Hadrian: Coinage and Imperial Policy

Historians have long sought to understand Hadrian’s policies, his priorities, and his approach to his imperial role, but the evidence is elusive. The sparse literary sources, written well after his reign, are often unreliable, and epigraphy and archaeology, which are based on fragmentary objects, tend to focus on local audiences. Hadrian’s coinage, on the other hand, is of the highest authority: it is available in great bulk, it offers both written and visual evidence, and it was directed at an empire-wide audience. Unfortunately, it also tends to lack the imperial titles that often make imperial coinage easy to date.

Hadrian: Coinage and Imperial Policy addresses this difficulty from a new direction by systematically applying the methodology of die analysis, which previously had been used only in isolated cases. Focusing on coins produced in the name of Hadrian and his relatives at the central mint in Rome, the author uses die analysis to help recreate the sequence of the mint’s coin production, which clarifies the interrelationship of the different coin types and allows us to clearly identify the complete iconographic repertoire of the coinage at specific points in time.

Volume I:
 Acknowledgments
 Introduction
 1. Methodology
 2. Early Coinage to COS DES III
 3. Coinage of the Years 119 to 125
 4. HADRIANVS AVGVSTVS
 5. PATER PATRIAE
 6. HADRIANVS AVG COS III P P
 7. Return to Rome and the Province Series
 8. LIBERALITAS VII to the End of Hadrian’s Coinage
 9. Conclusion
 Type Catalogue
 Die Catalogues
 Bibliography
Concordance to RIC² II.3
Concordance to Strack
Index to Coin Legends
General Index

Volume II:
 Type Plates
 Die Plates
 Die Charts