.0 grams, RIC II Trajan 785 was manufactured strictly according to Trajan's contemporary denarius standard. Surviving specimens typically range between 3.10 and 3.35 grams, with an average diameter between 18 and 19 millimeters. The silver fineness reflects the Trajanic metallurgical norm of roughly 89 to 90 percent silver, in contrast to the near-pure silver of the 76 BC archetype. This metallurgical divergence confirms that Republican prototypes were thoroughly melted, refined, and alloyed to current standards before new dies struck the commemorative designs.

Obverse Design and Iconography

The obverse of RIC II Trajan 785 is striking for its deliberate omission of the living emperor's portrait and titles, features that were otherwise ubiquitous across regular imperial coinage. Instead, the obverse resurrects the visual program of Lucius Lucretius Trio's 76 BC denarius, presenting the radiate head of the solar deity Sol facing right. Sol is rendered in classical Hellenistic-Roman style, featuring flowing locks of hair bound beneath a radiate crown. The rays emanate outward from the god's brow and crown, symbolizing the celestial power and unflagging motion of the sun. In Republican art, Sol was often associated with agrarian fertility, diurnal order, and occasionally the family origins of moneyers claiming Sabine descent. On Trajan's issue, the execution departs slightly from the late Republican style: the relief is flatter and more disciplined, matching the neat, orderly engraving style of early second-century Rome. By faithfully replicating this aniconic obverse, the Trajanic mint highlighted the historical integrity of the piece, allowing the viewer to engage directly with the ancestral Republican motif while recognizing its imperial context through the reverse inscription.

Reverse Iconography and Astronomical Symbolism

The reverse design of RIC II Trajan 785 displays a waxing crescent moon encircled by seven distinct stars. This motif is framed by the comprehensive epigraphic legends of both Trajan and the Republican moneyer. The astronomical iconography directly reproduces the reverse of Lucius Lucretius Trio's issue (Crawford 390/1), creating a coherent celestial pairing with the obverse head of Sol. In Roman numismatic symbolism, the crescent and seven stars carry multiple complementary interpretations. Primarily, the seven stars represent the Septentriones, the seven stars forming the constellations Ursa Major (the Great Bear) or Ursa Minor (the Little Bear), used for navigation and marking the celestial north. In Republican times, this device constituted a punning visual allusion (a canting type) on the moneyer's cognomen, Trio, derived from the Latin triones, referring to the plow oxen identified with Ursa Major. Alternatively, scholars have noted possible associations with the Pleiades. Within the context of Trajan's reign, the combination of Sol, Luna, and the cosmic order conveyed broader philosophical themes of cosmic harmony (aeternitas) and cyclical renewal (saeculum), reinforcing the perception that Trajan's rule represented a golden age under divine cosmological favor.

Epigraphy and Legend Structure

Unlike standard imperial coins that divide titles between obverse and reverse, the obverse of RIC II Trajan 785 is entirely anepigraphic. The reverse accommodates both the full imperial titulature of Trajan and the ancestral name of the original Republican magistrate, displaying remarkable epigraphic condensation. The reverse inscription reads: IMP CAES TRAIAN AVG GER DAC P P REST L LVCRETI TRIO. This text can be resolved into two distinct institutional components. The Trajanic formula opens with Imperator Caesar Traianus Augustus Germanicus Dacicus, Pontifex Maximus, Pater Patriae, followed by the crucial verbal abbreviation REST for restituit ('has restored'). These titles reflect Trajan's military victories in Germany and Dacia, securely establishing that the issue postdates the conclusion of the Dacian Wars in AD 102 and AD 106, while predating his assumption of the titles Optimus (AD 114) and Parthicus (AD 116). The second component, L LVCRETI TRIO, preserves the signature of Lucius Lucretius Trio, the moneyer (triumvir monetalis) responsible for the prototype in 76 BC. The letterforms exhibit the sharp, disciplined, serifed lapidary script characteristic of the Trajanic mint at Rome, offering an imperial calligraphic interpretation of late Republican epigraphy. The seamless joining of the imperial restituit formula to the ancient magistrate's name explicitly marks Trajan as the restorer and guarantor of Rome's historic coinage.

Typology and Chronological Placement

Within modern cataloging systems, this denarius is designated as RIC II Trajan 785, cataloged alternately as Woytek 836 in Bernhard Woytek's Die Reichsprägung des Kaisers Traianus. It belongs to the broader Trajanic restitution coinage, which encompassed over fifty distinct silver denarius types reproducing Republican issues, alongside a series of restored bronze sestertii and gold aurei. The precise chronology of the restitution series has been a subject of significant scholarly discussion. While the general catalogue boundaries span Trajan's reign from AD 98 to 117, internal titulature and historical evidence narrow the issue period considerably. The presence of GER DAC and the absence of OPTIMVS indicate that the dies were prepared between AD 106 and early AD 114. Following the recall of worn currency noted by Cassius Dio around AD 107, Bernhard Woytek and Holger Komnick place the concentrated striking of the restored denarii circa AD 112 to 113. This dating aligns with preparations for Trajan's eastern campaigns, during which commemorative issues served to solidify domestic prestige and celebrate the anniversary of the Dacian settlement. RIC II Trajan 785 is typologically stable, exhibiting no major stylistic subtypes beyond minor variations in flan thickness and die engraving.

Circulation, Hoard Evidence, and Modern Scarcity

The circulation pattern of Trajan's restored denarii contrasts sharply with that of his standard imperial coinage. While regular Trajanic denarii circulated by the millions across the European, Danubian, and Near Eastern provinces, restored issues such as RIC II Trajan 785 appear in exceptionally small numbers in archaeological contexts and coin hoards. Hoard evidence indicates that restored denarii rarely strayed far from metropolitan Italy, although occasional specimens appear in Western European hoards alongside mixed second-century currency. Because these coins met the exact weight and purity of contemporary Trajanic denarii, they were legally spendable at face value. However, their limited minting volume and distinctive historical designs likely encouraged hoarding and souvenir retention by contemporary contemporaries who recognized their antiquarian nature. Over time, those that remained in general circulation were subjected to the standard attrition, clipping, and eventual melting of the later Antonine and Severan debasements. Today, RIC II Trajan 785 is rare, surviving in only a small number of major public museum collections and documented historical hoards, highly prized as physical testimony to Trajan's retrospective monetary policy.

References

1. Roman Republican Coinage. p. 405, no. 390/1
2. Die Restifikationsmünzen der Trajanischen Zeit. pp. 112-145
3. The Roman Imperial Coinage, Volume II: Vespasian to Hadrian. p. 312, no. 785
4. RIC II Trajan 785 in Online Coins of the Roman Empire. ric.2.tr.785
5. Die Reichsprägung des Kaisers Traianus (98-117 n. Chr.) (MIR 14). p. 541, no. 836