Titus As, RIC II, Part 1 (second edition) Vespasian 636

Monetary Context and Flavian Policy

The accession of Vespasian in AD 69 ended the catastrophic turbulence of the Year of the Four Emperors and placed the Flavian dynasty in control of a financially depleted empire. To repair state finances and restore monetary confidence, the administration executed an extensive reorganization of production across all three monetary metals: gold, silver, and copper alloys. While aurei and denarii secured military loyalty and paid state expenditures, the base-metal coinage in aes (copper and orichalcum) served crucial day-to-day functions in retail trade, taxation, and civilian commerce throughout the western provinces. The as had long formed the base accounting unit of everyday retail transactions, tariffed at four to the brass sestertius and sixteen to the silver denarius. In AD 73, Vespasian took the unusual step of assuming the ancient magistracy of the censorship alongside his elder son Titus. This office, largely dormant during the later Julio-Claudian period, was leveraged to carry out a comprehensive census of Roman citizens, reorganize the senatorial and equestrian orders, and formalize hereditary succession. The issue of RIC II, Part 1 (second edition) Vespasian 636 directly reflects this programmatic moment, circulating Titus's status as full imperial colleague and designated successor through the medium of everyday bronze money.

Production Standards and Mint Attribution

In the early Flavian period, copper-alloy coinage was struck primarily at the central mint of Rome, supplemented by temporary western auxiliary branches such as Lugdunum (Lyon) and occasional eastern mint emissions. The definitive revision of the Roman Imperial Coinage catalog by Ian Carradice and Theodore V. Buttrey assigns type 636 firmly to the Rome mint based on style, portrait execution, and legend structure. The central mint at Rome operated with a high degree of die coordination, using paired iron dies mounted in anvils and punches to hammer prepared flans. Historically, the Roman as under the Augustan system was struck in unalloyed red copper, contrasting with the golden brass (orichalcum) reserved for the sestertius and dupondius. Although catalogued broadly under the numismatic term bronze or copper alloy, Flavian asses from Rome adhere consistently to this pure copper standard. Flans were cast in stepped molds and hot-struck, producing coins with typical median weights ranging from approximately 9.5 to 11.5 grams and diameters between 26 and 29 millimeters. Die alignment at Rome was predominantly regular, oriented to twelve o'clock or six o'clock, reflecting disciplined workshop practice.

Obverse Typology and Portraiture

The obverse of RIC II, Part 1 (second edition) Vespasian 636 presents the laureate head of Titus facing right. Numismatic portraiture under the Flavians departed sharply from the idealized, youthful classicism of the Julio-Claudian emperors, adopting a robust, veristic style that emphasized physical strength, administrative diligence, and military readiness. Titus is shown with broad facial planes, a firm jaw, and closely cropped hair bound by a laurel wreath with ribbon ties descending behind the neck. Although Titus was born in AD 39 and was roughly thirty-three years old when this coin was struck, his portrait displays a mature gravity deliberately echoing the features of Vespasian himself. This visual resemblance, often termed dynastic assimilation, reinforced the biological and ideological continuity between the ruling princeps and his heir. The portrait occupies the central field of the flan, framed neatly by the peripheral inscription.

Reverse Iconography: Spes Augusta

The reverse displays Spes, the Roman personification of hope, advancing or standing toward the left. In her right hand, she elevates a blossoming flower bud, while with her left hand she delicately lifts the fold of her trailing chiton or peplos to step forward. This specific pose derived from archaic and classical Greek statues of korai, which Roman art thoroughly adopted as the conventional iconography for divine hope. In imperial ideology, Spes had been introduced under Claudius to commemorate the birth of Britannicus and had quickly evolved into a specialized emblem for the princeps iuventutis and the imperial heirs. Under Vespasian and Titus, Spes came to signify Spes Augusta, the living hope of the imperial regime embodied by the Flavian sons. Her presence on a coin issued for Titus explicitly advertised that the peace and stability re-established by Vespasian would endure seamlessly into the next generation. Flanking the personification in the lower fields are the large letters S and C, representing Senatus Consulto ('by decree of the Senate'), which traditionally validated the authority of bronze and copper denominations.

Epigraphy and Titulature

The inscriptions on this type provide critical chronological and political data. The obverse legend reads T CAES IMP PON TR P COS II CENS, running clockwise from the lower left. Each component defines an element of Titus's elevated constitutional standing: 'T CAES' abbreviates Titus Caesar; 'IMP' denotes the imperatorial title, used here as an internal title reflecting military acclamations earned during the Jewish War; 'PON' represents Pontifex, his membership in the chief priestly college; 'TR P' references his initial tribunician power conferred in AD 71; 'COS II' marks his second consulship, held in AD 72; and 'CENS' records his tenure as censor, which commenced in April of AD 73. On the reverse, the legend is reduced strictly to the formulaic letters S C positioned to the left and right of Spes. The omission of a descriptive legend such as SPES AVGVSTA is characteristic of several Flavian base-metal issues, where the iconic figure of Spes was considered sufficiently recognizable to contemporary Roman users without explanatory text.

Typological Classification and Chronological Placement

The second edition of RIC Volume II, published in 2007, extensively re-evaluated the Flavian series to correct longstanding errors in sequencing and attribution present in the original 1926 edition. In the older framework of Harold Mattingly and Edward Sydenham, coins of Titus bearing the censorship were frequently commingled with issues across AD 73 and 74. Carradice and Buttrey established that Titus entered his third consulship (COS III) on January 1, AD 74. Consequently, types pairing 'COS II' with 'CENS' belong exclusively to the second half of AD 73, during the window after the assumption of the censorship in spring AD 73 and before the new consulship of AD 74. Within the revised catalogue, type 636 represents the specific Rome mint as combining the laureate right-facing portrait of Titus with the Spes reverse and the COS II CENS titulature. Related emissions from the same workshop featured alternative reverse types such as Victoria Augusti, Pax, or sacrificial implements, creating a coordinated programmatic series of aes denominations for both Titus and his younger brother Domitian Caesar.

Circulation Patterns and Archaeological Evidence

As the smallest commonly circulating base-metal denomination of the early Flavian period, asses of this type circulated heavily in civilian markets, military camps, and urban centers across Italy and the western provinces. Find evidence from excavations in Rome, Ostia, the Rhine-Danube frontier forts, and Roman Britain demonstrates that Flavian copper coins experienced prolonged circulation lifespans, remaining in active use for decades. Due to the high velocity of retail exchange, surviving specimens often exhibit moderate to heavy wear, with legends partially softened through contact and handling. Furthermore, the aggressive supply of Flavian coinage under Vespasian replenished currency pools that had suffered from neglect and irregular civic issues during Nero's final years and the civil wars of AD 68 to 69. Hoard compositions and single-find assemblages confirm that asses of AD 73 continued to circulate well into the second century AD, often recovered alongside Trajanic and Hadrianic bronze issues.

References

1. Coins of the Roman Empire in the British Museum, Vol. II: Vespasian to Domitian. pp. 147-152
2. Vespasian as Censor and the Coinage of AD 73-74. pp. 89-109
3. The Roman Imperial Coinage, Vol. II, Part 1: Vespasian to Domitian (second edition). p. 101, no. 636
4. Online Coins of the Roman Empire: RIC II, Part 1 (second edition) Vespasian 636. RIC II, Part 1 (2nd ed.) Vespasian 636