Trajan Silver Denarius RIC II Trajan 251

Monetary Context and Historical Setting

During the mid-principate of Trajan, the Roman denarius served as the backbone of silver currency throughout the Mediterranean, maintaining market transactions, military payrolls, and imperial administrative expenditures. Trajan had conducted extensive economic interventions following his victories in the Dacian Wars, which brought substantial quantities of gold and silver bullion into Rome. These campaigns alleviated earlier fiscal pressures, allowing the central government to initiate grand public works, such as the Forum of Trajan, while simultaneously executing currency recoined programs. Earlier Flavian and Julio-Claudian silver coins that had experienced wear or varied standards were systematically melted down and reissued under imperial authority. Within this buoyant monetary environment, Trajan marked his sixth consulship, assumed on January 1, 112 AD, with diverse ideological series. Among the most distinctive of these issues was the consecration coinage commemorating deceased family members. RIC II Trajan 251 was struck precisely in this context, celebrating the formal deification of Trajan's biological father, Marcus Ulpius Traianus. The elder Trajan was an accomplished senatorial commander, having served as consul suffectus, governor of Syria during the Jewish War, and proconsul of Asia, earning patrician rank and triumphal honors under the Flavians. By elevating his father to divine status alongside his adoptive father Nerva and his sister Diva Marciana, Trajan presented his lineage as exceptionally blessed, fostering an aura of dynastic stability without departing from senatorial propriety.

Production Standards and Minting

The denarii catalogued under RIC II Trajan 251 were produced exclusively at the primary imperial mint in Rome, which operated regular officinae responsible for precious metal coinage. During this phase of Trajan's reign, the monetary standard of the denarius was regulated around an average theoretical weight of approximately 3.2 to 3.4 grams, struck from silver alloyed to roughly eighty-eight to ninety percent fineness. Flans were cast as spherical blanks and hot-struck between engraved dies. Die alignment for the Rome mint in this period typically displays an upright or slightly adjusted axial relationship, commonly positioned at six o'clock or twelve o'clock, reflecting disciplined workshop habits. Production volume for commemorative denarii was substantial, functioning as integral disbursements for legions, civic hand-outs, and construction programs rather than being confined to small medallic presentations. Output from the mint involved multiple pairs of carefully cut dies that maintained uniform execution while exhibiting subtle individual artistic variations in facial contours, hair rendering, and drapery folds.

Obverse Typology and Imperial Iconography

The obverse of RIC II Trajan 251 presents a right-facing portrait of the reigning emperor Trajan, adorned with a laurel wreath. Trajan is portrayed with characteristic mature features: a low, furrowed brow, straight-cropped hair brushed forward across the forehead, a firm and prominent jawline, and a muscular neck. The portraiture embodies the veristic Roman tradition adapted to an imperial model of serious civic and military duty, eschewing the Hellenistic dynamism favored by earlier dynasties. In the standard type, the bust appears bare-chested with the laurel ties extending down behind the neck, though die carvers occasionally included slight folds of drapery upon the left shoulder. The laurel wreath symbolizes Trajan's military triumphs, notably his conquest of Dacia, which had formally earned him the cognomen Dacicus. The circular inscription surrounds the bust closely, functioning as an official title ribbon that frames the portrait without obscuring its bold relief.

Reverse Iconography and Consecration Themes

The reverse of the coin is devoted to the emperor's biological father, identified by the legend and represented through senatorial and divine iconography. The elder Trajan is shown bare-headed and clothed in the voluminous folds of a Roman toga, seated facing left upon a curule chair (sella curulis). His feet rest upon a low footstool, a detail denoting supreme civic rank and magisterial dignity. In his outstretched right hand, he holds a patera, a shallow libation dish that signifies ongoing cultic worship, piety, and the receipt of offerings due to a deified being. In his left hand, he holds a tall sceptre, an attribute associated with Jupiter and divine sovereignty, affirming that the deceased father had transcended mortal office to join the company of the gods. The combination of the curule seat with divine attributes balances senatorial tradition and imperial cult theology. It avoids the overt monarchical extravagance of earlier eastern dynastic representations, presenting the elder Trajan as a consecrated Roman senator whose virtues justified both his own deification and the imperial authority of his son.

Inscriptions and Epigraphic Analysis

The inscriptions on RIC II Trajan 251 provide precise chronological markers and programmatic messaging. The obverse legend reads IMP TRAIANO AVG GER DAC P M TR P COS VI P P, expanding into the official Latin titles: Imperatori Traiano Augusto Germanico Dacico, Pontifici Maximo, Tribunicia Potestate, Consuli Sextum, Patri Patriae. The formulation places the emperor's name in the dative case (Imperatori Traiano), indicating a dedicatory tone commonly employed on Trajan's middle and late coinage to signal the dedication of honors by the Senate and the Roman people (Senatus Populusque Romanus). The entry of COS VI securely establishes that the series commenced no earlier than 112 AD, when Trajan entered his sixth consulship, a post he maintained throughout the remaining years of his life. On the reverse, the concise inscription reads DIVVS PATER TRAIAN, identifying the figure as Divus Pater Traianus (the Deified Father Trajan). This direct nomenclature parallels the consecration issues struck for Divus Nerva and Diva Marciana, employing unambiguous epigraphy that established the elder Trajan's status in the state pantheon across the Latin-speaking provinces and wider empire.

Typological Classification and Chronological Placement

Within the typology of Trajan's silver coinage, RIC II Trajan 251 belongs to the extensive sixth consular issue struck between 112 AD and 114 AD, preceding the emperor's assumption of the honorific title Optimus in autumn 114 AD. In modern classification systems, notably the corpus Moneta Imperii Romani by Bernhard Woytek, this type is catalogued under group MIR 14, nos. 399 and 400, distinguished by subtle adjustments in bust termination, such as the presence or absence of slight drapery on the far shoulder. Paul Strack placed this series within the consecration issues that accompanied the dedication of Trajan's monumental civic buildings in Rome around 112 AD to 113 AD. The type stands alongside parallel denarii struck for Diva Marciana, who died in 112 AD, and restitution or commemorative denarii recalling Divus Nerva. Although all these types share the common obverse titulature with COS VI, RIC II Trajan 251 is strictly defined by the seated togate depiction of Trajan senior and the reverse dedication DIVVS PATER TRAIAN, separating it from gold aurei sharing similar iconography and from later issues that incorporate Parthicus or Optimus into the imperial titles.

Circulation, Hoard Evidence, and Loss Patterns

RIC II Trajan 251 circulated widely alongside regular denarii of Trajan, the Flavians, and subsequent Antonine emperors. Because it was struck to standard denarius specifications rather than as a commemorative medallion, it was integrated directly into everyday financial operations. Hoard discoveries across Roman Britain, Gaul, the Rhine and Danube frontiers, and the Italian peninsula demonstrate that these denarii traveled with legionary units and merchant networks across the empire. The silver recoinage enacted by Trajan around this period meant that denarii from his reign entered circulation in large volumes, gradually replacing worn Republican and pre-Neronian silver pieces. In hoards deposited during the Antonine and Severan periods, specimens of Trajan 251 frequently exhibit moderate to extensive surface wear, confirming that the type remained in active commercial use for half a century or more after production ceased, until the severe debasements of the third century AD prompted systematic hoarding or melting of early imperial silver.

References

1. The Roman Imperial Coinage, Vol. II: Vespasian to Hadrian. p. 263, no. 251
2. Online Coins of the Roman Empire: RIC II Trajan 251. RIC II Trajan 251
3. Untersuchungen zur romischen Reichspragung des zweiten Jahrhunderts, Teil I: Die Reichspragung zur Zeit des Traians. p. 196, no. 201
4. Die Reichspragung des Kaisers Traianus (98-117 n. Chr.), Moneta Imperii Romani 14. nos. 399-400