email: wakeforestcoins@earthlink.net
ROMAN COINS
(R57) Antoninus Pius 138-161 AD AE as, great portrait......$95.00
(R58) Claudius 41-54 AD Ae as, great portrait.......$249.00
Tiberius Claudius Nero Caesar Drusus (August 1, 10 BC - October 13, 54), originally known as Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus, was the fourth Roman Emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, ruling from 41 to his death in 54. Born in Lugdunum in Gaul (modern-day Lyon, France), to Drusus and Antonia Minor, he was the first Roman Emperor to be born outside Italy.
Claudius was considered a rather unlikely man to become emperor. He reportedly walked with a heavy limp his entire life and spoke with a stammer, and his despairing family had virtually excluded him from public office until his consulship with his nephew Caligula in 37. This infirmity may have saved him from the fate of many other Roman nobles during the purges of Tiberius's and Caligula's reigns.
Exclusion from public life suited his inclination towards the academic. We know that he wrote extensively, especially histories, but all of these are now lost. He also proposed a reform of the Roman alphabet by introducing three new letters: a backwards, upside-down 'F' to represent consonantal U; a broken 'H' to represent the sound of Greek Upsilon; and a backwards 'C' to replace BS. These letters were used to a small extent on public inscriptions dating from his reign but their use was abandoned after his death.
After a conspiracy of officers, including Cassius Chaerea, and Senators assassinated Caligula, a group of regular soldiers "appointed" Claudius his successor, thinking that in Claudius they would have a pliant benefactor. Although Claudius had no intention of becoming Emperor, shortly after the Senate confirmed his status he embarked on several ambitious projects, one of which was the expansion of the Roman harbor at Ostia. Rome enjoyed military success under Claudius as well. In 47, his legions finally subdued Britannia, bringing the restive province into the Empire for the next 350 years.
Claudius married four times. His first two marriages, to Plautia Urgulanilla and Aelia Paetina, ended in divorce. His third wife, Messalina, was put to death on his orders. His last wife was his niece Agrippina.
Urgulanilla gave birth to two children: a son, Claudius Drusus, and a daughter, Claudia. According to Suetonius, Claudius Drusus had just been betrothed to Junilla, the daughter of Sejanus, when he choked to death on a pear he had thrown into the air and caught in his mouth. There was some doubt as to Claudia's parentage, and Claudius eventually repudiated her. His second marriage produced one child, a daughter named Claudia Antonia. Messalina gave birth to two children: a son, Britannicus, and a daughter, Octavia.
The emperor Claudius was the protagonist of the books I, Claudius and Claudius the God by Robert Graves. The books are written from a first-person perspective, giving the impression of having been written by Claudius himself as his autobiography. Graves's conceit that they were translations of writings by Claudius that had been recently discovered extended even to the point for Claudius to relate that his visit to an oracle predicted that they would be discovered "nineteen hundred year or near" later. Those books were the basis for a thirteen-part BBC series, first broadcast in the U.S. on Masterpiece Theatre in 1977, also titled I, Claudius and starring Derek Jacobi in the title role.
see: Julio-Claudian Family Tree
Click here to buy this book from amazon.com
This is the standard reference work on Roman Coins.
The illustration is the 2004 4 edition. I don't have images of all the current
editions.
The book's value does not lie in its estimations of values (useful relative information),
but in the well-chosen range of coins shown and identified, and in its long-time use by
scholars and numismatists as a comparative tool (giving the Sear # for coins to identify
them is standard practice in the field). Also, a brief history is given on each
emperor and wife. There also are additional histories on certain periods of Roman history
(The Tetrarchy of Diocletian, for example), which are both helpful and interesting.
Equally important is the overview of Roman coins found in the beginning of the book.
For the serious student, I recommend all three volumes of the Millenium Edition.
Excellent revisions.
The first two are out and the third is due soon.
Millenium Edition, volume 1 of the new 2001 5th edition, covers The Republic & The
Twelve Caesars. 532 pages.
Millenium Edition, volume 2 of new 5th edition, 2002 printing, coverage from Accession of
Nerva to Overthrow of Severan Dynasty, 696 pages.
For the casual collector, I recommend a single volume edition:
2004 4th Revised Edition. 388 pages. Illustrated above. One volume Sear Guide to Roman
Coins.