Trajan Silver Denarius, RIC II Trajan 2

Monetary and Political Context

The emission of RIC II Trajan 2 occurred against the backdrop of a delicate imperial transition. The unexpected death of Emperor Nerva in late January of AD 98 brought Marcus Ulpius Traianus to the supreme principate while he was commanding Roman legions in Upper Germany along the Rhine frontier. The preceding year had seen violent political unrest in the capital, notably the mutiny of the Praetorian Guard under Casperius Aelianus, which had coerced Nerva into executing Domitian's assassins and adopting Trajan as his formal co-ruler and heir to secure military support. Consequently, the earliest monetary emissions under Trajan were charged with establishing institutional continuity, legitimizing his imperial mandate, and projecting tranquility. The denarius was the foundational silver coin of the Roman Empire, responsible for military pay, administrative taxation, and high-value domestic transactions. Through the deliberate invocation of Concordia, the mint conveyed that the accession of Trajan had reconciled factional discord between the legions, the Praetorians, and the Roman Senate. Trajan refrained from hastening directly to Rome upon his accession, choosing instead to remain along the Germanic and Danubian frontiers inspecting defensive infrastructure and securing legionary loyalty until the summer of AD 99. The coinage produced in the capital during this interlude served as an ambassador of the distant princeps, validating his fiscal legitimacy and assuring the Roman populace that constitutional and military harmony prevailed.

Production, Metrology, and Mint Attribution

Numismatic scholarship uniformly assigns the production of RIC II Trajan 2 to the primary imperial mint operating in the city of Rome. During the early principate, imperial gold and silver denominations were concentrated almost exclusively at the capital, where state bullion reserves were administered under the oversight of imperial monetary officials. Production of this issue followed established Flavian and Nervan technical conventions. Flans were cast in open mould arrays before being struck between engraved iron dies with a handheld hammer. The metrological framework of the denarius under Trajan in AD 98 and 99 continued the standard inherited from Domitian's late reforms and Nerva's brief tenure. The theoretical weight standard aimed for approximately 1/96 of a Roman pound, producing an average struck weight around 3.25 to 3.35 grams, though normal metallurgical variations among surviving specimens typically span between 2.9 and 3.6 grams due to mint tolerance and subsequent circulation wear. Metallurgical analysis demonstrates a silver fineness of roughly 89 to 90 percent purity, alloyed with copper for durability, representing a modest reduction from the higher purity levels seen during Domitian's middle years but remaining stable relative to the Nervan standard. Trajan would later undertake a more comprehensive recoinage and debasement around AD 107, but the early issues of AD 98 and 99 reflect the conservative fiscal baseline maintained immediately upon his accession.

Obverse Portraiture and Style

The obverse of RIC II Trajan 2 features a right-facing, laureate head of Trajan, executed in the refined, sober style characteristic of the Rome mint during the final decade of the first century AD. The iconography exhibits a noticeable transitional aesthetic. Because Trajan was stationed in the northern provinces when Nerva died, die engravers at Rome initially lacked access to a direct imperial sitting. As a result, the earliest portrait dies from AD 98 blend verifiable physical features of the forty-four-year-old general with the established sculptural conventions of late Flavian and Nervan realism. Trajan is portrayed with his characteristic straight, low-trimmed hair brushed forward across the brow, a prominent nasal bridge, a firm jawline, and a muscular neck. The laurel wreath, fastened behind the head with ribbon ties trailing down the nape, served as the classic Roman emblem of supreme imperium and victorious command. The relief is typically low to moderate, cut into the obverse die with sharp linear precision. Die studies by modern scholars, including Bernhard Woytek, demonstrate that as official portrait models arrived in Rome from the provinces later in AD 98 and early AD 99, the likeness gained greater individuality, depicting Trajan's features with enhanced civic dignity and personal realism.

Reverse Iconography: Concordia

The reverse design of RIC II Trajan 2 displays Concordia draped and seated facing left, performing a religious sacrifice. In her extended right hand, she holds a shallow sacrificial dish known as a patera directly above a low, garlanded, and lit altar. In the crook of her left arm, she balances a double cornucopiae, the horn of plenty overflowing with the fruits of the earth. The personification is seated upon a high-backed or stool-like throne, with her drapery falling in classical folds around her lower limbs. This composite iconographic type combines two central ideological themes: pietas and abundance. The act of sacrificing at a burning altar underscores the religious piety that ensures divine favor, while the double cornucopiae symbolizes the material prosperity and domestic peace resulting from social Concord. Unlike a single cornucopiae, the double horn emphasizes an amplified, extraordinary fertility and abundance, often associated with dynastic continuity and collegial governance. In the specific historical moment of AD 98 to 99, Concordia served as an explicit reassurance to the Roman political community that the armed forces and the civilian magistracies were united under Trajan's leadership. The design directly recalled similar Concordia types struck by Nerva, demonstrating ideological continuity while signaling a new era of stable governance after years of factional anxiety.

Epigraphy and Legend Structure

The epigraphy of RIC II Trajan 2 is concise and structured around Trajan's early constitutional and triumphal titulature. The obverse legend reads IMP CAES NERVA TRAIAN AVG GERM, running circularly along the bead-and-reel border from the lower left to the lower right. The formulation begins with Imperator, acknowledging his supreme military command, followed by Caesar, which underscores his adoption into the imperial line. The retention of the name Nerva explicitly proclaims his legal sonship and succession, while Traianus presents his personal cognomen. Augustus affirms his supreme civil authority, and the agnomen Germanicus honors the military triumphs and pacification achievements along the Rhine frontier that had earned him acclaim under Nerva in AD 97. The reverse legend is inscribed as P M TR P COS II P P, providing precise chronological and constitutional markers. P M denotes Pontifex Maximus, the chief priesthood of the Roman state religion, assumed by Trajan shortly after his accession. TR P represents the tribunicia potestas, the tribunician power that formed the legal foundation of his domestic administrative veto and sacrosanctity. COS II designates his second consulship, which he entered on January 1 of AD 98 alongside Nerva and maintained through AD 99. Finally, P P denotes Pater Patriae, Father of the Fatherland, a venerable civic honor which Trajan accepted relatively early in his reign, contrasting with the protracted delays observed by some of his predecessors.

Typology and Relative Chronology

Within the corpus of Trajanic coinage, RIC II Trajan 2 occupies a distinct position at the head of the imperial series. In the standard cataloguing systems of Mattingly and Sydenham in The Roman Imperial Coinage and Harold Mattingly in Coins of the Roman Empire in the British Museum, this issue forms part of the initial consular group struck during Trajan's second consulship between AD 98 and 99. It corresponds to Type 14 in Bernhard Woytek's modern corpus, Die Reichspragung des Kaisers Traianus. The terminus post quem for the type is established by the death of Nerva on January 27 or 28 in AD 98, after which Trajan succeeded as sole Augustus and assumed the title of Pontifex Maximus. The terminus ante quem is securely fixed by January 1 of AD 100, at which point Trajan entered his third consulship, causing the reverse legend across all regular silver denarii to change to COS III. Within the COS II period, the Concordia reverse was struck alongside parallel denarius types depicting Pax, Justitia, and Vesta, forming a coordinated thematic program celebrating civil and divine virtues. Minor stylistic variations exist among individual dies of RIC II Trajan 2, particularly in the ornamentation of the altar, the drapery folds of Concordia, and the exact rendering of the imperial portrait bust, but the epigraphic formulation remained strictly consistent throughout its eighteen-month production window.

Circulation and Archaeological Context

As a standard silver denarius, RIC II Trajan 2 circulated widely across the administrative territories, urban markets, and military cantonments of the Roman Empire. Denarii struck during the early months of Trajan's reign entered a currency pool that still contained significant quantities of worn Republican, Augustan, and Flavian silver. Because the denarii of AD 98 and 99 were struck to a silver standard of roughly 89 to 90 percent fineness, they circulated interchangeably with the denarii of Nerva and the late reform issues of Domitian. Hoard evidence from Roman Britain, the Rhine-Danube limes, and the Balkan provinces demonstrates that coins of this type remained in regular circulation for well over a century. However, the volume of RIC II Trajan 2 preserved in hoards is relatively modest when compared to the vast denarius emissions struck later in Trajan's reign, particularly after the conquest of Dacia in AD 106 and the massive melting and re-coining of older silver currency documented around AD 107. Nevertheless, specimens of RIC II Trajan 2 regularly appear in early-to-mid second century hoards across Western Europe, exhibiting moderate to heavy circulation wear that testifies to their active role in commercial and military transactions under the Antonine and Severan dynasties.

References

1. Coins of the Roman Empire in the British Museum, Vol. III: Nerva to Hadrian. pp. 31-32, nos. 4-7
2. The Roman Imperial Coinage, Vol. II: Vespasian to Hadrian. p. 245, no. 2
3. Online Coins of the Roman Empire: RIC II Trajan 2. ric.2.tr.2
4. Die Reichsprägung des Kaisers Traianus (98-117), Moneta Imperii Romani 38. Woytek 2010, type 14