The 'Romano-Campanian' Coinage: An Old Problem from a New Angle

Since the days of the great Eckhel the idea of a 'Romano-Campanian' coinage has haunted successive generations of Roman numismatists like a ghost. It is possible in this case, as it seldom is, to trace the haunting to its source. As soon as it was realized that the early traditions of Rome about her coinage were mainly unreliable, it became necessary to call in the aid of history to supply the missing truth. It was not without good reason that scholars turned their eyes towards the Greek cities of Campania and the Roman advance in that land in the last decades of the fourth century B.c. Then, if not earlier, it was thought, vigorous contact with the Greek world must have introduced Rome to the Greek art of coinage. Rome of the Tarquins had doubtless laid some claim to culture ; but even Etruria herself had hardly had coins at so early a date. Rome of the early Republic had soon lost contact with Greek civilization, partly through her own failing grip, partly with the weakening of that civilization itself in Italy. We can understand, then, how, during a 'Dark Age' of a century and a half, Rome lagged behind the standards of the Greek city. But the deficiency must have been realized the moment that active contact with Greece was renewed, and the practical needs of campaigning and of commerce must have led to its being at once made good. The result of all this has been that the whole of the early Roman coinage, prior to the denarius, so far as it was struck in silver or token Aes, has been sundered, more or less completely, from the main Roman series. It has been assigned to Greek mints, in or about Campania, and classed as something special-not purely Roman-money struck by Roman generals in the field, or even money struck by Italian communities in the Roman name. Mommsen, it is only fair to admit, did realize the essential fact, that coinage in the Roman name must be coinage of Rome. Haeberlin actually made it his lifetask to rationalize the old conceptions of the 'Romano-Campanian' coinage, by explaining its place in the Roman conquest of Italy. But to Mommsen and even to Haeberlin some shreds of the old illusions till clung-the tendency to assume the date and place (Campania circa 340 B.C.) as certain, and to make some difference in kind between this and the later coinage of Rome. Recent research on early Roman coinagel has tended to reveal positive evidences of a very different development, which leaves no room for a 'Romano-Campanian' coinage in the old sense. But the old theory, partly by its inherent persuasiveness, partly by the sheer inertia of long habit, is slow to yield. It may still be worth while, then, to submit it to a test, which promises uch decisive results that it should obviously have been applied long ago. If Roman silver coinage grew up, as the theory demands, at a definite time and place, and under definitely local influences, we have only to set it beside the coinage of the appropriate date and place to prove or disprove the theory at one blow. The filiation will either be apparent or obviously 1 See especially H. Mattingly and E. S. G. Robinson, The Date of the Roman Denarius and other landmarks in Roman Coinage, London, '933.